The Great Trench War mod for Battle for Middle-earth II

Mod Features:

Resource Management:

The resource management in The Great Trench War will be considerably different from the vanilla BFMEII. With the objective of making the process as realistic as possible without disturbing the smooth play of BFME, mines and tree harvesting will be replaced with railroads whereby the player captures railway stations. Trains are then dispatched at regular intervals to supply the goods required for construction and unit training.

As a secondary resource, players must capture flags in key strategic locations; this will encourage their commanders to provide more resources.

Gameplay:

The gameplay in The Great Trench War will be vastly different from BFMEII in a variety of ways. Trench warfare will be simulated, and there is a strong emphasis on realism. Conversely, however, the speed and fun factor of BFMEII will be maintained where possible.

One important difference encountered in the mod is the removal of rushing tactics. Early defences are cheap and relatively quick to build ( if not pre-built ), and soldiers cause minimal damage to buildings. This prevents a player being eliminated from the game within a matter of minutes, and also allows the creation of an impasse that the player must break. However, with all trenches being crossable by units, they are not in themselves a way of preventing a determined enemy. They can use technology that comes available later in the game, including tanks and planes, to enable their decisive breakthrough. With games lasting longer, the player is given more time to think of more cunning strategies to smash an opponent.

Weapons are also more realistic; infantry are able to kill infantry in one or two shots, yet do little damage to tanks. Unit accuracy has been tweaked and tailored for all units, meaning that, as in real warfare, there is a certain element of luck in each battle.

Game Types:

The Great Trench War will feature some new game types for Skirmish / multiplayer, such as “endurance”. In this mode, one or two players must defend their bases from destruction from several players for a certain time on specified maps, similar to King of the Hill.

Standard skirmish is available, where certain maps are designed for teamplay with teams of varying sizes. Should a human opponent be unavailable, the AI will be designed with the very different gameplay of The Great Trench War in mind.

Eventually, we also intend to release a handful single player campaigns over various time periods and in various theatres of war.