The Battle For Longest Name 2: The Rise of the Game with Longest Name

Imagine, you have developed a game that covered War of the Ring, and then a sequel covering war in the north. If you need to stay within boundaries of Tolkien canon for some degree, where you can take your series? As it turns out, focusing on one specific group of events in the lore is the right idea. Specifically, the fall of Arnor and the rise of the Witch-King of Angmar.

1. Campaign

The game and series in general is very good but this expansion was made in at the end of the great prosperity era of RTS games, and it shows. It is not a glorious, sprawling campaign similar to those in expansion packs of Starcraft and C&C games. It's length of a single campaign of a single faction, but in terms of content, it made me remember said grand campaigns in a lot of ways.
The progression of the story fits the campaign really well. You start by building a country for yourself, then you get the loyalty of more soldiers,  slowly advance your conquest, fall back and defend yourself, put plans in motion, destroy your enemy bit by bit, then achieve full destruction. It's quite different from the large battles of the regular campaign. And narrative-wise, it's pretty satisfying, there is much less dialogue compared to works like Warcraft 3, but it has a similar feeling of grandeur. You take a part in destruction of a proud kingdom and control cool looking people and monsters while doing it, and that's pretty satisfying as far as an RTS story goes.
Levels themselves are quite varied from one another, most of them actually fit for the game's micro-heavy[1] nature even better. There is a one level where it is better to avoid fighting enemies, one you have to defend your ground in small areas, one large map where you can destroy one city, block by block, wall by wall .Developers made a good job of introducing the new faction, having a decent level of difficulty and learning curve.  And there is even an epilogue where you play as the Good side. Within the budget they have --you can see with cutscenes being entirely drawings -- they did as well as a job they could.
Of course, a campaign mode is only a small part of an RTS experience. What the expansion pack brought to the table in terms of gameplay changes is perhaps even more exciting. The base game is so important for its brilliance in combining LoTR flavor, easy to get in gameplay and a nice tactical depth, but it had some rough edges after playing a lot. The expansion smoothens these rough edges and plays into te base game's strengths even more. This is the reason I have left analyzing the gameplay here, as someone who researched quite a few mods -- this is probably as good as a Middle-Earth RTS game can get.

2. War of the Rings

While BFME 1 campaign style had its problems, it had its own charm. So it was actually not quite gone in the sequel, just turned into somewhat different. Instead of a scripted sequence, now it's a risk-style game between teams of Good and Evil. There are different scenarios that changes map sizes, team sizes, available countries and victory conditions, but the basic idea is the same. Build, create units, defeat enemies on the regular RTS map and conquer provinces from your enemies.
It fixes the main problem of the first game's campaign: the levels just don't get reduced to walking the entire map and destroying every single building, they are short encounters .There is a maximum unit size, money given to you is usually just enough for things you need. AI actively surrenders in battle or withdraws from encounters it knows it can't win. This is actually strategically sound as well, because if you drag the battle when you are at losing side, you are just giving enemy more time to build units and snowball into stronger armies. Although you get stronger with each province you control, comebacks are very much possible.
Overall, I don't think it's an unforgettable part of the game, but it is much better than I have expected and it's a very nice distraction if you don't just want to do skirmishes all the time.

3. Create a Hero

This game mod is one of the things that give BFME 2 a unique place among RTS games. It easily adds at least a dozen of hours to play time by itself. You can make the most overpowered, the most silliest heroes, or try to cover a certain faction's weakness. It also helps appearance and that the skills of custom heroes are sufficiently different from normal ones, so having custom heroes actually adds stuff: Like you can have a Haradrim hero that converts enemy units into your cause or a wizard that turns people into cows.
The expansion adds the  two balance changes. Now you are free to not pick powers for the heroes as much as you like (as opposed to having to select something for each level) and now the price of the hero scales up with the powers. So, a hero with an array of really powerful skill is more than 3000 gold like a true late game hero, but you can also make a basic hero for 1200 gold that only is useful for specific tasks. That means the best heroes are the ones that are as strong as possible while being cost-effective. These changes bring a tactical depth that was not in the main game. It also fixes the main game's problem of custom heroes being more overpowered on the Good side, because you have a really good mid-tier Evil hero that is just as useful.

