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| - Unlike its predecessor, the game is set mainly in the northern regions of Middle-earth, and focuses on the war there. Factions include the Elves, Dwarves, Men of the West, (Gondor and Rohan combined) and the Goblins, along with Mordor and Isengard. For the Good campaign, the story starts in Rivendell where the Goblins from the Misty Mountains are poised to attack, while the Fellowship of the Ring journey south. For the Evil campaign, it begins with the siege of Lórien from Mordor's stronghold of Dol Guldur.
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| abstract
| - Unlike its predecessor, the game is set mainly in the northern regions of Middle-earth, and focuses on the war there. Factions include the Elves, Dwarves, Men of the West, (Gondor and Rohan combined) and the Goblins, along with Mordor and Isengard. For the Good campaign, the story starts in Rivendell where the Goblins from the Misty Mountains are poised to attack, while the Fellowship of the Ring journey south. For the Evil campaign, it begins with the siege of Lórien from Mordor's stronghold of Dol Guldur. The story highlights some of the lesser-known events of the book — as EA had acquired a license from Tolkien Enterprises as well as one for the movies, they used the battles in the north as the focal point, which are only briefly hinted at in the Extended Edition of The Return of the King (film) DVD, and noted in the Appendices in the novels: in the books it is explained that while the front of the war that the Fellowship characters are experiencing (and which is directly shown by the movies) is the primary one, it is in fact a war fought on many fronts across Middle-earth. However, the game and its version of the war in the north should not be seen an accurate record of what Tolkien actually wrote, since many liberties have been taken (see below). BFME II differs remarkably from BFME in many ways:
* Resource accumulation has been tweaked.
* Naval battles are possible, and players control larger battalions.
* Buildings are not expanding to higher levels simply by usage anymore (except for resource collecting buildings). They are upgraded manually now.
* The single player game consists of more varied objectives with long-term consequences than the "search and destroy" scenarios which dominated the first game.
* Additionally, the method of building bases on predetermined plots has been replaced with the traditional real-time strategy building style which features a fort operating as a base hub.
* The command point system has also been modified, which is dependent on the number of resource buildings (farms, mallorn trees, mine shafts, furnaces, tunnel, slaughterhouse).
* There are missions or portions of missions inside buildings in the single-player campaign.
* The player is able to build section of walls which expand in non-linear direction and attach the wall to impassable terrain, such as mountains.
* There are new powers such as the "Watcher in the Water", "Flood" and "Tom Bombadil", and new defensive upgrades such as boiling oil, flaming arrows, trebuchets and catapults, including bonus-giving monuments.
* Certain neutral buildings can be captured, to build ships, recruit special units, or get extra resources.
* The new Goblin, Spiderling and Corsair units can climb walls.
* There are improved graphic effects like spreading fire and light reflection.
* The player can flank the enemy to receive an attack advantage.
* In multiplayer, the player is able to customize his or her own hero from scratch, giving him/her their own unique appearance, skills, and abilities (PC version only).
* EA has included the original characters Gorkil the Goblin King and Drogoth the Dragon Lord, as well as Tolkien's own Glorfindel and Glóin and other units based on his writings.
* Initially a feature for the first part, it is now possible to get the powerful "Ring-Heroes" Galadriel or Sauron, if the "One Ring" is found on the map (carried by Gollum) and taken back to the fortress. They are then summoned and used like other heroes.
* Walls can no longer have troops sitting on top of them, only towers can be built to fire at enemies, while major strongholds like Minas Tirith and Helm's Deep have walls with troops on top.
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