Line #75 VideoGame/TheLastDaysOfTheThirdAgeOfMiddleEarth


1	''The Last Days (of the Third Age of Middle Earth)'' is a GameMod for ''VideoGame/MountAndBlade'' and now Warband, a StrategyGame with tactical action and RPGElements. Its draws its inspiration from ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', especially the books (although some clothings and city appearances come from [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings the movies]]). It puts the player in the middle of the War of the Ring, with a lot of factions, units, and towns.
2
3	It features three sides (Good, Sauron, Saruman - Sauron and Saruman begin as allies) divided in several smaller factions which act as traditional Mount & Blade factions(Gondor, Rohan, Mirkwood, Harad, Rhûn, Mordor, Moria, etc). The player creates a character and begins alone near a camp or town of the faction which he chose, already attached to it, and equipped with the gear of a tier-1 unit of that faction (or tier-2 if you chose that in game creation). Then, like in the original ''VideoGame/MountAndBlade'', the character will have to hire soldiers, buy gears, and do quests to gain fame with the factions of his side. When he reaches level 8[[note]]by default, can be set from level 6-20 [[/note]], the War of the Ring begins. New Shadow settlements will appear all over the map, generals from every faction will begin campaigning, and small unled stacks will begin departing settlements and doing battle with each other all over the map.
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5	The playable factions are:
6	* Good factions:
7	** Gondor: Men. Has the widest variety of troop trees in the game ''(7!)'', with the main two trees (one cavalry & one infantry) recruitable in half their settlements and each of the other branches recruitable in a specific settlement.
8	** Rohan: Men. Naturally, has a cavalry-focused troop tree, though unlike Khergits in the base game, is not locked into cavalry.
9	** Imladris: Elves & Men. Has two troop trees, one for Elrond's Noldor and one for the Dunédain of the North. Has fantastic foot archers and strong but hard to acquire cavalry.
10	** Lothlórien: Elves. Boasts some of the strongest foot archers in the game.
11	** Mirkwood: Elves. One of the factions to lack cavalry. Like the other elves, has fantastic foot archers.
12	** Vale of the Anduin: Men. Has two troop trees: one for the woodsmen of Mirkwood the other for the berserker Beornings. Lacks cavalry, but one of their top-tier units can summon a bear in battle.
13	** Erebor: Dwarves. Boasts some of the sturdiest infantry in the game, but lacks cavalry. Reminiscent of Rhodoks from the base game.
14	** Dale: Men. Has the best non-Elven archers and strong anti-cavalry infantry, but mediocre cavalry.
15	* Saruman factions:
16	** Isengard: Orcs & Uruk-hai. Orcs can become warg-riders. The Uruk-hai branch becomes either one of the strongest infantry units in the game or the best archer on the Shadow side.
17	** Moria: Orcs. Has a warg-rider branch.
18	** Mt. Gundabad: Orcs. Has the best warg-riders in the game.
19	** Dunlendings: Men. Boasts some of the best anti-cavalry infantry in the game and the ability to summon wolves on their top-tier units.
20	* Sauron factions:
21	** Mordor: Orcs, Men & Uruks. The Black Númenorians are on par with the best Gondor has to offer.
22	** Dol Guldur: Orcs. Start wedged between Mirkwood, Lothlórien & Rohan.
23	** Khand: Men. Eastern barbarians with powerful heavy cavalry and hard-hitting infantry.
24	** Rhûn: Men. Eastern barbarians with dangerous horse archers. Reminiscent of Khergits from Native, but with afterthought infantry rather than no infantry.
25	** Harad: Men. Hail from the far south of Middle-Earth. Reminiscent of Sarranids from Native.
26	** Umbar: Men. Pirates & corsairs.
27
28	The mod features many sharp variances from Native Mount & Blade gameplay in keeping with its theme and purpose:
29	* You begin aligned with a specific faction (determined during character creation) rather than a free agent, nor can you change faction.
30	* There will only ever be one war ongoing and faction alliances will not change (until the Free Peoples lose at which point Sauron and Saruman go to war).
