A Complete Walkthrough for New Players
This is a guide that was completed by the members of ARDA to assist players with the general mechanics of how the game works
Tips and Tricks on Launch
When you first open the game, it can become a little overwhelming. Lots of buttons and windows with lots of information. This guide is to give you a little understanding of all that info and explain it in its simplest terms.
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Commanders to pick first for Good factions:
(as tested, averaged out, with best possible build for pve)
(Based on senior player recommendation, excluding the impact T4 troops)
#1 – Gandalf #10 – Balin
#2 – Théoden #11 – Legolas
#3 – Boromir #12 – Dwalin
#4 – Eomer #13 – Merry & Pippin
#5 – Arwen #14 – Haldir
#6 – Eowyn #15 – Frodo & Sam
#7 – Gimli #16 – Denethor
#8 – Hirgon #17 – Faramir
#9 – Aragorn #18 – Ori
UI Overview
Settlement Overview
Middle Earth overview
Here is a map of Middle Earth. As you can see each Faction has its own specific starting place and capital. Each faction is a different colour. There are 8 playable factions within the game.
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When a faction successfully captures a regional control point, that region will fall under that faction’s control. Adopting its specific colour on the map, as well as providing every player in that faction with a small boost in power production. Keeps are located in each territory, indicated by the white markers on the map. Whilst the capitals are indicated by the red “tent” like markers.
Structures
The top “Structures” shows all of the keeps and capitals organised by ring power per hour.
User
The “User” button, this shows all your personal tagged locations on the map.
Faction
The ‘Faction’ button displays all of your current faction keeps.
Fellowship
The ‘Fellowship’ button displays all of your fellowships important locations that have been assigned by your fellowships officers.
Landmarks
The ‘Landmarks’ button displays all landmarks owned by the faction including captured Springs.
The Tavern/Inn is located on the bottom right of your screen. (Prancing pony Inn sign). It is the place to go to recruit commanders as well as complete tips and complete the Red book.
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Tips
Upon entering the Tavern/Inn you will see 4 selectable tips in front of you. These tips refresh every 24 hours. They will allow you to send your Commanders out to earn rewards upon completion; rewards can vary from, Equipment to Commanders Respect, but all tips will give your Commanders some experience.
On the left of the screen you see the word “Tips” you can use gems to buy more tips. You can do this twice every 24 hours. This can be a handy method to get experience and respect for Commanders. Make sure to use a Commander’s stamina first, so they will regenerate the stamina while completing the tip.
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Recruiting commanders:
Recruiting commanders is done via the Inn button and then clickling the “Recruit commander” button located in the bottom right corner.
Here you can recruit via 3 screens, Tier 1, Tier 2 or Tier 3. Each commander requires a certain amount of respect to recruit. As you go up in Tiers the cost to recruit does so also. You can gain respect by completing tavern tips or via Mathom chests and gaining Respect items or Invitations which are both pictured below.
Once respect is earnt it cannot be lost and will carry over each Season even if you are yet to recruit the commander.
Fellowship Tiles
Fellowship tiles can be moved onto, guarded and used as connecting tiles for you to path
Faction Tiles
Faction tiles can be used as connecting tiles for you to path – You can attack these tiles but this is treated as a betrayal and can have dire consequences.
Other Faction/Enemy Tiles
Other Faction/Enemy tiles can be attacked with a commander to take.
Your Tiles
You can do almost anything on your tiles. Build Forts, Guard, Move onto and use as connecting tiles.
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How tiles work:
In order to physically move commanders around the map and take control of an area, you need to have an adjacent tile. You can move/attack directly to a tile that is adjacent to any Green
, Blue
or Purple
tiles so long as it is within your settlements range of movement (At the beginning of the server, there will not be many owned tiles around, so moving to some places will require pathing. We will cover pathing further on).The first 3 weeks of the game are where you will do the most growing. You may want to try and take high level tiles as soon as you can, but this can lead to large troop losses which will slow your growth. The best plan is to continue taking tiles of a certain level until you only have about 15% troop loss and then move on to the next level of tile. For example, continue taking 40 power tiles until you can take them with minimal loss before moving onto farming 60 power tiles. The exception for this is when you have a full barracks and are ready to take a 200 power tile. It is worth losing most of your troops in order to get a 200+ power tile for mock battling. Always feel free to ask your teammates for help in killing a 200+ power tile, you are all on the same team and should be willing to help.
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Important Tile Hints:
Always complete the quests/ring upgrades that allow you to have a larger tile capacity. This will allow you to hold more land, gather more resources and grow faster. There are also ring skills that increase the resources gained per hour.
As you continue to take larger tiles you can drop the less productive tiles to leave more space for better ones. Holding onto low level tiles will slow your growth. Ideally you will always be dropping your weakest tiles and replacing them with better ones as the several progresses.
Try as much as possible to also have your commanders at full army capacity when taking tiles, attacking with fewer units results in greater losses!
Fellowship Fortress
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Fellowship Officers will build Fortresses in strategic locations around the map and often ask you to send a commander there and build your own fort nearby. This allows you to move around the map much faster and access new regions without pathing there.
Your Fellowship Officers can build a Fellowship Fortress on any 2×2 tile (200+ power) within a region owned by your Faction or a neutral one. Fortresses takes 3 hours to build and 1 hour to demolish (A Fortress can be demolished and rebuilt where needed), costs the officer 36k gold, 36k stone, 24k wood and 24k ore to build. One Fellowship Fortress is unlocked at Fellowship Level 10, a second at Level 20 and so on. A Fellowship can have a maximum of 5 Fortresses at Fellowship Level 50.
