LOTR Rise to War Guide - F2P Tips and Tricks for Early Game

Aerith 2021-10-12

Create or Join a Fellowship interface

Like many real-time strategy (RTS) games, Lord of the Rings: Rise to War utilizes Fellowships (i.e. alliances/guilds/clans/etc.) as a core part of its multiplayer mechanics in-game. Working together as a cohesive unit can ensure victory over the server but achieving that level of precision takes dedicated work. Use this guide to learn the ins and outs of what it takes to start a successful Fellowship and see if you've got what it takes.

Note: The headers denote the theme of the tip, and the bolded words are the actual tips. The additional text explains why these tips are useful. These tips are useful for early game and PVE objectives.

Tip 1: Recruiting Fellowship Members

PROACTIVELY RECRUIT FROM THE #RECRUITMENT-NOTICE-BOARD IN THE OFFICIAL RISE TO WAR DISCORD PRIOR TO JOINING A SERVER.

Pre-game recruitment is the act of recruiting players to your Fellowship with the intent of joining a future server. This is the best way to ensure a strong start in the Faction of your choosing. The #recruitment-notice-board on the official Rise to War discord server is a place where you can advertise your Fellowship. Use this and other social media platforms to your advantage when pre-game recruiting. However, this only improves your chances of becoming a leading Fellowship and is not required for success.

SET ASIDE TIME TO JOIN A NEW SERVER IMMEDIATELY (ONCE IT HAS OPENED).

In-game recruitment occurs the moment you set up a Fellowship. As a potential Leader, you should aim to be one of the first players on the server. Your ability to acquire power quickly will determine your success in recruiting as players will gravitate towards the strongest Fellowship first. If you're not the strongest Fellowship in your Faction, you will only get the spillover players from more powerful Fellowships. Additionally, recruitment is a constant job as you will have to judge who the most active players in your Faction are when deciding who to let into your Fellowship (in addition to any players you recruited beforehand).

Fellowship Creation Interface

CREATE MULTIPLE FELLOWSHIPS IF YOU WANT TO GATHER MORE MEMBERS FROM YOUR FACTION (ONLY FOR LEADERS ALREADY WITH A GROUP).

If you're confident in your group's ability to grow quickly, spread the power by creating multiple Fellowships. Factions start with a 10 player limit so creating two or more Fellowships within a Faction can allow you to net a lot more individual players than if you had consolidated your group into one Faction. This works best if your group is the first ones in the server.

Tip 2: Choosing A Faction

Faction Popularity based on the #role-assignment "favourite faction" question. Taken on 2021-10-14.

The most popular Factions will be the ones that fill up the fastest. This will give you the greatest number of players to recruit from in addition to having a full Faction. Factions like Rhûn should be avoided as they are not notably mentioned in The Lord of the Rings trilogy or additional lore and are thus, not familiar.

Note: This is based on the Familiarity Principle which suggests that familiarity influences people's preferences. However, it is not absolute and there may be servers where less popular Factions are the most populated.

READ THE #RECRUITMENT-NOTICE-BOARD TO SEE WHICH FACTIONS WILL BE POPULATED BY PRE-ORGANIZED GROUPS OF PLAYERS.

This is valuable information that you will need to know if you want to be the top Fellowship in your Faction. You can avoid Factions that have already been claimed or you can join up with these people and boost a Faction. However, note that if a group has claimed the Faction that you’re going to be joining, they will most likely get priority over the most active players in your Faction too. To quickly search, type in a server number in the discord search bar.

RIDE THE COAT-TAILS OF A PRE-ORGANIZED GROUP OF PLAYERS TO WIN THE SERVER.

If you’re not confident that the group of players you pre-game recruited will be enough to win, you can always choose to join a Faction that you know will have another group of pre-game recruits. A Faction wins as one and it’s better to consolidate power into one Faction (even if your own Fellowship is not the strongest one) than have to fight all the Factions in the server on your own.

Tip 3: Fellowship Leader Responsibilities

Every Fellowship has multiple roles to be filled that vary in terms of need, depending on the server situation. It's your job as a Leader to appoint players to fill these roles when the appropriate time comes. Here are some of your responsibilities as a Fellowship Leader:

  • Appoint Fellowship Confidants (a rank above Fellowship Member)
  • Organize Fellowship Objectives
  • Participate in server diplomacy
  • Help Fellowship Members

APPOINT RESPONSIBLE CONFIDANTS RATHER THAN POWERFUL CONFIDANTS.

Power is no indication of responsibility. While the two are not mutually exclusive, you should determine who will be a Confidant by their ability to lead rather than their ability to farm. Farmers are less likely to prioritize the Fellowship over their own growth so beware of choosing the wrong Confidants.

SPLIT THE FELLOWSHIP FORT BUILDING FAIRLY AMONST ALL CONFIDANTS.

