Age of the Ring Version 4.0: The Horse Lords file

1. Make sure your 2.02 version is set to v8

2. Download the new version
3. Extract all the contents of the .ZIP file
4. Run the installer, DO NOT mess with the .bin files
5. Play AotR 4.0

NOTE: The installer may have trouble detecting you are on 2.02 v8 if you have multiple RotWK installation folders. We *do not* recommend having multiple. If you do, you may try installing 2.02 v8 for each of them.

The Age of the Ring team is proud to present our third official release: Age of the Ring 4.0 - The Horse Lords. This release features the much anticipated factions of Rivendell and Rohan, as well as 8 new campaign missions and a fully functional and improved War of the Ring mode!

To play, please download and run the file below:
New installer link
Note that AotR is based on the 2.02 community patch. Download the latest version HERE.

For a full list of additions and balance changes, please refer to the README included in the mod's installation.

• Play online
  AotR is designed to play online using T3A:Online. To play AotR online, please refer to the T3A:Online website and follow the instructions.
• Join our community
  Want to make suggestions or talk to other AotR fans? Join our community forums here. We're also on Discord.
• What is next?
  The Dungeons of Dol Guldur...
• When is next?
  We don't provide release dates!
• Can I support you?
  Yes! We have a Patreon page.

Content

General
- Two new factions: Rivendell and Rohan
- Misty Mountains faction has received significant updates
- Gondor faction has received significant updates
- A new 9-mission campaign: The Fellowship of the Ring, being the first part in our The Lord of the Rings campaign (obs.: the AotR team recommends playing the campaign on High or Ultra High settings to prevent texture mapping bugs)
- War of the Ring has been fixed and overhauled and can now be played
- Command point system has been restored to the original system: you will once again need to build resource structures to increase your command limit
- Lots of new maps, including our first Besiege map - Besiege: Erebor, in which you can attempt to take Erebor from the AI
- New capturable banners for all factions
- Various visual and gameplay improvements, such as new command point icons, commandset indication for buildings limited to one and unlockable heroes visible in the commandset from the start

Misty Mountains

- New structure: Mountain-orc Lodge, recruits Mountain-orc Slashers, Scouts, and Brutes, Gundabad Berserkers and Horrors of Gram
- New structure: Troll Lair, recruits Cave-trolls, Snow-trolls, Stone-trolls and Giant Bats
- New art for various units, hero powers and structures
- Reworked spellbook, including new Ruins of Angmar power, which allows you to recruit White Wolves and Dead of Arnor and reworked the Scavenger power to be a map-wide temporary power.
- Great Goblin powers reworked
- Muzgash powers reworked
- A new passive ability for the Giant Bats
- Allegiance system implemented - upgrade the Fortress to unlock units from certain regions of the Misty Mountains

Gondor

- New recruitable heroes: Forlong the Fat and Denethor, son of Ecthelion
- Aragorn is no longer a recruitable hero, instead, he is summoned from a new 25pp spellbook power
- New recruitable unit: Lossarnach Axemen
- New art for various units, heroes, spells and abilities
- The Community Contest winners’ fiefdom banners are in!
- Pippin now uses unarmored model on early levels
- Boromir’s powers reworked
- Reworked spellbook, including new Númenorean Engineering, Garden of Ithilien, Sworn Allegiance, Western Winds, and Return of the King powers
- A new purchasable upgrade for the Ithilien Rangers: Bodkin Arrows, which cause an armor reduction on enemies when hit
- Anorien archers are now able to enter skirmish formation
- Lots of new music tracks
- The Stoneworker now produces resources

Mordor

- New unit: Great Beast of Gorgoroth, recruited from the Siege Works
- Mûmak Pen now gated behind He Is Gathering All Evil To Him
- New art for various unit abilities
- A global chant for Grond’s recruitment. Now you’ll know he’s coming!

Isengard

- New art for Uruk-hai units and heroes
- New final fortress power added - the Wisdom of Curunir, a Focus System that allows you to purchase permanent boosts for certain Isengard units (only 1 boost can be active at once)
- New Berserker upgrades available
- New abilities for Dunlending Archers and Dunlending Outriders

Lothlórien

- New unit: Sentinels of the Silver Tree
- Mallorn Tree can now be manually upgraded with new abilities
- A rework of Celeborn’s invulnerability power, it now debuffs enemies and absorbs damage
- Lots of new music tracks
- New voice set for Treebeard

Erebor

- Erebor Mineshafts now have a Collapse Tunnel power, temporarily stunning nearby enemies at the cost of resource production
- Buying the Arkenstone upgrade unlocks a temporary summon of two battalions of Iron Hills Ram Riders
- Lots of new music tracks

