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Warning: large images and some profane language

And here we are with another KingWombat. Let's cut right to the chase. It has come to my attention that no one reads my reports. I think it is because a) the site has dried up or b) I'm a fiend who churns out drab reports about unknown games at obscenely fast speeds. Since the second of the hypotheses is blatantly untrue, it can only be the former. I'd like to think I'm talking to myself right now, because it is highly probable that no one is currently reading or will EVER read this after it is published on esteemed Battlereports.com.

Ah, enough whining. This subject of this report is not MediEvil (THANK GOD). It is....

Ah, yes. Good old War of the Ring. Household name. Countless young rascals around the globe have played and loved this game with a passion since its release in '03. However, as far as I can tell, this game was only reported on ONCE before this, in the entire history of the site. Why is that?

That is because "War of the Ring" has another name. If people want to report on the game, they will most likely report on it via its other name. (What's the name, Wombat? What's the name???) Alright, I'll tell you. Are you ready for this? This may shock and/or kill you...

Yep. This game is Warcraft III.

"But, why not report on Warcraft III then? Why settle for cheap imitation when you can have the REAL THING?" you may well ask. I could give you many reasons. But the truth is my whole life is an imitation. I don't listen to Zeppelin, I listen to KINGDOM COME. I buy supermarket brands and eat SOY HOT DOGS. I have a pillow shaped like a woman that I sleep with. War of the Ring is just another brick in the wall.

Now then, how is this game like Warcraft III? Thankfully the game designers have left us plenty a clue, and finding them is not rocket science. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then here's 2,010 words for you:

A real beaut', huh? They must have consulted Warcraft screenshots while they were making this to make sure everything matched up. They probably had a whole department keeping tabs on whether the game looked enough like those classy Warcraft screenshots on Google image search.

Pre-game Explanations

This game plays and feels pretty much like Warcraft (surely you jest!). You've got two main resources to gather: however they are not the same as in Warcraft. Can't be too obvious, you know? Gotta draw the line somewhere. The resources are food and ore.

You can build a mill and a mine on these, respectively, to make resource gathering proceed at a much faster rate. In fact, if you don't do so then you have no hope of succeeding in either your public or your personal life. Resources can be found only near expansions. That's right kids, this game has an expansion system just like Warcraft 3. The main building in this game for your fantasy hordes to erect is of course the Fortress which can be upgraded, allowing new units, buildings and heroes. Yes, heroes. These are juiced-up units with magical powers, and they can be leveled making them even more juiced up. Oh, the similarities between this piece of junk and War3 are overwhelming, aren't they? Well before you have a cardiac arrest let me point out some differences.

There is no such thing as creeping in this game. There are also no goblin merchants and shit, the goblin economy has been completely absorbed into the evil institution called MORDOR. No items for your heroes either. The heroes here aren't flowery ladyboys like the ones in War3 and don't need external help to kick ass. Also in this game, you got something called Fate. You get Fate mainly by killing shitloads of enemies. Fate is used to train heroes, buy new powers for your heroes or use Fate powers. If you've read my AoM reports (I assume NOT) then you are familiar with god powers. That's exactly what Fate powers are, except reusable. They are powers that can be evoked anywhere on the map where the player has LoS, not restricted to any particular hero. Also the typical War of the Ring map has several Places of Power (yes, cheesy name, but wait till you hear the faction names). These can be captured and held to give your people a certain bonus, be it military or economic or otherwise.

That pretty much covers it. Now let's play this bad boy!

Game One

If you've read the other WotR report, I shall be attempting to follow the same format as the other guy did. First playing a 'noob' game with very little prior experience and then coming back with my newfound knowledge for a second (or maybe even a third) game and kicking tremendous quantities of ass (I guess).

First order of things is to choose a faction. There are two factions to choose from:

She-man or badass orc with multiple piercings? The choice was made before the question even arose. I sell my soul to Sauron and join the Evil mofos in their quest for dominion over Middle-Earth.

Now comes the question of what map I want to play on and who I want to pit my skills against. I take a second to browse through the assortment of highly non-generic maps and finally settle for the first one on the list, called "Bilbo's Bluffs", a 2-player festival of fun. This being my first game, I want my opponent to be as harmless as possible, so I put the computer on the "Easy" difficulty setting. The game also gives me a list of potential names for the opponent. I go with Farmer Maggot, who sounds like the biggest lowlife this side of the Anduin, second only to me for sitting here and playing this game when I could be looking at steamy barnyard porn.

I end up in the lower-left corner of the map. As you can clearly see there are two open expansions and one Place of Power smack dab in the middle of the Bluffs. Starting locations are fairly stagnant in WotR in that your opponent always starts as far away from you as possible. Thus, it can be safe to assume that my foe is at the 1:30 settlement.

Being a masterclass RTS player, I don't bother to look up hotkeys and start clicking away oh so merrily at the little green orcs surrounding my base.