31	* Rather than a universal "denars" currency, each faction has its own currency called "resource points" which is acquired and spent in their settlements.[[note]] though several of the minor Shadow factions share resource points: Moria & Mt. Gundabad; Rhun & Khand; Dol Guldur uses Mordor resource points[[/note]]
32	* Almost all settlements are razed rather than captured.
33	* There is a small chance on defeat that a lord will be killed and permanently removed, likewise companions can be killed and always will be if their home settlements are destroyed before they are recruited.
34	* Not every faction stack on the map is led by a lord; all settlements spit out unled stacks in 3 basic size categories: scouts; foragers/raiders; patrols. They are deceptively important - every stack defeated and removed from the map reduces that faction's faction strength rating, which affects its lords' stack strength and when its settlements can be besieged.
35	* The player cannot initiate sieges himself but must wait for an allied lord to do so and then join him.
36	* Post-battle looting is reworked to prevent Free Peoples and Shadow characters from using each others' gear - loot will generally be generic tokens called metal scraps rather than gear
37	* Marriage, diplomacy, and faction creation are disabled. You are not here to politick and found a kingdom, you are here to help your side save (or conquer) the world.
38	* There is no economy. You cannot own shops or trade goods between towns.
39
40	All the many changes contribute to a markedly different gameplay experience than Native Mount & Blade. Beyond the obvious changes, there is an obvious change in focus. While in Native ''Mount & Blade'' you are encouraged to play selfishly, preserving and developing your forces and your fiefs - even at the expense of your allies'- so that you can become strong enough to form your own faction, in ''the Last Days'' you will find that you need to play unselfishly, giving away your hard-trained units or expending them in battle to protect an allied lord who rushed headlong into danger. The course of the war is heavily affected by combat between roaming AI stacks and giving your troops to an allied stack can help them chase down and defeat enemy unled stacks and tilt faction strength in your favor. The mod takes away the sting of giving away troops you've spent days training up by removing the promotion fee that Native had, and having the receiving faction give you resource points for every soldier given to one of their stacks. Overall this leads to gameplay which involves a lot more reserve action, swooping in to save a doomed allied stack or settlement, or holding near a siege so that you can move in to join your forces to the besiegers and crush the enemy settlement.
41
42	The current version (3.5) was released in March 2017 and has been receiving regular updates since.
43
44	The mod can be found [[http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-last-days here]].
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46
47	----
48	!!The mod features the following tropes:
49
50	* ActionGirl: Elves and most Human player characters can choose to be one, although this isn't advised because of graphical issues. There are also a few female commanders and hired blade among the Elven and Human [=NPCs=]:
51	** Hirable companions feature Faniul from Dale, Luevanna from Mirkwood, and Galmyne from Rohan
52	** Female commanders are Míriel (Mirkwood) and the Black Númenórean Berúthiel (Mordor)
53	* AffablyEvil: Some parts of dialogs (especially all which is related to quests common to all sides) are the same for every factions. It makes some conversations sounding a bit OutOfCharacter, when the leader of an evil faction asks the player politely to do a random quest and nearly apologizes when the player answers that he won't be able to do it.
54	* AlienBlood: Averted. Although Orc blood is described as black in the books, all the blood in the game is red due to technical limitations.
55	* AlwaysChaoticEvil: It comes from ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''...
56	* AnimalThemeNaming: Harad, Rhûn, and Dunlendings use this trope.
57	* AnnoyingArrows: Played straight with archers, especially mounted ones. They typically don't deal as much damage as a melee weapon provided you have decent gear, but horse archers will run away if you try to chase after them while continuing to pelt you with arrows.
58	* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: Averted, like in the original game the maximal size of an army based on charisma, fame[[note]]Each faction have a hierarchy, doing quests for one or winning a battle near one of its party or settlement grants rank points, gaining enough of them makes the player climb in the hierarchy. It is possible to climb in the ranks of several armies. Each time the player climbs in the hierarchy in any faction, it increases his total ArbitraryHeadcountLimit[[/note]], and one the leadership skill ; to allow the formation of larger hordes for the evil factions, each Orc unit hired makes the cap a bit higher(something like "two more units for three Orcs").
