Coming Soon
New Factions
16 Factions are being made for Return of Shadow as of the current version 11 have been released.
Each faction is unique and designed to make best use of the faction's culture while offering unique game play mechanics and ideas.
Over 100 new maps are in Return of Shadow covering just about every corner of Middle-Earth.
From the arid lands of Rhun to the snow capped peaks of Caradhras of the Misty Mountains.
Battles will be bigger than ever before with expanded Battalion sizes, higher starting Command Point Limit and the new Expanding CPL system.
New heroes join the fray for every faction bringing new strategic options to table with all kinds of unique abilities.
Outposts have been improved upon with Outposts now with 3 Defence plots and counting toward the Expanding CPL system and for most factions these are the sole source of Siege Weapons making controlling Outposts vital in a siege battle.
The new Watchtower plots allow you to build a Watchtower that will provide vision over an area and defend key points as well as providing a Territory bonus to External economy buildings in the area.
You'll have access to more spells than ever with the Spell Store expanding from 8 to 12 spells and with rebalanced spell costs and new types of spells.
Because of the huge amount of changes in the mod the game is completely rebalanced.
With damage, costs and command points adjusted all over.
Southron Edition 1.0
Southron Edition 1.5
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Articles
State of the Mod and Southron Edition 1.5
Southron Edition 1.5
The time for Southron Edition is drawing to a close with Southron Edition 1.5 coming out soon.
This will be the final version of the Southron Edition.
Since Southron Edition 1.0's release there's been a lot of changes to the mod with a major overhaul for the Dunland faction and Harad faction.
Updates to Lothlorien and smaller updates to the other factions as well as some changes to game mechanics.
Southron Edition 1.5 closes up this leg of the journey with some important quality of life improvements.
One change is very obvious and long overdue and that's the starting Camera zoom taking the camera from 450 to 650 to get a wider and clearer view of the battle field.
Which you'll be able to see below.
A second is some balance changes with the overall resource production reduced and building armour being tweaked again.
I've reduced the resource production rate to better pace the game and to better factor in the higher building levels (Vanilla has 3, ROS has 5).
Building armour values have been a subject of much debate with ROS for a long time and with 1.4 I experimented with a weaker overall armour for structures which does speed the pacing of the game a bit.
Although I felt it was a bit too much of an overcorrection so I've split the difference, buildings overall are not as tough as earlier builds but a bit tougher than 1.4.
This is a tough thing to get right and everyone has their own feel for it and I hope I've found the right middle ground.
I've also been working on some changes to Siege and defensive buildings with the cost of Siege Workshops and similar buildings being reduced.
Free Peoples
The Free Peoples were a bonus faction I added ages ago as an easter egg for players.
It was a faction I threw together in 2 weeks and was added for fun.
The faction remains unique but I wanted to clean it up a bit and put more thought into it.
Some units and buildings have been moved around, there's a new unit the Buckland Watch a new Hobbit axemen unit.
These guys are charged with keeping an eye on the Old Forest and keeping it in check and making sure stray Hobbits don't get lost.
Free Peoples now properly represents the Free Peoples with the new addition of Mithlond and Ered Luin units.
The Dwarves and Elves of the Blue Mountain region are now part of the Free Peoples.
The Mithlond Elves will be coming over from the Imladris faction with that faction losing its Specialisation.
Mithlond will give the Free Peoples some quality anti-cavalry options and their powerful Mithlond Swan Riders.
Free Peoples will get new spells with Tom Bombadil joining the faction once more as a summon.
Black Edition
Following the release of Southron Edition 1.5 I'll be not releasing anything for a while so I can work on the Black Edition.
The first Edition that will add 3 factions in 1 patch Rhun, Strongholds and Rhovanion.
The name Black Edition is a reference to Khamul the Black Easterling who will be making his debut with this Edition.
3 new factions is not all that's coming with the Black Edition there'll be the return of the Stewards.
I'll be reworking the systems for Stewards, Legacy Heroes, Horn of War and Renown.
These systems will all be connected and by increasing your Renown level you'll be able to get access to more powerful versions of the Horn of War and Legacy Hero.
I'll cover this more in a future post.
Work will also continue on the other factions as I continue to do more faction updates with the Fiefdoms being first up.
I look forward to sharing updates on the Black Edition in the future.
Camera Zoom Change
Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow, Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow.
The Dwarves of the Blue Mountains join the Free Peoples.
