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Warnings
- GameSpy online services have been shut down (see Network for solutions).
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II is a singleplayer and multiplayer bird's-eye view RTS game in the The Battle for Middle-earth series.
The base game received six official patches, the fifth of which was produced by the GameReplays.org BFME2 section. This patch is most notable for the introduction of the hard counter system.
The game received The Rise of the Witch-king expansion pack in November 2006, outsourced to BreakAway Games. It introduced the playable Angmar faction, new units for existing factions and new campaigns. It was, however, based on an obsolete build of BFME2 (earlier than 1.05 at least), and its own single official patch left the game in a state of severe balancing problems and audio mixing/volume issues in the new campaign.
As of December 31, 2010, the official GameSpy service was shut down and all purchases were halted due to Electronic Arts' loss of the Lord of the Rings license.[1]
Same as with the first game, the game remains playable on modern Windows versions with some major technical hiccups that can be worked around; issues like errors when starting the game and DRM issues. Unofficial patches resolve most of the game's problems; off-host delay was fixed only for The Rise of the Witch-king in unofficial patch 2.02 build 9.0.0 and newer.
General information
- T3A:Online - fan-hosted multiplayer server replacement
- BfME II section on GameReplays.org - home to the competitive community and the unofficial 1.09 patch
- Rise of the Witch-king section on GameReplays.org - home to the competitive community and the unofficial 2.02 patch
Availability
Source |
DRM |
Notes |
Keys |
OS |
Retail |
|
SafeDisc v4 DRM[Note 1]. |
|
|
Origin (unavailable) |
|
Physical copies used to activate on Origin, but they no longer do.[4] |
|
|
- SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).
- All versions include custom DRM code which can sabotage the game by destroying all units and structures owned by the player after 3 minutes and 30 seconds, triggering an automatic defeat. It can occur on legitimate copies under certain circumstances - see Auto-defeat after 3 minutes and 30 seconds for instructions to fix this.
- A free demo version can be downloaded from GameFront or GamePressure.
Monetization
Type |
Notes |
Expansion pack
| The expansion pack includes a new faction, a new campaign, maps, units, and War of the Ring mode scenarios. |
One-time game purchase
| The game requires an upfront purchase to access. |
DLC and expansion packs
Name |
Notes |
|
The Rise of the Witch-king |
|
|
Essential improvements
Skip intro videos
Skip intro videos
|
- Go to
<path-to-game>\data\movies\
- Delete or rename
CS01.vp6 , EALogo.vp6 , TE_LOGO.vp6 , NLC_LOGO.vp6 and NewLineLogo.vp6 .
- For languages other than English the EA logo file played is a localised version extracted from the archive file
<path-to-game>\lang\LanguageName.big . To remove the video, this file needs to be edited, for instance with a custom tool such as FinalBIG or OS BIG Editor.
|
Official patches
- The latest official patch for the base game is 1.06, available from Patches-Scrolls, GameFront, and CNCNZ.com.
- The latest official patch for The Rise of the Witch-king is 2.01, available from Patches-Scrolls, GameFront and CNCNZ.com.
Widescreen mods for BFME2 without 1.09
- Modified interface download link
- Maps with modified zoom download link (breaks compatibility with originals)
- Maintains developer-intended gameplay.
- Not used by users online.
- To bypass the DRM, use the modified
game.dat
from the 1.09 patch.
Unofficial 1.09 patch (BFME2)
- Download link
- Does not require the disc.
- Adapts the main game interface for widescreen resolutions and fixes a lot of the bugs and imbalances left after the official 1.06 patch.
- Includes a patch switcher for switching between the official 1.00 and 1.06 versions, as well as 1.09.
- Breaks compatibility with the Rise of the Witch-king expansion.
- Changes visuals extensively.
Unofficial 2.02 patch (RotWK)
- Download link
- Source code
- Does not require the disc.
- Adapts the main game interface for widescreen resolutions and fixes a lot of the bugs and imbalances left after the official 2.01 patch, and is actively maintained. As of release 9.0.0 (February 4, 2023), an engine-level bug plaguing all games in the series that caused delayed commands in multiplayer has been fixed.
- Active multiplayer community.
- Requires the BFME2 1.09 unofficial patch to be deactivated to run.
