How to Cross New Regions in Lord of the Rings: Rise to War

Navigating new and unexplored regions of the map is a key element of gameplay in Lord of the Rings: Rise to War. Whether you’re simply scouring Middle Earth for resources or advancing on an enemy’s capital city, crossing terrain on the way to your destination can pose a significant challenge.

Even in the absence of enemies, your tile limit, stamina limits and fort requirements can be a huge hindrance in getting where you want to go. So, how do you cross regions quickly when your faction hasn’t already advanced into them?

Rotating Your Commanders

Commanders in Rise to War can have a maximum of 150 stamina, which is only enough to move to a new tile seven times before you have to wait for them to rest. The easiest way to get around this is to simply send exhausted commanders back to your base and move ones with full stamina to the fort nearest to your destination.

This sounds simple, but it can get fairly complex with the need to sometimes pass over stronger tiles to avoid taking enormous detours. While a level 1 commander is perfectly capable of taking 1-power tiles, they’re going to get crushed if they try to overcome a 130-power tile.

The easiest way to deal with this is to mix your weaker commanders with stronger ones that can easily take tiles. Stronger commanders can also help you take useful resource tiles that you’ll actually want to keep as you make your way to your destination.

Utilizing Ruins

Your range of movement in Rise to War is limited by a certain radius around your forts and base. While this covers a considerable amount of land, it’s fairly limiting if your only goal is to move straight across a zone. Naturally, you can just build more forts, but their resource cost and two hour construction time can really slow you down.

The solution to this problem is to take over ruins that are placed towards the edge of your movement range. Ruins serve as capturable forts that can even house five units right from the start. While they are defended by two small armies, their defenses are pretty insignificant at the levels where you’ll generally be crossing entire regions on your own.

Planning Ahead

Terrain in each zone can vary a lot. While some regions have pretty expansive flat plains of easily capturable land, others have sizable barriers of more difficult tiles. This means that you’re going to want to plan your route in advance to avoid any serious obstacles.

Conversely, you might be at a point where taking a certain route lets you capture particularly desirable resources. This is another important thing to plan around, as taking a few 200-power tiles shouldn’t really slow you down in the later stages of the game. Avoid taking excess detours, though!

You might also want to avoid (or attack) enemy bases, as your enemies probably won’t take kindly to you passing through their land.

So How Do I Cross Zones Quickly?

Crossing zones in Rise to War can be greatly expedited by rotating through your commanders so you always have stamina available to travel further. Additionally, capturing ruins can help overcome the limitations of relying on forts to expand your reach. Last but not least, make sure to plan a safe and effective route beforehand!

Once you master these strategies, you’ll be zipping across zones at speeds that you might not have thought possible!