4. The Battlefield

BFME 1, for all its faults, had a strong foundation for a gameplay with a distinct identity. The sequel built on its strengths while fixing things that held it back. No fixed building slots, a tighter resource game, higher command limits, a much more balanced metagame. And... what will that end up us with?
A harmonious blend of post Red Alert 2 Command&Conquer games and Warcraft 3, spiced heavily with Middle Earth sauce. We saw this in BFME 1: Power of the One Ring a.k.a. field magic/bonuses that are unlocked by destroying enemy units, units interacting each other with actual physics (such as units getting scattered around when rocks fell over them), unit modes that are toggled on/off manually, units leveling up, automatic resource/army collecting points, feel quite C&C, heroes, caves for experience and gold, easy economy, a micro-focused command, naval units feel quite like Warcraft 3. Of course, the lack of ranged air units, most units being composed of one or two dozens of individuals, constant eternal resource generation, manual upgrades for each unit are the most unique to BFME 2. 
Identity: is a thing I am frequently returning throughout this article, because I think it is a bit underrated in understanding what puts an RTS game above their peers. Balance, technical quality, tactical depth are all really important. However, you can still have so many space marine strategy games, so many DOTA clones, so many Age of Empire type games people can faithfully play at a time. Middle Earth background obviously helps but it has a risk of making the game predominantly feel a LOTR game before anything else. BFME 1 handled this by departing from RTS conventions significantly, BFME 2 on the other hand does this in little details, even playing for a several minutes, the game's identity oozes from every pixel. Let's discuss some of these details in particular:

Combat

Unlike a lot of RTS games, there is a heavy amount of close combat. And, as I have mentioned, units fight in blocks( blocks made larger in sequel), these two affect how fights occur. If you order several battalions of units to destroy an enemy unit&building, you will see only a couple of soldiers are actually fighting at the same time. If you want them to fight efficiently, you have to flank and circle enemy units. Games like Starcraft encourage blobs or death balls, just a group of supporting units you can point somewhere and cause havoc. No, if you leave your units to their own, you will find them wither away in no time.
This gives ranged units extra special because they can actually concentrate their full power easily and of course can attack from afar and inside the towers. This makes them a prime way to fight against enemy heroes. To balance these advantages, they don't hit too hard aganist buildings and they are especially weak aganist cavalry charges, unlike the first game. Also arrow upgrades are usually can be obtained only at highest level of building, and elite ranged units can't upgrade their armor.
Airborne units are uncommon, either found as heroes or temporarily summoned, their attacks are slow but strong and have an area of effect, which you can somewhat control for more efficiency. Their main advantage is traversing great ranges at a short time and having a great field of vision. Which makes them prime for harassing enemy units and resource or guarding an area but bad at attacking tankish heroes or anything involving strong ranged units. Thankfully, their super passivity from the first game is fixed in the sequel, which made them really borderline worthless.


Cavalry -- not just horsemen, any unit with crushing forward effect -- are very good for their mobility, their quick disposal of enemy units and high damage, but even mediocre ones are expensive, costs more command points and hard countered by pikemen. Of course, close attention is required to make their charges effective, as collisions with melee units also affect them a little bit.  There is also cavalry archers, combining the power of mobility and range, but balanced with either low armor or not being able to upgrade armor.
Spearmen, prime defensive units, are always reliable. Generally cheap, a quick remedy for monsters and cavalry, good at pinning down heroes, good at holding a line, but kinda slow at damage. In contrast, non-spearmen melee infantry --  is jack-of-all-trades of units. They have either offensive charge or defensive shield wall, have good damage and get upgrades early but they don't have the utility of spearmen or tactical depth of archers, and tend to be food for heroes and monsters
Siege units, units specialized for destroying buildings are three groups: Melee machines, ranged machines and monsters. Melee machines like rams can destroy a building really quickly but obviously need to get close. Ranged machines have slow but steady projectiles from a very good range, but need a minimum distance to fire. All siege machines are very vulnerable against non close attacks.. Monsters are on the other hand, can usually both attack melee and from range with great damage but weak aganist spearmen and heavy archer fire. Siege units hold great place in BFME 2, while they are not crucial in most battles, they play a huge role in punishing turtling strategies, such as archer tower/wall spam.
Heroes, which can defeat any non-hero unit 1-on-1, are the cornerstone of the game. And in sequel, every faction has plenty of good heroes. The amount of heroes is not sequel, but that's fine, because they cost command points now. Realistically, you will see probably a maximum of three or four heroes from a faction at the same time, and that would be during a rather long game. This is where the game diverges from Warcraft 3, it's not expected to just slap a hero into your army, there are situations where a couple of battalions would be more useful than a level 1 hero. Another difference from Warcraft 3 is the heroes, even the ones who share tactical roles, feel unique thanks to the lore, the greater diversity in skills, and appearance, as opposed to generic heroes who get a randomized name.

