Installation

Installing the mod is simple but not completely straightforward, if you go through the steps carefully you should be fine. Also key to note, very few mods are made to be compatible with each other, the few exceptions being one such as AOTR and 2.02 (yes, the unofficial 2.02 patch is a mod). In general, only have one mod installed in a folder at a time and don't try to launch any other mod than the one you currently have installed your game directory. By default the game directory is **C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king**, in addition, the folder for things like Replays, Maps and the Options.ini is **%appdata%/My The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king Files**.

## 1. System Requirement

The BFME series is built on top of the SAGE engine, an old game engine from the single-core processor era. This means that usually, regardless of your specs, the game can have a tendency to lag. Make sure to keep your graphics low, especially shadows. Just in case, make sure your hardware matches at least the recommended settings in order to play the mod.

**Battle for Middle Earth 2**

 RAM
 Video Card
 OS
 DirectX
 Free Disk Space

**Rise of the Witch-King**

 RAM
 Video Card
 OS
 DirectX
 Free Disk Space

## 2. Installing the Games

Because EA lost the license to LOTR, and at this point mainly because the game is so old, it's hard to find a CD. The instructions here will help you get started; there are many fan-made patches out there so for Edain it is key to make sure that BFME2 is set to the last official patch which is 1.06 and ROTWK is set to the last official patch which is 2.01. If you have installed a fan-made patch such as 2.02 or 1.09 you can usually disable them using their patch switchers.

### 2.1. Installing BFME2

If you have the original BfME 2 disk then please skip to step 3 and use your legitimate CD key.

1. Download The Battle for Middle-earth ™ II. The original unmodified version. Main / Mirror 1
2. Open tBfMe\_II.iso by either double clicking or right-clicking and selecting mount. This will mount the BfME 2 disk to a virtual drive.
3. Launch AutoRun.exe on the disk. Install the game. Need a cd key? Click here. (Note: some antivirus programs will flag the keygen. This is a false positive. The keygen is safe.)
4. Download the Battle for Middle-earth II v1.06 Patch in your language on this page. (Scroll down)

### 2.2. Installing ROTWK

1. Download The Rise of the Witch-King. The original unmodified version. Main / Mirror 1
2. Open rotwk.iso by either double clicking or right-clicking and selecting mount. This will mount the RotWK disk to a virtual drive.
3. Launch AutoRun.exe on the disk. Install the game. Need a cd key? Click here. (Note: some antivirus programs will flag the keygen. This is a false positive. The keygen is safe.)
4. Download the Rise of the Witch-king v2.01 Patch in your language on this page. (Scroll down)
5. It is highly likely that the installer will fail to create the required Options.ini file, go to **%appdata%/My The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king Files** and download this file into it

## 3. Installing the Mod

### 3.1. Preconditions

**BFME2 needs to be patched to 1.06.** Usually, if you haven't installed the unofficial 1.09 patch you don't need to worry about this. If you have, make sure to switch back to 1.06 before installing using the switcher. You can switch back and forth after the mod is installed but if you do you'll have to update the mod through the launcher when you want to play it again to avoid pink textures.

**ROTWK needs to be set to 2.01**, if you have installed the unofficial 2.02 patch you need to **uninstall it**. In recent releases, the 2.02 dev team has made it impossible to fully disable 2.02 as such you must uninstall it to run Edain. If you would like to keep 2.02, make a backup of the game folder, you can then switch around the names of the folders to pick the version you want to run.

**Download the mod** at ModDB or at Modding Union.

Please note that the download may take some time, depending on your connection and how stressed out the servers currently are. Downloading on either of these two servers is recommended as they guarantee virus-free versions of the mod. Since 4.0 and the release of the launcher you will no longer have to download a new version every time but merely update it from the launcher. The **latest fully released version is** **4.7.0**, it is recommended to download that if you are installing the mod since it will immediately be patched to **4.7.0** and greatly reduce the time required for the game to update. The **latest version is** **4.7.1**, you can obtain this version by updating through the launcher.

**You do not need to separately download the launcher.**

### 3.2. Installation

Assuming you're done downloading, just follow these steps.

1. Extract the files into any folder but the game folder.
2. Double click the .exe
3. Follow the wizard in the installation procedure.
4. Open the launcher
5. Click update button until the launcher tells you there are no updates left

## 4. Playing the game

### 4.1. Before playing the game

If you no longer possess a working Rise of the Witch-king CD you will need to download the mini-images and mounting. For mounting you have two options: WinCDEmu and Daemon Tools lite. The recommended approach is Daemon Tools.

**When trying either options make sure you have uninstalled other mounting tools and restarted your computer. In general, if something is not working, restart your computer and try the last step again.**

#### Daemon Tools Lite

1. Download and install Daemon Tools Lite here
2. Extract the mini images, doesn't matter where (as long as it's not your game folder) but the .mds and .mdf always need to be in the same folder
3. Open Daemon Tools Lite and go to the "Disc Images" menu
4. Click on the "+" and select the .mds file you extracted
5. Right click on the file in Daemon Tools and select "Mount to SCSI"

#### WinCDEmu

1. Download and install WinCDEmu here
2. Extract the mini images, doesn't matter where (as long as it's not your game folder) but the .mds and .mdf always need to be in the same folder
3. Then right-click on the .mds and select mount as CD-Rom.

