The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth (Prima Official Game Guide)

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This book is worth the money it provides the information you need to plan your strategy. It has complete listings of the types of structures, equipment, fighting units and what each costs as well as earnings rate. All your maps are here. Almost everything missing from the original manual is here. But, this only covers the original game before patches. If you get the free patch download many of the costs, earnings and power ratings will change which will make this book less helpful. I bought it for the maps and even with the changes of the patch it still provides better information then the original manual.

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This guide is great its full of info about the game a must have if you want to be a good player.

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I bought the Battle for Middle Earth without ever having played in RTS games in my life. So, even though I thoroughly enjoyed the game, I had a hard time trying to figure out what was more important to be doing. This guide helped me out tremendously as far as knowing what to build and when, and explaining Powers and Evenstar Powers better, and many other things that I didn't quite understand in the game. It has tons a great pictures and lots of helpful hints and gives you a VERY THOROUGH explanation of all the game elements - which was great to read because I found the manual that came with the game to be very vague and lacking in detail.

Sure, there are walk-throughs with strategies and maps of all the 30-some places you fight your way through, but I haven't looked at those just yet - I like to try and figure things out for myself, but it's nice to know if I keep having trouble, I can go to it.

One thing I love about this book is that it doesn't take away from the thrill of the game by telling you everything you need to do; it just offers strategy suggestions. So, you can read this entire book and know that you haven't been given a complete walk-thru to spoil your fun.

So, if you have found the manual to the game to be very confusing and lacking in detail explaining things and you have never played a RTS (Real-Time Strategy) game before, this is definitely your book and you will not be disappointed.

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I purchased The Lord of The Rings, That Battle For Middle-earth PC and the Prima Official Game Guide this week. The game is everything I had hoped it would be: Challenging, Beautiful, Epic, and just plain fun. If you are huge Real Time Strategy (RTS) fan, the game may not strike a tune with you. Why? The game mechanics are pretty much what you'd expect from any Warcraft inspired RTS: Build Base, Harvest Resources, Build Units, Invade...wash and repeat. But, if you are a Lord of the Rings fan, like I am, you'll love the cinematic battles, dazzling special effects, and "just one more battle" late night gaming sessions!

That being said, the Prima Game Guide is equally impressive. Though not as thick and heavy as the Prima Guide for the Sims2, the Battle For Middle-earth Game Guide is still suprising well done. Each page is in full color, printed on glossy paper, and full of insider tips, unit details, and battle walk-throughs. A fold out map of Middle-earth, also in full color printed on card-stock paper, is included, but, sadly, the map is only sparsely labled and pretty generic. This Prima Game Guide trumps the last one I purchased, the Rome Total War Prima Game Guide, which was printed on cheap paper and entirely in black and white.

In conclusion, I strongly recommend both The Battle For Middle-earth, the PC game, and the Prima Game Guide. Enjoy!