One of the most unique aspects of the game is its loose use of rock-paper-scissor style counter mechanics. For example, it's theoretically true that:

                                       spears > monster > non-spear infantry > spears

But non-spearmen units does not mop the floor with spearmen as spears kill monsters. Monsters will often have a ranged attack and can run faster than infantry. BFME 2 does not have a great range of unit types, so the game relies more heavily on contextual weaknesses which can be mitigated by clever play over hard counters. So, keeping pricing in mind, a more general consistent rule for non-heroes seem to be:

The harder a unit can hit and the faster it can move, the larger its weakness gets

This somewhat works for heroes too; a cavalry form of a hero will be weak against spears, heroes that can inflict immense damage tend to be on the fragile side.
Battle stances, standardized versions of various commands in BFME 1, control idle unit behavior. In aggressive stance, units will attack every enemy unit on their vision and will pursue them endlessly until they have doing so. In neutral stance, units will similarly engage units but will only pursue them for a certain distance, then will return to their original position. In defensive stance, the units will only engage when they are close enough for melee combat and will try to move as little as possible. They also get a slight increase and decrease in attack, defense and speed in stances.  BFME 2 is a heavy on unit control so you are not supposed to leave them on their own, but units are fairly good at defending themselves. This level of automatic behavior actually eases the player into game's chaotic battles.
Upgrades for units need to be researched in its building first and have to be applied to each unit manually. The upgrades tend to cost a lot more than it does in most RTS games, but they also affect the unit more. They also visibly change the unit, I like that touch a lot.
The game does not have an elemental weaknesses system (which I think could work), but instead it has fire and poison as a prominent tool. Fire can be actively ignited on ground by certain units, causing area damage. Poison is applied to units individually and just causes health loss over time. It's generally not high enough to kill on its own but effective because it blocks over-time-healing.
Another way the game puts forward micromanagement over large economies is having lots of unit buffs and debuffs, almost to the degree of RPGs. With hero skills, ring powers, certain buildings, large amount of spells in the game is about temporary buffs. Warcraft 3 enforced small-scale combat by limiting the amount of units hard way. In this game you can theoretically have a really large army, but more often than not the skirmishes tend to be between small armies where larger buffs determine the outcome. Here we can see that  a static counter system would be counterintuitive to such a design.
The Power of One Ring or The Power of Evenstar, as in first game, make everything more fun, but we get 25 over measly 10 in the first game. And there are more balanced this time all around. And they are effective, they can even change the fate of battle if cleverly used, which brings a real sense of dynamism to the game.
Lastly there is naval battles. The units are exactly the same for each faction functionally and built from open to all harbors. A transport ship that can't attack, a ship that attacks with arrows, a ship with ranged siege machine that can hit from far away, and a suicide ship that destroys a group of ships in contact. Naval battle is a nice thought, in Middle Earth lore sea is both important thematically and physically. Sadly, in execution we don't see really intense naval battles. I blame this on lack of good maps for emphasizing the naval combat. However, the ships themselves can be effective, especially considering they can be upgraded without any restrictions. The combat ship is a strong archer unit and bombardment ship is especially great since, it can really reach any place in the map. In fact, their command limit and price reflect their power, otherwise they could be somewhat game breaking, especially the bombardment ship.

Economy and Base

The game does not have permanent walls, eliminating all balance problems it brings. Instead most countries can build non-deployable walls, that can be modified with gates, towers or ranged machines. They cost a non-trivial amount of money, are not very durable. So, they don't enable over defensiveness but instead add a tool for controlling key points. Battle towers are much similar, can be deployed efficiently for defense, but not really game-breaking at all. Some maps come with pre-built fortress with heavy walls and defences but they are meant to be played against a group of opponents. There are also maps with pre-built towers that anyone can use, but they are even more fragile than player-built ones.
For all factions, buildings can be built almost everywhere freely. This is not only a departure from a first game but a departure from most RTS games as they usually have some limitations on how to build a base. Building is a very simple process, as long as you have a builder and cash, you are free to go.  Only resource buildings are subjected to some rules, the closer you build them to each other, the less money they will generate, and their command limit bonus will decrease. Flexibility of buildings brings another layer of tactical depth. You can actively place your buildings in a way to make the enemy fight more inefficiently, some secret buildings at the corners of map may change the fate of game, or you can retreat near your allies' base. As long as you have builders around, a comeback is possible.

