
Map Name:         Tolkien's War of the Ring

Map Maker:        Yurian Stonebow*
                
E-Mail Address:  olavi_valimaki@hotmail.com

Map Difficulty:    Advanced**

Map Size:             Extra-Large

Underground:      Yes

Map Style:            High Fantasy

Map Type:            Allied/Co-Operation            
                
                
Map Version:       1.1

Map Date:            14th of March 2014
                
Human-playable  
town-types:          Blue: Gondor (Life) 
                             Green: Elves of Rivendell, Lorien and Mirkwood (Nature)  
                             Teal: Rohan (Life)

Computer only:   Red: Mordor (Death) 
                             Purple: Near Harad and Khand (Might) 
	          Orange: Isengard and Orcs of the North (Chaos) 
                             

Alliances:             1 Human Team (allied Blue, Green and Teal) 
                                                                 VS
	          1 CPU Team (allied Red and Purple) 
                                                                 VS  
                             Saruman's Isengard & Orcish allies (Orange player alone)			

Language:            English

Game Version:    Heroes IV: Winds of War***

Standard Win:     Defeat all enemies

Standard Loss:    Lose all heroes and armies

Special Other:     Co-operation

Play-Tester:        Yurian Stonebow (yes, that's yours truly)
		

Map Description:   The end of the Third Age is near and Sauron, the Dark Lord of Mordor 
                                has begun his long awaited War. Now the ultimate fate of the Free Peoples
                                of Middle-Earth rests in your hands in this faithful re-creation of J.R.R.Tolkien's
                                epic world. Does the One Ring (Ring of Greater Negation) really rule them all?





OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE MAP


The map is designed to feature "pre-scripted" level 20 AI heroes.  
These special computer opponents have been given a number of 
mid to high level artefacts with the intended goal of offering the Human player(s)
some admittedly much needed additional challenge.

Version 1.1 Changelog in short:

-MASSIVE balance patch
-added new towns
-added new heroes
-added new story bits
-added new Quests to highlight the story
-rebalanced the strength of wandering monster stacks
-rebalanced Green player's starting position
-the world map is now more true to the original Atlas of the Middle-earth
 as published by J.R.R's son Christopher Tolkien
-wrote new bios' for the main playable characters (Heroes)
-quite a many new scripts added
-reworked some of the existing scripts
-reworked the network of roads
-expanded Underground sections of the map
-removed a faulty script affecting Luck in front of a doorway that led to the Paths of the Dead
-removed "extra" resources, sea based dwellings and locations found throughout the Sea
-removed some artifacts in order to achieve a bit more optimum overall balance
-removed a number of typos from the text file
-removed all Dragon Utopias
-removed two Monk & two Crusader dwellings
-cleared the map of excessive use of "unnecessary graphical decorations"
-disabled Creature Portal in all Nature towns



Special thanks to Duzeom of the Heroes fan site www.celestialheavens.com 
whose feedback and criticism of version 1.0 inspired me to come up with this balance patch.

This map is dedicated to my German friend and a fellow fan of the great work of 
J.R.R. Tolkien, Konrad "Koni" L. in solidarity for his support, commentary and advise 
given to the author during the long process of the map's coming into existence. Thank You. 


* "Tolkien's War of the Ring" draws inspiration from older Middle-earth themed maps 
   especially "LOTR - War Of The Ring" by Veldrynus. I give the authors full credit of their 
   original work while humbly admitting the fact that I owe them a lot in certain areas.
   Anyway, as my "Tolkien's War of the Ring" borrows ideas from Veldrynus' work , I think it's
   not out of place for me to give him a nod and partial credit for him showing me the way.

**The level of difficulty is set on Advanced, but the map is kind of a hang-in-between the
    difficulty levels Intermediate and Advanced. The use of "Pre-scripted" CPU players suggests   
    the true level being Advanced, but this may not be the case at all due to various flaws and
    weaknesses present in the Heroes IV adventure AI. Alas, it is such a pity.

***For Winds of War but can be played under the latest version of the Equilibris Mod (3.51)


Please send feedback to me at:        olavi_valimaki@hotmail.com


Don't forget that ALL feedback is much appreciated! Seriously. It is. :)