### 4.2. Launching the mod

Use the **game shortcut** to launch the mod. The Edain Launcher doesn't allow for mini-images so you can't use that to launch the mod.

Make sure that you are not launching as admin and that compatibility modes are disabled.

## 5. Playing other mods

Since Edain can be disabled it is possible to play other mods while it is installed. Before disabling Edain, launch the game and make sure that the "Random" faction is selected in Skirmish for every player present. This will avoid a crash in the case that a faction does not exist in another mod. Then **disable Edain through the launcher**.

You can now proceed with the installation or playing with other mods. As long as the mods do not overwrite game files and can be disabled you will be able to switch between the two.

### 5.1. Age of the Ring

It is no longer possible to switch between Edain and Age of the Ring in the same folder due to recent changes in 2.02. The recommendation is to create separate folders, each with one mod installed. You can then manually rename the folders based on what you want to play. The instructions below list the basics of this operation:

1. Start by copying your current game folder, we'll reference this copied folder on which you have 2.02 or edain installed as **modded**
2. Then uninstall Edain or 2.02 from your game folder to return to a clean 2.01.
3. Copy your game folder again, this will create a backup, and we'll reference this copied folder as **backup**
4. Then install Edain or 2.02, if your **modded** folder had Edain then install 2.02, if you already had 2.02 installed then install Edain
5. Your game folder now contains Edain or 2.02, you have a clean 2.01 folder and another modded folder with 2.02 or Edain

To change between 2.02 and Edain simply rename the folder containing the mod you want to play to the name of the original game folder. For example, given you have the following three folders:

* **The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king** -> 2.02, original folder
* **The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king - edain** -> copied edain folder
* **The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king - backup** -> copied backup folder

If you want to play Edain, you have to change the name of the **The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king** folder to something like **The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king - 2.02** and change the name of the **The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king - edain** folder to the original name, which is **The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king** in this scenario.

The basics of it is that when you originally install the game, it installs in a specific folder. In order for everything to work, you must always launch the game from that folder. So you make copies of the game which contain separate mods, and you then change the names of the folders around so that the folder containing the mod you want to play has the original folder name.

## 6. Uninstalling

To uninstall Edain, open the Edain Launcher, click on the **Options & Tools**tab and click the **Uninstall Edain** button at the bottom.

Once you have done so, navigate to your Virtual Store folder (**%localappdata%/VirtualStore**) and delete any folders related to Battle for Middle Earth and Rise of the Witch-King to remove any potential leftover files.

In addition, it is recommended to navigate to your My ROTWK files folder (**%appdata%/My The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king Files**) and delete (or move out) Save files and CreateAHero files that you created in Edain.

## 7. Common Errors

**2.02 V7 "WOTR\_MusicRohanMS" Bug**

To fix the conflict caused by having Edain and 2.02 installed in the same folder open the 2.02 launcher and select minimal music in the miscellaneous and apply it.

**Pink Textures**

Corrupted asset.dat, update the mod using the launcher.

**"Please, insert the correct CD-ROM" error.**

Make sure to read 4. Playing the game and follow the instruction on how to run the game with **mini cd images**. Check if images are properly mounted, WinCDemu is the only mounting software on your PC and you have restarted your PC after installing it. Also, make you are running Edain by using the shortcut with the ROTWK icon **NOT** as admin and in ANY compatibility modes.

**Error parsing INI block**

You have files conflicting, make sure you don't have any others mods/submods installed and that unofficial patches such as 2.02 or 1.09 are disabled (if you have them installed).

**The game crashes when opening Skirmish or War of the Ring**

This can have three causes, to fix it you can either click "fix non starting games" in the edain launcher (this will remove your game profiles) or follow the instructions below:

1. Disable Edain
2. Launch the game
3. Go into skirmish and make sure all the factions are set to random
4. Go into WotR and make sure that all the factions are set to random and that you have selected a classic scenario
5. Go to **%appdata%/My The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king Files** and move or delete all the .cah files

**The game shows the splash screen and then crashes**

You are most likely missing an Options.ini file, go to **%appdata%/My The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king Files** and download this file into it

**Defeated after 3 minutes**

The auto-defeat bug is problematic indeed, download this file and extract **lotrbfme2ep1.exe** into your Edain folder. If it doesn't work you'll have to re-install the game with a separate key.

**Removed a submod but it still appears in-game**

If you have tried to remove a submod but your game seems to still have it installed it is most likely because windows has created a copy in the Virtual Store. Go to **%localappdata%\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts** and delete all the folders in there. This will remove any file windows has copied and make sure that your game is only running the files in the game folder.

**Auto defeat of AI or player at the start a the game**

If you notice that the AI is being defeated automatically at the start of the game on every map go to your game folder (*C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king* by default) and remove any of the following files if you encounter them:

* \_201widescreenhawkeyeforcemod.big
* \_\_rotwk-widescreen.big

These are not base game files and were installed specifically by the crack you downloaded and conflict with mods. It is recommended to use the instructions here instead.

**War of the Ring mode is zoomed to below the map**

This is caused by a missing or invalid livingworld.txt. Please download this file and copy it into your RotWK folder (*C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king* by default)

**Invisible UI**

Please uninstall 2.02 or delete the **\_202\_widescreen.big** file from your RotWK folder (*C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king* by default)