I have 4 starting workers and one slavemaster. Workers, of course, do the dirty work - building and gathering and dying. Slavemasters are unique to the Evil faction. They are pretty much mobile population support centers. Each one supports 12 pop. slots, if my short-lived memory serves me right. Their other function is to build "war posts" - basically short phallic structures that "corrupt" any land in their vicinity - turning it into the sickly green-brownish color you see in the screen shot. The Evil faction can only build their structures on land that has been corrupted in this way.

Well, I figure I need me some resources so I go ahead and invest in a mill and a mine. I divide my 4 workers evenly among the tasks and send my slaver to corrupt some land. Oh yes, that building you see in the picture is a Goblin Hovel. It trains workers, slavers and spearmen, which are the single shittiest military unit in the game.

The passing minutes are fairly uneventful. I continuously pump out workers and divide them among the two resources. At one point I switch gears just a little bit and make a spearman, whom I send to capture the Place of Power in the center of the map, putting me ahead of Farmer Maggot strategically and psychologically (except, being a computer, he couldn't care less). I continue with more workers, a couple more spearmen to the Place and one or two extra slavers. Bo-oring. However, at one point I realize that maybe I should build a real army in case the Farmer decides to take me down, so I assign one of my lowly workers to make me an Orc Mound.

The Orc Mound will allow me to make orc swordsmen and orc archers (only archers until I erect a Fortress), but anything is better than those toothpick-swinging, malnourished excuses for spearmen I have hanging out at the Place. After the Mound is finished, I start producing four or so archers and then task my workers to building a Beast Lair, which will let me train riders (Beastiary anyone?). With this combined force of ranged and melee I plan to erase Farmer Maggot before he can even sow his crops.

As I am training riders and putting up towers with some workers to provide homeland security, a red message suddenly blares out on my screen: "a worker is under attack!"

Well Farmer Maggot certainly does have some gonads, showing up at my doorstep like this. Luckily I have five riders already trained, along with four archers aching for combat. The fight is short and fierce, but it is a battle of numbers and fairly soon nothing remains of the invaders except a couple horse skeletons.

Seeking to capitalize on the advantage, I take my entire army (along with two more riders that were trained during the fighting) and send them all the way over to the other side of the map. I throw the spearmen into the mix as well, for appearance's sake. What I find at the 1:30 is quite sad indeed. A lone Rider of Rohan struts around at the base entrance, trying to look impressive. His head looks very impressive on my riders' orcish blades. Pushing deeper into the base, I find a swarm of undefended workers and set upon them. The workers start fighting back, and as soon as that happens I know that the game is as good as mine. All resistance is eliminated and after that the only thing left on the menu is to take down every last building. Along the way I make use of the Vile Surge fate power to restore health to all my military units. Once that is done, I have officially won my first game of WotR. That was pretty uneventful, huh? Notice I didn't even bother to tell you what bonus the Place of Power gave me. That's partially cause I have no idea, but it's not like the Place was what changed the game for me HAR HAR.

Game Two

Feeling full of myself after creaming an Easy level computer I decide to take my game up a notch and pit my skills against a Medium. The map is Mirkwood pond, and my opponent is none other than Frodo Baggins the ring-bearer. I am once again playing as the Evil dudes. The game starts and I again end up in the 7:30 position with Frodo at the 1:30.

Upon closer examination of this emotional map, we see that there are expansions in the four corners and two, mark that, TWO Places of Power. My build order is pretty much the same as before: mill, mine, some workers and spearmen. Being the daring soul that I am, I send my spearmen to capture both the Places. What harm can it do? The bonuses I get from them are substantial. +3 to all units' attack and +1 to armor. In the early game, that can make a big difference. I figure the atmosphere is perfect for rushing, except being a total noob at this game I have no freaking idea how I would go about performing a rush. However, I improvise.

I figure that riders can traverse the map quickly, and the Beast Lair is available fairly early on, so I decide that riders are my best bet for the task. I save up some cash and pop down TWO Beast Lairs. I then train excessive amounts of slavers to give me some room to maneuver when it comes to population. Riders cost about twice as much food as they do ore, so I shift some workers over to food. From there, it's all a matter of time.

I don't want to wait too long, so once I have 4 riders I send them out to harrass Mr. Baggins. Once I get there, I see that he has NO defenses and start smashing up his base like I mean it. Two more riders are trained and sent north to join the party. Frodo's workers start to put up a fight, and a fairly decent one at that, so I use my Vile surge spell to beef up my riders a bit. By the time that around half his base is no more, Frodo decides to put up a measly counter-attack and sends two Gondor swordsmen to take me down at my main. However, when they get there they find themselves gang-raped by orc workers and slavers. After that there is no more resistance and I win my second game of WotR via a highly successful rush.

