Rhovanion and Lothlorien news - Return of Shadow mod for Battle for Middle-earth

Southron Edition Part 2 is out now is the time to figure out some future plans.
I was planning on making the next release the Black Edition for some time next year but I may have fixed a very hard to find bug so in near future I'll be releasing another patch to address it.
This is the mystery Lorien crash bug, a bug that has been really difficult to track down that causes a game crash.
I believe I've found the cause and I'm currently testing out Lothlorien extensively to confirm it.
When I'm ready I'll be releasing a new patch to serve as a sort of hot fix.

Since I was already at work on some changes for Black Edition some of these changes are being moved up

One change is the removal of all passive spells from the mod replacing them with active spells like buffs and summons.
This has been a general trend for the mod and I'm finally putting it all into place.
The main passive spells right now are the "King unlock" spells which are the spells every faction has that unlocks their leader hero.
From this patch forward these heroes (Like Theoden, Aragorn etc) will be unlocked with the Great Keep Upgrade.

The unlock spells for Fiefdoms, Erebor and Gondor are being replaced with Fortify a new spell that will temporarily buff all structure armour for a short time.
For Lothlorien and Imladris they'll gain Hallowed Ground a spell that was an ability for Galadriel moved to the Spell book that will provide an armour, fear resist boost to units in its zone.

Another part of this patch will be the continuing faction passes, I've been gradually going over each faction and cleaning things up a bit streamlining them, rebalancing, fixing bugs and generally improving them.
Lothlorien is the next up with many of the units being adjusted and rebalanced.
Overall Lorien is being made a bit cheaper across the board.

• The Lorien Cloaks upgrade is now a passive style stealth instead of a button based one.
• Orophin and Rumil have been made cheaper, their stealth has been changed to a passive style and they deal bonus damage to structures.
• Costs and damage have been changed for the Caras Galadhon Watchmen and Guardians.
• The Lothlorien Thamas has been removed and its units moved to the Caras Galadhon Barracks.

I'm hoping to wrap up work on Return of Shadow in the near future and given time constraints I've made some decisions lately.
I won't be able to finish both the Dale and Mirkwood factions so I'm taking what I've got for both and merging them into the Rhovanion faction.

The Rhovanion faction essentially consists of units from Northern Mirkwood (Elves), Middle Mirkwood (Beornings), Men of Dale and the men of Lake Town.
The King of the faction will be Elvenking Thranduil and will also feature Legolas, King Brand, Price Bard, Grimbeorn and Radagast the Brown.

Rhovanion will be a faction with some strong archers and high damage defences.
I'll be sharing more on Rhovanion in the future so keep an eye out.

Rhovanion is currently planned for release with the Black Edition along side Strongholds and Rhun.

Black Edition is planned for release in the first quarter of 2022.

It's a major release and besides the addition of the Rhun and Strongholds faction a big focus is being made on balance and polish so I'm sending out the call to all that I'm looking for Beta testers to join the discord community to make Black Edition the best it can be.
So join the Discord to get early access to Rhun, Strongholds and soon Rhovanion and help shape the future of Return of Shadow.