Revisiting: War in Middle Earth (1988)

The title screen omits the "J.R.R. Tolkien's . . . " prefix that a lot of sites include in the game title.

         

War in Middle Earth

United States

Melbourne House (UK developer and publisher); Synergistic Software (U.S. developer and publisher)

Synergistic version released in 1988 or 1989 for Amiga, Apple IIGS, Atari ST, and DOS

Melbourne House version released in 1989 for Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, MSX, and ZX Spectrum
Date Started: 11 March 2011

Date Ended: 1 December 2020

Total Hours: 14

Difficulty: Moderate (3/5)

Final Rating: 25

Ranking at Time of Posting: 169/392 (43%)

         

It was time for another easy loss-win conversion. I first played War in Middle Earth back in 2011, lost it a couple of times, rejected it as an RPG, and moved on. This was still during the blog's formative period, however. I wasn't yet familiar with Synergistic Software (I didn't start the Campaign series for another two years), and I didn't realize that War in Middle Earth featured the debut of the World Builder engine, which would see us through Spirit of Excalibur (1990), Vengeance of Excalibur (1991), and Conan: The Cimmerian (1991).

   

I haven't found any detailed accounting of how War in Middle Earth was made. Although Synergistic's Robert Clardy is credited as the director and game designer, the "game concept" is credited to British developer Mike Singleton. You could imagine it was the natural evolution of either or both of the men's earlier titles. From the early Campaign series, Synergistic founder Robert Clardy always seemed interested in blending the strategic and the tactical, the campaign and the quest. These are also features of Singleton's earlier UK games, predominantly The Lords of Midnight (1984), its sequel Doomdark's Revenge (1984), and the lesser-known Dark Sceptre (1988). Singleton's games always play with creative approaches to time, with events occurring faster or slower than the player may wish depending on the point in the game.

       

[Edit: A few months after posting this, I had cause to re-visit the issue. I still haven't found a clear source, but what I think happened was this: 1) Melbourne House got the original license to make a Tolkien game and commissioned Mike Singleton to write it; 2) Mike Singleton began development on what would be the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, MSX, and ZX Spectrum version; 3) Synergistic somehow found out about the game in development and struck a deal with Melbourne House to produce their own version in the U.S. for more advanced machines; 4) Synergistic's version introduced elements that make the game more of a near-RPG, while the Melbourne House version remained a more purely strategy game (though taking place at multiple levels, like Singleton's earlier games); 5) both versions released at roughly the same time. If anyone knows better or finds a source that clarifies, I would appreciate a comment.]

   

Re-playing War after almost 10 years, I'm better-equipped to appreciate what Clardy and Singleton were trying to accomplish. I've seen other strategy-RPG hybrids in which squads and battalions can "level up" and there are persistent heroes leading them, but the World Builder approach does more than introduce RPG-style character development to armies. It literally changes the interface as you move from map to campaign to party, and you are essentially playing different games in those three interfaces. At the map level, you can study the state of the world; at the campaign level, you issue orders to armies and watch them fight; and at the street level (Synergistic calls it the "animation level," which is an unsatisfying term), individual characters interact with each other, use items, and fight one-on-one combats. 

        

At the local level, the hobbits set out from the Shire.

       

I was trying to think of a modern game that does anything similar and I came up short. There are games in the Far Cry and Assassin's Creed series in which you can view a large-scale map and see who controls what territory, but that "control" is largely theoretical; it has little influence on actual gameplay. All the real decisions are made at the individual level as in most RPGs. I can't think of a game in which one of your cherished party members can get wiped out while you're tinkering with the movement of armies on the world map, nor can I think of any in which you can lose your kingdom (and the game) because you were fiddling around trying to pick a lock on a treasure chest while the evil king's armies swept over your homeland.

         

At the campaign level, you view and give orders to armies.

        

That, of course, is part of the reason that the World Builder approach, however innovative, didn't really catch on. Most players don't want to suffer anxiety throughout the game, constantly worrying that events are happening at a different level. Perhaps more important, in its attempts to blend two or three different genres, the World Builder engine ended up being not very good at any of them. Character development, NPC interaction, and questing are too under-developed to make for a good RPG, and there aren't enough strategic and logistic considerations to make a good strategy game. Conan eventually abandoned the strategic side of the engine, and I rated it highest in the series. That doesn't mean that I feel that the approach was doomed from the start, however. I would love to have a modern game in which you feed and equip armies, manage them in battles against a foe, and then once you've conquered the castle, lead a party of four soldiers on an exploration of its dungeons.

      

The map level shows all your forces across the land.

      

I suppose I should say it even though it's obvious: War in Middle Earth is based on The Lord of the Rings. It starts at the local level with Frodo, Sam, and Pippin walking down a road, having been given the main mission to take the ring to Mount Doom and destroy it. Gandalf has left a note telling Frodo to meet him in Rivendell and suggesting he watch for Strider on the road. The ringwraiths are closing in.

 

A local-level battle has the Fellowship attacked by 20 orcs.

       

But zoom out to the map level, and you find that these are not your only allies. There are lights flashing in Rohan and Gondor, too. Eomer waits in East Emnet with 120 cavalry, and Faramir is camped in Gondor with 200 rangers. These are the only armies that you can control at the beginning, but others become available as the game progresses, some based on time, some based on luck (e.g., a hero has to encounter them), and some based on finding an item.

       

A campaign-level battle determines control of Minis Tirith.

       

You can't neglect any of the three levels. If you never visit the map view, you might forget about important units. It's frustrating to discover you had an extra army with 700 knights and 2000 infantry in some distant port minutes before you lose the game. The campaign level is where you probably spend most of your time, moving units from place to place--and you really do have to micro-manage them. (One of the most frustrating things about the game is units' stubborn refusal to follow your exact orders.) But if you don't venture to the local level frequently, you'll lose out on the ability to get hints from NPCs and to find items.

