War In Middle Earth

[Bard]

Hello! I'm The Bard
I've only had one, single encounter with this marvelous game and it was a disaster. I immediatly marched north into the grip of the black riders and lost instantly.
On my second attept i marched south, then east to avoid a similar fate. However I marched into the grip of black riders and lost again.
Deciding that following the book's course was the way to victory, I went instantly to buckland where I met my hobbit friends then to the forrest where after meeting Tom Bombadil i wound up in the grip of Black Riders and lost for all time.
Frustrated, i left the game and it passed from all memory untill tonight when I stumbled on this site from nowhere I wish I still had the game, i'd like to give it another go after all this time. I'll have to track down a copy.

[samaelvonhell]

WOW, on this very game i burned power supply for my ZX Spectrum

[comicquest]

Thanks Aaron for creating this forum and the keeping the website alive. I am the 'self-described' Master of Middle Earth (this game anyway) so if anyone wants/needs hints or parts of this game LMK

[Aaron Willis]

Your welcome. The website costs me about $50 a year but I feel its worth it. I update it as a hobby to try and keep my youth alive.

I received the game for Xmas in 1989 after seeing an add in my apple magazine. I had an Apple IIGS which I feel was the best computer for the games of the time, besides Amiga. I remember sitting in the cold computer room, with an electric radiator heater right next to me, trudging through Middle-earth.

I only wish they would update this game, or at least make it multiplayer. Undoubtedly one of the few games which withstands time.

Since there are fans of this game, maybe someone might be able to help me. I had a collection of Apple II games and one of them was a text based game called Ring Quest, but it wasn't the one from Penguin. Each screen has ASCII photos of the monsters like Red Orc, Balrog, etc. and you were trying to get out of the Mines of Moria as Bilbo. The story was totally wrong but the game was fun. I was wondering if anyone remembered it, or had a disk image for my Apple emulator. I've spend ten years trying to find it.

[John]

I had this game for the Commodore 64 when I was little. It seems like I had it before '88, but my sense of time from back then is a little fuzzy.

I spent hours and hours playing it, and occasionally find myself humming the music even today. The c64 version did have music and sound, contrary to what it says on this site.

I never got far, unfortunately. The image of a nazgul holding the ring was a common occurrence. I'd love to play it again, if only I could find a disc image. Seems pretty unlikely I suppose, but it's good to see a site dedicated to the game. I think I did a web search a few years ago and found little or no reference to it.

[Eric]

Cool page. I grew up playing this game and the interplay classics of Vol. 1 and 2(apparently they didn't feel it necessary to make the third installment).

Anyway, I thought this game was really easy. The hard part was occasionally the game would speed up really quick and pop up questions/menus would immediately disappear like I was holding down the enter key. Because of this I couldn't "go there" for a few key battles and since I always created huge armies following one guy, that guy would get killed and I'd be left with 20 little armies just hanging around with no one to pick up the leadership slack.

Oh well. I loved the music and opening backdrop. The manual was also fun to read. I still have it, but lost the map for the copy protection. I remember ok enough that I can usually answer every 3rd coordinate correctly, but it sucks when I get dropped from the game.

[Aaron Willis]

The Interplay games were great. I actually created an editor which allowed you to edit stats for the players and non-players. I changed stats, their profile pictures, icons, etc. It was pretty neat. I'll have to dig them up.

I hope to someday add those games to my site as I spent a lot of time playing them and really enjoyed them. They provided hours of exciting game play. The CD version was good in that it was one of the first games to provide symphony quality sound.

[Matt]

This was the game that introduced me to Lord of the Rings, so it was pretty confusing at first (as you can imagine) blundering about with no idea of who the characters were, or what the goal was.

Anyway, for those who are interested, if a character uses the Palantir, Saruman's armies (and therefore Rohan's forces) will mobilise.

[Yrobryn]

Hello guys try this game:
warformiddle-earth.clictopics.com/
All are welcome! ;D

Thank you

[Harlequin]

The ultimate strategy for this game is as follows:

Step 1. Learn how to avoid the dark riders. This is pretty simple really. Once you get to Tom bombadil's house, you pretty much head due east a hair where you can find a 2nd elven blade (first at tom's house). Be sure to grab the Staff between meeting merry and Tom's house too.

Wait just south of where you pick up the 2nd elven blade until most of the nazgul have gone to weather top and beyond.. once they head to the east to ambush you, they dont come back.