59	* {{Arcadia}}: Most of the setting (apart from [[{{Mordor}} the south-eastern parts of the map]] and a few Orc settlements build in a deforested spot).
60	* ArmorIsUseless: Played straight with orc gear. They have much lower ratings than comparable gear from good factions such as Gondor. Which means an orc player will have a much tougher time fighting in melee if they stick to orc gear instead of swapping it for armor from a different faction.
61	* ArmyScout:
62	** Three skills of the core of ''VideoGame/MountAndBlade'' ("spotting": increase field of view on the world map; "tracking": studying the tracks on the ground; "path-finding": increase the speed of travel on the world map) are scout-oriented; they still can be used in the mod. A fourth, mod-specific skill, "Wildcraft" adds a nature magic flavor to the role.
63	** There are a lot of scouting parties wandering everywhere on the map, some random quests even require to dispatch some or personally recon a specific area.
64	** There are also some units which name implies this role ("Orc tracker of Mordor", "Ranger of Ithilien", etc)
65	** Among the hirable companions, a few of them (the Gondor ranger Mablung, the Isengard wolf rider Durgash) have a variation of scout in their background.
66	* ArtisticLicenseGeography: [[WordOfGod As explained in the FAQ]], the developers choose to put the citadel of Minas Tirith on the top of a black carved rock instead of the white one, because they fell it would look cooler.
67	** The Iron Hills are well to the east of the Lonely Mountain, but the location Iron Hills Quarry is slightly to the west of it; if it were in the correct location the entire map would need to be extended eastward and a great deal of blank space would be created.
68	* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Just like in Native, lords will tear through multiple enemies on their own.
69	* BackFromTheDead: When the player character is knocked out during a battle, the text displayed implies this.
70	* BeautyEqualsGoodness: Mostly played straight. Elves are beautiful, Dwarves and Men of the Good side are average. Orcs looks like mutant demons, and Men of the Evil sides looks mostly diseased (Black Númenóreans, the Mouth of Sauron), chaotic savage (Dunlendings), or cruel (Khand). YMMV for the women of these factions and for the whole Umbar corsairs and Harad factions, who look rather average.
71	* TheBerserker: Isengard has a few Uruk-hai who can go berserk, while Moria and Gundabad have orcs who can. There is also a berserker branch in the Beornings faction tree.
72	* BigDamnHeroes: The player's most important role, even more than in Native. Breaking a siege, or finding an ongoing battle where your side is outnumbered and re-tilting the odds are key to faction survival. Frequently you will find yourself traveling from one end of the map to the other desperately trying to prop up collapsing allies.
73	* BlackKnight: The black Númenórean horsemen.
74	* CivilWarcraft: If the Good side is defeated, the Sauron and Saruman factions will turn against each other until there is only one left standing.
75	* ColorCodedArmies: The colors don't affect the uniforms themselves, but the texts and numbers affected to each faction on the map. The number next to each party on the map[[note]]it indicates the number of soldiers and the number of prisoners in it[[/note]] and the name of towns / castles / settlements allows to identify their owner from a single sight thank to their color.
76	** Or at least it should. Unfortunately, some different factions have very similar color. The worst are all those which have a shade of white / very light grey as official color. They are: Gondor, Erebor, Dale, all the wandering always-hostile parties, the player party (whatever side he is)
77	* CurbStompBattle: Typically fights where you have high level cavalry. Not only can they hit fairly hard with decent defense, their mounts give them a huge speed advantage over infantry. It wouldn't be unheard of for a well disciplined cavalry group to wipe out enemy groups 2-3 times bigger, provided you can rally them and prevent them from running away due to the sheer size difference.
78	* DangerousDeserter: After the beginning of the War of the Ring, there are a lot of deserter stacks from the armies of evil factions, which are hostile against all the sides.
79	* DeathByAdaptation / SparedByTheAdaptation: Whether each NPC commander and faction leader lives or die only depends on if the player activates / deactivates the option, and then how did the battles went.