Game data
Configuration file(s) location
System |
Location |
Windows |
%APPDATA%\<Localized My Battle for Middle-earth(tm) II Files>\options.ini %APPDATA%\<Localized My The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king Files>\options.ini |
Save game data location
System |
Location |
Windows |
%APPDATA%\<Localized My Battle for Middle-earth(tm) II Files>\save %APPDATA%\<Localized My The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king Files>\save |
Video
General settings menu (the expansion has an identical menu, with a different theme)
Custom graphics settings menu
Set custom resolution[6]
|
- Open the configuration file with a text editor.
- Change
Resolution xxx xxx to the desired resolution.
|
Input
Audio
Audio feature |
State |
Notes |
Separate volume controls |
|
|
Surround sound |
|
|
Subtitles |
|
|
Closed captions |
|
|
Mute on focus lost |
|
|
EAX support |
|
|
Royalty free audio |
|
|
Localizations
Language |
UI |
Audio |
Sub |
Notes |
English |
|
|
|
|
Simplified Chinese |
|
|
|
|
Traditional Chinese |
|
|
|
|
French |
|
|
|
|
German |
|
|
|
|
Italian |
|
|
|
|
Norwegian |
|
|
|
|
Polish |
|
|
|
|
Russian |
|
|
|
|
Spanish |
|
|
|
|
Swedish |
|
|
|
|
Thai |
|
|
|
|
Issues unresolved
Off-host delay
- All games in this series suffer from a delay when giving commands, measured in seconds, if the player is not the host of the multiplayer match.
- For Battle for Middle-earth II, there is no known fix.
- For The Rise of the Witch-king, this issue was fixed in the unofficial 2.02 patch in builds 9.0.0 and newer. A full explanation is available here.
Issues fixed
Game not starting on Windows Vista and later
- When first starting the game after the installation, the game instantly crashes with an error.
- Caused by the installer not creating a crucial
options.ini
file automatically.
- If the game is uninstalled and reinstalled on the same system, the file is always deleted and has to be created anew every time the game is installed.
Manually creating options.ini[7]
|
- Locate the default folder for the
options.ini at %APPDATA%\My Battle for Middle-earth(tm) II Files and %APPDATA%\My The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king Files
- Create a new text document and name it
options.ini
- Open the file and insert the following lines:
AudioLOD = High
FlashTutorial = 0
HasSeenLogoMovies = yes
IdealStaticGameLOD = High
Resolution = 1024 768
StaticGameLOD = High
TimesInGame = 6
- Make sure to change the
Resolution value to the preferred resolution.
- 4. Save the changes
- 5. Run the game.
|
Auto-defeat after 3 minutes and 30 seconds
- Is triggered by DRM, even on legitimate installations.
Check game's serial key registry entries[9]
|
Clean reinstall of the game as administrator[10]
|
- Fully re-install the game with administrator privileges in hopes the registry keys will be correctly created.
|
Network
Multiplayer types
Connection types
Ports
Protocol |
Port(s) and/or port range(s) |
UDP |
16000 |
- Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) support status is unknown.
Other information
API
Technical specs |
Supported |
Notes |
Direct3D |
9.0c |
|
Executable |
32-bit |
64-bit |
Notes |
Windows |
|
|
|
Middleware
|
Middleware |
Notes |
Cutscenes |
On2 VP6 |
|
Multiplayer |
GameSpy |
Shut down in 31 December 2010. |
Command[12] |
Description
|
-win |
Runs the game in windowed mode
|
-mod [path to .big file] |
Runs the game with the selected mod
|
-xres [number] |
Sets resolution width
|
-yres [number] |
Sets resolution height
|
-noaudio |
Disables the game audio
|
-noshellmap |
Disables the Argonath animation in the main menu
|
Modifications
Base game
- BfME II: HD Edition
- An Unexpected Mod
- Special Extended Edition
Rise of the Witch-king
- RotWK HD Edition
- Age of the Ring - requires the unofficial 2.02 patch
- Edain Mod - incompatible with the unofficial 2.02 patch
- RJ RotWK - incompatible with the unofficial 2.02 patch
System requirements
Windows |
|
Minimum |
Recommended |
Operating system (OS) |
XP | |
Processor (CPU) |
1.6 GHz
| Intel Pentium 4 3 GHz AMD Athlon XP 3 GHz |
System memory (RAM) |
256 MB |
1 GB |
Hard disk drive (HDD) |
6 GB | |
Video card (GPU) |
Nvidia GeForce 3 ATI Radeon 8500 64 MB of VRAM DirectX 9.0c compatible
| Nvidia GeForce 7800 128 MB of VRAM |
- Online mode requires 512 MB of system RAM.
Notes
- ↑ SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10[2] or Windows 11 and is disabled by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 when the KB3086255 update is installed.[3]
References