Oh yeah, hotkeying your structures is essential for quick access to structures! As for the caravans, as far as I know there is no faster way to level them up. They level up about as fast as any other structure for upgrades: You gotta have a clear area for them to be at 100% efficiency. Sadly, one of the major drawbacks to playing Haradwaith is that your units have to be nearby a caravan to upgrade.... It's apparently to reflect how the people are nomadic and all that. Whereas one of their strengths is in their mobility, such as the Mahuddin units and monsters. If you play them right, you don't really need the upgrades because so many of their units don't even get them at all! Much of the faction's design is not attached to traditional weapon and armor upgrades at all, but more unconventional styles of play, like relying on Beastmasters to buff out the monsters; or the war chiefs to turn your Mahuddin into glass cannons while outmaneuvering your enemy. It's a crazy faction!

@@Grimluk Yes, you are right, not that many units of the Haradrim need upgrades. I guess i need to play them more and find out what units i feel more confortable... crazy how sudently you can try so many units in just one faction. Crazy mod this is.

Thanks! You can definitely look in the .INI files, though, like you said, you gotta know what you're looking for. But as for how I got to that conclusion about them, it had to do with experience playing, watching other people's replays, reading in forums, etc. Also, the cost of the units tends to reflect their value as a unit as much as their stats. However, I think that Lothlorien's Galadhrim warriors are probably the better units at the end of the day, just in terms of raw stats and such, how versatile they are to be able to switch between bow and sword. BUT they are way harder to get to! In many ways, though, I think it's a bit subjective to say which unit is the best or better. Personal strats play a part, and preference, for sure. But I think these are some great reasons to support these archers as some of the best in the game!

Just curious: What do you mean by saying archers are broken in the BFME games? Do you mean they're OP, not good enough, or something else?

@@Grimluk Yes, of course is just my personal opinion. In the BFME2 i mostly played Mordor and a friend always played Elves and when he was able to spam archers with silver arrows it was almost imposible to ever get close to have a melee fight. The ability to decimate enemy units from distance is a very OP (imo) feature unless you spam alot of horses wich are alwas or most of the times more expensive than archers.

I forgot to mention that you can always use the official AOTR wiki, if you haven't already; but unfortunately there are still some entries which are out of date--including the Lothlorien Galadhrim warriors/Marchwardens! (It lists them as being trained at a Lvl2 structure when in reality they come from a Lvl3.) But otherwise, you can find some great info, such as what armor stats units use. But otherwise, yeah, you gotta do the hard work of looking through .ini files.... Something I'm not good at either! Which is partly what inspired me to make this channel. Like you, I really wanted to know the technicalities of how units measure up against each other. (I'll get that Worldbuilder video soon!)

@@Grimluk Thats a good point! eventualy with alot of practice one can start to notice wich unit is better in their type.

Thanks again! Ok, I'll keep the Worldbuilder intro video in mind. Been wanting to do that for quite a while anyways. This series is almost done, so stay tuned!

@@Grimluk With no rush my friend!! do it only when you can. Now i watching in parts you last video with the Harad faction!! the one i'm trying to learn in the aotr against friend. Thanks again for your effort in bfme videos!

@ It's my pleasure, man! It's been a lot of fun. :)

I forgot to mention: A neat little feature you can pull off with the siege range is to put a little mini wall up in front of your siege engines that would be in range of wherever you're targeting with the raven banners. That way you can keep your siege engines a bit better protected while still being able to fire that distance. Maybe not suitable for a pvp experience, due to how much effort and time it takes to set up; but certainly works great in pve! I like to try to make a little walled in outpost where it has a gate they can go in so they're fully protected. Great old fashioned base building fun!

Thanks! Glad you like them!

Thanks again for your kind words! Yes, the Woodmen are some great units for taking out structures. One of my favorite units in the game, actually. And in fact, any unit in the game with axes, like the Woodmen, do incredible structural damage. I thought about showing how much punishment Dwarves upgraded with the hammers can do to structures when debuffed at one point, too. Those hammers are base destroyers! Pair them with Hadhod and rush in!

Thanks! Yeah, these are pretty cool features. Debuffs take a good deal of practice to time right, given you gotta follow them up with a quick attack, so I'm still trying to figure those out a bit. As for structure buffs: My favorite faction is Gondor, in part because part of the design of the faction is to hunker down into your defenses ala the structure buffs; but Lothlorien is growing on me, too, for the same reasons. Lots of structure buffs with that faction! And again, all part of the design for the faction to turtle. Lots of folks don't like doing that, so probably don't know or care alot about it; but it goes to show that the design of the AOTR mod is for all kinds of players and strategies, and that it's to encourage players to try new ideas and playstyles. I'm hoping to get players more informed about this. :)

@@Grimluk You are doing a great job my friend!!

