War of the Ring - Redux news

In vanilla BFME2 and RotWK, War of the Ring often felt like a type of 'skirmish plus', where the overworld ('living world map') was little more than a means to accommodate slightly different skirmish matches in real time. We decided that in order to make WotR more interesting, it needed an extensive redesign: everything, from the mode's premise to the gameplay flow to the art has been completely reworked. Below, we discuss the major points that players might want to be aware of before diving in.

Early on we realized that in order to do our new factions and massive list of maps justice (currently, 8.0 contains over 300 maps!), we needed to expand the overworld. Vanilla RotWK had 43 territories, divided over 7 regions. Our current WotR was already expanded a few years ago: 111 territories over 11 regions. For this, we wanted to up that number further: we landed at 173 territories over 13 regions, divided into 43 subregions. Notably, we've expanded east, north and south, adding many Forodwaith, Rhûn, and Haradwaith territories. To facilitate this expansion, we've created a completely new map:

In addition, we've reworked all of the gameplay indicators to resemble boardgame pieces. New army indicators, structure pieces, and landmarks populate the new WotR map.

A major issue we identified in the vanilla WotR mode was the excessive focus on realtime battles, and how easy it was to cheese the game by stacking units recruited in realtime matches that would then transfer to the overworld, where in turn the player was able to recruit an infinite number of heroic units and basically sweep the map with little effort, removing any importance of strategic overworld play. In order to address this, we set out to place much more focus on the overworld.

We've separated WotR factions from their skirmish counterparts, and greatly limited the amount of things they can do during realtime battles by only allowing the construction of basic barracks, stables, and siege structures, which in turn can only recruit basic units that will not transfer onto the overworld after a battle. This means that most of the player's power during a realtime battle will come from units that are brought in from the overworld, placing far greater emphasis on smart overworld positioning, recruitment, and economy management. In addition, we have placed auxiliary camps (formerly known as inns) on every map, allowing players to recruit special units (sometimes several!) that, while they won't transfer to the overworld after a battle, add an additional objective to fight over in order to achieve a realtime victory. Overall, realtime skirmishes now move much faster than they did before, taking up much less time and being much less impactful on the overworld: rather, it is now the player's overworld strategy that often determines a realtime battle outcome - as it should be.

We're generalized WotR faction spellbooks: every faction has a very similar spellbook, divided between Good and Evil. Spellbooks are now the only way through which a faction can access their most elite and heroic units, which are permanent summons for the realtime battle but do not transfer to the overworld.

On the overworld, a player has access to a much larger roster of recruitable units, including various higher tier units (that will now take longer to recruit). Note that we have completely rebalanced WotR's autoresolve stats - a massive undertaking that had previously gone largely untouched, which means that autoresolving battles will yield more realistic results and is a more reliable way of progressing across the map.

In order to further emphasize the importance of the overworld and link it up with realtime matches, we've added so-called Battle Bonuses. Battle Bonuses are buffs that are granted by structure tokens placed on overworld regions to structures built in realtime matches. They are as following:

Overworld Fortress: +100% armour to realtime citadels
Overworld Basic Barracks: +200 command points in realtime
Overworld Elite Barracks: +20% unit production speed in realtime
Overworld Farm: +20% resource production speed in RTS

Being mindful of Battle Bonuses during play will allow you to outmanoeuvre your enemy by improving claimed regions, giving you advantages in realtime that can make up for an otherwise unfavourable autoresolve.

Additionally, there are Region and Subregion Bonuses that are applied in all realtime matches when a region or subregion is under the player's control; bonuses include:
- Additional power points
- Additional unit armour (+5 to 10%)
- Additional unit damage (+5 to 10%)
- Additional unit experience
- Additional starting resources
- Unit cost discounts, e.g. 50% siege unit cost discount

Taking these Region Bonuses into account when planning the direction of your overworld expansion will greatly increase your success on the battlefield. Prioritizing is key!

In addition to the standard Open Play option, we are also including various scenarios in which the massive overworld is reduced to a smaller number of territories concerning specific factions or events. One such scenario is the Northern Conquest scenario, in which you battle it out in the northern regions of Middle-earth during the War of the Ring. These scenarios will feature adjusted factions, such as Lothlórien starting out with several Woodland Realm armies, and Mordor having access to several Easterling commanders.

Additionally, we have converted both BFME2 campaigns to our new overworld!