80	* DeathByAThousandCuts:
81	** Played straight if you're wearing heavy armor. Weaker units will barely be able to damage you, but can eventually swarm and take you out. Fortunately this applies to the enemy commanders as well, who are often one of the last on the field if you didn't take them out earlier.
82	** A slight variation of this can occur during a field battle, if at the start, you fire some arrows high in the air at the enemy army, hopefully kill some of their troops, and immediately retreat. When you start the next battle, they now have a few less troops, while you have a full bag of arrows again to repeat the process. Though this method takes a while, if you're patient, you can literally kill hundreds of them this way, which is good if you're massively outnumbered. Once the enemy army is down to a more sizable number, you can them wipe them out in a regular battle.
83	* TheDreaded:
84	** In general, fighting a much bigger army can do this to your troops, causing some to run away if you don't rally them and kill troops to inspire them to stick around. A huge number of mounted troops rushing into your lines can also end up this way.
85	** Trolls and Olag-hai can invoke this if they get close enough to your troops as a Good faction. They're slow, but they can hit multiple troops at once, often killing or knocking them out in the process. Horses are also scared of them, so if you don't run away fast enough they can faint from sticking around too long, and you can get knocked off your mount if you get hit by them while mounted.
86	* ElaborateUndergroundBase:
87	** Mines of Moria, the capital city of the Moria Goblins faction
88	** Gundabad, the capital city of the Gundabad Orcs
89	** The caves under Orthanc in Isengard, though this is treated more like an anthill where slave labor takes place than as an actual defensive strategy.
90	** Erebor, the Dwarven capital.
91	** Thranduil Halls (the Mirkwood Elves capital city) is described like this in ''Literature/TheHobbit'', but the only room that the player can reach is the throne room, which must be at surface level (the sky can be seen through a hole in the ceiling)
92	** Henneth Annun, the hidden settlement which serves as headquarter for the Ithilien rangers of Gondor.
93	* ElvesVersusDwarves: Dialogs of the Dwarf companion Kili Goldfinger shows he does not like Elves. He especially does not like the Elve companion Luevanna (and vice-versa).
94	* TheEnemyWeaponsAreBetter: Played straight with orc weapons and armor. It's typically lower damage and the armor has lower defensive ratings, so a player playing as an orc may find that weapons used by Gondor may be better than what the orc towns offer. Can be averted if you use gear from an allied evil human town, since they're close to what the Good factions have in terms of gear.
95	* EndlessGame: Averted, in the most important change from ''VideoGame/MountAndBlade''. The game ends when one of the two sides have been annihilated (by siege of all the factions capital towns). The Good side wins when all the Sauron and Saruman factions are destroyed. For the evil ones, if the Good factions disappear then Sauron and Saruman will fight against each other until one crushes the other.
96	* EscortMission: There are two kinds. One of them consists in bringing a messenger to camp / town X, the messenger becoming part of the party during the travel. The other consists in opening the way to a caravan of supply traveling to a specific place, protecting it if attacked.
97	* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Each settlement/town has at least one of this NPC (usually more, sometimes even all of them): a smith, a supply master, a manager for the barracks, and a "local authority," who acts like a Guild Leader from the unmodded game. Most of them (except the smiths, who have a real name, and a couple of the local authorities[[note]]the one of Isengard is Gríma Wormtongue himself, the one in Woodman Village of the Beornings is named Pierre Woodman[[/note]]) have less unique names that depend on the faction the town belongs to.
98	* EvilCounterpartRace: Dúnedains and Black Númenóreans. [[AllThereInTheManual According to the lore]], there both descend from the [[http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/N%C3%BAmenor Númenor]] people[[note]]Dúnedains are descendants of Númenor survivors who remained in the Good side, Black Númenóreans descend from the Númenóreans who followed Sauron and eventually provoked the destruction of their island by the gods[[/note]]. In the game, Dúnedains and Black Númenóreans are both Human troops and commanders attached to a non-Human faction, the former being linked to Imladris and the latter to Mordor; same thing when a player choose to be a character from one of those races.