Oh yeah! This is one of the most fun videos I've done. Really love this feature! And experience stacking gets even better when you apply damage and armor boosts. Just nuts! I had wondered for a long time how it was my units in AOTR seemed to level up many times faster than in the vanilla games. Now I know why! And it keeps you in the fight longer and gets you in faster. A great way to move the game forward and keep it from feeling too slow. 👍

Thanks! Yeah, these features of AOTR really step it all up so much from the vanilla games and bring everything to life in some cool ways. I've been wondering the same thing about the upcoming patch. Is it primarily going to be balance changes or will there be those and some new Adventure factions thrown in? The updated cosmetic changes to Gondor and miscellaneous units? Time will tell!

Will do! Yeah, the AI can be pretty bizarre at times. Lol As for the trebuchet spam, that is really wild! I've experienced the same thing in other matches. The devs had at one time corrected the problem by severely limiting the number all players could get to like 6 or something; but I thought they said they had corrected the issue for just Gondor AI, thus getting rid of that limitation for all players. Not really sure what's going on there. Glad you liked the match! Some weird moments but fun all around. Looking forward to trying it out again someday!

Hey, I've got a question for you. Do you do pvp? I'm looking to try to get some folks together to try out fortress maps pvp style. No pressure, but just wanted to throw the invitation out there!

Thanks again!

Thanks!

I have beat 2 Soldier AI in 2000CP--and you can find these games in my channel! Here's two long grinds. studio.kzbin.infoPL3aUBCwhqxtx3OV06wEm_e2g7_VEXvKPo/edit studio.kzbin.infoPL3aUBCwhqxtzv9vzKF3H7EI-SeV5FKeVo/edit

As for the AI and money, it definitely feels like it's got unlimited funds.... It's wild. I read that the devs made it to where AI get a lot of discounts, which is why it feels so stacked against you, in order to make up for it being AI. I honestly don't know how some folks can do several DM at once.... I can barely do one, and then it depends on the faction! lol

@@Grimluk Yeah but this makes the mod less enjoyable since you have to spam towers and archers for an half hour until you can attack with all heroes. It's getting boring when you do same thing for few games :S

@@daredevil3098 Everyone has different tastes and strats! But I can see where you're coming from. I think it depends a lot on a number of factors. Skill is one, for sure. Regardless, I find it quite challenging even digging into my defenses to hold off the hordes! I think there are many different viable ways to play, including a more casual approach that are still quite challenging.

I forgot to mention: It's worth noting that certain factions in AOTR, like Lothlorien in particular or even Gondor, are actually designed to be more for turtling strategies. It may not be to everyone's liking, but it is the way these factions are meant to be played. I heard the AOTR devs talking about this in one or two of their live streams when showcasing the new Lothlorien overhaul. Lots of the talan and other unit or hero abilities, etc, are all about buffing structure armor or giving special, unique bonuses to what they can do. Gondor has a number of such, as well. If anyone likes the feel of sieges or classic base building fun without having to do a fortress map, these factions really are the way to play! City building is a great alternative play style in BFME just to see if you can really pull off a great base. Old fashioned fun that doesn't require everyone to have to go Spartan! And incidentally enough, this kind of base building, more drawn out fun is gaining a pretty good foothold in the BFME community right now. More and more people actually want to see alternative playstyles like this instead of the same old same old. Great fun!

Thanks so much, man! Happy New Year to you, too! I had thought about stretching out a little into other BFME games than BFME2, ROTWK and AOTR, but most likely, if I do, it'll probably be just a few little things here and there. I don't know BFME1 super well, and haven't had as much interest in that as what I've been covering; and the same goes with other mods. But who knows! If something really tickles my fancy, I just may cover it. :) I figured that since AOTR is based so heavily on the mechanics of BFME2 and ROTWK, it would be great to compare and contrast so closely. It's basically for folks who have ever wondered "Which is better?" as I've seen that alot in interactions with friends and in forums. Seemed like a great conversation to continue that no one else was really doing. I do see some comparisons like that between AOTR and BFME1, or BFME2/ROTWK and BFME1, but it's not as frequent. BUT I do see a LOT of whether AOTR is better than the Edain mod! So perhaps I may dabble in that a little down the road. I like Edain, but my issue is I just don't know it super well. So I'd need to take a lot of time to sink my teeth into it to do it justice. Thanks so much for your enthusiasm! This Appendix video was largely inspired by you and your questions about the Morgul Vanguard, btw. Always appreciate your input! :)

@@Grimluk For sure!! And thank you for covering the buff interaction with the Morgul Vanguard, that was very cool of you!! Yeah, it was just a thought about the other bfme games. Keep the awesome work my friend!! always apreciated (i'm trying to implement the correct use of modifiers in my games and i can see the difference). PS: As you said in one of your videos, it would be great if you make a video about how tou use the world boulder so we can test all this info with calm so then we can use them in skirmishes or online battles. Cheers!

