Tolkien-based Warcraft III games
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As one of Blizzard Entertainment's most successful real-time strategy games, Warcraft III enabled the development of many popular custom games based on J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. Starting as a relatively small group of map makers on Reign of Chaos, the community later expanded into the The Frozen Throne expansion pack and has now developed many different games. Thanks to the Warcraft III World Editor, many custom unit skins and effects have allowed the makers to recreate the ambience of the world of Arda. It is today considered that thousands of players regularly play these games. Although they are commonly referred to as Lord of the Rings games after the book upon which many of them are based, they may also derive from The Silmarillion and other works by Tolkien.
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[edit] The Ring Wars
One of the older and most popular Tolkien games on Battle.net, The Ring Wars or RWs simulates Middle-earth as it is described in The Lord of the Rings, at the end of the Third Age. The players are equally divided according to the forces of good and evil (6 vs. 6 players), with Gondor, Rohan, the Elves, the Fellowship of the Ring, the Shire, and the Dwarves in the first team, whereas Mordor, Isengard, Minas Morgul, Harad, the Easterlings, and Moria form the latter. These teams must fight each other and win the War of the Ring. The game heavily relies on teamwork as well as proper coordination and combination of allied forces in order to outnumber opponent forces and destroy their bases and spawns. Considering that there is also a large number of heroes involved, expert players tend to develop micromanagement skills in order to kill enemy units more efficiently. Units spawn automatically at the player's bases, and the players need to build castles at the spawns in order to increase the number of units spawned.
[edit] Strategies and tactics
The strategies employed by each team may greatly vary. Tactics and strategies commonly known as towering (Building a large number of towers in one spot to defend it more easily, often used by Gondor), waving (repeated use of multiple-damage spells) and rushing (early coordinated team attack on an enemy base, often used on Dale) or the Southern region of Gondor, are often used by most players.
The Ring-bearer (Hero who carries the One Ring, initially Frodo) has a specially important role: if the Ring falls into the hands of Mordor or Isengard, a powerful Dark Lord returns, thus securing a win for evil. However, if the Ring-bearer manages to take the Ring to Mount Doom where it can be destroyed (a strategy known as Ring Drop), many evil players would face instant defeat. The Ring therefore occupies a central role in the game.
[edit] Versions and controversies
Almost no one can remember who made the original RWs on Reign of Chaos, and it is often disputed. RoC RW was developed by Darkryu until version 9.5, which had considerable issues, but basically laid the framework for all future Ring Wars maps. 9.8 beta, edited by ZugZugGeneral, became the most popular and still played Reign of Chaos version. Clan AoME later attempted but for the most part failed to bring about new maps, with their unsuccessful versions 10.0 and 10.1. However an attempt to resurrect RW on RoC will soon be tested by Gil-Galad & SuXoR with Ring Wars: Reloaded.
On The Frozen Throne, the map has undergone changes from several map makers, such as the famous MMG_God, FatChicksUnited, Vilad, TNL_Eldarion and Zanda.
The newest version is Ring Wars SV [1]. Although many say the 'best' versions were 17d or 18b (made by FatChicksUnited and MMG_God respectively), their popularity had more to do with the youth and size of the community that was caused by the release of the films.
[edit] War of the Jewels
A map which debuted in the summer of 2003, created by ForsakenOne and GezGas, the War of the Jewels or WotJ relates to Tolkien's Quenta Silmarillion and the war fought to recover the Silmarils or Silmarilli, the three great gems that were forged by Fëanor and stolen by the Dark Lord Morgoth. The war takes place in the First Age, on the westernmost part of Middle-earth otherwise known as Beleriand. Unlike Ring Wars, it has a total of four teams with disproportional numbers of players:
- The Noldor including Hithlum (Red), Gondolin (Blue) and Nargothrond (Teal)
- The alliance of the Sons of Fëanor (Purple) and the Dwarves (Yellow)
- The Sindar including Doriath (Orange), Ossiriand (Green) and Falas (Pink)
- The Forces of Evil including the Easterlings (Light Blue), Tol-in-Gaurhoth (Dark Green) and Angband (Brown)
Each team must fight for its survival and the eventual dominion of its people. The game relies on micromanagement but depends much more on regular units than heroes. Like most major LotR games, it uses the same spawning system as Ring Wars but has a population limit of 150 units. The makers have also developed a diplomacy mode which allows players to vote and change teams during the game in order to avoid unbalanced teams. Like RingWars, players must build castles to upgrade their spawns so that they aren't heavily outdone by the more experienced players.
