The Features of ‘The Fourth Age: Total War – The New Shadow’ include:
Factions: Six factions playable in the campaign: The Kingdom of Rohan, The Chiefdom of Dunland, The Reunited Kingdom, The Empire of Harad, The Kingdom of Adûnabâr, and The Chiefdom of Rhûn. In addition there are three factions – The Kingdom of Dale, The Kingdom of the Elves, and The Kingdom of the Dwarves – playable in Custom Battles, and one faction, Isengard, in a Historical Battle.
Map of Middle-earth: A map incorporating roughly half of western Middle-earth, including Minhiriath, Enedhwaith, Dunland, Drúwaith Iaur (Old Púkel-land), Rohan, the Brown Lands, Emyn Muil, Dagorlad, Gondor, Mordor, Near & Far Harad, Khand, southern Wilderland, and the areas just south of the Sea of Rhûn.
Units: Over 150 units divided between nine factions. Orcs & Wargs are recruitable by Dunland and Adûnabâr (who also get Trolls), the Reunited Kingdom starts with one Elven archer unit, and Rohan starts with one Dwarven unit. This does not include levies and assimilation units.
Historical Battles: Play three famous battles from the history of Middle-earth – The Battle of the Crossings of Poros, The First Battle of the Fords of Isen, and the Battle of the Cloven Way (where Faramir ambushed the Haradrim in Ithilien) – and three battles from the Fourth Age: The Battle of the South Undeep, The Flight to Erindôl, and The Battle of the Plains of Gorgoroth.
Traits and Ancillaries: More than two hundred new traits and over three hundred and fifty ancillaries have been added to the mod, and all those remaining from the original game have been revamped to suit Middle-earth.
City Development & Diversification: Large cities can now be developed along a path of your choosing, ultimately providing greater diversification for your faction. For example, if you are playing as Rhûn (aka the Easterlings) you might choose to develop a Thrall Stockade in order to have that settlement rely upon cheap slave labour for the construction of buildings, or you may opt to bolster your economy by developing a Cattle Trader, or perhaps you may wish to develop a Wain Workshop to allow your Settlers to use Wains so that they can move greater distances and thus increase population growth and spread.
Wonder-capture: When you take a region with a Wonder you will not immediately gain all its effects. You will need to seize the Wonder, then secure it and then exploit it. Each of these phases will bring more of the Wonder’s benefits to your faction. Wonders offer some faction-wide bonuses but such effects will vary by faction. There are five Wonders to capture: The Stone of Erech, The Ruins of Osgiliath, Edhellond, The Treegarth of Orthanc, and The Argonath.
Marvels: In addition to Wonders there are also Marvels such as The White Tree of Gondor. These Marvels act much like Wonders except that they exist in or by a settlement rather than distant from it and as such they are considered captured when the settlement itself is taken. Guard these Marvels well as they can bring great blessings to your faction!
Unique Cities: Minas Tirith, Edoras, Helm’s Deep and other well-known cities of Middle-earth populate the landscape of the campaign map, each graphically designed and modeled to be unique and accurate.
Landmark Features: Various features of Middle-earth that we all know and love are represented on the map – and some will even afford your faction with beneficial effects. These include the Beacon-tower Hills of Gondor, the Carrock, the Sea-ward Tower of Dol Amroth and other less prominent features such as castle ruins and barrows.
MEZoRS: The Middle-earth Zone of Recruitment System has been designed like no other. As you would expect with any good ZoR system, units are not immediately able to be recruited as soon as you capture a foreign region but certain local levies drawn from the conquered population may be; you will need to build your own recruitment buildings in order to start training and recruiting your own troops. MEZoRS discriminates between the Mannish, Elven, Orkish and Dwarven races. It establishes up to three types of region per faction (Homelands, Fiefdoms and Outlands) taking into account old loyalties as well as old hatreds. It allows for the deepening of loyalty among local levies but also restricts the building of certain troops that might be available in your faction’s homelands.
Assimilation Units: If you take a chief city of another faction, or (where they exist) the chief city of a subculture of a faction, you may in process of time be able to recruit a unit assimilated from the conquered faction. For example, if Dale was to capture Edoras it would have Riders of the Mark available for recruitment once it had built up to the appropriate level of stables.
Settlers & Population Dispersion: Peasants have been renamed to Settlers, downgraded in ability and cost, upgraded in unit size and given zero-time recruitment. Their chief purpose will be to move your population about between settlements. They should be guarded by your armies when on the move, for although they will be able to engage battle they are very likely to run away, unless they seriously outnumber a foe. They should no longer be considered military units. They will also be recruited in a more realistic manner according to the geographic spread of the population.
Factional Fertility: A relatively simple yet slick system has been implemented to base population growth more directly upon race/faction rather than region alone. In Middle-earth, the Elves and the Dwarves had few children, whereas the Orcs multiplied like the proverbial rabbits (except not so cute!). This system allows us to represent such factors in the game regardless of which regions those races occupy.
Seven Cultures: The cultures represented visibly in the Mod will be the Dúnedanic, Northmen, Barbarian, Haradrian, Elven and Dwarven cultures, some of which will have subcultures. We have incorporated the extra culture slot to provide you with an enhancement and complement to these cultures.
Advanced Unit Balance: All of the Mod’s units have been balanced using a quite sophisticated and complex system that takes into account all sorts of attributes – ranging from unit class, weapons, armour and shield to special characteristics based on culture, role specialisation and availability – and translates them into statistics and costs. The system is constantly being improved with any new discoveries, such as the pioneering auto-resolve balance system, to ensure you enjoy the best balance out there, both on the campaign- and the battle-map.
New Music: A soundtrack suitable for a mod set in Middle-earth has been put together, with music by the talented and generous composers David Arkenstone, Justin R. Durban, Jonas Fancony, Matti Paalanen, Tapani Siirtola, and Matias ‘Amppi’ Puumala.