What’s up with fortresses and wall building?
We are bringing a new level of creativity and strategy to base building. First
of all, we’re letting you build structures anywhere on the map, not just on the
little build plots we gave players in the first game. We’re also adding the
ability to build customizable fortresses that can anchor your base defense. Each
fortress can be tricked out with cool upgrades that are specific to each of the
six factions in the game. For example, the Men of the West player can deploy
trebuchets, arrow towers, and boiling oil as upgrades to their fortresses (among
others). Goblin players will have giants that throw rocks and spider lairs as
defensive upgrades. Most cool of all, we’re giving you the ability to build
walls around your fortresses and other structures so you can create your own
landmark castles of Middle-earth. You can even upgrade every wall segment – you
can build gates, towers, emplacements, and all sorts of cool stuff. Wall
building is very easy to use and incredibly powerful; you’ll be amazed at what
you can create.
The good news is that we’ve applied the lessons we’ve learned from the first
game about making things accessible and easy to use, so the interface for base
building – even with all the added freedom - remains very clean and streamlined.
So it’s easy to do but gives the game tremendous depth. It’s like having your
cake and eating it too.
What are some examples of strategies that are enabled by this new base
building system?
The fortress and wall system is very flexible and powerful – you can optimize
your base defenses to suit your strategy and style of play. With the many
options available, you can easily, quickly, and inexpensively create a basic
castle with simple defensive walls and cheap fortress upgrades. Or you can spend
some additional resources and create massive fortifications bristling with
trebuchets and arrow towers and secured by a foundation of reinforced stonework.
When the team plays Battle for Middle-earth II in multiplayer, some players
build huge castles that can defend against an attack from any angle; other
players use small, strategically deployed wall segments with selective upgrades
to guard the approaches that would most commonly be used for attacks. Both
strategies can work… it really depends on the player.
Will there be heroes and creatures from the books that didn’t appear in the
films? What about heroes from the films that weren’t in the first game?
New heroes from the books include Glorfindel the Elf Lord, King Thranduil of the
Mirkwood Elves, and King Dain of the Dwarves. We’re also including heroes from
the films that didn’t make it into the first game, like Elrond, Master of
Rivendel, Arwen, Galadriel, Wormtongue, the Mouth of Sauron, and others.
What is the “Create-a-Hero” feature? How does it work?
We’re going to allow you to create your own hero by picking a race and type and
then customizing the appearance, weapons, spells, and abilities for that hero.
As a player, you can ask yourself: What would I be if I were a hero in
Middle-earth? An Elven Wizard? A Battle Troll with a spiked mace? A Rohan Shield
Maiden who can ride a horse? You decide.
You will be prompted to create your own hero at the beginning of a campaign
game. You’ll also be able to access the hero creation feature from the game’s
main menu - to add to your bullpen of custom heroes or edit an existing hero.
Customization options range from armor, clothing, and weapon choices to the
actual ladder of powers and abilities that your hero will use to “level up”
during game play.
Once you’ve created a hero, you can take him or her into multiplayer games as
well as the single player campaign game. We’ll limit the use of custom heroes
for tournament games that count towards ladder stats, but otherwise players have
the option to create and join multiplayer games with their created heroes (or
not, depending on preference – some players may want to host and join “no custom
hero” games regardless of whether or not they count towards official stats).
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