For sure! I know the Worldbuilder helped me a lot to get a better feel for what the units can and cannot do. (It's why I made that series on the Berserkers, after all!) Glad to hear you're working on those modifiers. Once you know them, it really is a gamechanger. I'll see what I can do about some Worldbuilder videos. I'm trying to finish up the modifier series but sometimes it's nice to take a break, too. It's not something that really anyone has covered much on KZbin, either.

Sorry about the delay getting back to you, very busy for the holidays! Does the crash give you any message or is it just a hard crash to your desktop or something else entirely? I also use Windows 10, so any details you can provide would be beneficial!

@ yes half the time it’s like an hard crash and than other times it ask me to install the dice which is already in. I have tried running it in windows xp. Thanks for responding to me much appreciated and enjoy the rest of your holidays.

@@liamstrong1807 Hmmm.... Do you have BFME2 and ROTWK installed with BFME2 selected at version 1.06 and ROTWK selected at version 2.02 v9.0? You cannot play AOTR 8.3.1 if you don't have both of those games selected at those patches. You can't even play it if ROTWK is selected at 2.02 v9.1 or later. Have you taken a look at my installation video? If not, check it out here! kzbin.info/www/bejne/iJS7m4ismJWZkNE Lemme know if you have any more issues. I know these games can be a pain to install! Good luck!

@ hi mate i will try changing the version, I've not thought of that. Yes I have both of them and both wont run. I give it a go and let you know. Happy nNew Year

Sounds good. Good luck! Keep me posted and if you have anymore issues feel free to shoot me a message. 👍 Happy New Year!

Thanks man!

Thanks! I didn't expect to get another chance at it so soon. I was pumped! lol

Thanks man! Oh yeah, practice makes perfect, as the saying goes. So many times I thought I had these beast bots.... Been practicing a bit more and seeing how the faction really ticks, though. Expect another round against these guys in the future!

Thanks man! The input is always appreciated! As for the Morgul Vanguard, did you happen to check the description in game, too? I tested that unit with the Witch-king maybe about a week ago with fabulous results! It's possible the wiki page is slightly out of date (some of the entries are still for older patches); or there's an unintended debuff stack/bug happening. Thanks again, man!

I remember there was a shifting of colors during my test. So, debuffed units would shift from the green glow for the WK, then to the purple for Vanguard, and back and forth. As I recall, those two units have different debuff values, too. I'll check it out again when I can!

@@Grimluk I will check in game also! was focusing in Harad more that forgot to try Mordor. I though the same, that the wiki page was out of date. I share your channel to friends that i play with so they can subscribe and start learning more in depth about the game!

That's awesome, man! Thanks so much for the support! :)

@@martinksk88 I just checked and the Morgul Vanguard does not have anything in its lvl 2 passive ability description about the debuff not stacking. Mordor is such a beast faction!

Thanks man! Yeah, the devs especially made the towers weaker, to prevent turtling as much. I was not aware of the farms, though! But I know the BOTTA guy (or is it a team now? Been too long!) had at one time wanted the design of that mod to be to accommodate a slower pace of gameplay, thus making structure armor, especially farms, more resilient. It's a unique way of playing BFME I've yet to experience with other mods yet. Been ages since I played that one! But if you're used to playing it, other mods will definitely feel way different, like you said. Great thoughts, man!

For sure! In vanilla you have to think it through a bit more, perhaps, given the limitations; but in either vanilla or AOTR there's kind of an art to it. Lots of fun when you get the hang of it! Can't wait to showcase AOTR's overhaul next! Just soooo much more you can do. Really brings things to life!

​@@Grimluk That will be awesome! What is your opinion about making a serie about covring all factions and talking about strategies? I'm currently trying to pilot harad faction. You have some videos about harad, but put your voice and thoughts would give new players better understanding.