Fellowship Forts are costly to build and will seriously hold you back in growth if you're the one solely building all the Fellowship Forts. Additionally, the gold cost alone will hold you back severely if you prioritize Fellowship Forts over upgrading your main units. Split the cost evenly amongst your Confidants to minimize the drain on resources and gold.

Cost of a Fellowship Fortress.

WAR DECLARATIONS ELIMINATE THE 70% SIEGE DEBUFF WHEN TAKING FELLOWSHIP OBJECTIVES IN OPPOSING FACTION-OCCUPIED TERRITORY.

That is all a War Declaration does. If you aren't planning on invading an occupied region, there is no point in declaring war. Additionally, the cooldown for declaring war is long so plan to have it active when the majority of your Fellowship is playing.

Tip 4: Organizing Fellowship Objectives

USE FELLOWSHIP ANNOUNCEMENTS, FELLOWSHIP MARKERS, AND FELLOWSHIP FORTS IN CONJUNCTION TO COMMUNICATE THE FELLOWSHIP OBJECTIVE, LOCATION, DATE, AND TIME.

This is vital for proper organization as any omitted information from objectives, locations, dates, or times can lead to confusion. Additionally, consolidating all information into one post is the best for organizational purposes as people will only have to look at one place. The best way to do this is to set a Fellowship/Warband Pin which will automatically create an Announcement with the Fellowship Objective's location and any additional information that you add (remember to add the time and date if necessary).

The Fellowship/Warband Pin interface has four pin types that you can choose from. Additionally, you can fill in the pins’ name and description which will be automatically provided in the autogenerated announcement as seen below:

Fellowship/Warband Pin interface.

Fellowship/Warband announcement interface.

USE PROPER GRAMMAR AND SPELLING IN ALL ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR CLARITY AND THE IN-GAME TRANSLATOR.

Your alliance will most likely have members that do not speak your native language and they may rely on the in-game translator. Your use of proper grammar and spelling is vital for the translator to work at its best. Additionally, proper grammar will make your announcements coherent and easier to read.

UTILIZE DISCORD AND CUSTOMIZED IN-GAME CHATS FOR MULTI-FELLOWSHIP ALLIANCES.

It's best to set up a customized private-chat in-game for Confidants and leaders of multi-Fellowship alliances. Use private chat when talking strategy to avoid being overheard by spies. Additionally, to keep the community tightly knit, you can set up a discord server for people to chill in while they play the game together. This encourages community and will increase the chances that they will stay with you next season.

To create a private chat, select the [+] sign at the bottom left corner of the interface and go to the [Create] tab. Type a group chat name and then select the [Create] button.

Group chat Create interface.

To add people to the group chat, share the group ID to members that you want to invite. This will allow them to apply and you can accept their applications from the group chat settings.

Group chat ID interface.

MESSAGE MEMBERS TO PATH TOWARDS FELLOWSHIP OBJECTIVES WELL IN ADVANCE OF ACTUALLY TAKING THEM.

This encourages members to expand outwards towards more resources rather than inwards (potentially taking from allied Fellowship members). Additionally, pathing is the most costly step (time-wise) in achieving alliance goals so working on it early prevents a backlog of Fellowship Objectives waiting to be taken.

Tip 5: Fellowship Diplomacy

Diplomacy will happen between the Leaders and Confidants of Fellowships (in-Faction and between Factions). If you want to reach out to an opposing Fellowship, direct message (DM) their leader to start the discussion.

DEVELOP WORLD CHAT EDUCATE FOR YOUR FELLOWSHIP MEMBERS AND ENCOURAGE OTHERS IN-FACTION TO FOLLOW IT.

Restrain from running your mouth on World Chat, especially when PVP begins. Nobody enjoys playing against gloaters or sore losers and you can avoid embarrassing situations (ex. the whole server ganging up on your Faction) by simply keeping it civil. Additionally, this creates a more enjoyable environment for the server.

Therefore be silent, and keep your forked tongue behind your teeth.

OFFER AND ACCEPT ALLIANCES WHEN IT IS NOT NECESSARY FOR PVP.

There is no point in refusing an alliance with a different Faction if you’re not immediately planning on invading them. This simply ensures that you are safe from them (if they uphold their bargain) which can prevent you from fighting on multiple fronts. Additionally, diplomacy is not a written contract and you can backstab anyone at any point. Using other people's morals to your advantage is a fair strategy.

ALLOW ROGUES TO BE TAKEN OUT OR TAKE THEM OUT YOURSELF.

If there is a rogue member in your Faction who does not uphold the diplomacy you've discussed between Factions, take the rogue out or allow the opposing Faction to do so. This will avoid resentment building up between allied Factions.

Thank you for reading this article and I hope you found it helpful. Now sod off!

Aerith

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The Lord of the Ring: Rise to War - Official Worldwide Website