Game Three

You know how it is: you get really excited about something and you don't know when to stop. Well that was the case with me and this game. I got high off my victories and decided to take on a Hard computer. Of course, even in my euphoric state I knew that I wasn't badass enough to handle a Hard computer so I opted to have a Medium comp assisting me, making this a 2v1. Sounds easy enough, right? The map is Cirith Udun, and both computers play as the Good faction. I, on the other hand, am going Evil all the way.

The map consists of narrow passages connecting three bases and a Place of Power in the middle.

I spawn at the 12:00 position and immediately get a'goin because I realize this game will be a bit of a challenge, even for me. Again, I follow the same formula as in the two games before: mill, mine, workers and spearmen to Place of Power. Once I grab the Place, it gives me a +1 armor bonus to all my soldiers. As I am doing all this, in the back of my mind there grows a festering, ever-more-potent thought that this game may not go as well as I planned. What are you talking about, Wombat? Well take a look at this screeny:

Maybe you can, I don't care. But try doing that during a crazy 100mph fight for Middle Earth and you will realize the difficulty of my situation. Not being able to see the workers in my own base is a big setback. I forget where I read this, but someone was talking about how your success in an RTS game is largely determined by your frame of mind in the early stages. If all the buildup goes as planned, you are full of energy and optimism when it comes to engaging your foes. If little things start going wrong early on, it is a sure sign that the rest of the game will either be tooth-to-tooth and nail-to-nail, or a complete and utter failure. Well this here was no mere little thing. The game had got me good.

Nevertheless, I manage to do surprisingly o.k. and am trying to get me some raiders when my mildly retarded ally decides to go and piss off the slumbering giant at the 4:30. His feeble force gets prescribed an ass-raping antibiotic and I suddenly become the only dude on our side with military units remaining. When I have around 4 riders I decide to go exploring and am ambushed by some dwarves and elves and shit.

My glorious hordes manage to hold out but now only number 1 rider. Apparently I am really sucking right now, because my ally has already stuffed up his main and now tries to expand to the 6:00 settlement only to be chased out by our mutual enemy. Seeing this, I decide to be pro just like him and send some workers to deface the pristine wells and ore mines at 10:30 by erecting shoddy orcish structures upon them. In retrospect I guess this was one of my only smart moves in the game, because my resource gathering operation at my main was getting so clogged up with workers that it was becoming inefficient. Then follows a short battle for the center in which Mr. Hard sends in another mixed force of fantasy characters and I repel him with some riders. Despite the fact that my ally's continuous attempts at expansion to 6:00 are being denied, I bluntly refuse to help him and let my riders chill at the Place.

MAP UPDATE!!!

The rider army at the Place grows and when I have about 5 or 6 I send 'em over to the eastern settlement to check if blue has an undefended expansion there for me to rape. Turns out he doesn't. As the riders return to the Place they are suddenly attacked from the south by blue's woodland wonders and their lives are quickly extinguished (the riders').

Luckily for me, the computer is happy for now and doesn't press on to steal the Place from me, where I have 2 riders sitting around as backup. Before my army dies I am able to get a glimpse of the southern expansion and see that blue has already managed to put up his own buildings there. At this point I realize that all is going downhill fast, so I opt for the camper tactic and start towering up the narrow passage to my main. As I am doing so, my ally screams for help as his main is set upon by drunken dwarves and evergreen elves but I am wasting all my time and resources on towers, so cannot and do not provide him any assistance. His death is a slow and painful one as his military is obliterated and blue begins hammering away at his helpless buildings.

I, however, seem to be going strong. My expansion is now fully operational and even has its own beast lair for making, you guessed it, MORE RAIDERS. My main has also been boarded up very tightly with towers and seems impenetrable. I sit tight and prepare for the worst. Sure enough, it is only a matter of time before elvish batallions steal my Place of Power and head for my main. They cannot penetrate past the towers, but I begin to realize that I am fighting a losing battle. My ally is now no more, and blue has three expansions (including his main). Soon to be four, because my 9:00 suddenly comes under attack and, currently having no defenses, is doomed to fall.

I decide to compensate for my obvious inability to emerge victorious by training the tightest looking units I can find. This includes the freaky wraiths (any j-horror fan's dream) as well as oversized arachnids. The cherry on top of the ice cream, however, is the Lord of the Nazgul, who is so dark and sinister that the apple I am eating as I play begins to rot.

Suddenly, as if by divine intervention I run out of space on my C drive and can no longer take massive 1024x768 bitmap screenshots every 2 seconds. Because WotR doesn't have a replay function as far as I know, I was forced to take screenies AS I PLAYED. I could use this as an excuse for my shitty playing but I have morals. However, I do interpret this new turn of events as a legit excuse to terminate the game and thus escape with at least some of my dignity.

What did we learn from all this?

Don't get this game unless you are a Tolkien geek and/or you like bad War3 remakes.

END