A common strategy, which has been criticized by many LotR players, is turtling. The strategy relies on staying inside one's base and building a lot of towers to defend choke points, farms (with healing power) to defend towers and walls to protect archers. As a result, a defending player can hold off an attacking army at a very successful rate. The high number of archers and towers also allow the player to focus fire the most threatening units, such as heroes. Noldoli cities such as Gondolin or Nargothrond are especially easy to defend since they are surrounded by high mountain walls and only offer two narrow entrances. However, most players tend to turtle in their bases when their team is losing and their forces are inferior to those of the enemy.
The current version, 4E, was made by LordBevan without any official permission from the original map makers [2]. However, GezGas has been attempting to update a previous yet very popular version of WotJ, 3D [3]. This project was partly started in hopes of honoring the death of the original lead map maker, ForsakenOne, who died while working on the next generation of WotJ, War of the Simaril [4].
Additionally, a WotJ League [5] was recently established on US East in order to encourage further improvements in WotJ gameplay.
The current incarnation of War of the Jewels has been taken over by Hannibal-Barca with further input by LordBevan and other members of the LotR Community. With increased effort in terrain, units, and hero skills the map has still managed to maintain a consistent fan-base. The map is still being updated and still maintains a strong sense of gameplay.
War of the Jewels on RoC was created by SuXoR in memory of the ForsakenOne, the map also contains the best terraining ever seen on WC3: RoC, the map contains custom skins, no cliffs, and is well balanced for a rather early map. This map is one of the best LotR games created for WC3: RoC, and will continue to evolve over the next versions.
[edit] LotR: The Second Age
The Second Age or SA is a relatively new map that was released during fall in 2005 by MMG_God. The map is that of Middle-earth during the Second Age and focuses upon the Last Alliance of Gil-galad and Elendil against Sauron. One could consider this map to be Ring Wars set at an earlier time, as the One Ring also occupies an important role in this game. However, the gaming concept is very different, and only a few characters of Ring Wars (mostly immortal elves such as Galadriel, Elrond and Círdan) can be found in this map. Again, the players are equally divided among good and evil (6 vs. 6 players), according to the following nations:
- Gondor (Red), Lesser Gondor (Blue), Western Elves (Teal), Arnor (Yellow), Dwarven Realms (Orange), Eastern Elves (Green)
- Nazgûl Realms (Purple), Goblins (Pink), Easterlings (Gray), Harad (Light Blue), Angmar (Dark Green), Mordor (Brown)
The map is incredibly detailed, and has generally been praised for having the best terrain of all LotR games. Another map maker Holy_Sausage has created other variants of the second age map for Reign of Chaos, although Holy_Sausage's variant was created before MMG_God's. Both versions were created independently from one another.
[edit] Common strategies for evil
- Lorien Rush This typically involves Angmar (Dark Green), Goblins (Pink), and Dol Guldur (Purple). Occasionally Easterlings (Gray) and Mordor (Brown) are included in the rush of the relatively weak Lorien base. Typically Mordor and Dol Guldur will assault the southern passage while Angmar and the Goblins will attack from the north, usually trapping and easily destroying the spawn early on.
- Lindon Rush In the beginning of the game, Lindon (Teal) is typically easy to attack and destroy, Angmar (Dark Green) moves north of Minas Arnor (Yellow) and down the side to hit Lindon and bypass Arnor's forces. The second possible way to hit Lindon early on is buy ships at the northern seapass that will enable Angmar to unload his forces in a little north of Lindon.
- Orthanc Rush This is a rush that usually is done by Mordor, going north to Dol Guldur's base. Mordor passes through the entrance just a little south of Lórien and can freely traverse to Orthanc. The flaw in this rush is that Gondor (Red) would be able to easily able to come north and assist, so timing is key. But if Haradrim (Light Blue) puts pressure on Gondor therefore drawing their attention then the Orthanc has a high chance for success.
[edit] Common strategies for good
- Defense of Edhellond The defense of Edhellond (Red) is usually key in winning the naval battles against the Haradrim. Blue (Lesser Gondor) and Teal (West Elves) are crucially needed in sending their ships to assist in defending Pelagir (Red's naval base). If Gondor loses the naval battle at Pelagir then the Haradrim have full access in later attacking Long Daer (Blue) and Grey Havens (Teal). A second defensive maneuver is to spend the starting wood that is started with on two towers at Edhellond or at Pelagir.