One important building in particular is fortresses, the center of the base, to recruit builders, heroes, upgrade certain bonuses, to being able to use ring powers, and build some defenses to build your base. I am really pleased with the attention they have shown to fortresses, they really bring out the identity of a faction.
Resource buildings will generate money indefinitely -- except lumber mills -- as in first game, but having to build them at certain distances encourages aggressiveness. However, there is quite a few ways of getting more money; from skills, powers, outposts and so on. Making money in this game is not a very stressful affair, there isn't really optimal executions to get more resources so you can build the largest army possible. On top of that, resource buildings also control the command limit, which further simplifies macro management.  And in most RTS games, you have at least two or three resources to control, but really in this game, it's effectively one. Command point exists more for discouraging spam and turtling rather than a real resource. This is one of the important design choices to make the game quite easy to get into.
That doesn't mean economy is trivial though. There are a lot of ways you can spend your money: Buildings, unit upgrades, castle upgrades,  Unless you get absurdly strong in the map, your spending rate tend to be closer to the earning rate. It's not stressful but there is enough tension to encourage clever spending. Upgrading building or upgrading units or getting a hero, such decisions are the bulk of economical tactics and base building in the game.
You can set the starting money before battles. This is actually one of the things that forms a meta. 1000 gold starts are different from 2000 gold or 4000 gold starts. additionally, you can set handicaps which decreases a player's production if you are so inclined.

The Map and Gollum

There are static buildings in the game maps, they are controlled by capturing its flag by a unit. These buildings are:

• A signal fire tower --inspired by the tower Gondor used for calling help -- that gives vision and decreases power recharge times.
• An outpost to build units: The units change by the map and produces Hobbits, Dunedain Rangers, or Dale Archers for Good side, focusing on defense, and Dunland Warriors, Corsairs of Umbar,  and Haradrim Archers for the Evil side, focusing on building destruction.
• An outpost for generating money. This outpost produces equal to the output of several resource buildings, so it is a great advantage to whomever it belongs to.
• And a dock for building naval units.

In a game where you don't expand your base to new resource sites, outposts are a great way to encourage people to fighting for map control. I also like how they can bes destroyed rather easily but can be rebuilt indefinitely. But I wish there were more outposts in maps. Outposts generally work the best when either you give the players equal opportunity to capture them or make chokepoints in map to make people fight to get it. There are definitely maps like that but for instance having only 4 resource outposts at corners in a map for 8 players is not ideal.
Caves are a feature that is expanded in sequels. Now there are six kinds of caves: Goblin, giant spider, warg, wight, trolls and drake cave, in the order of resource and experience gained upon defeating them. They will attack anyone nearby in a certain radius, including buildings, will rebuild and replenish unless completely destroyed. They function similarly to Warcraft 3's independent troll/ogre groups, as an experience farm and obstacle to capture outposts/build resource buildings.  I have to say, outside of drake caves, I find them somewhat underwhelming. In Warcraft 3,  these encounters are challenging as a major part of the game is about being able to level your heroe s and expand your base at an optimal pace. So, I understand why they wanted to keep it easy, it might have been too costly to try to defeat them. Still, instead of arbitrarily sprinkling them onto maps, one can design so that there are easy caves with measly loot near the player bases and tough caves with good loot towards the middle parts of the map or near resource outposts.

While the maps could certainly use more spice, but they aren't all that barren. Mountain ranges, bridges, rivers, forests, high ground... quite a few stuff affects movement, especially considering the near lack of air units. Also admirable is having more than a few asymmetrical maps or one side of map being mountainous while other side being open ground.  As an example, imagine two players being close to each other while being apart from third player. Symmetrical maps are good for competitive balance but sometimes asymmetry brings a fresh air and unique challenges.

There are some very elaborate special maps that are also used as campaign maps, they serve as a set piece as they do as a skirmish map. These maps have one player behind castle walls and other player(s) on outside the open ground. The defender side has plenty of pre-built defenses and usually have a really good amount of resources but often has limited room for buildings, cannot build castles or use castle upgrades and start with a fixed amount of 2500 gold, so they can't spam their best heroes from start. In both single and multiplayer, I have plenty of memories with these maps. Minas Tirith, Minas Morgul, Helm's Deep, Fornost... But some of them are plain broken. Dol Guldur map for instance, does not have outposts for defending side and its interior really cramped so you can get barely any resources, makes them disadvantaged even against single player. In the opposite end of spectrum is Isangard map, as the attacker side is only one player for some reason.
Another thing on the map you can encounter is Gollum. He is usually on stealth but when detected can be killed quite easily, doing so drops the One Ring. Once on ground you can carry it with a unit and bring it to your fortress, then you can recruit Ring Heroes: Galadriel for the Good side, costs 10000 gold, can summon a large thunderstorm. And Sauron for the Evil side, cost 20000 gold, can summon a barrage of meteors to fall. Both of them are quite powerful, hit multiple targets with knocking effect as normal damage, can scare enemies and take quite a while to recruit, but Galadriel is more fragile and fast, while Sauron is bulkier and slower. If they end up dead, the Ring drops to the ground and becomes open to grab once again. It's always nice to see the Ring and Sauron in a LOTR game, and they are fun to use for curb-stombing the enemy, but as you can guess, they are not a serious part of competitive strategies, as their price makes them bragging rights more than anything else. It could be more dynamic, perhaps it could bring a small bonus to the owner faction, or be used as a way of make your Ring Powers stronger, or you could buff your hero for a smaller price, but to spice it up, there would be ways to steal the Ring from a fortress. As it stands in the game, it's a fun gimmick.
Of course, this is not all there is to it to maps, because as all good RTS games, BFME 2 has a map editor. I have merely glanced it as a curiosity, I can't comment on how easy to actually use it, but looking at user-created maps online, it's fairly flexible. You can have stuff like Balrogs fighting against Saurons, classic fan-favourites like tower maps or really creative works with serious design effort behind them. When games not only allow but internally support user-creations, only good can come from it.