I've thought about trying my hand at some commentaries to share some thoughts on how I'm playing and why I'm making the decisions I make; but I don't think I've really given any thought to faction-based strategies as a whole, as I'm still learning a lot of the factions myself! (AOTR, that is.) But it's a great idea I'll have to consider once I get my bearings on some of them! Thanks for the input. It's good to know there's some interest in this. :)

Glad you like it, martinksk88! I used the Worldbuilder program that comes with the game. Thinking about doing a tutorial on it one day, but until then you can find it in the main BFME2 or ROTWK install directory.

@@Grimluk Oh, i see! And is there a worldbuilder also for the AoR mod?

@@martinksk88 There is! You can find it and the install instructions here: forums.revora.net/topic/117654-age-of-the-ring-80-worldbuilder/

Thanks so much, man!

Tbh harad is esey to use

@martinksk88 Thanks man! Always encouraging! With the buffs and debuffs, for Age of the Ring all you really need to know is that any source of debuff, leadership, etc that is different from another stacks together (except on very rare cases where a description states it does not). Quite different from vanilla! Synergy is definitely the name of the game for AOTR. Yeah, those Talans help alot, but are a bit fragile, so you gotta support them a bit. Same with the early game heroes. Lothlorien is a tricky faction to use (at least for myself), but its archers are definitely its strong point. I keep my units close to the Talan in part because of the significant buffs to dmg and armor they get with one of the upgrades to the Talans; and in part because the design of the faction is one that encourages defensive or turtling styles of play (the various eco buffs alone are testimony to that, let alone how the various mallorn tree unit structures and defenses have so many upgrades). I'm a believer that Lothlorien's early game heroes are actually more worthwhile than many other factions', especially because they stack; and that if you use them right they can be more beneficial to your army than LL's late game heroes, especially given how cheap they are. Try to incorporate the Handmaidens of Galadriel into an army with those early game heroes buffing in addition to the Handmaidens, and the enemy is in for a world of hurt! (I'm also a huge fan of the Knights of Amdirion! But that's in another video. lol) I'll see if I can do a commentary track of one or two of these videos soon, but if you haven't checked them out already, I would recommend looking at my descriptions where I break down some of the main points. Good luck!

@@frezzy018 I had a pretty hard time learning to use the faction myself.... There's a lot of different, unique ways to use it I'm not used to. But a great faction all around! I'm just not used to the unorthodox strategies, especially late game stuff. Fun, though!

As have I! I've beaten a DM in 1v1, but not with Lothlorien, and certainly never with more than one piling up on me. I've been trying to figure out this specific faction, so I figured two Soldier AI would be a good fight for me. I'm no pro, so the match was just about thr right challenge for a casual gamer like myself! Maybe a little too much at times, as this faction is a tricky one for me to get right now. Getting there, though!

For sure! I love BFME1, too, but what Age of the Ring brings to the table really is the next step up. I also like how it incorporates the build plot system for the defending player in the fortress while everyone else has the free build. It's an interesting touch and a great challenge to figure out.

Thanks mkcorzouu! I definitely plan on making more of these fortress battles. My main problem is lack of time! Being a family man will do that. lol

Somehow I overlooked your question about the commentary. Apologies! I think I'd like to try a commentary somewhere. I think I've got some things to say, for sure! I'll probably give it a test at some point and if I like the feel of it I may make it a thing! Glad to see there's some interest. :)

Thanks in part to your post, I started to add a kind of commentary to videos via descriptions. I know it's definitely not the same thing, but it gives a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at my thought process of the fights.

Hey Arunith. Do you mean you're having troubles with the BFME2 1.09 patch switcher? Is this for the All-In-One (AIO) Launcher? If so, I know that one has been known to have a lot of issues for people. Something I covered at the end of this installation guide. If that's the problem, I would recommend just doing a clean install of the game files without the AIO. Be sure to uninstall the AIO version first, though! Otherwise you'll have a lot of problems getting it to work right. Lemme know if you have any other issues and I'll try to get back with you asap!

@@Grimluk Thank you for the reply. No ironically the AIO installer actually ran super smooth for me with no hiccups. The issue I was having was with the manual installation. I first thought it was the patch switcher because the problems would occur after I get to the step where the switcher applies the no-cd patch. The bronze - brown looking switcher you have in the video is the one I use to use with no problems at all. However since you uploaded this, Ecthelion upgraded that switcher to a newer one with the green background. I tried switching between multiple patches to see if it would start. I tried multiple times fixing appdata files. It just would not launch the game. I managed to track down an old game.dat file to just see if i can launch the vanilla game with a no-cd file and the same thing would happen without the patch switcher. I have no idea why this is happening, I've never had this issue before. However I tried the AIO launcher and was pleasantly surprised at how good it has become, solved all the issues, and I'm able to swap between edain and aotr quite effortlessly. So ironically AIO worked. So If anyone is having issues launching the game and you tried fixing the options.ini , trying the AIO might actually save you. Thank you for the guide!

