Game Mechanics

In the Edain Mod, many mechanics are hidden deep within the code or just not clearly explained. This often makes it hard for new players (and even some more experienced players) to fully grasp everything that is happening on the field. Because the Edain Wiki is all about covering every aspect of the mod, these game mechanics are all listed below.

The Palantir of Command

Command Points Counter

Command points (often abbreviated to CP) are the game mechanics that regulate the amount of heroes and units you can have. In skirmish mode (and other modes that don't affect the command points), you start with 300 and must increase that limit through pantry upgrades that can be bought on resource buildings. On every resource building you can buy Pantry I, which provides you with an additional 120 CPs, and Pantry II, which provides an additional 240 command points. You will also gain 30 points every time you build a resource building. CPs are located at the bottom right of your mini-map palantir. However, the maximum amount the CP limit can be increased to is 1800; beyond that, purchasing the pantry upgrade will not increase your CP limit. Because of the way that the CPs work (each unit costing a couple CPs instead of entire battalions) it is possible to exceed this limit. Simply lose enough units without losing the battalion and keep training battalions, then simply heal or buy banner carriers and your battalions will regenerate.

Power Points

Power Points (often abbreviated to PP) are points you gain throughout the game by battling, whether it's simply trading blows with enemy heroes, killing enemy troops, slaying neutral creeps or reducing enemy buildings to rubble. These PPs can then be accessed by clicking on the PP counter, which gives you access to your chosen faction's spellbook. To see each faction's spellbook simply pick a faction and scroll down to the spellbook section. The spells, once purchased, will then appear on the side of your screen and can be used immediately but must then cool down. Passive powers such as Gandalf The White or His Deadliest Servants will be in effect as soon as they are purchased (passive powers). The powers are classed into 4 Tiers from 1 to 4 depending on their level in the spellbook. Here are the costs break up:

• Tier 1: 1-2 PP
• Tier 2: 2-4 PP
• Tier 3: 6-7 PP
• Tier 4: 9-10 PP

Most spellbook powers do not deal direct damage and instead tend to focus on supporting your troops in various ways.

Resources

Resources are the amount of money that the player has at that moment. You can gain resources from resource buildings (e.g. Isengard Lumber Mills, Mordor Slaughter Houses and Rohan Farms), treasure from lairs, or from certain units and heroes (Bilbo can drop treasure for one of his abilities, while some heroes and units have a Scavenger ability that allows them to gain money from kills). Money can be used in game for buildings, unit production, hero production and upgrades. The amount of money you earn from buildings can be increased by purchasing Resource Production upgrades or from certain powers (like Isengard's Industry and Fuel the Fires). Since having a strong economy is necessary to do well in the game, many players attempt to harm the economy of their opponents by destroying resource buildings and making them waste money.

Stances

Stances are a new feature added in BFME2, where the first slot of ever unit and heroes palantir will be a set of three interchangeable stances which slightly increase and decrease attack and armor along with changing the agro level of the unit/hero. This does not affect heroes with custom stances such as Helegwen, Denethor or The Necromancer who each get a different stat increase stated in the description. The player must pay attention to the fact that stances are not advantageous on the long term. For example, a battalion of Swordsmen set in aggressive stance fighting against a similar battalion will lose. You should rather use the stances for precise goals, the default stance should be the normal stance.

Defensive Stance

The Defensive Stance set the agro level of the unit or hero to passive meaning that the unit or hero will not engage the enemy unless it engages it first. In addition, triggering the stance will immediately bring the hero/unit to a halt and grant the following stats increase and decrease for each type of unit:

Swordsmen

• Armor: 15% increase.
• Damage: 20% decrease.

Archers

• Armor: 10% increase.
• Damage: 15% decrease.

Heroes

• Armor: 10% increase.
• Damage: 15% decrease.

Siege (Artillery)

• Armor: 10% increase.
• Damage: 15% decrease.

Pikemen

• Armor: 15% increase.
• Damage: 20% decrease.

Cavalry

• Armor: 10% increase.
• Damage: 15% decrease.