3. Conclusion

Battle for Middle Earth 2: Rise of the Witch King is a spectacular RTS. It's easy to get into, open to mastery in fine details, smooth to play, alive and chaotic, but manageable. Certain aspects are not utilized for their full potential, but in minute-to-minute play, when re-imagining the lore of Middle-Earth, when creating orcs with purple armor the game is consistently full of energy. Just as I played the main game, I come back to this game every now and then, the time fleets as I lose myself in the song of arrows, spears, explosions and magic. If you could play only one real-time strategy game, try this one out, as the base game it is not officially sold anymore so it is effectively free. Unless you passionately hate anything related to LOTR, you'd probably have at least a decent time.
Next time, we will look at the game even deeper and analyze the faction design of ROTWK!

All screenshots are mine.
This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons and special thanks to: Acelin, Alexandra Morgan, Laura Watson, MasterofCubes, Makkovar, Otakundead and Spencer Gill.

The Battle For The Longest Name 2

In the last article we talked about the strengths and weaknesses of Battle For Middle Earth, as a movie game and as an RTS. Now let's look at its sequel:
A quick view of the game reveals that BFME 2 wants to have an identity besides being a movie game. It uses its own artwork everywhere, has a unique storyline, has its own creatures and characters. However, the new inventions aren't entirely arbitrary, they are vaguely inspired by the canon lore one way or another. For example, "drake" and "wrym" are words which was used in Tolkien's writings to talk about dragons, so in the game they exists as distinct creatures. It makes sense that Goblins would have a leader of sorts, so the game gives us a Goblin-King, (different from the one in the Hobbit) Isengard used a bomb in the film, why smaller bombs for throwing from fortresses can't exist? Overall, the game uses Middle Earth as a theme to ground itself while retaining familiar to movie/book aesthetic. I really like the result. Both visually and gameplay-vise, the game has a unique identity while also having a "LOTR feel" at the same time. With its art style, drawings of cut scenes and unit portraits are really nice. The animations feel lively and does not have the slight stiffness of the first game. t With increased unit sizes , it often achieves to deliver the epic battles it promises.
The story missions in BFME 2 concern the battles in the north of BFME 2, inspired from the notes of Tolkien.  There is no campaign map in story, it follows typical mission + cut scene structure used often in RTS games and you don't carry units from mission to mission. At first, I got somewhat upset at these decision but now, I actually like the campaign of the sequel more. While it has some questionable parts --like why would you have Lorien[1] as the first mission in evil campaign, like it shouldn't be easier than heckin' Shire -- it overall feels great to play, without feeling repetitive and restricted to be similar to movie or book. Erebor, Eriador, Gray Havens, Lothlorien, Rivendell... Each level feels distinct, memorable and there is actual level design and attempt to challenge the player without pure spam. Defending or attacking large cities actually feels grand. Especially, the last Evil mission really feels like a final clash, you should see for yourself, it's really cool if you are a Middle Earth nerd like me.
Being a Middle Earth nerd, I was actually disappointed at the state of the game when I saw it for the firs time. Dragons in a period Smaug's[2] death? Heresy. Goblins riding giant spiders? Unforgivable! A lot of mods for the game seem to have same opinion as me, BFME 2 modders really don't like spider riders? They also usually reject original drawings in favor of movie screenshots. The books are sacred, the PJ movies are too; anything else just doesn't "feel" like LOTR. I have changed however, slowly from "actually this is fine" to "spider riders are actually awesome" as time went on. An adaptation is a different work than the original version and has its own value to consider LOTR movies are a different entity than books, they would be different even they tried to follow books to letter, they would be different if they were slideshows of pictures with text instead of books. Adaptations are original creations in on themselves or at least they are enjoyed the best when viewed as such. BFME 2's recreation of the Middle Earth as an RTS is a worthy addition to Middle-Earth themed media, in large part thanks to their own vision, and *spider riders*
With its new breath of life on Middle Earth, vastly expanded content, slick and well-designed RTS gameplay, a niche but rich multiplayer scene, it's a truly classic pc game, a one that people still care about it this day. And it's a classic that got an expansion pack that's as classic as itself. Due to licensing issues, the game isn't really sold officially anymore, so just go grab it for free somewhere. It virtually runs on everything and even if you don't particularly enjoy RTS games, you will probably have a fun time on it.
I am aware I did not discuss the game in great detail, I will do that once I talk about the expansion pack, and I promise to go in real detail then, so this is my first real cliffhanger... Let's meet again for Rise of the Witch King then!

