The enormous world of The Lord of the Rings: Rise to War is quite the sight to behold, and as the servers grow with more and more players, the land around you will become full of enemy armies and structures impeding your growth.
If you want to see more of the world around you, you need to start by growing your territory from your home base. And as land gets grabbed up by your rivals, you’ll need to have a clear strategy in mind, and some creative thinking in how you find new areas to take control of, in order to avoid being wiped off the face of Middle-earth entirely.
From army management to resource gathering and everything in between, there’s a lot to keep in mind even before you march your armies into battle and start taking the land back from your enemies.
Here are some tips on how to ensure you keep adding to your territory and avoid having to run away with your tail between your legs.
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Building an army
Before you can build an army, you need commanders. You’ll already have a commander or two under your control after you’ve completed a few early missions in Rise to War, but if you want to rapidly grow your territory, you’re going to need to recruit a lot more.
Recruiting a commander is easy enough – go to the Tavern, tap Recruit Commander, and you’ll be presented with a list of commanders for you to choose from. You’ll need to give them gifts to increase their Respect meter enough to recruit them – these can be bought in the store, but you’ll earn some gifts simply by completing tasks and playing the game. Be sure to check in on the Recruit Commander screen regularly to see if you have enough gifts to entice a new commander to your kingdom – they’re more than worth their weight in trinkets.
Once you’ve got a new commander, ensure you’ve given them units to march with. You’ll need to conscript units within your base, and then outfit your commanders with them. Make sure you’re checking in on each commander’s units regularly – you might be able to upgrade them to better units to make them stronger, or add more units to their army.
Finding territory
When you’ve got your commanders outfitted, it’s time to head into the world. The Lord of the Rings: Rise to War’s map is made up of a series of grids, and each square in the grid has its own power level. When you’re starting out, you’ll want to stick to taking over grids with a power level of one, and start taking on higher power level grids as your commanders level up.
You may run into some problems finding these low-level territories from the beginning, however. Not every square around your home base is going to be a low level, so you’ll need to carefully route your territory takeovers to ensure you’ve always got room to grow. Keep in mind that you can only take over a grid adjacent to one you already hold, and that this includes grids diagonally-adjacent, allowing you to zig-zag your way across the map to access far away, lower-level territories.
You should also make sure that you don’t send the same commander to clean up every piece of territory you can see. Using a mixture of commanders as you widen your reach not only means they won’t run out of energy as quickly, but you’ll level up your commanders more evenly, which will help with your conquest in the long run.
Always be improving
Your commanders will be levelling up all the time as they take over more and more territory, but just simply increasing their level isn’t going to be enough to truly build an empire. As your commanders level up, don’t forget to level up their skills as well to unlock improved stats for battles, making them a much more powerful force. You can also equip them with weapons and armour to buff their base stats, which will give you an edge over your competition.
But commanders aren’t the only thing you can level up. Ensuring that your base is constantly constructing a new building or upgrading an existing one will mean you’re always one step closer to being able to conscript higher-level units, which will be an immediate boon to your armies. You’re also likely to lose some units during battles, so make sure that you’re always conscripting some units of any kind, and checking in on your commander’s armies to make sure they’re topped up.
Take a break
A tired army is an ineffective army. You shouldn’t just send your commanders out to take territories endlessly – not only will they run out of stamina pretty quickly, but there are several benefits to having them at your home settlement that you’ll miss out on if they’re standing around in the field.
For one, you can only send out commanders in your settlement on Tavern Tips quests, which can provide some serious boosts to your armies and level up your units too. You also can’t change your commander’s armies unless they’re at the settlement, so if you want to upgrade their current units, you’ll need to recall them first.
You should also use your Apothecary to heal units as much as possible – it’s faster than conscripting more units, and you can heal units even when they’re not in the settlement, which is great if you don’t have many reserves to send out and restock a commander’s army.
It’s a lot to take in, but if you can keep all this in mind, you’ll be able to easily take control of any territory you see. Ready to build your own kingdom? Make sure to download The Lord of the Rings: Rise to War on your chosen mobile storefront today.