Maps

New Maps
Besiege: Kingdom of Erebor
Bree
Cape of Forlond
Caras Galadhon
Carnen
Druadan Forest
Enchanted Stream by Jenneric
Gorgoroth
Jungles of Harad
Lamedon
Lorien Gardens
Lossarnach
Tournament Hills of Evendim

Bug fixes

General

- Hundreds of bug fixes
- Dozens of string fixes
- Fixed a bug that caused certain upgrades to cause a loss of command points
- Fixed the geometry ghost bug from more buildings
- Now secondary resource buildings also show radius when selected
- Buildings that are limited to one (such as Gondor’s Marketplace) are now greyed out from the builder’s commandset once built
- Heroes that need an upgrade to be recruited (such as Dáin Ironfoot) now appear in the commandset, but greyed out until you buy the upgrade
- Now you can’t have spare power points after you bought all spellbook powers
- Several more abilities can now be autocast
- Dozens of repeated, missing or conflicting hotkeys fixed
- Dozens of map fixes, including missing camera presets, disappearing trees, uneven terrain, not enough room to build, impassable bridges, not enough room around buildplots, Gollum spawnpoints on islands, creeps on civilian team, missing Gondor AI and more.

Lothlórien

- Fixed Silvan Allies using CP for the duration of their summon

Gondor

- Various fixes

Erebor

- Laketowners no longer create a unit when switching formations

Mordor

- Various fixes
- Nazgul group leadership now properly works

Misty Mountains

- The Great Goblin now finally has a death animation
- Various fixes

Isengard

- Various fixes

Balance changes

General

- Resource structures now grant 25 CP upon leveling up.
- Command Points system is back to vanilla BFME2 style. The former system style caused the AI to not work correctly and overpowered certain factions.
- Bounty values adjusted for all factions.

Lothlórien

- Increased Ent HP and made it so that they don’t instantly catch fire.
- Increased Ent damage vs siege.
- Decreased Ent recruitment time.
-Amroth’s Knights health reduced from 700 to 650
- Ent melee damage to upgraded fortresses increased.
-Increased Marchardens’ range a bit
- Modified Treebeard’s leadership to allow more melee-oriented engagements.
- Reduced Silvan Rage's damage bonus to 50% from 100%.
- Riders of Nimrodel deal 25% less damage to infantry and pikemen.
- Lorien Stalker's Shadow strike damage bonus reduced to 125% from 150%.
- Increased Idrial's health from 1800 to 2000.
- Improved Galadriel’s base damage vs structures

Gondor

- Anorien Spearmen HP increased by 25.
- New powers for Imrahil (no longer has invulnerability).
- Dol Amroth MAA price increased to 500 from 400.
- Reduced Gondor stables cost from 600 to 500.
- Gandalf's 'Prepare for Battle' can now give +25% speed and +100% knockback resistance to units for 15 seconds.
- Added armor buff passive for Boromir (lvl 7 - when 25% health).
- The Stoneworker now produces resources, hopefully making it viable in competitive games.
- Reduced Stoneworker's cost from 2000 to 1200.

Mordor

- Increased Mordor Archer cost to 225 from 150.
- Drummer Troll now gains experience faster.
- Mordor Summoned Wights damage reduced to 25 from 40.
- Mordor Summoned Wights damage type changed to Slash from Magic.
- Mumakil Pen now locked until He Gathers All Evil to Him is used.
- Reduced Eye of Sauron's duration from 60 seconds to 45 seconds.
- Reduced Grond's resistance to pierce (slightly).

Misty Mountains

- Reduced Muzgash's health from 2500 to 2300.
- Increased Muzgash price from 1200 to 1300.
- Increased Urshak's health from 2200 to 2500.
- Nerfed summoned Giants’ rock throw damage significantly.
- Increased Great Goblin's cost from 2000 to 3000 (due to new Swarm ability).
- Added debuff to flying units to Giant Bats.
- Increased health gained from Giant Bats’ Vampirism.
- Now easier for Giant Bats to level up.

Isengard

- Isengard's Devastation power no longer one-shots Ents (or damages them at all anymore).
- Increased Dunlending Archer health from 85 to 180
- Now Wrath of Caradhras is good vs units, and Fellstorm is good vs buildings
- Dunlending Outriders’ stats are now the same as Rohirrim’s
- Uruk Crossbowmen upgraded damage was nerfed