The Fortress acts as a fort for every member of the Fellowship. Every member of the fellowship can send 1 commander from anywhere on the map. When the commander arrives, the Fortress acts as a fort of your own and the commander can move anywhere within the 50 tile radius.
Mock Battles / Resource gathering
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Mock battles is one of the easiest ways to level your commanders without losing troops. You can mock battle on the tiles you own, the higher the power of the tile, the more experience your commander receives. It is important to try and take a 200+ power tile as soon as possible to be able to mock battle efficiently. A 300 power tile is the most powerful in the game and will be essential in helping you get your commanders to level 50. (maximum level)
Tips: Purchasing mock battle experience boosts in the fellowship shop will give you extra experience when mock battling. You can buy 1 boost per 24 hours.
Commanders
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Commanders are essentially the main focus of your game. The are required for army movements, resource gathering, keep captures and tile capturing. There are 3 Tier groups of Commanders, the higher the Tier the better the commander but the more difficult they become to recruit. It is important to start off your game by selecting 2 main commanders to level as fast as possible to level 50.
Commanders respect levels:
Respect 1 – Accessory slot unlocked
Respect 3 – New Skill branch unlocked
Respect 5 – New Skill branch unlockedEvery respect & experience level gained is a point you are able to add to your Commander’s ability tree.
Commanders Respect level
Commanders Might
Commanders Focus
Commanders Speed
Commanders Equipped Gear
Gear & Equipment
All commander’s can wear 4 pieces of gear. Weapons, Armour, Helmet’s and Accessories. You can obtain gear through tips, reward chests and mathom chests.
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Grades of Gear/Equipment:
❏ Green can not be upgraded (Uncommon)
❏ Blue can be upgraded 3 times (Fine)
❏ Purple can be upgraded & refined 5 times (Superior)
❏ Gold can be upgraded & refined 5 times (Legendary)In order to upgrade each of your gear/equipment, you need to consume other pieces of gear similar to that you are upgrading and that are of the same grade. The better the gear, the lower the drop rate. So don’t waste that equipment if necessary.
Most gear offers racial rewards such as, Damage, Siege, HP, Defence and much more for your Troops as well as bonuses for your Commander’s. Putting the proper gear on your Commander’s is extremely important.
Troop Types
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Troops within RTW are broken down into 2 primary categories. Melee and Ranged.
When in combat, Frontline Troops (Melee) will always take damage over backline units (ranged). This Rule is only superseded when a commander or Troop has an ability that says otherwise. For example, Dúnedain prioritise attacking Ranged units first.
It is important when fighting pvp and against tile units that you equip your commander with 3 different types of units. Preferably ⅔’s Melee with ⅓ Ranged.
For more in-depth info regarding Troop Types press the below button
Keeps
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Keeps are special buildings that grant regional control over a region. If a faction can capture the keep of a region, they can build fortresses and relocate their settlements to that region. Each keep also provides a certain amount of ring power per hour to everyone in the faction.
To take a keep, a faction first has to defeat all the tile defenders and then bring the siege health of the keep to 0. The moment the first attack on the first defender is resolved, a countdown of 1 hour begins. If the keep is not taken within that time, all tile defenders respawn. Any siege damage done will slowly regenerate over time.
If a keep has been taken successfully, both siege health and tile defenders get reset (as shown below) and the keep will be under protection for 1 hour.
Ring Abilities
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Ring Tips & Tricks
As you capture tiles, springs and keeps, your power production will increase. This power is collected and then used to level your ring. Each time you level up your ring you gain a point to invest into your Ring power tree. These are our recommendations in to what you should look to level early game.
Early game recommendations for focusing Ring power are;
Dominance
Commander Experience
Powerful Sweep
Abundant Wisdom
Abundant Power
Ability Points/Mocking – Efficiency, Yield, Rationing and ControlAfter that its pretty much down to preference and reactive to the live game at that moment. Things such as extra forts and Commander speed are all items you may need in game. But using these few recommendations first puts you in a great position.
It is possible to reset your ring abilities. This can be done once every 24 hours. Points spent on dominance, stamina, control, battle lines and fortress are permanent however.
Barracks
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Here is your commander. This shows your power, siege damage, and maximum command limit. As well as the commander speed shown as “slow”. Your commander march to the speed of the slowest troop type equipped.
Here you can use the slider to fill out your commanders army.
You are allowed a maximum of 3 units in the army.
You can use the red Cross to remove units and simply select another unit to replace.
Boss Battles
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Every weekend an event begins called “Heart of a Hero”, during which bosses that can be killed spawn on large tiles. These bosses have been Dragons or Balrogs in the beta, but new bosses may be introduced. The following information is a breakdown of how to defeat these bosses.
Dealing damage to a boss grants you tokens which can be spent on rewards, and ranking in the top 5 damage dealt to each boss gives you a chest which contains speed up boosts and gold. It is considered great teamwork to let your teammates attack a boss with you so you can share the rewards, rather than killing it solo.
*Note; you get the same rewards whether you kill the boss solo or with friends, so share the boss.
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Dragons
Dragons have an attack that hits all your units at once. So only use 1 type of troop against dragons. Dragons are also considered ‘large units’, so Bow Knights and Master Throwers will have a big advantage against them.
Healing commanders are the best way to keep your troops alive when fighting a boss.
An example of a good setup for fighting dragons is a healing commander (Ori) full of Master Throwers and any healing gear.
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Balrogs
Balrogs do not hit all units at once, so it is okay to use a 3 troop type army against them. However, they do have a burn skill that burns your troops every time they attack, so it is wise to kill them as fast as possible. Therefore, a single troop type of high attack is often best.
Healing commanders are still the best commanders to use against Balrogs.
An example of a good setup for fighting balrogs is a healing commander (Merry & Pippin) full of Cavaliers and any healing gear.