This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons and special thanks to: Acelin, Alexandra Morgan, Laura Watson, MasterofCubes, Maciej Paszkowski, Otakundead and Spencer Gill.

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[1] Lothlorien/Lorien is the name of elven town which Galadriel resides, it is said that it would take Sauron himself coming to conquer there.
[2] The dragon in the Hobbit, also the last dragon in Middle-Earth by the book canon.

The Battle For the Longest Name 1

Lord of the Rings/Middle-Earth themed video games have been around long before Peter Jackson directed trilogy was out, and they continued to came after that. Two of these games, The Battle of Middle Earth series stands out among them as not only good LOTR game, but also as a great film-to-game adaptations and, unique and -- for the second game -- excellent take on real-time strategy genre.  In this series(?) of articles we will explore what makes them great and their shortcomings together:
The first BFME is truly unique in a lot of ways.  As an adaptation, the game does not try to be faithful to films. Rather, its primary goal is to re-create scenes --mostly battle scenes-- in a strategy game. This informs almost all of the design choices in the game, as examples:

• The unit and character roster is only as much as what is shown in selected scenes from the films. All unit portraits are directly from the movie.
• The ring powers and hero abilities are almost all inspired or directly taken by the same principle.
• While there are a few maps in the game that refers to locations that was not shown in films, they look rather generic in comparison to ones which do reference the films.
• The Good campaign is 90% about re-living the battle scenes, the rest is building up your units to prepare for said battles. While there are a few liberties taken -- notably you can make Boromir survive and make him fight in Helm's Deep - I would say this is a faithful recreation in the boundaries of the game's engine.
• The Evil campaign is more original but it also commits to be faithful as much as possible. This creates a weird situation where you end up killing Legolas three times in course of the game.
• Some units have effects that doesn't have a real competitive use put iconic in films. Such as Berserker Uruks being able to detonate bombs with torches. You can also just made them touch any kind of fire, which is way easier and does not spend money to merely sacrifice a unit.
• In in campaign screen, when you hover over certain maps, you can see clips on the small screen in the corner of the map.
• The visual designs are faithful to film as much as possible and voice actors from films do the voice work.
• The game uses movie's soundtrack but its original OST is also wonderfully in harmony with the movie's.

Overall, the game's commitment to adopting the aesthetics to LOTR movies over their plot greatly benefits the movie. Sometimes it actually matches to movie in terms of epicness. The game is simple and more slow-paced compared to most RTS games. So, really anyone who likes the movies could enjoy the game.
However, the game takes this commitment too far for its own good. LOTR have enough cultural recognition and the game certainly does not lack polish but what beneath the LOTR identity, we have an unbalanced RTS that does not have a good rhythm.  I don't think every RTS game has to be competitively viable or even has solid balance to be enjoyable, this game is carried by its campaign and this is fine; but  it is something that heavily hurts the game's replayability and appeal to non-LOTR fans. It didn't need to be this bad.

So, how bad it exactly is? In campaign, you are challenged with pre-set scenarios so most of the gameplay problems don't come to surface, but in skirmish mode everything gets crystal clear. Let's look at why the game does not have a good rhythm, I usually avoid explaining how gameplay is like since you can easily get that information but I can't talk about very specific gameplay issues otherwise:

• Buildings are constructed on pre-set tiles . This is an interesting concept, but with amount of tiles that you need to spend on economy alone, it hurts tactical diversity.  The bases in the game are called outposts, camps and citadels, in the ascending order of their size. In maps without citadels you can build on even fewer tiles.
• The maps themselves are fairly irrelevant. There are outer spots for more income buildings, some wild caves you can fight to level up your heroes and earn a small amount of gold and sometimes there are a couple of strategic chokepoints but overalls maps are mainly plain and feels even a bit too large.
• The number of units you have is determined by command points, which is a fixed amount determined by map and number of players, and it only goes up when a players gets kicked of map. And it is usually filled up pretty quickly. The income is generated by buildings at a constant, unlimited rate with one exception I will mention later. You don't have to maintain an amount of workers to collect resources at an optimum rat. In addition to all that, the resource building all gives discounts on certain costs (For example, 2 Farms give 10% discount to cavalry, 3 Farms give 20% and it scales like that up to %30) but when it is coupled with fixed command point and building tiles, you can't simply spend your money at all in mid-late game. At a skirmish map, It's very common to have a ridiculous amount of money in your hand just sitting and doing nothing. In campaign, you collect additional resources from areas you have cleared, so economy just stops being an issue entirely after mid-campaign.
• As any RTS game, buildings upgrade and tech tree gets expended.  In this game, it is not entirely in your control. Buildings rank up only when they generate a certain amount of units or upgrade research. That means, if you want good archers for example, you have to first produce several basic archers, regardless whether basic archers have a strategic value to you or not. This leads to several situations throughout the campaign where you send your basic units to suicide attack as you can't just get rid of units and unit caps are usually too low. And in skirmish mode, it encourages spamming over making a nice unit composition, best to reach Elven Archers as soon as possible instead of spending money for making a balanced army.
• Defending is easy. Even without walls, defensive structures are easily available, buildings are durable and it requires a considerable army advantage to overwhelm a full fortified base. In skirmishes, a decent player can take up against 3,5 or even 7 AI enemies at once without much too difficulty, it's just a matter of time when to beat. In maps with outposts seem interesting in paper and certainly makes offense possible but just ends a race of spamming instead.
• Because economy is easy, defense is strong, maps lack important points and unit cap is low, map control isn't really that important. Owning resource buildings above a certain point returns diminishing resources and you can't really successfully harass enemy out of resources, since the main ones in battle. Provided they both picked a Good faction, players with similar level of skill often just end up in a permanent stalemate, especially on citadel maps. In free-form levels of campaign, the most common cycle of an episode is  1. Beating the enemies initial army 2. Gathering some resources and 3. Rooting the enemy out of entire map. You can just take your army to a nice walk and destroy every building you see, the enemy can't do anything in response not because AI is so incompetent but because it is impossible to catch up even when you have the resources to do so.
• Evil factions are quite underpowered, it effectively reduces the competitively viable factions to 2 and even in campaign this issue rears its ugly head somewhat.

The last part requires elaboration so let's take a deep dive to see how bad the balance is. The Good factions seem mostly equal with Rohan having the most number of heroes, the best archer, the best cavalry, arguably slightly better powers, the Entmoot and can expand faster and Gondor having best defensive structures, easier economy, getting upgrades earlier possibly the strongest hero and having a all-around strong roster with no real weaknesses. But Evil factions on the other hand are really screwed.
The general gameplay difference between Good and Evil is that on paper, Good ones focus on defense; with structures and healing powers and slow to build up a true offensive force. while Evil focuses on offense; being able to easily stack heavy amount of damage, better siege units and faster economy and not having walls or even certain unit upgrades on return. If you have read up to so far, you can see why Evil factions underperform in practice. But, it gets worse, especially for Mordor, so I will go over Isengard first.

• Aside from not having citadel walls -- which can be solved by playing on Camps -- Isengard seems fine until you remember they have only two Heroes against seven of Rohan's, four of Gondor's. Unlike every other unit, Heroes does not take up command points, you can infinitely recruit or revive them as long as you have money and a standing central tower, and they keep their rank upon revival. While Lurtz and Saruman are powerful, simple math wins here. As time passes on the Good side will just become stronger and as established before, you can't really rush through defenses without a significant advantage. especially if your opponent knows you have to do so.
• Isengard units are powerful but it doesn't have Tier 2 units such as Elven Archers and Fountain Guards. The Berserkers mostly exist as a loyalty to film scenes rather than a genuine competitive asset, they are simply not worth command points majority of time.
• It gets the short stick in powers department. To starters, one of the first powers is Palantir, which allows you to see an area in the map. But it's not worth purchasing at all, other one gives you a very crucial and always useful punch against enemies and spamming and lack of map control makes scouting almost entirely irrelevant.
• It gets three economic powers, "Industry" increases output from resource buildings (Furnace or Slaughterhouse) temporarily, "insert name" one gives permanent bonus to all [insert name], and Devastation clears all trees in an area to give their value instantly. Industry is clearly the best choice, because it is not really temporary; resources buildings rank up as they generate resources, and they generate more when they rank up, so they rank up faster when you used the power on them and you will get more resources in the long run. Even using it just once can give you a great edge. Considering the easiness of the economy in the game, the other two are overkill and not as generally applicable. They both concern the wood resources Evil factions generate from Lumber Mills. Trees are a finite resource, collected by workers that is spawned from building. Devastation basically gives the resource  lumber mill would collect at once. So, it is actually contradictory with the passive bonus of [insert name] in long run. Not to mention certain maps are very thin on woods, so having two powers on an effectively dead resource while other factions have useful powers they can use.
• The final power of Evil factions is summoning Balrog. Balrog is very strong and cause heavy damage but it moves slow, lasts very short amount of time and needs to be guided well to use effectively. The final power of Good factions is summoning Army of the Dead. [1] They have less raw damage than Balrog but they last longer and are faster, they be used both against armies and bases more effectively. In terms on effectiveness, there isn't a noticeable difference but Balrog is worse for a single reason: It costs 20 power points while Army of the Dead costs only 10. It really is just a matter of a time before Good teams gain an ultimate victory, on top of other disadvantages Evil governments face.