         

A random old man--not Gandalf--offers a hint.

        

There's an awful lot packed into this game, and no two attempts to win are going to produce the same outcomes, even if you route your people in the same directions. I had games where I was able to field an army of ents and other games where I never even saw an ent; games where I scattered the heroes hoping to find enchanted artifacts and games where I never picked up a single item and just focused on getting to my goals. Sometimes you meet a balrog wandering around in the wilderness. Sometimes you meet Gollum.

    

If I were more of a Tolkien fan, I think I'd be both intrigued and frustrated. In some ways, it's fun just to explore the map and note far-flung cities and ruined castles. But there's so little to do in these locations that it's ultimately unsatisfying. The only thing to do at the local level, other than enjoy the EGA graphics, is to pick up or drop the occasional object. You can't even instigate conversation with NPCs; you have to wait and see if they want to talk with you.

      

The game is hardest at the beginning, when the three hobbits are on the road by themselves and Nazgûl are swarming everywhere. If they run into you, there's a chance you can evade them, and even if you enter combat, there's a (small) chance you can defeat them, but in general I lost about half my games before even reaching Buckland or Bree and picking up Merry and Aragorn, respectively. If Frodo dies, not all is lost--any hero can bring the ring to Mount Doom--but there aren't many alternate heroes in the early game.

        

Most of my early games ended like this.

       

I gather that a lot of players use the early game to try to find artifacts. Once you get the message that Sauron's forces are on the move, the specific timing of which seems to be randomized for each game, the game changes considerably and time becomes more dear.

    

The game has several winning conditions. The player can win by bringing the One Ring safely to Mount Doom or by killing Sauron. The latter method involves bringing an essentially impossible number of forces to Barad-Dur, which itself has 9,500 orcs and 500 trolls and is surrounded by fortresses with just as many. I'm sure someone's done it, but I don't see how.

 

Sauron is well-protected.

        

The enemy wins by killing the ring-bearer, having a Nazgûl swipe up the Ring, and bringing the Ring to Sauron in Barad-Dur. But they can also win by conquering three of five cities: Minas Tirith, Edoras, Hornburg, Lórien, and Thranduil's Palace, the last of which is so far removed from the rest of the action that it's annoying to have to defend it.

    

One of the problems with the game is that it's fairly easy to win. You just have to bring most of the armies to the five cities and hold them against Sauron's repeated attacks. His forces grow and replenish as time goes on while yours don't, so it's a little unfair from a strategy perspective, but the AI in the game is pretty bad, and most of the time, Sauron won't send his forces very far to attack. So there might be 20,000 orcs milling about Minas Tirith, but they won't march off to attack the Hornburg; all of Rohan's threats seem to come from Isengard or not at all.

      

I task an army of elves to retake Lorien from the orcs.

      

If you can hold the cities, all you have to do is get a ring-bearer to Mount Doom. This is easier than it sounds. The key difficulties are supposed to be crossing the Misty Mountains and crossing the mountains into Mordor. You can try to clear the passes by sending armies against the strongholds there, or you can attempt to sneak through with a small band. But you can also walk around the mountains or even directly through them (this takes some coaxing) without using the passes.

    

One fun way to win quickly, although it requires a bit of luck, is to allow a Nazgûl to kill Frodo and take the ring early. The Nazgûl will make a beeline for Barad-Dur, entering Mordor through either Minas Morgul (west) or Morannon (northwest). If you can anticipate his route and intercept him, Faramir can kill him, grab the ring, and then quickly cross the mountains to Barad-Dur, sometimes even before Sauron's forces have been activated.

      

One ringwraith is no match for Faramir and 200 rangers.

       

The longer way involves fully activating the armies of Gondor, Rohan, the Elves, and the Dwarves by bringing the leader their associated artifacts, then using the armies to clear a path for the ringbearer's small party. Those items, and the other artifacts in the game, are always found in the same places. Experienced players inevitably develop early-game strategies for collecting as many of them as possible before deciding which paths to take to Mordor.

        

The hobbits find an elven blade at Tom Bombadil's house.

      

I won three times during this revisit, once with the Nazgûl/Faramir strategy (though it took a few reloads), once by painstakingly following the strategy laid out by a fan named Leon (excellent site), and once through my own method of holding the key cities while sending Frodo, Gandalf, and 500 elves around the mountains of Mordor to walk in from the east. 

        

Gandalf approaches Mount Doom from the east. Faramir already holds it, so there's no concern about enemy forces.

      

I had originally given War a 21 on the GIMLET. In reviewing my ratings, I think I got it right for 9 of the 10 categories, but I can't countenance the 2 I gave it for "gameplay." It's eminently replayable, has a bit of nonlinearity, and offers a good challenge in a reasonable time frame. I bumped the score to a 6 and thus the final score to a 25.

       

The winning screen!

      

As I said, the game ultimately under-performs in its constituent categories. As a strategy game, it doesn't work well because you have no control over the development of your forces and there's no advantage to controlling any cities except the five key ones. As a wargame, it doesn't offer enough combat tactics. Your only options are to have units "charge," "engage," or "withdraw." ("Charge" seems to offer a potentially-large payout for an equally large risk.) As an RPG, the characters don't develop, and not enough happens at the street level to make it interesting. These problems persisted throughout the World Builder series, although they did get better. The two Excalibur games brought stronger (if still not very strong) approaches to character growth and inventory, and Conan gave us a lot to do at the local level. Both offered lovely VGA graphics that made it fun to visit different locations. We have one World Builder game ahead of us--1993's Warriors of Legend--and I look forward to seeing the engine in its final form.