The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II

The Battle for Middle-earth II

Developers
	EA Los Angeles
Expansion	BreakAway Games
Publishers
	Electronic Arts
Engines
	SAGE
Release dates
Windows	March 2, 2006
Reception
Metacritic	84
IGDB	81
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase, Expansion pack
Microtransactions	None
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Bird's-eye view
Controls	Multiple select, Point and select
Genres	RTS
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Fantasy
Series	The Battle for Middle-earth

The Battle for Middle-earth
Subseries of Middle-earth
The Battle for Middle-earth	2004
The Battle for Middle-earth II	2006

Warnings

SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see Availability for affected versions).

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.

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.
Origin (unavailable)		Physical copies used to activate on Origin, but they no longer do.

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.

Demo

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

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
Origin

Video

General settings menu (the expansion has an identical menu, with a different theme)

Custom graphics settings menu

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution			See Widescreen resolution or use an unofficial patch launcher for setting a custom resolution. The UI is stretched by default; see Widescreen mods for BFME2 without 1.09 or an unofficial patch to adapt the interface to widescreen aspect ratios.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)		No FOV sliders exist; the maps themselves need to be manually edited. For FOV adapted to 16:9 resolutions, see Widescreen mods for BFME2 without 1.09 or use an unofficial patch.
Windowed		Use -win parameter.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
High-fidelity upscaling		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		Frame rate is capped at 30 FPS, with game speed tied to frame rate.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Widescreen resolution

Set custom resolution
Open the configuration file with a text editor. Change Resolution xxx xxx to the desired resolution.

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Controller types

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
Czech				Fan - 1 The Rise of the Witch-King
French
German
Italian
Norwegian
Polish
Russian
Slovak				Fan - 1 The Rise of the Witch-king
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

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.

Use unofficial patches
Circumvents DRM causing this issue.

Check game's serial key registry entries

Clean reinstall of the game as administrator
Fully re-install the game with administrator privileges in hopes the registry keys will be correctly created.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Players	Notes
Local play
LAN play		8	Versus
Online play		8	Versus The official GameSpy service has been shut down on December 31, 2010 due to Electronic Arts losing the Lord of the Rings license.. Replaced by T3A:Online.

Connection types

Type	Native	Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting
Direct IP

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 line arguments

Command	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.