99	* EvilVersusEvil: If all the Good factions are defeated, Mordor and Isengard turn on each other to determine who truly rules Middle-Earth. You can also pick fights with a faction by insulting the random NPC's wandering around the town maps as an evil character.
100	* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin:
101	** The mod is set in Middle-Earth and allows the player to take part in the war which ended the Third Age
102	** The Troll cave settlement is a small Orc camp built next to a cave where a troll is standing
103	* FangsAreEvil: Orcs and Uruk-Hai.
104	* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Most of Men faction units have their appearance based on actual civilizations.
105	** Gondor: Byzantine Empire
106	** Rohan: Anglo-Saxons (English early Middle-Age)
107	** Dale: Medieval North-Eastern Europe
108	** Beornings: Scottish or Celtic peoples
109	** Dúnedain and Arnor[[note]]Human footmen and horsemen belonging to the Elrond army[[/note]]: France
110	** Harad: African and Arabian, depending on the units
111	** Rhûn and Khand: Hun, Mongol, early Russian Middle-Age
112	** Umbar: Part ancient Greek, part Phoenician
113	** Dunlendings: Slavic or Germanic barbarian tribes of the Roman era
114	* GameMod
115	* GameplayAndStorySegregation: During a mutiny, the fight itself will always take place in a blackened wasteland, presumably Mordor, no matter where the player was to begin with, and afterwards your troop count stays the same even though the text states the pretender gets executed.
116	* GlassCannon: Archer units. In sufficient numbers, they can rain a lot of arrows down on you, which can decimate troops that don't have a shield. But if you can close in on them and force them into melee, their lighter armor means you can kill them rather quickly.
117	* GlobalCurrency: Averted, in contrast to the "dinars" of the base game. Each faction gives its own money ("resource points") to the player and can only be paid with it. Because of this, it can be advantageous to stockpile prisoners and loot until you reach the faction with which you most need resource points and then sell them. The only way to directly convert resource points of one faction to another is to undertake a "gift to our allies" quest by speaking to a lord of one allied faction and then finding a lord of the target allied faction to give the gift of resource points to.
118	* GoodColorsEvilColors: Considering the field itself instead of the map, Orcs, Uruks, and Goblins have dark grey or pale skin and wear black armor, as do Black Númenóreans. Men of Good, Dwarves, and Elves generally wear white or faction colored armor, and the various Men of Evil tribes wear dark cloths and furs with the exception of the Haradrim wearing lots of red and gold.
119	* GoodWeaponEvilWeapon: In the same spirit of [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings the movies]] and the various videogames.
120	* GrailInTheGarbage: Thanks to the random number generator, sometimes you can find a really high quality weapon/armor that has equivalent or better stats than higher-tiered ones, but costs thousands less. This is really useful early on when resources are hard to come by.
121	* HighFantasy: As it is a fairly faithful adaptation of the modern TropeMaker.
122	* HintSystem: Usually, a loading screen displays a randomly chosen hint.
123	* HitAndRunTactics: A very useful tactic is to pelt away at the enemy army with horse archers, and run if they start chasing after you. Foot soldiers won't be able to catch you, and a pursuing enemy cavalry can also be shot at. Additionally, with a mount you can quickly hit enemy troops to break up their formation, or force them to turn their attention to you and expose their backs to your archers, and then quickly escape after killing a few of their soldiers.
124	* HorseOfADifferentColor: Orcs can't ride actual horses. Their mounts are Wargs, a kind of big wolf or hyena-like beast. They are much more dangerous than regular horses, as they keep fighting even after their rider is killed.
125	* ImAHumanitarian: Dialog of Orcs make several reference to eating human flesh and prepared half-eaten bodies can be found in some castles of evil factions. There is also a food item for the evil factions named "human flesh", giving them the highest morale bonus, and it's possible to harvest it from your prisoners through a dialog option with them.
