General Strategies

This section offers general strategies for completing The Battle for Middle-earth’s single-player campaign. These strategies apply to both the good and evil campaigns and to all sides.

• Practice using "control groups" when moving and attacking with your unit force. Create a control group by selecting a group of units and pressing CONTROL + a number. Once grouped you can select that particular set of units at any time by simply pressing that number. Control groups are a real-time strategy staple and an invaluable way to move and attack with your units. By using control groups you can quickly select units that are off screen and move them to a desired position. You can easily select certain units during a chaotic battle and focus their attack on a particular set of enemies. It also makes it much easier to micromanage a hero during a battle. Control groups are nothing new to real-time strategy veterans but if you’re new to the genre practice creating and using groups for a much easier way to manipulate your units during the campaign’s battles.



• The forces of good have a 300 command point limit; the forces of evil have a 600 command point limit. However there are times you can elevate your armies above the command limit. Several times during the campaign you’ll receive reinforcements or other additions to your army through the storyline. These reinforcements are automatically added to your army even if it puts you far above the command limit. For that reason, reach your command limit max before calling in the reinforcements. Since the reinforcements will put you far over the limit, you won’t be able to add new units until you fall back under the command limit.



• Unit battalions or hordes that have reached experience level two automatically replace slain members. As long as one member remains, the entire battalion or horde can regenerate. As you lose individual units in a battalion or horde, your command points decrease. If there’s room for another battalion, horde, or unit, then start production! It’ll appear on the battlefield and when your battalion or horde regenerates its units, your command points will be over the limit. So during battles, watch your command points and when the points dip far enough, create additional units.



• Certain structures can train new unit types or offer new upgrades once they reach the next experience level. Most structures reach the next experience level through troop production. Train enough troops and the structure reaches the next level and you can produce new unit types or research new upgrades. If you’ve already reached your command limit then training new troops isn’t possible. If you want to raise the structure to the next level in this instance then you’ll need to send units essentially to their death so you can repeatedly create new units so the structure gains experience and eventually reaches the next level. If you’re Isengard or Mordor, send troops into the slaughter house for resources and repeat.



• The Battle for Middle-earth units have their own strengths and weaknesses and often counter other specific unit types. For instance, Isengard’s Uruk pikemen counter cavalry units (offering additional damage against cavalry types). Use control groups to focus your groups’ attacks on specific enemy units. When enemy cavalry approach, recall your pikemen group and target the cavalry. Use Rohan and Gondor cavalry to run over Uruk or Orc hordes; blast Ents with fire arrows; and bombard structures from long-range with trebuchets or catapults.



• In many missions in the The Battle for Middle-earth’s single-player campaign, your army carries over from the previous battle. It’s important to take the most powerful army possible into the next mission and battle. Therefore, spend time near the end of missions acquiring every possible upgrade and enhancing all of your battalions and hordes. Check your heroes and units and see if any are close to reaching the next experience level. If so, use those units to fight enemies so they can get the kills and elevate to the next level.