Strategy

This a good stance to use if your units are being attacked by archers. If you have swordsmen or cavalry charging enemy archers put them in this stance until they reach the archers. Once they reach the archers put them in normal or aggressive stance for maximum damage output.

If you are leaving a unit as a sacrifice put it in defensive stance so it will survive longer. This is also useful if you are going to reinforce your army, you can keep the few battalions in defensive stance until your army arrives. If the enemy is having all of his army focus on one of your battalions put that battalion in defensive stance so it will survive longer while your other battalions deal the damage.

Uruks and Gondor soldiers in shield wall with defensive stance on can take a lot of beating before they die. They make EXCELLENT meatshields! Defensive stance is useful for units with high attack. They can still get 1-2 hit kills while taking little damage. If you have some swordsmen that are about to be hit by cavalry put them in defensive stance. Once the cavalry hit and slow down, put your swordsmen in aggressive stance then kill the cavalry. If your archers are about to be hit by cavalry put them in defensive stance.

Right after your cavalry are done trampling enemy units, put them into defensive stance. When cavalry trample enemy units, those units deal crush damage back. Putting your cavalry into defensive stance immediately after they hit enemy units will help keep them alive for a much longer period of time.

When out of combat put wounded heroes in defensive stance to help them regenerate health faster.

Normal Stance

The Normal Stance does not affect the stats of the unit/hero and they will engage enemies that appear in a medium range.

Agressive Stance

The Agressive Stance set the agro level of the unit or hero to agressive meaning that the unit or hero will engage all enemies that appear in its vision range (there is a difference between global vision range and a single unit's which explains why units don't always engage units the player can see). In addition, triggering the stance will grant the following stats increase and decrease for each type of unit:

Swordsmen

• Armor: 20% decrease.
• Damage: 15% increase.

Archers

• Armor: 15% decrease.
• Damage: 10% increase.

Heroes

• Armor: 15% decrease.
• Damage: 10% increase.

Siege (Artillery)

• Armor: 15% decrease.
• Damage: 10% increase.

Pikemen

• Armor: 20% decrease.
• Damage: 15% increase.

Cavalry

• Armor: 15% decrease.
• Damage: 10% increase.

Strategy Put your cavalry in attack stance before you hit a group of unprotected archers. Put your archers in aggressive stance When they are attacking enemy units/buildings and are not being attacked back. When you want to kill something quickly put your units in Aggressive Stance. Use aggressive stances when you have units attacking enemy resource buildings. Be careful as units in aggressive stance will take a lot more damage from everything, although if you are attacking a hero who can one-hit your units it doesn't matter.

Armor Sets

Armor Set defines how much damage the unit takes from each damage type (see below). Instead of individually defining the values for each unit, BFME uses these Armor Sets and assigns them to units. In this manner whatever change is made to the original Armor Set will then be automatically transferred over to the units which have been assigned the modified Armor Set, just like the templates on the wiki. Template:Armor Sets

Damage Types

The list below outlines all the possible damage that can be taken. They are listed in the Armor Set, and therefore the percentages define the multiplier of the damage dealt out.

DEFAULT

This type of damage specifies how much of the damage is taken by the unit for any type of damage that is not written out. For example, if CRUSH damage isn't specified in the Armor Set then the game will refer to the value of DEFAULT to know how much of the damage to inflict.

UNDEFINED

Damage type not defined, refers to DEFAULT.

CAVALRY

This type of damage specifies the damage taken by the Armor Set from the Cavalry Melee attack. This must not be confused with the trample damage which is explained in CRUSH; this damage is purely dealt every time a cavalry unit strikes.

CRUSH

This type of damage specifies the damage taken by the Armor Set from being trampled by units. Armor Sets made for Monsters and Cavalry often have it set to 1%.

CAVALRY_RANGED

This type of damage specifies the damage taken by the Armor Set from Mounted Archer attacks. However, it is not always the case. It is especially effective against units with heavy armor but it is not as strong as the URUK damage type.

SIEGE

This type of damage specifies the damage taken by the Armor set from Siege attacks. (note: Saruman's fireball does siege damage)

STRUCTURAL

This type of damage specifies the damage taken by the Armor Set from the arrow towers of each faction. This includes the buildings that gain arrow towers through their upgrades, the buildings that can be manually upgraded with arrow towers and the defense towers that can be built on plots and defensive plots.

CHOP

This type of damage is only specific to some units as not all units of one category can deal that type damage. It specifies the damage taken by the Armor Set from units with the CHOP damage. This deals more damage to units without the Heavy Armor upgrade.

FLAME

This type of damage specifies how much damage the Armor Set takes from fire attacks such as fire arrows, fire stones and Saruman's Fireball fire damage, which is not the same as the initial impact which is categorized as SIEGE damage.

FROST

This type of damage specifies how much damage the Armor Set takes from frost attacks such as the Avalanche, the Ice Arrows or the Ice Shots.

URUK

This type of damage is only specific to some units as not all units of one category can deal that type of damage. It defines how much damage is taken by the Armor Set from units with the URUK damage type. This deals more damage to units with heavy armor.

POISON

This type of damage specifies how much damage the Armor Set takes from heroes and units that have poison damage (Gorbag's attack, Shelob's attack, Dol Guldur units). However, it doesn't specify how much damage over time is taken.

WATER

This type of damage specifies how much damage the Armor Set takes from Monster attacks. This includes everything that is not a building, in which case you must refer to the SIEGE damage type.

SLASH - Soldier

PIERCE - Archer

MAGIC - damage taken from magic attack

HERO - Hero

SPECIALIST - Pikemen

HERO_RANGED - Hero Bow

REFLECTED - caused by the ReflectDamage Behavior

LOGICAL_FIRE - the ground is on fire

Unused Damage Types in Edain

HEALING

IRRESISTIBLE can't be influenced by any modifiers or armor

PENALTY

FALLING

TOPPLING

PASSENGER

FLY_INTO

FORCE

Further Damage Effects

FlankedPenalty

A Modifier which increases the damage, when being attacked from the sides or behind, the damage type is nonetheless one of the above

CrushedRevenge

Damage taken from units being trampled, but the damage type is one of the above

Fear and Fear Resistance

Fear is a powerful move in Edain, allowing players to slow their enemy, make them flee the field or even immobilize them completely. However, there are many more effects than one could usually think, it isn't a simple fear indicator, there are actually 4 different ways to stun an enemy:

• Fear: enemies cower on the floor, for example Boromir's Horn.
• Terror: enemies run away cowering, for example the Screech of the Nazgul.
• Paralyze: enemies are stunned, for example Soul Freeze.
• Slow: the movement speed is set to 0, for example Lurtz Cripple Strike.

Fear and Terror can be countered by Fear Resistance abilities such as the Spellbook Horns or any leaderships that states it grants "fear resistance". Paralyze cannot be countered at all and Slow can only be countered by it anti-category, if the anti-category is active then the Slow won't work.

Cooldowns

Cooldowns are a specific amount of time that the player must wait before being able to use the same ability or spellbook power. They can be increased or reduced by certain abilities or even reset or triggered by other abilities. When a cooldown is triggered by something like the Witch King's Terrifying Malice ability all the affected abilities will begin to cooldown as though they had been just used. If the cooldown are reset, all the cooldowns will be set to 0 and the ability can be used again.

When a spell or ability says that it will increase or reduce a cooldown's time it specifically means that if the hero/unit is under the effect of the spell and ability when it triggers the cooldown and only then the cooldown will be affected. Once cooldowns are started they cannot be affected, therefore, casting an ability that reduces cooldown timers on a hero that already has all their ability on cooldown will not have any effect. In order for the time reduction/increase to work, the ability **must** be used while the hero is under the effect.

For example, Halabard's Banner Passive when summoned by Gondor. If you use an ability and then summon him, that ability will not cooldown faster, however, if you summon him and then use the ability then it will cooldown faster, even if Halbarad's passive stops affecting the hero halfway through the cooldown.

Once a cooldown is started, it cannot be reduced or increased, it can only be completely reset or restarted.

