Features

AI and Gameplay

Campaign

  • Completely overhauled campaign AI with a focus on different faction/culture specific behavior
  • Pace has been slowed down overall allowing for longer campaigns where you try to complete the victory conditions without fighting endless spam from huge nations late game
  • Difference between castles and cities is way bigger, castles replenish troops faster while making way less money than cities
  • Aggression has been modified, changing how likely betrayal is depends on what kind of faction it is
  • Overhauled diplomacy and faction standings
    • AA start neutral to everyone even as AI, but they generally dislike everyone and hate the Dunedain nations and Mordor
    • Made it basically impossible for the most lore breaking ceasefires/alliances/wars to happen
    • Factions that hate you often decline trade rights and map info
  • Overhauled the economy such that cities make more money than castles, make generally a lot less income from taxes but get boosted income from trading, farming and mining (basically making getting economy buildings and capturing trading settlements more important)
  • Tweaked custom generals so that nearly every faction has a good selection of custom generals at game start
  • Allies will help way more and will often come to relieve a siege on one of your settlements
  • Overhaul campaign map music with unique tracks selected carefully for each faction, cut and mixed beautifully courtesy of El Monstero
  • Redone win conditions to include more lore-accurate targets and realistic goals
  • Fixed and expanded mercenary pools
  • Removed barracks event and made it be dependant on buildings instead
  • Slowed down recruitment pools and increased the time it takes to recruit units to decrease spam and make it so you must think more carefully about what units you will recruit
  • Adopted generals are always from 16-18 years old to fit better in family trees
  • Changes to how culture spreads such as governors and spies now spreading culture
  • Read script explanations in-game by pressing the mission button
  • Added optional hardcore mode that adds in an army supply system and limits the use of autoresolve
  • Overhauled the useless “Loyalty” attribute into “Ambition”. Now it actually has effects such as helping with the supply traits, helping with combat and governor related skills and you need a minimum level for certain traits and ancillaries. Renown’s effects also got a small boost to make it more meaningful
  • New Military/Governor Education buildings and system for Gondor to train your new generals to increase their chance of getting education traits
  • Reworked garrison script: Garrison units are always visible, no hidden spawns when you attack settlement. AI can use them if they sally or if you attack an army next to the settlement and to compensate. Player garrison’s have been removed
  • ‘Free upkeep’ values adjusted across the board to maintain balance
  • More detailed unit stats such as speed and morale
  • Paths have been re-added to the Misty Mountains, allowing for easier traversal for the factions here

Battle

  • Completely overhauled battle AI to make battles feel more dynamic and engaging
  • Increased the health of gates/walls making it harder to capture settlements
  • AI is more likely to defend the gates and walls
  • AI is more likely to sally out when getting shot and flanked
  • Removed focus on capturing plaza, AI knows this as well and focuses on fighting you instead of defending/attacking plaza
  • AI now sits outside the range of towers until the gate is broken
  • Added functional spiders back into the mod that no longer cause crashing
  • New battle maps such as a brand new Dol Guldur map courtesy of Leo from TATW 4.2
  • AI will now use stakes and hero abilities
  • Underground cave battlemaps (custom tiles) in the mountain passes (created by WK)
  • New battlemaps for Orc City and Large Town

Scripts

Overhauled Ring Script

  • Rewritten and re-imagined ring script focusing on making the War of the Ring focused on the Ring like it should be
  • Setup spy networks to find the location of the One Ring
  • If Sauron takes the ring, Mordor and Dol Guldur will merge and all evil factions will get a boost to their economy
  • Sauron is also now a force to be reckoned with if he finds the ring, raining fireballs from the sky and destroying tens of men with each swing of his mace
  • If the AI is attempting to destroy the ring, it will phsyically march to Mt. Doom with a huge army
  • AI can now destroy the ring and bring the ring to Sauron if not stopped
  • Hold onto the ring yourself for a massive boost to your treasury while facing the wrath of the rest of Middle-earth
  • AI can also choose to hold onto the ring with lore accurate chances for each faction

Reforming the Kingdom of Arnor

In order to reform Arnor, complete Aragorn’s questline until you’ve completed the Imladris section, then you need to build the Cardolan/Arthedain administration buildings in at least 3 Cardolan and at least 3 Arthedain regions to unlock the ability to build the House of Kings in Annúminas.

After building the House of Kings you will restore Arnor. This will unlock the ability to upgrade your units to better armour upgrades and unlock new units. Restoring Arnor is a requirement for the Reunited Kingdom now. Bree needs to not be under the influence of Saruman for Arnor to be restored.