Free Peoples fight off the forces of Mordor
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Rhovanion and Lothlorien
News 4 commentsA new patch is coming soon and some big changes going forward. Coming Soon the Rhovanion faction.
Southron Edition Part 2
News 2 commentsSouthron Edition Part 2 is out. Play the newly improved Harad and Dunland faction as the mod evolves and improves.
Southron Edition 2.0
NewsReturn of Shadow Southron Edition 2.0 A new patch is in the works updating Southron Edition with some big changes for Harad and Dunland.
Preparing for Southron Edition
News 2 commentsSouthron Edition comes in 2 days. Work on the Black Edition has begun.
Files
Southron Edition 1.5
Patch 23 commentsNew release for Return of Shadow. Southron Edition 1.5 Requires Southron Edition 1.0 (this version will override versions 1.1 to 1.4) Before installing...
Return of Shadow: Southron Edition 1.0
Full Version 34 commentsThe newest Edition for Return of Shadow has been released. This version adds the new Harad faction. Version number SE 1.0
(Obsolete) Return of Shadow: Southron Edition 1.4
Patch 1 commentSouthron Edition 1.5 is now out, ignore me and go download that one.
(Obsolete) Return of Shadow: Southron Edition Patch 1.3
Patch 3 commentsSkip me, just go with Southron Edition 1.4 If you already installed me, just update with 1.4
(Obsolete) Return of Shadow: Southron Edition 1.2
PatchThis version is now obsolete replaced by version SE 1.3
(Obsolete) Return of Shadow: Southron Edition 1.1
PatchThis version is now obsolete, current version is 1.3
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I don't know if you already know, but the AI of the Free Peoples Faction does nothing, they only build the buildings in the base but they don't go out to conquer points or create units. I hope they can fix it.
I'm planning a new bug fix patch for release very soon and I'm looking for bugs to fix and to make some balance changes.
Get in here.
Discordapp.com
The Gandalf campaign bug and the Amon Hen crash are already being done, so anything else.
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May be late to the party. But game bugs out on good campaign. When the fellowship gets to lorien, even if I have finished all objectives it won't end. Don't know what to do from here?
the same happened to me too but i got past it i'm not sure how. what i did was restart the mission and completed the objectives in the order they were, have the fellowship near the big tree house quikly
A brief update from me, I'm planning a mini patch sometime soon to fix the good campaign crash and a couple other minor issues.
So stay tuned for an update in a week or 2.
For more information and to help test things join the discord I'm looking for people to test out these fixes.
Does this mod work with T3A online?
Fantastic mod -really hope there's more to come!
Just one major issue (ignoring the minor ones) that I've found; when playing the Good Campaign I always crash on the Amon Hen battle with the following report:
"Unknown field 'Over' in block 'Object'.
Error parsing field 'Over' in block 'Object' in file 'maps\MAP GOOD Amon Hen\map.ini', line 47.
Error parsing field 'er' in block 'Object' in file 'maps\MAP GOOD Amon Hen\map.ini', line 47.
Error parsing field 'er' in block 'Object' in file 'maps\MAP GOOD Amon Hen\map.ini', line 47.
Error parsing INI block 'Over' in file 'maps\MAP GOOD Amon Hen\map.ini'.
7 addresses:
(unknown)(0): game.dat+8961088 Debug::PostStaticInit+3296
(unknown)(0): game.dat+441523
StringBase<char>::startsWith+132627
(unknown)(0): game.dat+521238
StringBase<char>::startsWith+212342
(unknown)(0): game.dat+10449993 Xfer::operator==+133593
(unknown)(0): KERNEL32.DLL+129577 BaseThreadInitThunk+25
(unknown)(0): ntdll.dll+424526
RtlGetAppContainerNamedObjectPath+286
(unknown)(0): ntdll.dll+424526
RtlGetAppContainerNamedObjectPath+238
Because of the severity of this error the game will now exit"
If anyone can assist it would be much appreciated! Already completely Evil campaign with this mod, would be a shame if I couldn't complete Good too :D
Just got the same error. Will attempt to fix it myself, if it works I'll let you know how I did it.
*Edit: You need to access the Amon Hen.ini in the _zrosfile001.big file and remove the word "Over"
Thanks for the help but unless I'm opening it in the wrong thing or something (notepad) when I search "Amon Hen" none of them have an "over" to remove. The only ".ini" I can find is this:
°maps\map evil amon hen\map.ini Xu¬ ÿ#maps\map evil edoras
...but then it carries on with other scenarios
Open with the FinalBIG program and find a bright company