- Haradrim rush Gondor has the capability of defeating Haradrim early on. The key components in doing so is by finding the two secret spawns. (One at the small grouping of trees near Minas Tirith and the other at the Waterfall near Gondor's second spawn.)Gathering all the men started with and the men with the secret spawns, red is then able to attack Haradrim. (In order to do so, Minas Ithil must be held by Blue and Pelagir must be held)
- Pink's disadvantage In the start, pink has a sizable number of men and heroes in Khazad-dûm. This therefore puts him in a tricky position, if Lórien (Green) is quick to act by gathering his forces, heroes, and demis together then he, along with orange are able to attack pink at both sides. This is only able to be done if pink is slow to act or tries to attack Khazad-dûm.
[edit] War of the Third Age
A map made by Aerovox. The map is also known as "WotTA" and focuses on the war between Good and Evil. The map has two teams of five players (5 vs 5) made up of the following forces:
- The Good Team consists of Gondor (Red), Rohan (Blue), Dol Amroth (Teal), Elves and Ents (Yellow) and the Fellowship (Orange)
- The Evil Team consists of Isengard (Green), Mordor (Brown), Haradrim (Light Blue), Nazgûl (Dark Green) and the Easterlings (Gray).
The map focuses focuses on the book instead of the movies. It is slow-paced when compared to Ring Wars and will likely prove to be a good alternative, with the difficulty levels of each kingdom varying greatly.
This map is also famous for its revolutionary use of circular walls, such as the famous seven walls of Minas Tirith.
The War of the Third Age is also different from most other LotR maps, where castles must be built in order to get better spawns. In WotTA, these castles are automatically generated.
[edit] Helm's Deep
The Battle of Helm's Deep is generally recognized as being among the oldest and most popular LotR games. There are many versions of Helm's Deep, but all of them share similarities and are based on the Battle of the Hornburg described in The Two Towers. expansion. Instead of a complex strategy map, it rather focuses on the actual defense of Helm's Deep. The map is also largely inspired by the movie version of The Two Towers, as the Elves never took part in the battle in the original. Heroes such as Haldir of Lórien here fight at Rohan's side, following Jackson.
Players who come to play this siege map will fight for either Rohan or Isengard. The game features many gameplay ideas still used in newer maps today such as form changing (Archers turning into Swordsmen) and the use of siege ladders to climb up walls.
One of the newest defining maps is known as Donar's Helm's Deep. Another recent addition is Ultimate Helm's Deep.
[edit] Battle for Middle-earth
This map was created by LegenD-FirE. The map has been an on-going project for several years and has had several clan followings.
Commonly referred to as 'BFME' the map is based around the conflict in Middle-earth between Sauron and the free people of the West during the Third Age. The map has two teams of five players (5 vs 5) made up of the following forces:
The Good Team consists of Gondor (Red), Rohan (Blue), Dol Amroth (Teal), Ents (Yellow) and the Fellowship (Purple), whereas the Evil Team consists of Isengard (Green), Mordor (Brown), Harad (Light Blue), Nazgûl (Dark Green) and the Easterlings (Gray).
As with similar maps such as Ring Wars and War of the Jewels, units spawn automatically at the player's bases, and the players need to build castles at the spawns in order to increase the number of units spawned. The players are also in control of heroic units featured in The Lord of the Rings, these heroes are capable of turning the tide of battle though do not revive once dead. With over 50 unique heroes featured in Battle For Middle Earth the game is really brought to life!
The map has had a very long and popular history, though its popularity soared when it migrated from Reign of Chaos (ROC) to The Frozen Throne (TFT) and during versions 3.5 - 3.6. BFME was popular in the respect that, unlike other LotR maps such as Ring Wars, it allowed players to build much larger armies and with which they could lay siege to the larger and more detailed bases.
It was soon enough edited on RoC by many people but the most popular edit was Rohan/Rohan[EoR]'s BFME 6.4. He then teamed up with Master-O, and created BFME 6.4_G which basically means Gold version. The RoC version of B4ME was a great success, spreading to the West and East Coast although not that much popular.
[edit] BFME: Reloaded
On December 23rd, Gil-Galad and Clan ERU released a BFME: Reloaded (shortened to BFMER), similar LegenD-Fire's version. The defining feature of BFME was the much larger bases that brought the battles depicted in The Lord of the Rings to even greater life, and this feature was further improved in this version.
[edit] Other maps
[edit] Minas Tirith
The Defense of Minas Tirith is a siege map with a similar concept to that Helms Deep but rather focuses on the Battle of the Pelennor Fields and the actual defense of Minas Tirith, capital city of Gondor. Like most minor maps, it can be found under many different versions. Nevertheless, it remains relatively popular. One of the most popular Minas Tirith maps was created by Master-O in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, but later it was edited by various players making the map fairly impossible for the Evil Team. Master-O used the Dalaran tileset for his Minas Tirith, which makes it easily noticeable that it was the Minas Tirith from Master-O, it was one of his first maps and later created other LotR maps of high quality.