126	* IrrelevantSidequest: Mostly averted. The sidequests (capturing enemy lords, bringing letters to allied lords, training X soldiers to a specific level, escorting supply caravan, etc) make perfect sense in the context of a huge war, although some of them (e.g. find and execute a fugitive) aren't very pertinent for a warlord.
127	* KilledOffForReal: Contrary to the original ''VideoGame/MountAndBlade'', {{Non Player Character}}s can be permanently killed during a battle. This can be deactivated, though. There is the same option for the player, although its default state is "Off".
128	* LazyBackup: Averted. If the player is knocked out, the party keeps on fighting until someone wins or the player hits Tab.
129	* LightningBruiser: Typically high end cavalry, including the player if they're wearing heavy armor with a mount. Not only can they hit hard and take some blows, but the mounts allow them to quickly escape before the infantry can normally react.
130	* LiteralMinded: In the intro sequence for Harad and Khand player characters, the grateful Orc guide offers to buy you a drink, and your character snarks that they'd rather swallow their own piss. The guide takes this completely seriously, and declares he just won a bet with Gothmog over whether or not humans did that.
131	* LoadingScreen: Features artwork and mod specific tips, even though there's only a couple throughout the entire game including on loading a save.
132	* LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading: Fortunatly, it only shows when launching the game. This problem is even lampshaded in the progress bar, which says near the end of the loading "Texture loading (Be patient)".
133	* LuckBasedMission: Quests are [[TimedMission Timed Missions]], and a lot of them require to find something specific (the map is really huge) and bring it to the quest giver before expiration of the timer. It includes:
134	** "Bring this letter to X": When the War of the Ring has begun, armies begins to move and they are usually commanded by a lord. Like in the original ''VideoGame/MountAndBlade'', the player can ask another lord of the faction where is the lord searched, though
135	** "Train X soldiers until they reach level Y": The leveling speed with the trainer skill is rather random. Training by battle is less, but it has its own risks (losing the units for the quest and having to recruit some other low-level ones, making the quest longer to achieve)
136	** "Bring me X [[ShopFodder metal scraps]] of Y quality": They are found on the battlefield after a victory, but their number, their quality, and their mere presence is random (although influenced by the "looting" skill)
137	** "Defeat X parties of [specific roles for specific faction]"
138	** "Make X prisoners": The player need to meet an enemy party before expiration of the timer and remember to knock out some of them
139	** "Free X prisoners from the enemy": The player must find enemy parties which are carrying prisoners and defeat them
140	** "Capture a lord from any enemy faction": The worst on this list. Like the native game, lords are surrounded by high level troops and have a low chance of being captured, though it's higher than if you weren't doing the quest. Unlike the native game, their highest level troops are unobtainable to the player, the sheer number of towns makes it nearly impossible to find them if they do escape, and worst of all, lord death is on by default, making it possible for you to ''kill him in the process of capturing him''. Getting this quest late in the game means pretty much failing it on start or giving a hard "[[LittleNo no]]" to the quest-giver.
141	* MassMonsterSlaughterSidequest: Defeat X parties of Y units. More literal if you're on the Good side.
142	* TheMedic: A couple companions fit this by default, such as Faniul, the court medic of the King of Dale.
143	* MightyGlacier: Trolls and Olag-hai. They're incredibly slow, but have a lot of health and if they get into range can wreak havoc on your troops. While they're usually less threatening in open field fights if there isn't a lot of them, they can be really bad news if you spot them in a siege fight, especially on maps where there's not a lot of room to maneuver, such as inside a castle or cave.
144	* {{Mordor}}: Literally.
145	* TheMutiny: Leading an evil army will create one from time to time. Randomly, a soldier will complain very loudly against the commander (the player), going so far as questioning his authority. It ends with a fight against the contender inside a circle constituted by all the army.
146	* OneGenderRace: Dwarves, Orcs, Uruk, Uruk-Hai, and Dunlendings have only male player characters. The other Men factions and the Elves can be played as male or female characters, and they features a few female [=NPCs=].
147	* OneSizeFitsAll: Averted.
148	** The Good factions have two sizes of clothing: Dwarf and Human-Elvish. All can wear the same helmets, but not the same boots and armors. Dwarves also can't ride horses.
