Lord of the Rings Battle for Mid-Earth 2

This game put me as #1 in California for strategy games according to http://www.trueachievements.com/ as of April 25, 2011.

Game speed completion: 20 hrs for single player. may have been harder for me than others because I was so dead set on getting it done as fast as possible that I rushed and made mistakes, resulting in sitting in the load screen more than I would have liked to. Multiplayer is now unobtainable due to the closure of the game servers in 2010. (Reference http://www.ea.com/2/service-updates) No longer a fully completable game.

GSL material: Although not completable, potential point stacking can include the completion of both good and evil campaigns and one skirmish game for a total of 275 points. To ensure that full point stacking potential is achieved, the player has to ensure that they did not lose any heroes during the campaign. Hero deaths will be announced by the game, and what isn't mentioned is that summoned creatures are also included as heroes, such as Eagles and Wyrmriders. Not a game to be played during a GSL, but has stacking potential for a participant for someone who doesn't care about their completion percentage. Game visibility can go in two directions: it will be pretty obvious a player is stacking if both campaigns were completed up until campaign seven, unless they purposely did not complete all bonus objectives in the first seven. In that case, the entire game can be removed from the playlist if the player does not pop the "Istari Power" achievement and be a hidden 280 point boost for GSL purposes. (An additional 5 points for the "Istari Power" achievement.)

What the guides don't tell you: Save yourself lots of grief in Evil campaigns 3, 7 and 8 by setting up tons on towers and upgrading them with fire arrows before triggering particular events. 

Wyrmtounge spawns after the last house of power is destroyed in the southeast. If everything is cleared out prior, the player has time to set up heavy fire arrow tower defenses all along where they enter the map, wiping them out and saving the player the trouble of even defending against them when the final house is destroyed.

Setting up sets of five towers around three choke points on the seventh evil campaign will keep the constant flow of bad guys away as you build your army. But leave behind two battle trolls to counter-attack against the "surprise enforcements" of dwarf towers that will appear when you are attacking within the fortress.

In the final evil campaign, set up heavy tower defenses in the right side of your starting point and across the bridge off on the west side of the map. To the right is where the brotherhood will spawn and with at least 6-7 towers it will save you the trouble of running your army back to save your camp. The first tower setup that will be built across the bridge will assist in killing the elf queen and all the eagles that will come shortly after, saving your wyrmriders from having to fight at all and leaving them at full health. (You can't let them die because they are also considered hero material.)