Great to hear you got it working! Yeah, the AIO is an interesting one. Works fine for some, not so well for others (like myself!). Thanks for the update on the status of the BFME2 1.09 patch switcher. I didn't know Ecthelion had made some improvements, so I was a little confused what you meant when describing a bronze background. This makes more sense. Have fun on the battlefield, mate! If you ever wanna try a game, I'm always up for it! But I can only do Gameranger, sadly. But feel free to send a friend request there. I'm usually under the name "Noob_Gamer". 😆

Thanks, Patch97! I'm looking forward to sharing a bit more on that mod myself in the very near future. Stay tuned! :) I do have a good deal more content on Age of the Ring in the rest of my channel that could interest you, if you haven't looked already. There's a whole series on the Berserker unit that compares the vanilla games' version to Age of the Ring's; and I have some other miscellaneous ones over in the Forgotten Hordes and Hidden Treasures channels. Not very many in those yet, but I'm always working on stuff!

​@@GrimlukCan't wait!

@@Patch97 Oh yeah, for sure! One of the coolest aspects of the Age of the Ring mod is its overhauled attribute modifier system: There are no restrictions on how to combine any of them with each other like in vanilla. So you can have any number of any of them combined with each other effectively without any limit. It frees up creativity and play styles dramatically, streamlining the system so much. It's like night and day! So I'll definitely be showing stuff on that down the line. :)

@@Patch97 Almost forgot: Here's a great little overview a I did a while back, if you're interested: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y2aum59rYq2Eos0

All great things to consider! I'm still learning Lothlorien myself, so I've not really played it too much, unfortunately. But aren't there a few eco upgrades for the trees? I seem to recall there's also a couple structure armor buffs, too? So far from what I've been able to gather (which isn't too much!) they seem to work best as a turtling faction, especially considering their structure armor buffs and eco buffs--one of the few factions specifically designed by the devs for this strategy, where you're actually encouraged to spam lots and lots of the base defenses...but at the cost of a lot of micro even for those defenses. That and spamming archers. But this is just what I can gather so far. Overall, it's not a go-to faction for me, as their gameplay style feels a little too unorthodox for how I prefer to play. Good observations, though!

I'm not sure why that would happen.... I've always been able to download from Moddb just fine. I suppose it's possible there's something going on with your security settings? What OS are you using? Windows 10, 11, or something else entirely?

Also, it's worth noting I just use Firefox. I've never used Cloudflare before.

For sure! Love the trilling of the R's!

Great! It's actually for BFME 2's expansion, Rise of the Witch-king. I have the download links down in the description and in the home page. For some reason, I could only make them clickable on the home page, so head's up there. Good luck with the install!

Hey ulasonen, in case you hadn't gotten the notification, I decided to go ahead and do an installation walkthrough, if you need a little help. Just posted last night!

I haven't gotten around to using him much myself, but I'll keep that in mind!

How is he the worst hero for the faction? Just curious given how much of an epic overhaul they gave him!

@@Grimluk He is pure fighter but he cost 3800 which means you always want Elrond over him and Aragorn is already better than Glorfindel at fighting so he is hero you never get unless you have some cash and want to flex.

Ah ok, that's kinda what I was thinking. The high cost has always dissuaded me from going for him and Elrond. But I can definitely see Glorfindel as a great hero killer. He can make a B-line to heroes pretty fast while mounted with the speed boost and all. But that high price to pay for him.... Good insight, mate!

I clearly need to check my messages more, man! Thanks! Though to be fair Grond kept getting stuck at the gates.... But the Iron Hill crossbowmen have a special ability that lets them ignore enemy armor for a bit, and this works on even Grond. So I used them with gusto!

Great question, robbo! In the Age of the Ring mod, there's a credits list. Too many names to list! But I know the devs actually hired voice talent for this new faction and parts of other factions. Very cool!

Thanks so much!

Thanks for the comment, Dale! If I recall correctly, wasn't there a Mound Dweller custom hero added with all new abilities, or was that a reskin of something else? I love custom heroes, but I haven't used them for a little bit. Regardless, totally agree that it would be great to see more custom hero options! Never understood the problem a lot of folks have with them. As for the color customization, I think I read somewhere they cut it out to save on texture space because of how they might look with team colors added back, or something to that effect. Understandable but unfortunate, for sure.