149	** The Evil factions have Orc and Human-Uruk. As above, helmets are interchangeable, but boots and armors aren't. Also, Men can't ride Wargs, Orcs can't ride horses, and Uruk can only ride a specific mount obtained from reaching a high rank in their faction.
150	* OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: Dwarves are portrayed very faithfully to the books, and so the elements of the 'generic dwarf' trope that stem directly from Tolkien are present but later accretions are not. Their smithing skill is represented by having high-quality weapons & armor, and their lords and top-tier units wear fearsome war masks as described in the Silmarillion.
151	* OurElvesAreDifferent: The elves are great at archery, though their dominance has been toned down by the mod team over the years.
152	* OurGoblinsAreDifferent: Like in the books (and contrary to the movies and most of the games adaptations), "Goblin" isn't a race different from Orcs. In the game it is a rank in their armies (not the lowest).
153	* OurOrcsAreDifferent: Tolkienian kind (unsurprisingly), with dark grey / black skins, pig snouts, tusks, anthropophagous habits, crude technology (true for Mordor, Dol Guldur, Moria, and Mt Gundabad, not true for Isengard), their size is smaller than a Human, and they are the weakest creatures in 1 VS 1 combat. The artificial origin is implied with the Uruk-Hai of Isengard (basically, taller and stronger Orcs), as their lowest tier is named "Newborn Uruk-Hai".
154	* RageHelm: Non-vilainous example, they are the kind of helms worn by Dwarves.
155	* RealLifeWritesThePlot: The FAQ explains that the lack of Mûmakil in the armies of Harad (although a couple of them can be seen in the background of their base) and the height of Elves (the same of the Men in-game, although Tolkien's Elves are supposed to be bigger) are consequences of technical issues, both elements would require a lot more time and work to be installed and work perfectly. Elves were eventually given slightly taller models and hitboxes; Mûmakil are still somewhere in the works.
156	* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Zigzagged. Among the factions, some faction leaders lead themselves a part of their army to war, some other don't.
157	** The faction leaders who lead themselves armies on the battlefield are Lord Elrond (Imladris), King Thranduil (Mirkwood), King Brand (Dale), King Dáin II Ironfoot (Erebor), King Théoden (Rohan), Chief Grimbeorn the Old (Beornings), Master Burza Krual (Mt Gundabad), Master Bolg the Lesser (Moria), Jarl Elcaroth (Rhûn), Shibh Krukmahur (Khand), Admiral Tumlir (Umbar), Chief Ul-Ulcari (Harad), and Master Fuinur (Dol Guldur).
158	** The faction leaders who stay in their capital city are Steward Denethor (Gondor), Lady Galadriel (Lothlórien), Saruman (Isengard), and the Mouth of Sauron (Mordor). The last three are somewhat justified, in that any battle they took part in would subsequently be known as a [[CurbStompBattle genocide]]. ''Especially'' in Galadriel's case.
159	* ShopFodder: With the exception of a Shadow player fighting neutral orcs or deserters, nearly all loot will be shop fodder, as Shadow and Free Peoples characters can't use each others' gear. The default is "usable metal scraps" of varying quality, which can be sold in the friendly settlement of your choice.
160	* ShownTheirWork: The mod features ''a lot'' of factions, places, and NPC from the Middle-Earth, including very minor ones.
161	* TheSiege: Taking towns and castles by force is necessary to win. Contrary to the original game, the player cannot do it himself, he can only join sieges which have been begun by his allies.
162	* StandardFantasySetting: Justified, it is adapted from [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings the book]] which is the TropeMaker.
163	* StormingTheCastle: Every siege will eventually end in this.
164	* SuicidalOverconfidence: From time to time, a commander tries to break a siege (of several hundred units) by charging the enemy when leading a few dozen units. On the other hand, AI lords will frequently try to siege holdings even if the war is going badly for them and they can only muster half the garrison strenth.
