WAR IN MIDDLE EARTH - tips on playing the game (the following is from a post on the Lexicon Exchange - 213-690-6326) ***** The object: Defeat Sauron and his forces. How to do it: Move your characters around, and avoid the baddies. Drop the Ring in Mount Doom if possible. You can send your people to different locations on the map, and in some places you'll meet other character (Go to Buckland and meet Merry.. go to Bree and gain Aragorn.. go to the forest and meet a couple elves, get to Rivendell and gain Gandalf, Legolas, Boromir, Gimli.. You can also get special objects whcih are located in locations here and there around the game. This is the tough part of the game. Send a character (or group, in case they get attacked) to the location and then zoom in so you have a closeup (Seeing the characters walk).. this part is slow and a pain, but then you can pick up items. Get more items, and you can start controlling forces of humans, rangers, calvary, dwarves, and elves. I found a way to get going fairly well. Send your hobbits straight to Buckland and get Merry. While they're travelling, have the two forces of yours to the far south (Faramir and 200 rangers, Eomer and a bunch of Calvary) come up and join with your hobbits. After you've given the commands, hit the hourglass and turn stuff up to "very hasty". When your hobbits get to Buckland and get Merry, go sit in the middle of the forest there (in the square east of Buckland there is a nice staff whcih someone can use as a weapon). Have them sit and wait in the middle of the forest (so the Nazguls don't get you) until your Rangers and Calvary come up from the south. Join them togethr, go get Aragorn, and head east to the forest. By this time, the Nazguls have all vanished. When you exit the forest and cross the river before Rivendell, they will re-appear, and will wipe out your party under most circumstances. This is where your Farramir/Rangers and Eomer/Calvary come in. Use the combat command to have all your characters "withdraw", while you let the calvary "Charge" and the rangers "Engage" or "Charge".. nine nazguls are no match for 300+ battle troops. I lost about 17 altogether. From that point, things get a bit easier. You can walk around without fear of the Nazguls and locate some objects to get some troops. Look in these locations for some helpful objects: South of Ost-In-Edhil (South of Buckland) North of Erebor (far east, where the Dwarves are parked). Dwarven hammer. East of Mt. Gundebad (east of Mt. Gram. Orcs sitting here). Treasure. South of Mt. Gram. (north of Rivendell). Mithril Armour, Red Arrow, Black flask. Red Arrow is important, as it gets humans in on the action. North of White Towers (east of Buckland/Hobbiton). HEaling potion. Forlond (Northwest of Hobbiton). Palantir, which tells you where to find other things. South of Forlond. West of Annuminas (due north from Hobbiton). Gold Sceptre, gets more humans in on the action. Also look at Michel Delvins, Tuckborough, Grey Havens, Belegost, and there is also a dagger west of the Barrow Downs (east of Buckland). It is an enjoyable game if you can get into it, and have something to read for the slow parts of the game. The word protection doesn't pop up too often, but is a pain in the ass. I modified my game to work on a hard drive to speed things up. The Byter To instruct your people to go to a location, get to the small map (not the big, overall one). USe the red arrow (click on it), then point and click on the character group you want to redirect, and point and click to the location you want them to go to. When you get into combat, the combat options will appear.