The main strategy for this game is for the forces of good to defend with their troops in Minas Tirith, sometimes even battle in the Pelennor Fields, or Osgiliath. For the evil team they would have to train and build soldiers which would take around a second to complete and order the men to attack Minas Tirith with the aid of ladders, siege towers and heroes.
[edit] Battle of the Five Armies
Also codenamed BFA, it was started by KoI-Radagast and Aragorn-Elessar (former Chieftain of Clan AoME). The map focuses on the actual Battle of the Five Armies fought at Erebor, as it is told of in The Hobbit. Holy_Sausage created an independent version for RoC during the spring of 2005, but it was short-lived and died out after three weeks.
[edit] Age of the Trees
Also known as AoTT, this map was originally made by KoI-Radagast. It is set at the end of the Years of the Trees, a time when Melkor (later known as the Dark Lord Morgoth) and the great spider-spirit Ungoliant destroyed the Two Trees of Valinor.
Engel-The-Blade on U.S. Azeroth(East) has officially taken over the production of the Age of the Trees map, he will be releasing new versions in the following weeks as he works on a large revamp of the map (V.3.)
[edit] Fellowship Maps
These are maps that hold up to nine players with each player controlling one person from the Fellowship. The most notable and hailed as the most well put together is FoME (Fellowship of Middle-earth) made by ArmyofAragorn.
[edit] LotR Risk
This map was created by gamemasterflex and gregtampa on Azeroth (US East). Various versions of LotR risk have been released such as LotR Risk 3.0 by Grimreafer and LotR Risk 5.6-5.7 by Gil-Galad, the newest version of this game to this date is LotR Risk: Reloaded 1.0 made by Gil-Galad. Although most LotR Risk's in the past have been unbalanced in some way, each new version released works towards a balanced Risk.
[edit] Shadestorm's LotR Risk
This map was created by shadestorm on Lordaeron (US West). It features a more accurate portrayal of the Lord of the Rings World, in a Risk game format. It has been created according to the Lord of the Rings RISK Boardgame: Trilogy Edition. Therefore, it has relatively simple rule sets, and some comparatively complex ones. For example, there are only a couple of variations on a typical unit, but there are also special "stronghold" territories, as well as some complex and confusing implementations of the mission and territory cards used in the boardgame. It is currently in version 1.7.
[edit] LotR Footies
This map was created by TheMoneyLover on Azeroth (USA East). He is known as the creator of Isengard Unleashed. But the project was abandoned. But he was later referred as the Footies King, for he introduced the first LotR Footies and Star Wars Footies to Battle.net. Like other Footmen Frenzies, there are 4 bases consisting of 3 players per base. The tiers and heroes are all based upon Tolkien's characters and races throughout Middle-earth. There are 11 tiers each upgradable 4 times, and they are: Gondor, Rohan, Isengard, Mordor, Moria Goblins, Dale Dwarves, Hobbits, Ents, Mirkwood Spiders, Rivendell Elves, and the Army of the Dead. All heroes have unique abilities that match each and every personality. There are over 80 heroes.
[edit] LotR: Return Of The Shadow
This map is in the making by cheesehead69 (us east). This will be your basic 3rd Age LotR map starting out at the council of Elrond, where the game begins. Original map layout was made by SuXoR but edited to fit cheese's game. Has some trigers and units, many have just passed by (ex-galdor of the Havens)-, although is never in any LotR games. It will be released as soon as cheesehead69 can get the trigers done .
[edit] Fourth Age of Middle-Earth
The Fourth Age of Middle-Earth, or simply 4th age, follows the story of the LoTR world a few years and months after the destruction of Sauron at the end of the 3rd age. The original 4th age was made by Master-O in 2004 and features the standard "castle-system", which is the basic in LoTR games. The newer versions are made by Holy_Sausage, although it's not edited from the original but is made from a blank map. Although it has a bad reputation because of its bad terrain, but this variant features a very different gameplay system: To get gold you must kill units. This includes your own. Each unit gives 200 gold. Castles can be built when reaching 10,000 gold. This gold system is different from in other LoTR maps since it will prevent people from "turtling" up, because players must go out there and kill in order to get more units thenselves. However, this system relies totally on skills in killing, making the map very unfriendly to new players. The current version of 4th Age is 6.6, a 'B' version featuring many edits is planned to be released soon.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
Community websites:
