Lord of the Rings: Rise to War mobile app is developed by NetEase studios and licensed from Warner Brothers and New Line Cinema, so it’s got all of the cinematic grandness of the movies as well as characters you can visually recognize. Rise to war is real time team based strategy game (RTS) that takes place in the J.R.R. Tolkien inspired world of middle earth.
With its first season coming to an end and the second season due to begin shortly I decided to do a “how to” play this game because, if played properly, it can be a very entertaining and a fun gaming experience on your phone. I learned quickly that you needed to team up with a fellowship. I began the game as an elf of Lothlorian but I did not end up that way. The game is broken up very much like the world of Middle Earth, by race or Faction. There are the race of men Erebon, Rohan, and Gondor. There is of course elves and dwarves and lastly the dark side of the conflict the orcs and uraks out of Mordor. Each has their strengths and weaknesses and come with a variety of soldiers that you’ll be able to control from your settlement.
What are the LOTR: Rise to War seasons?
The game is set up into seasons. Being that Lord of the Rings: Rise to War was just released in late September, season 1 is coming to an end. The goal of the season is to capture the ring. This season the ring was in Dol Guldur, it’s not known yet if the location of the ring is going to move in future seasons. There are multiple seasonal goals to earn tokens which can be spent to buy exclusive end-of-season items like armor and mathmon tokens. There is no cost to participate in the season events however there is something called a season pass which is a one time charge of $14.99 and gives additional 50 levels of boosts and prizes. I myself did end up purchasing this pass and felt that it was worth every penny because it helped push a lot of my commanders respect over the level needed to higher them. This does not mean that the game is pay to play or pay to win like many of the fans are crying about. I would have eventually unlocked these characters it would’ve just taken me a lot more time and I wanted to do it before the season was over. This was a personal choice and I did not feel like I needed to buy this pass in order to progress.
With the start of the new season the game has introduced for new commanders for players to potentially control. They are: Thorin Oakenshield who we know from the Hobbit movies, Elladan, son of Elrond, Beruthiel Queen of Gondor and a cat lady, Imrahil Prince of Dol Amroth in the Third Age, Adunae a character that isn’t in any of the books or movies, perhaps a character from the upcoming Amazon LOTR Series currently in production, and Zegrid and Dunleding Chieftain.
Main Settlement
Every player has a main settlement where they are able to control their land and armies.
Every tile on the map has a different attributes and resource that it produces. Some are as low as one and they go up as high as 300 with bonuses for taking on more difficult land tiles. It won’t take a genius long to figure out that you will run out of tiles in order to move from place to place. Players can abandon smaller tiles and I highly recommend you doing this as soon as you no longer need the tile. There is a 30-minute cool down then it will be available anybody to take over and the tile slot will open up for you. Same thing goes with forts, they have a 30 minute cool down period before they are destroyed.
Gems are used to help expedite building queues as well as purchasing Mathom tokens. There are a variety of gem packages available with different bonuses.
Settlement Controls Walkthrough
1 Resources
In order to build up armies players had to have three of the four resources for that particular Unit to be conscripted. Players can go to the barter tab where they can exchange resources that they’ve collected to exchange for others.
4 World Map
The player can click here to open the world map to see where they are in middle earth. Using the magnifying glass allows players to search for specific resource tiles or mobs. The location bubble is used to pinpoint locations on your map for quick reference.
5 Ring Power per hour
This is the amount of Ring power that your combined tiles and other bonuses are producing.
6 Accumulated ring power
This is the Ring power that has been produced. The player needs to collect this power to have it available to apply to the ring skill tree.
7 Season Overview
Here is where players can check the current season standings and goals.
8 Ability Points
Ability points generate overtime and allow players to conduct mock battles, gathering, or do “long marches.”
9 Coin
There is a bank that produces gold that you can Levy periodically throughout the day. The amount that can be levied also increases with the amount of land that the player controls. I recommend levying often and saving gold. Gold is needed to build forts as well as buildings in your settlement and some units like Ents and eagles.
10 Banners
By clicking on his banner players can see what armies they have under their command.
11 Store
A place to buy gems for real world money as well as collect a free daily gift.
22 Event Tab
Here players can check with daily or weekly events are currently ongoing.
Help Tab
14 Control panel
Players can quick check to see what armies are being conscripted and what ques are available.
15 Battle notifications
Here players can check the results of individual bottles over tiles.
16 Chat
This is where all of the chat for the game is located. Chat is broken up into world, faction, and fellowship. There are plenty of chat filters in place to block language which is nice. There are a lot of foreign players so the chat does a pretty decent job at translating.
17 Items
Any collected items are gathered here. Including armor and weapons for characters as well as conscription and resource bonuses.
18 Fellowship
Everything your fellowship is doing is under this tab. The fellowship store is where additional resource and speed boosts are available. Players rank in the fellowship is located here as well.
19 Commander tab
This is where all of your commanders can be equipped with armor and weapons as well as allocating skill points.
20 Mathom
A Mathom token is used to open a chest for a chance to unlock items like weapons, armor, or respect items. Players also have a chance to unlock entire commanders. Players get 1 free token a day and another at half off.
21 Tavern
The tavern is where you can complete tavern tips. Tavern tips are 1 to 2 hour quests that your commanders can be sent on to gain items and experience. This is also where you can recruit new commanders.
Main Task Tab
Here are where the main quests for the storyline are listed when available.
Inside the Settlement
1 Barracks
Little by little by increasing your barrack size you can hold more soldiers. The conscription queue allows players to conscript multiple armies at once with the max being four, unless you pay gems for an additional temporary slot.
Soldier units are broken into level I, II,III each one being stronger than the other with different stats. Some level four units like eagles and Ents require the player to occupy particular tiles like the Entmoot or the Eagles nest. The player has to maintain control of these tiles in order to be able to constrict these types of units. These units cost gold and have a different hiring queue in the barracks.
2 Main Hall
When increasing the main hall also increases amount of resources that the player collects from their land. When you click on the actual main hall of your settlement you can see your fellowship affiliation and its rank as well as your overall production. This is where a player can change their faction for a substantial gem investment of 1500.
3 Apothecary
The apothecary is a place where your wounded soldiers can be healed. It is very important to visit the apothecary after every engagement to begin the healing process. It requires a certain amount of gold and grain depending on the amount of soldiers in the apothecary. This is also where you can control the amount of units you have any particular unit. As you progress in Strength it might not be advantageous to continue to use level 1 foot soldiers so you can relieve them from their duty by retiring them in the sub menu freeing up the space in your army.
4 Gold Levy
Depending on the amount of tiles The player controls also increases the amount of gold they can levy on their settlement. There is a maximum of five levy attempts which refresh after a set time period.
3 Market
The market refreshes daily. This is where players can purchase resources for other resources, coins, or gems. Players can click on the barter tab to trade resources that they have for resources that they need. The market refreshers once a day or when a player spends 50 gems to refresh it. Play can spend coin, resources, or gems to purchase production resource, speed, and construction boost.
6 Army
This is where players can check on the armies that they have in the settlement. Players can make changes to the units that are outdated to the commander.
7 Build
Here players can build up their individual unit attributes by increasing their storage, grain, ore production as well as barrack size and the strength of individual units. These require a significant amount of resources.
Commanders are main characters that control your armies in the game. There are three levels of commander’s level one, two, and three. Each commander requires a certain amount of respect in order to recruit them under your command. Level 1 is about 800, level 2 is 2000, and level 3 commanders are at 9,000 respect. Once players have a commander in their command we can assign armies for them to head out and begin to capture tiles. The way to unlock commanders is by giving them items which earn respect. the quickest ways to unlock those characters is with the purchase of my Motham tokens. Players are given one token per day for free and an offer to buy the second one for 200 gems, normally one cost 400 gems. I hear a rumor that the better payouts for players is when they spend five tokens at once. I tried this once and I did get some pristine items which I’ve never had gotten from another chest and still haven’t. I do recommend giving this a shot if you have the patience because the payout might be worth it. Otherwise you’re looking at a long road of gathering small items to give to your commanders for 20 or 30 respect at a time.
Don’t Lose hope however because there are Tavern tasks that refresh daily that also give a chance to drop respect items for your commanders.
Commanders
1 Respect
The commanders unlock accessories and skills with the more respect they have for the player. Respect is earned by giving items to the commanders like shire weed, lamlas bread, and wine depending on the commander.
2 Stamina
Stamina is needed for your commanders to complete actions including battle, gathering resources, or mock battling. This week generates overtime as well. There are some potions that can be purchased to help boost stamina.
3 Individual Commander Attributes
Command is the amount of units an individual commander can control.
Focus effects the poison, burn, and damage a player causes and receives.
Might effects the normal damage
Speed turn order and unit attack speed
4 Inventory
This is where players can equip the commanders with improve weapons and armor. Individual pieces of weapons and armor all have different attributes so pay attention to how they affect the commander. Went to replace a piece of equipment the experience gained by the piece of equipment for the commander is lost.
Movement
In order for a player to move they have to do so within the movement range of the settlement and be connected to a tile of the same faction. To increase the matching range a player has to build a fort. If the fellowship of the player belongs to is able to they can put down a fortress which allows members of the fellowship to travel to that fortress and then move out from there to build their way towards the target.
Forts
Forts are critical to the long distance movement of your armies. In order to move long distances a player has to put down a fort, march to the end of the line and place another fort.
Once a fort is placed it can hold 2 commanders with that army. It’s also increases the march range for your army. Players can increase the amount of commander a single fort stores for a maximum of 6. It’s a good idea to plan your route accordingly and to maximize your traveling distance. A player can spend 10 ability points to do a long March which allows the player to move beyond their fort circumference.
The Ring
Every player in the game gets a ring of power to forge for themselves. The cosmetics of the ring do not have any factor on its properties so go crazy with how you want your ring to look.
When your ring is forged and you begin to level it up you will be giving ability points to spend.
Each ability point has a different attribute and some of these skills stack on top of one another. Some attributes have a direct effect on your characters like stamina which every commander needs 20 units of stamina to execute a move. You can also increase the amount of forts you’re able to build, which is a maximum of 30. The max amount of tiles a player can control is 216.
Some of these skills help reduce more resources. Once you assign your points you’re not locked into that disbursement. Some skills retain what points you put into them like stamina and forts
The Amount of ability points is standard for all players at 20 however a player can increase this number in the ring skill tree. Ability points can be used for gathering as well as mock battles. These are two actions I highly recommend for low level commanders. When gathering try to go to a tile with high production it will increase the amount of resources that player gathers for that time spent gathering. The same goes for mock battles and I highly recommend doing this for brand new commanders to get them leveled up quickly in the early stages to make them viable in combat.
1 Dominance
Allows the player to acquire 10 tiles with every unlocked level.
2 Reset
A player can reset the attribute points they have assigned with some exceptions like Stamina and Forts. This can come in handy later on in gameplay when you might not need as much focus on resources and want your troops to move faster, hit harder, and gather more from their endevours.
3 Ability Points
Ability points can be used for mock battles, gathering resources, and long marches. The standard max is 20 but players can assign ring points to earn more ability points
4 Ring Power
Accumulated ring power waiting to be put into the ring.
5 Total Amount of Ring Power Invested and Needed to Reach the Next Level
The last and most important part of this “how to” can’t really be taught, but what I can do is give a word of warning: There is a lot of politics involved amongst the players in the game and making alliances and friends is critical to surviving and succeeding in The Lord of the Rings: Rise to War. Not all alliances make sense, for instance, I’ve seen on some servers where Mordor has teamed up with Gondor to take on the server. As you can imagine, eventually alliances have to dissolve because only one faction can control the ring so I personally do not recommend this type of alignment, someone is going to get their feelings hurt. However, it’s nearly impossible to control other players in the game and their decisions. I myself started out the season as an elf but halfway through realized that my fellowship wasn’t as active as others and we were losing a lot of ground quickly. There is an option to change your affiliation in the game but it cost 1500 gems to do so. I waited until halfway through the season to make the change myself. It was a good move and although I felt a little crummy for abandoning my first choice, this is a game after all and winning is the object of the game. The bigger payouts for rewards at the end of the season only come to those who control the ring. Lord of the Rings: Rise to War is a lot like survivor meets the real world: middle earth. Have fun and see you in season 2!