Unit Types

Nearly all units can be split into different categories. Heroes are special units that are based on characters from The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. They have specific abilities and uses and are a lot more powerful than regular units. Swordsmen are the basic units for most factions and are usually well-balanced. Archers are damage dealing units with the ability to attack from far away. However, they have reduced armour to compensate. Cavalry units are fast, strong, and able to damage other units by riding over them. However, if they are forced to trample too many units at once, they slow down and are vulnerable to attack. In addition, for every unit they trample they take a small amount of "revenge" damage. Monsters are powerful single units that can devastate armies if not put down quickly with the appropriate counter. They are strong with specific uses that allow them to deal massive damage to enemy forces and buildings. Pikemen are specialised units that deal very high damage to monsters and cavalry. Support units have little or no attack capabilities but have special abilities that let them boost the skills of surrounding units. Elite units are like standard units that are a lot stronger and may have additional abilities. They are usually used in the mid-late game. Heroic units are limited, expensive units that are very powerful and have extra abilities to destroy enemy forces. Finally, siege units are designed to bring down buildings and are less effective against regular units.

Each type of unit category is weak against another. Archers are weak against cavalry due to the mobility differences and the trample. Cavalry is weak to pikemen and monsters, while monsters are weak to pikemen and upgraded archers. The weaknesses of elite units and heroic units are dependent on what type of unit they are, although they usually require other heroic and elite units to fight them. Siege units are weak to all melee attacks. Every unit is weak to the damage dealt by archers, unless specifically stated otherwise, but will win easily if they manage to engage in melee combat

In order to do well in a game, a player must ensure that they have a balanced army for all situations and that they know how to use each unit type.

 Game Modes

The Edain Mod took away the old CP multiplier and replaced it with a series of interesting and unique game modes which can be picked before the beginning of the game.

Massacre

The CP Max Limit is divided by 3 (600) and starting CP is also divided by 3 (100), which means in other terms that you will often start with more troops than you can afford. Pantry upgrades are key but few are needed. Heroes lose 25% armor while units lose 50%.

Elite

The CP Limit and starting CP are halved (150 starting and 900 max) but troops are twice as strong.

Skirmish

Standard settings: players will start with 300 command points and all units and heroes will have their regular stats. The maximum command points a player can have in this mode is 1800, which is generally enough to amass a decently large army.

Victory Points

In Victory Points mode, the player must hold more than half the outposts for 8 minutes. As soon as the player controls more than half the outposts, a countdown will begin. However, if the player loses that ground the countdown will stop and reset.

Conquest

In Conquest mode, the goal is to hold more than half the settlements for 4 minutes. As soon as the player controls more than half the settlements, a countdown will begin. However, if the player loses that ground the countdown will stop and reset.

Legendary Heroes

As the name indicates, heroes gain a minor increase to health, damage, and armor, making them slightly more resistant to enemy units. However, this does not, by any means, make the hero units of this mode any more powerful than they would be in the base game.

Epic Battle

In Epic Battle the starting CP is 3000 (times 10) and the max CP is 18000 (times 10). Reaching such an amount would require 47 buildings all upgraded with double pantry. Unfortunately, this is the most unstable game mode, as the game can slow or crash depending on how many units are on the battlefield at a time, and on some occasions, the command point system will break, leaving the player with zero maximum command points, and disabling their ability to make more troops, even when they've lost them all.

Shortcuts

In addition to the shortcuts for each unit, hero, abilities and buildings some shortcuts are universal and allow for quicker and more precise strategies, they are all listed below:

Name	Key	Useable In	Effect
Save View1-9	Ctrl + F1-F9	Game	Saves your current perspective so that clicking on the number you used to save it will bring up that perspective.
View View1-9	F1-F9	Game	Automatically sets your perspective to the one you saved on that number.
Create Team0-9	Ctrl + 0-9	Game	Sets as the units selected as team X
Select Team0-9	0-9	Game	Selects units previously set in team X
Add Team0-9	Shift + 0-9	Game	Add the selected units to team X
View Team0-9	Alt + 0-9	Game	Shifts the camera straight to the majority of the troops in group X
Select Matching Units (on screen)	E (single tap)	Game	Selects all the units of the same type as the currently selected units on the screen
Select Matching Units (map wide)	E (double tap)	Game	Selects all units of the same type as the currently selected units on the whole map
Select Next Unit	Shift + Right Arrow	Game	Doesn't seem to work
Select Previous Unit	Shift + Left Arrow	Game	Doesn't seem to work
Select Next Worker	Shift + Up Arrow	Game	Obsolete
Select Previous Worker	Shift + Down Arrow	Game	Obsolete
Select Hero	Ctrl + H	Game	Selects a nearby hero, repeatedly clicking on Ctrl + H will select recruited heroes one after the other
View Home Base	H	Game	Moves the camera to the citadel of your starting base
View Last Event	Space	Game	Moves the camera to the last radar event (mostly used when Gollum is sighted)
Select All	Q	Game	Selects all units and heroes present on the map
Scatter	R	Game	The selected battalions scatter away individually
Stop	S	Game	The selected battalions will hold positions and attack any unit that come within their attack range
Attack Move	A	Game	The selected battalion will move towards the clicked point attacking all units within their range
Auto save	Alt + S	Game	Doesn't seem to work
Create Formation	Ctrl + F	Game	Doesn't seem to work
Chat Allies	Backspace	Game (Multiplayer Only)	This will open up a text bar that will allow the player to send a message only seen by players on the same team
Chat All	Enter	Game (Multiplayer Only)	This will open up a text bar that will allow the player to send a message seen by everyone
Diplomacy Screen	Tab	Game	This will open up the diplomacy screen to let you see player still playing and donate resources to your allies.
Place Beacon	Ctrl + B	Game	Place a beacons on the clicked location to signal to allies
Sell/Delete Beacon	Escape	Game	Deletes the selected beacon or destroys the selected building (except the citadel)
Menu	Escape	Game	Opens the game menu (does not pause game in multiplayer)
Control Bar Toggle	F9	Game	Hides/Unhides the control bar
Continuous Selection	Shift + Left Click	Game	Allows the player to add units to the current selection by clicking on them
Screenshot	F12	Game	Takes a screenshot of the screen and saves in the Rise of the Witch King Screenshot folder (in Images)
All Cheer	Ctrl + C	Game	Doesn't seem to work
Movement Path	Alt + Right Click	Game	Creates a path for the selected units which they will follow. Can be used for patrolling

Computer Players

In skirmish mode, the player faces off against any number of computer players (also called AI or simply referenced with the difficulty level "Brutal", "Medium") on a variety of maps. If desired, a skirmish game can be played in which no computer opponents are present, allowing for the player to freely explore the mechanics of a faction without a time limit or victory condition.

Computer players have always been programmed somewhat poorly. For one, none of the AI opponents ever have a method of gameplay that suits the nature of their faction, which leads to Gondor computers being unnaturally aggressive, and Rohan computers swarming with peasants instead of attacking strategically with cavalry like they are supposed to. Computer opponents tend to favor more aggressive and basic methods of warfare by sending swarms of foot soldiers to capture outposts and settlements, and making beelines straight for the player's citadel whenever possible. This can lead to them getting their own men killed by a plethora of arrow towers, or by monsters and enemy units who happen to graze by them. To make up for this artificial stupidity, the AI is always given a sort of advantage over the player, in the ways of having much more resources and command points available; so no matter what, AI opponents will always have larger and better-equipped armies than the player, even on easy mode, and especially during the late game.

The only way to really counteract this is to set computer opponents on harsh handicaps to severely weaken all of their units and buildings. Besides this, the only real difference shown in the AI depends on their difficulty setting. Computer opponents at higher difficulties barely show any increase in tactical skill, but instead are given artificial strength in the form of even more free resources and command points, as well as free power points, allowing them to spam their spellbook powers from the beginning.

There is no hope of fixing these computer players, ever. If someone tires of dealing with the frustration of fighting computer opponents, they may have better chances of playing Edain Mod against other players via Game Ranger--but even then, you'll be lucky to find yourself in a game at all.