Siege Horde Maps news

Epic sieges are a central theme in Edain 4.5: New siege weapons, new defences, and an overhauled balance ensures more intense battles. Moreover, not only can you enjoy such clashes in regular skirmishes; no, we've also taken a closer look at fortress maps like Minas Tirith and created a new map type where siege fans can pull out all the stops:

These maps give you the opportunity to defend a fortress with a faction of your choice against overwhelming waves of enemies!
Not all fortresses have been integrated as horde maps yet, but there are now enough maps that we're ready to present them to you.

Horde maps offer a new challenge both for single players and for players who want to defend together with a friend in co-op.

So, how exactly does a map like this work? At the beginning, you choose your faction, just like with a normal map, and then you start the game within your castle. Horde maps give you some freedom, in that you can defend any fortress with any faction.
You begin with a lot of initial resources and have a few minutes to build up and prepare for the attacking hordes. Then, you'll have to do your best to keep the fortress standing and fend off invading troops!

If one considers Minas Tirith as an example, there are a couple of pivotal aspects that characterise siege scenarios in general.
Most of the time, you are attacked by Mordor troops, until a strong supporting army arrives to aid you. Afterwards, assailants from Harad take their turn. You'll also have to deal with special events like Grond's attack on the front gate.

In addition, you can no longer cheat the system as easily as in the first Battle for Middle-earth I: In BFME1, it was always well enough to get rid of all ladders or siege towers, and then everything would get relatively quiet, because the enemies could not get on walls anymore. This won't work here!
You've destroyed siege towers? The Dark Lord shall send new ones! You've slain the Orc hordes on your walls? Just a little break, nothing more!

Furthermore, from time to time you will have to counter especially strong waves heading towards the defenders: in Minas Tirith, for example, Orcs might try to take the southern wall with a concentrated attack from Cirith Ungol. These waves react to the course that the general battle takes. If Orcs, say, manage to bring down the central gate, they can press the assault there with lethal elite units. You will really feel like you have to withstand a truly relentless horde.

In order to survive, we have provided each faction with suitable reinforcements!
While Rohan comes by default to the aid of Gondor, as in the books, other factions get supporting armies that adapt to the context. The idea was always to send reinforcements following the same general principle.

Taking Minas Tirith as an example again, an allied faction of Gondor comes to the rescue. Should you play as Rohan, the reinforcements are Gondor troops in turn, while a Mordor defender (yes, even this crazy scenario is possible!) will receive support from Isengard.
With different horde maps, of course, there is a wide range of assault or reinforcement possibilities to be had.

Each map leads to a different finale. In Minas Tirith, the well-known Army of the Dead appears and allows you to finish all your foes off rather quickly if you held out that long. In Minas Morgul or Edoras, you can look forward to something else!

As mentioned in the aforesaid passages, you may play many of the maps with a friend: fortress build-plots, CP, initial resources, gate control and reinforcements are then split evenly between the two players, so that both contribute roughly for the same amount. However, you don't have a material advantage with two players, because you don't have more overall starting resources or more CP available.

It was also very important to us that the replay value of the very maps be as high as possible, and that it not become monotonous the second time around. That's why there is a massive variety of possible attack waves! There are 8,031,810,176 different combinations of assaulting hordes on Minas Tirith alone. Yes, that's over 8 billion possibilities!

If you consider that one can play with 9 different factions and defend alone or with a friend, the final result then amounts to 722,862,915,840. We're therefore talking about over 722 billion combinations. Or, in short: a whole universe of possibilities!

If defending the fortress seems quite easy to you, don't get cocky yet! In this case you can activate a special hard difficulty which increases the challenge enormously: Less money, fewer CP, slower accumulation of spell points and so forth.
Those looking for a strenuous challenge shall definitely get the opportunity to prove their mettle!

As you can see in the screenhots, you gain points during the siege: the longer and the better you carry on resistance, the more points you get. This has already led to some heated competition (and to some very interesting strategies) among team members and beta testers for the highscore!

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We're looking forward to making this new game mode available very soon. Let us know what you think in the comments!

Your Edain Team