Using the Lord Of The Rings movie license, The Battle for Middle-earth is a Real-Time Strategy game based upon both the renown literary works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Players are given control of enormous armies in the many of the epic battles depicted in the film. From waging all-out combat among the vast forces of good and evil to controlling your favorite heroes and characters to managing the troops.

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What's that? Return of the King Campaign? Never heard of it. Just kidding - we're working hard but can't tell you when it'll be released. Right now, the missions we have completed have several times the detail of the Two Towers missions, so it's going to be a while. It'll be worth the wait, however - especially if you're a Tolkien lore nerd like us.

Some of you might have seen that we won this year's Best Multiplayer Award at the Mod of the Year Awards. We're humbled by this recognition of the massive and ongoing effort made to increase Age of the Ring's competitive viability. With our 11 highly asymmetrical skirmish factions, competitive balancing is a big challenge - to that end, we're continuing to work on 8.0 patches, and are now coming up on Version 8.3. This article addresses some its core changes and additions.


Eight New Competitive Maps



To freshen up the competitive scene, we're introducing 8 new competitive maps in Version 8.3. These cover a diverse set of areas and landscapes and were made with feedback and testing performed by our balance testers.

Aelin Veren


aelinveren01

Aelin Veren lies in Northern Ithilien, where its beautiful gardens cover the ruins of

long-forgotten royal thermae.


Aldamóri


aldamori01 1

Aldamóri is a secluded land, hidden in the northern forests of Rhun, where a tribe of

Kinn-lai elves and Men coexist peacefully.


Ayún-âma


ayunama

Once known as the Heavenly Eyes, these two temples have long been swallowed

by the unforgiving sands of the Abrakhânic desert and are now known as

Ayún-âma, the 'Eyes that are Blind'.


Bakhjad


bakjad

In the heart of an enigmatic and mist-shrouded jungle, a forgotten world reveals itself as tendrils of ethereal fog weave through towering trees and ancient vines.


Gloomglens


gloomglens

Of old a coniferous marshland, the Gloomglens have in recent years been the site of logging by local woodsmen who use the nearby rivers to transport timber.


Meadhollow


meadhollow

The Anduin winds its way through Meadhollow, meandering past beautiful

golden aspens and evergreen firs.


Mitheithel


mitheithel

The Mitheithel, or Hoarwell, arises in the Misty Mountains. Joined with the Bruinen and Glanduin rivers, it would become a part of the Gwathló, one of the greatest rivers in the North.


Bloodwood (2023 Halloween Tournament Map)


bloodwood

Within the last flicker of Mr Bones' dark and dying soul lies the accursed realm

of Bloodwood, where the spirits of his victims suffer for all eternity.



Reworked Spellbook Powers



We've taken a shovel to some of the more boring and lesser-functioning spellbook powers for Misty Mountains and Erebor, reworking or fully replacing them with powers that should hopefully be more fun and useful.

They Are Coming


theyarecoming

We noticed that Misty Mountains players heavily leaned towards the right side of the Spellbook, almost never using the They Are Coming spell (which temporarily increased Moria Orc production speed). In order to address this, we changed They Are Coming to now be a spell that can be cast on Orc Tunnels and Wyrm Lairs, spawning 6 permanent battalions of Moria Orc Screechers. These units respect the command limit.

Ravens of Erebor


ravensoferebor

Ravens of Erebor used to grant +10% movement speed to nearby friendly units and -25% movement speed to nearby enemy units. We realized that this was too inflexible, so we reworked it to be more useful in more situations. Now it instead increases the speed of everything that is nearby: movement speed and attack speed, the speed of cooldowns, and unit and resource production speed.

Fully Armed and Filthy


fullyarmedandfilhty

Rather than Heavy Armour, Fully Armed and Filthy now grants weapon upgrades (Khuzdûl Runes, Mithril-tipped Arrows, and Fire Arrows). We realized that the former implementation only reinforced a strength (Dwarves have always been tanky) rather than compensated a weakness.

Undermine


undermine01

We saw Undermine being used as an unhealthy and unfun option to rush the enemy fortress. To remedy this, we changed its stun effect to a buff to allied armour and a slow heal over time. It is now also protected by several Vault Wardens.


House Colours



As you may noticed in the above screenshots, we have implemented House Colours (meaning player-chosen colour schemes) in Age of the Ring. To get this out of the way first and foremost: House Colours are an entirely optional and intercompatible feature, meaning that you can turn them off and on at will using our Age of the Ring Options tool, and play with and against people that have them on or off without losing compatibility. In other words - you never have to see them if you don't want to and using them is entirely up to you! So if anyone in the comments or on Discord whines about things being 'too colourful' or whatever, please point and laugh at them.

We believe that House Colours will greatly enhance gameplay clarity. Have a look!

hc01 2

hc02

hc03

hc04

hc05


Additional Changes



Due to the increased popularity of competitive play (thank you to everyone that has helped promote AotR!), we've gotten great feedback on the current state of the mod - we are always paying attention and listening! This means that for 8.3 we have been able to do a lot to address the various things that have stood out. Below is a list of some of the more notable directions we've taken. This is by no means an exhaustive list, nor is it detailed - the actual changelog will remain under wraps until we release.

  • Mordor was a clear leader in the 8.2 meta. As a result, the faction has received nerfs to its spam potential and its Nazgûl heroes in order to decrease the extreme effectiveness of its main strategy. It has however also received some buffs for its Easterling roster, to help it shine more during matches.
  • Harad was also a particularly strong option in 8.2. While it's great to see this large and somewhat experimental faction take a leadership position, we had to implement a number of soft nerfs to its core strategy while also buffing the Cultists of Zigûr, Hasharin and Nafarati units in order to make these options more prominent.
  • Woodland Realm has also done very well this patch. It showed great strength during the early game but had problems during its midgame progression. We smoothed this progression out some, making it easier for the faction to reach later stages of the game.
  • Misty Mountains did well, but as mentioned above the right side of their spellbook was used almost exclusively. To further aid with a more even use of its spells, the right side received some soft nerfs.
  • For Isengard, we noticed that after the Dunland dominance of 7.3.1 it was now the Uruk-hai that were completely dominating. To even things out we implemented a number of tweaks, while still keeping the Uruk-hai strategy viable.
  • Gondor was seen struggling when dealing with heroes and the midgame, so it received some buffs in that direction. Easier access to Soldiers of Minas Tirith, Denethor gaining earlier access to his leadership, as well as buffs to Boromir's Knife Throw and Beregond's Defender of the White City (ranged) ability.
  • Dol Guldur received some nerfs to its early game, which was too cost-efficient and allowed for some unfair (Necromancer) rushing.
  • Rivendell hasn't performed well, mainly due to its early game being toned down too much. While its difficult early game is an intended weakness, it was too difficult - so we buffed it some, notably Bree-land and Hobbit units, to make them a longer-lasting investment.
  • Rohan, despite its rework, was not performing as well as we anticipated. We realised that its specific economic situation (farms producing fewer resources but having more health) was the culprit, so we normalized its farms and provided some other buffs to different aspects of the faction to ensure that Rohan is a competitive faction now.

That's all for now.

The Age of the Ring Team


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Post comment Comments  (0 - 10 of 119)
Guest
Guest - - 698,071 comments

This comment is currently awaiting admin approval, join now to view.

Celebron94
Celebron94 - - 75 comments

there is a type of cheat of this mod? like resurce, add population, ecc.??

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OnyeNacho
OnyeNacho - - 1,346 comments

A CRITICAL WARNING:

There is an indie game impersonating itself as a "mod" called "Battle for Middle Earth: Reforged".
Moddb.com

This is a standalone game using Unreal Engine 4, and for a long time, this game has been parading disingenously under the guise as a "mod" and gaining accolades, awards, and public attention for it, especially at the 2021 Best Upcoming MOTY Awards, winning 1st place, stealing the spotlight for TRUE mods, destroying a fraction of the MOTY Awards and souring it's credibility in the process.

Meanwhile RedRD (formerly Maroni) has been deleting his earlier admissions that his project is not a mod but an indie game, as well as any comments that expose this truth or criticize his disingenuous action of cheating in the 2021 MOTY Awards, Player's Choice, Best Upcoming Mod.

Moddb.com

Here is Maroni's original comment on his game's page (which he's since deleted):
I.gyazo.com

Ever since his game won in the 2021 awards, there has been a trend growing of impostership among mods where game devs are taking this for granted to cheat the system, often using the fact that their games are fan-based as an excuse to do so. Fan-made or not, they don't belong in the mod section of DBolical. We have section for games already, it is called IndieDB. Many fangames use that to host their games, like Solitude (fangame based on Halo CE). Even former mods-turned-indie games like Renegade X and Hedon have created an IndieDB page for their respective projects to reflect the transformation to standalone video games.

In addition to the obviously unethical aspects (the aforementioned above), this trend is also VERY dangerous because it further blurs the lines between mod and game and will also impose a legal liability, risking a new precedence that can also see mods being treated in the same legal level as indie games (for instance with copyrighted works, even a non-commercial mod such as Thomas the Tank Engine for Skyrim could sudden see it's creator getting sued by the TTTK IP owner or at least ordered a C&D).

Even despite ruining 2021 MOTY, It is still not too late for RedRD to just make an IndieDB page for his game, and redirect his followers to that page. An IndieDB he should have created to begin with instead of a ModDB one.

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Guest
Guest - - 698,071 comments

How do I download to play???

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MelkorMorgothBauglir
MelkorMorgothBauglir - - 261 comments

PLEASE HELP ME, the map is not working for me, all the sudden, it is not recognized by the game and doesnt show up, I have the files in the respective folders and IT WORKED A FEW DAYS AGO, what am I doing wrong?

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NumenoreanTalion
NumenoreanTalion - - 1,331 comments

Which map?

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robeni2050
robeni2050 - - 157 comments

good news, thanks autor!

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MelkorMorgothBauglir
MelkorMorgothBauglir - - 261 comments

The map is not working anymore for me, please help me, it literally SUDDENLY stopped showing up in maps list in-game, for no reason

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Guest
Guest - - 698,071 comments

Does anyone know where to find the Offical patches for Battle for Middle Earth?

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NumenoreanTalion
NumenoreanTalion - - 1,331 comments

These pacthes are offical, but they need orginal "Game.dat". That means "CD"

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