Erebor

- Mithril Arrow damage nerf to Dwarven Archers.
- Dwarven Wall Raven Banner no longer effects Dwarven Wall Catapults.
- Dwarven Wall Catapults are more expensive and take longer to replace.
- Reduced price of Wyrm slayers to 1400 from 2200.
- Increased Men of Dale Archer cost to 600 from 500.
- Decreased cost of Arkenstone to 800 from 2000.
- Increased Wyrm Slayer health to 1200 from 1000.
- Increased Wyrm Slayer resistance to regular unit attacks.
- Decreased price of Ram Riders to 600.
- Decreased price of Ered Luin Traders to 500.
- Increased Ered Luin Traders armor a little bit.
- Röac is no longer selected by “select all” command.
- Dain now cost 1800 from 2500 and requires less experience to level up.
- Added IH Riders summon ability for Erebor's fortress, unlocked by Arkenstone.
- Men of Dale Swordsmen now recruited at rank 1 Dale Barracks.
- Increased Dain's 'Baruk Khazâd' ShockWaveRadius from 25 to 50.
- Increased Vault Warden's health from 450 to 600.
- Increased Vault Warden damage from 150 to 175.
- Increased Erebor Archers’ cost from 250 to 300.
- Increased Dwalin’s Smash reload time from 180 to 240 seconds
- Increased Dwalin’s Baruk Khazad and Juggernaut reload time from 120 to 180 seconds
- Dwalin is now slower to level up.

Known issues

- Some new units don't have new voice lines recorded
- Targul Quarry's bridge can't be walked under
- Echo on some maps
- Dwarven CaH sapper auto-ability can be used on units, but it doesn't do damage to units since 2.02
- When dwarven combo hordes refill they don't refill to the actual number of types of units they're supposed to
- Great Goblin's Antiquarian occasionally spawns a dud
- When Freezing Rain and White Winter is used some FXs disappear
- When the AI uses Freezing Rain or White Winter the weather FX does not appear only the Darkness effect
- Cliff textures look wonky on certain maps when using medium and low settings
- When as an ally, Laketowners and Dwarves are sometimes able to be heard across the map
- Lothlórien AI doesn't upgrade mallorn trees
-AI's Elrond and Glorfindel can use lvl 10 powers when still on level 5

If you find bugs, please report them in the AotR Bug Reports forum.

Credits

Mod Team
RiderOfRohan – Lead coder, visual artist
DúnedainRanger76 – Lead mapper, coder, sound artist, visual artist
Mathijs – Lead visual artist, writer, sound artist
MattTheLegoman – Mapper, visual artist
Fudge – Mapper, scripter
MaxHardy – Coder
njm1983 – Mapper
Fjodor – Mapper
Biddy – WOTR Coder
Cammyfries – Coder
Dover – Coder
Ganon – Coder
OdoProudfoot – Lead tester and balance coder
FelipeNN – Concept Artist

Testers
Saruman
Hoar
Samwisejenkins
Andy-San
WCP
SilverElf
CaptainCorrigan
Julio229
OakenShield224
Wizardking

Voice Actor Credits
Iku Haiku – Idrial
Connor Moakes – Clansmen of Lamedon
Jonathan Bullock – Fili, Prince Imrahil, Golfimbul, Rumil, Orophin, Celeborn, Dúnedain Rangers
Josh Williams – Lothlórien Announcer
Joakim Wiklund – Wulfgar, Dunlendings
Callum Lindsay – Khamûl the Easterling
Ki McKenzie (Kimckenzie.com) – Erebor Archers, Sentinels of Cerin Amroth, Riders of Pinnath Gelin, Westfolders, Mountain-orcs, Gildor Inglorion
Phil Dragash – Knights of Amroth, Halbarad, Grey Company
Zack Young – Beregond, Kili, Vault Wardens, Wyrm Slayers, Laketowners, Bardings, Ered Luin Traders, Halifirien Wardens, Erkenbrand, Took Archers, Yeoman Spears, Rohirric Battering Ram, Rohirric Mangonel
Sam Jenkins – Bard the Bowman, Rivendell Revelers, Bree-land Townsguard, Goblin-towners, Farmer Maggot, Dead of Arnor
Sean ‘Mad Dog' McGregor – Dáin Ironfoot, Iron Hills Dwarves
Kaze_VA – Elfhelm, Helmingas Wardens
Kieran Flitton – Elladan and Elrohir, Rivendell Elves, Rivendell Announcer
Jimmy Sherwood – Fatty Bolger
Leo Wiggins – Théodred
Ryan Antoine – Knights of Dol Amroth
Patrick Seymour – Axemen of Lossarnach
Joel Nisbet – Variags of Khand
Robert Benjamin – Rohan Kingsguard
Various Goats – Erebor Rams

Special Thanks
ICT
FG15
Valheru
Maximan
MorguLord
Gnanw for his main menu APTs

Lord of the Rings Online for harp tracks
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for a couple of Sean Bean voice lines

Extra special thanks to Nertea for allowing us to use his The Dwarf Holds assets and Ruudy for letting us use his Tactics assets, and to Robnkarla for his camera scripts and skyboxes used in his mod RJ-RotWK. Thanks to the 2.02 team for their excellent community patch, as well as to The3rdAge.net, our BFME modding home under the Revora Creative Network. And many thanks to our wonderful patrons!

Thanks and have fun,
The Age of the Ring Team