After restoring Arnor you can run Arnor.bat to change your action icons, banners and name.

Reforming the Reunited Kingdom

The Reunited Kingdom can be formed by either the Dunedain or Gondor

Dunedain

In order to reunite the kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor as the Dunedain, you first need to reform the Kingdom of Arnor, as described above. Then you need to travel to Dunharrow and complete the King of the Dead part of Aragorn’s questline. Then travel to Minas Tirith and make sure it is not sieged or held by evil forces and in a few turns you will form the Reunited Kingdom.

Gondor

In order to reunite the kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor as Gondor, you need to wait until either Boromir or Faramir have a dream about travelling to Rivendell. Make sure you are allied to the Dunedain and still hold Minas Tirith.

After restoring the Reunited Kingdom, you can run Reunited.bat to change your action icons, banners and name.

Orc Raiding

As an orc faction you can now stand on enemy territory to generate income, causing devastation (which is caused by standing on regions with farms built) which will keep increasing until it completes the cycle and resets, the trait description shows the amount of income being genearted from raiding.

Hardcore Mode

Optional hardcore mode that disables auto-resolve and introduces a Supply system for armies campaigning in foreign territory.

The Palantíri

Depending on how many Palantiri you own, the fog of war is removed for a short amount of time at the start of every turn.

Scouring of the Shire

If Saruman is defeated at Isengard he may head North and scour the Shire who will fight against the Free Peoples until Hobbiton is liberated and the Hobbits freed.

Beacons of Gondor

3 Rohan armies spawn over the course of your Gondor campaign as long as you keep Rohan above 5 regions and in control of Edoras.

The opposite is also true: 3 Gondor armies can spawn for Rohan as long as you keep Gondor above 12 regions and in control of Minas Tirith.

Rohan Resurrection

If Rohan falls and the faction is destroyed, if you retake Edoras you can bring them back from the ashes anew and re-instate the faction.

Hotseat Capabilities

  • The campaign script has been re-written to enable hotseat play out of the box
  • Using the Engine Overhaul Project, players can play hotseat battles online and transfer the results back to the hotseat campaign

Engine Overhaul Project Improvements

  • Generals can now replenish their bodyguard units completely
  • The number of ancillaries that a character can hold is now increased to 16 from 8
  • ‘Legio’ prefix has been replaced with ‘Regiment’
  • Use Ctrl+Z to zoom out and get a more tactical view of the battle map
  • Use Ctrl+Q to enable the highlighting of all enemy and friendly units

Visuals

Campaign and Battle Map

  • Brand new custom campaign map textures and models
  • New battlefield, grass and skybox textures courtesy of Swagger
  • 53 new strategy map models with many thanks to Slave_knight_Olexandrius. Some factions will also automatically get different strategy map models based on the sub-race of the general (example HE Sindar-Noldor, Rhun Daritai-Balchoth-Arulad)
  • Many new AA conscription troop textures for Rohan and Harad courtesy of Wicked
  • Restore Mordor and heal the corruption allowing life to grow again and the map texture to change
  • A bunch of new portraits for lots of factions courtesy of Naras
  • New LOTR themed ‘Ringbearer’ font for many menu items, where appropriate
  • Remastered UI menus for different cultures courtesy of Pythax

Dunland

  • Complete roster overhaul by BillBaraka

Rhûn

  • Rhun Visual Overhaul with Arktos ‘Empire of Rhûn’ visuals

Ar-Adunaim

  • Entire roster overhaul courtesy of Castellan featuring new unit models, unit cards stats
  • Massively expanded the amount of units that get a unique look when recruited via Ar-Adunaim’s conscription mechanic including 11 new textures for Angmar, 5 for Harad and 6 for Rohan courtesty of Wick3d.

Dunedain

  • New visuals for early Rangers of the North roster
  • New strat models and battle models for Dunedain generals and captains, Aragorn and Halbarad by Krekbel

Anduin

  • Skinchangers now transform into bears mid charge courtesy of BillBaraka

Angmar

  • New Barrow Wights courtesy of R3EAPER

Rebels

  • New Ruffians model by Lerynian
  • New, more lore friendly model for Sellswords by Lerynian
  • New ‘Warg Pack’ unit comprised soley of wild wargs with no riders

Dol Guldur

  • Goblin headhunters and spider hunters have a new poison arrow that releases deadly poison instead of just reducing morale
  • New Spider models courtesty of BOTET

Audio

  • Completely overhauled, mastered and mixed soundtrack by El Monstero. This includes faction specific music for on the battle and strategy map as well as various other events in game such as initiating a battle, losing a general or ending the turn.