Step 2. Learn the in game error that allows you to move forces not in your control. If you set a unit you control on top of forces that you cannot control, you can select go and grab them from the list. This will let you move forces you don't control.

Send Eomer to the Rohirm and move Theoden West, past the mountains, and then North to Rivendell. Have Farimir move Denthor north to Lorein. Farimir can continue North to get the dwarven ring and the elven orb.

After the riders are gone, go meet up with Aaragorn, and get the scepter. Go to Rivendell and let Elrond do all the fighting against the Nazgul. He is invulnerable and is the only one (I've found) who can beat Nazgul #2 and #1.

By the time you have "rested" and a significant amount of in game time has been wasted, you should wake up with the 9 and a bit of a surprise. Theoden is now at Rivendell and Gandalf is there to greet him! Neat little side note, you don't need the arrow to activate the Rohan men, just gandalf talking to Theoden will due it. So now the Rohan are active... great..

Take your Rohan and move them into Gondor, start forcing the Gondor troops to move to Minis Tirith. Get Gandalf to move through Goblin town, have all forces flee the battle except Sam or Pippin or someone else equally useless by this point, and you should be able to skip the battle with no casualties. You can then head south To Lorein and meet up with Denthor. Use the Scepter and Gondor activates from 1000 miles away. Farimir in the mean time can take the ring and orb to the dwarfs and elves and collect them together while he is way out in the middle of nowhere.

Having gathered these forces together, have Gandalf head south to meet up with the Ents. Use the staff to activate the ents. Let them go and solo their efforts against Sauroman and after they are done (with minimal casualties) go and force move them to Minis Tirith as well. Gandalf can head south too and meet up a Minis Tirith. Farimir will be a ways away, but he can head down too.

Now the interesting part.

Break up your forces so that the units aren't mixed. The Men of Gondor mixed with the riders of Rohan usually make for a bigger number of casualties.. I don't know why, it just works that way. You also have to be careful with your movements now because a LOT of what you do will activate Sauron's forces. At this point everything you have is at Minis Tirith and you could still lose if the enemy takes 3 of the magic 5 cities.

I like to send the Ents to Minis Morgul. It's almost a 100% way of activating Sauron, but the front door approach is great for kicking it up a notch. You can also keep the ents there to take on any of the forces (and there are tons) that come through that direction. Alternatively, you can quickly move them back to Minis Tirith and let them defend it against all of Sauron and watch them take everything and laugh.. they are not that far from being invincible.

Anyways, once they have taken Minis Morgul, you can cake walk through Mordor and cruise to Mt Doom.

An interesting side note; I actually sent the Ents to Baraad-Dur after using this method to eliminate all of the enemy forces on the map after they became active (took a while but I did it) and they were actually able to Beat Sauron and his forces. Kind of crazy but that is the little know 2nd method to beating the game. You can win the game by killing Sauron. It's just only possible if you force move the Ents (the same save game lost when using the combined forces of everything else against Sauron, without the Ents, having lost no troops at all).

Key strategy reminder: If 192 infantry meet and want to join forces with 292 infantry, Say NO. If you say yes then they do not get added, together, one group just disappears until the other group is killed off and they go there separate ways..

[Tolkien Fun]

Hi to everybody! I first played this game on an Atari ST around 1990. I have played it to this date but never found out what the coil of rope does or how you can get Gollum to join you. Any ideas???

[xd]

Dec 15, 2008 6:55:33 GMT -5 samaelvonhell said:

WOW, on this very game i burned power supply for my ZX Spectrum

same thing happened to me too playing it at full haste right at the ending

[Sico]

I saw that game once when I was 8 or 10. It was the house of friend of my mother and her son was playing to it. I never played but recall it from time to time, not knowing even the name nor anyone who ever played it.
Now, 33, I'm going to try it (under DOSBOX). And I'm excited!
I found it searching for "middle earth strategy abandon game", by the way.

[Comicquest2]

Aaron! I"m trying to reach you; looks like your website for classic gaming is down. I'm trying to get a new generation interested in WIME.

[e-mail]

[Aaron Willis]

Sorry about the site, it should be back up. I always have issues when the payment renews for some reason. Also, I've written a savegame editor for WIME that I'm making available to donors to the site. It's a work in progress and I'll be welcoming any suggestions for feature additions.

So far, I've added a map tile viewer, editing for hit points, location, destinations, character following, army quantities, changing sprites, map icons, mobilizing forces, and a few others.