165	* TakeThat: From the FAQ, probably aimed at the fans of ''VideoGame/TheBattleForMiddleEarth II'', which includes Goblins riding giant spiders, among many other changes from the original setting.
166	-->'''Q''': Why aren’t there any spider riding orcs?
167	-->'''A''': Because punch yourself.
168	* ThatOneSidequest: The generic mayor quest to hunt down "troublesome goblins" is identical to the "troublesome bandits" quest from the base game and just as annoying. They spawn around two dozen strong, too many to solo and few enough to outrun a medium-sized warband. Worse, if they are defeated by ''anyone else on the map'', the quest isn't voided like most quests which become impossible, it is ''failed'' and you lose rank points with the faction who gave it to you. Even if you join in a battle in progress against them, the random scouts or whoever count as the primary victors and you fail the quest.
169	* TimedMission: All the quests, except "follow the leader of your faction army" and "escort a caravan to a friendly city" (in contrast to the base game where caravans had time limits).
170	* {{Troll}}: The Troll cave settlement contains a cave where a troll is standing. Its dialog lines contains real references to Internet trolling.
171	* UnusableEnemyEquipment: Opposite to the original game, Good faction characters can't use gear from the evil ones and vice-versa (Sauron and Saruman factions can share their gear). Weapons of the enemy can be picked up on the battlefied but not kept after the fight. In fact, after a battle, most of the loot consists in metallic pieces only useful for selling, food, and mounts. There are exceptions: in battles between an evil party and a deserter / wandering Orcs party, both are non-aligned Orcs or Men from evil factions, with the same weapons and armors.
172	* UselessUsefulNonCombatAbilities: The engineer skill is still present in the mod but, because the player is himself unable to lay siege to towns and manage fiefs, the skill is completely useless.
173	* VictoryPose: As in the base game, soldiers will raise their weapons to the sky and cheer upon victory.
174	* VideoGameCrueltyPunishment: An option allows the player to stop outside a city to review the troops and the prisoners of the party. Then, it is possible to slay prisoners, but any experience gained this way will be cancelled when exiting this mode.
175	* YouAllMeetInAnInn: Averted. Contrary to the original ''VideoGame/MountAndBlade'', companions are not met in taverns but stay anywhere in a city or settlement (typically, in the castle). Note that the mod does not even have taverns.
176	* YouHaveFailedMe: Not actually shown, but for the evil factions, failing a quest or explaining to the quest giver that you won't be able to fulfill it will make him answering something like "not everyone who failed me lived long enough to regret it".
177	* WeHaveReserves: Implied from dialog when recruiting soldiers in the Mordor barracks. Most evil army troops are also weaker than their good counterparts, so have to rely on numbers to win. Shadow lords have higher Tactics skill than Free Peoples lords to ensure that they can actually make use of their greater numbers on the battlefield.
178	* WarriorPrince: Théoden and Éomer for Rohan, Thranduil for Mirkwood, Elrond, Elladan and Elrohir for Imladris, Celeborn for Lothlórien, Faramir for Gondor. All of them are commanders who really lead armies to war. Théoden, Thranduil and Elrond are even faction leaders.
179	* WeAreStrugglingTogether: Averted with the Good factions, can be played straight with the Evil factions. As an evil member, you can pick fights with your allies by insulting them when talking to them in town. Additionally, Isengard and Mordor factions will turn on each other after they wipe out the Good factions. In contrast, the Good factions do not have the ability/dialogue to pick a fight with their allies, and will win once they've defeated all the Evil factions.
180	* WhatIf: The mod being a wide open sandbox trying to reenact the War of the Ring, deviations from the original are impossible to avoid. They can be quite small (when the war actually starts - depending on how long the player character reaches level 8) to major (commanders killed instead of surviving or the opposite, factions wiped, or even a final victory of Evil). This comes to a head with the final conflict between Isengard and Mordor, if evil wins with both factions still alive.
181	* WhenTreesAttack: There are random attacks of Ents when an evil character travels through Fangorn. Saruman gives a quest focused on this.

Context VideoGame / TheLastDaysOfTheThirdAgeOfMiddleEarth