Despite all this, Isengard can hold itself well and you don't generally encounter any real issues if you play in campaign. Mordor, however doesn't have that luck.

• Mordor units do not have armor and weapon upgrades. For some units this make sense, like Itilien archers or even orcs; but for example why Harad or Rhun soldiers can't? Maybe developers feared that would make Mordor too strong? If that's the case, they have gone too far as they can't even function in campaign properly. A major element of campaign is carrying your units from one mission to next, slowly ranking your units and heroes. This is impossible for Mordor as no matter how experienced your units are, they die so easily without heavy armor.
• Mordor has four heroes: Gollum, Witch-King, and two Fellbeasts. [2] Gollum is a complete meme, he doesn't have the advantage of being a cheap hero like Hobbits, which is weird as he is clearly shown as resilient and stronger than Hobbits. The Nazguls are exclusively flying beasts. In theory, they would be excellent harassment units but map control is not important in this game, so they are practically expensive archer fodder. In campaign, Mordor has essentially no heroes to level up and use like you would do in Good campaign. It certainly didn't have to be this way. There is no reason why Nazguls --especially victims-- can't fight on foot. The orc chieftain Gothmog is iconic in LOTR fills and he could be easily in at least 3 missions. Why you can't ever control Sauron at any point when you have a full mission capturing the One Ring? Giant spider Shelob is the game as playable for one mission but not available on skirmish for some reason.
• Mordor units are mostly sub-par. Orcs are a free unit but they are weak, slow and can't do anything much without powers. Orc archers are more useful, at least they provide some fire. Haradrim [3] soldiers hit hard when they fire but they die so easily to archers. Rhun spearmen are strong but they die easily to arrows as they can't get armor. Trolls are comically weak, they make good damage but fall to archers easily. Mumakils [4] are big, slow, overly expensive arrow fodder. Catapult starts with fire damage and can spread fear, the second decent unit. Grond [5] is playable in Minas Tirith but once again mysteriously missing from Skirmish. Mordor has no cavalry. As you see the pattern, Mordor has no counter to archers and have basically no strategy besides spamming archers and occasionally catapults.
• Mordor has actually a good power tree that suits very well to attack quickly do a lot of damage but having weak units make Mordor too dependent on them, as opposed to tactical weapons that can you the upper hand when used right time.

Overall Mordor shows some development issues besides wrong choices, It genuinely feels somewhat neglected, the strongest force in Middle Earth [6] is a joke in the game. And overall, it's a pity the game has so many little issues, because despite complaining about it this much, I like BFME a lot. It carries blueprints of many good ideas that would be executed better in later games. And I wholly recommend trying it out, at least once. Since EA lost the rights to LOTR licence, no one officially sells them therefore it is entirely open to just downloading anywhere from web.

(I am serious about 1 vs 7 thing btw)

This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons and special thanks to: Acelin, Alexandra Morgan, Laura Watson, MasterofCubes, Maciej Paszkowski, Otakundead and Spencer Gill.

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[1] The demon who fights against Gandalf in first movie/book.
[2] Winged beasts that Nazgul, or the Nine ride on.
[3] Evil men who fight for Sauron. Harad mins South, Rhun means East in Sindarin.
[4] Giant elephants which are used by Haradrim.
[5] The giant battle ram which destroys the gates of Minas Tirith.
[6] The movies downplay Mordor's strength a little bit. In books, it's made clear that the Fellowship,  Gondor and Rohan armies go to the Black Gate not just because they have a slim chance of helping Frodo but because they have no chance of defending themselves from Mordor anymore. Mordor's army is so large that they have sent soldiers to attack Elven, Dwarven and Gondor lands at the same time and what remains is easily enough to conquer Minas Tirith. Sauron's only real loss in Minas Tirith is Witch-King while Gondor has barely any soldiers left. So, helping Frodo is not just a gamble is not actually a suicide mission, it's their only chance.