Just a suggestion, but we might want to start throwing around ideas for a possible future Lord of the Rings scenario that would tackle the whole thing in an approach different from the one used in Harlan's scenario.
Personally, I would see the scenario starting quite a few years earlier, if not MANY years earlier. Perhaps make it cover a long time period. There are many interesting starting points to consider :
(all of them third age, Lord of the Rings proper being set in year 3017-18-19)
Year 1050 - The Return of Sauron, has a shadow take form over the Great-Greenwood. It also mark the apparition of the Istari (Wizards : Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast). This scenario would probably pit you as either the Wises (Istari + High Elves) or Sauron, in one case trying to defeat the menace (which you wouldn't even perceive at first, needless to say). You would need to script a few events though along those lines. Year 1300, with the Witch-King coming to the north and the rise of Angmar, would also be of interest.
Year 1640 - After the great plague, the guard at the gates of Mordor is dropped. This would allow a scenario based around Sauron slipping back in from the east, much the same as the above.
2000 : The fall of Minas Ithil. Another starting point to consider, as it marks within a few year the end of the kings of Gondor and the dawn of the reigning stewards.
But the starting date that I find the most interesting is :
2941 - the year in which The Hobbit is set.
Why? Because it allow for a scenario where a lot of things could change. For starter, you would have the following factions :
"Southern Powers" - Gondor and Rohan, allied. These two civs *HAVE* and I must stress the *HAVE* to be able to work in complete harmony, which means making them a single civ is the most inteligent decision there.
Free Peoples - Basically, the "good" humans outside Gondor and Rohan (Bree-land, Lake-town, Beornings), the dwarves, the halflings. Leader would be Gandalf, pretty much. Or Elrond potentially, even though he's technicaly with the elves he's much closer in the story to this side.
The Elves - Lorien, Grey Havens, Thranduil's Hall. Those elves that *do not* meddle with mankind if they can avoid it, want nothing to do with dwarves, etc. Leader would probably be Galadriel, rather than Cirdan.
And, to oppose these three :
Isengard - ally at this point in history, but with expansionist and agressive visions. Isengard would be an interesting civilization in that it *COULD* go either way. Saruman was ambitious at that point and desired the ring, but he had not yet used the Palantir, nor created his armies of orcs as far as we can see. There could be two path based on research, if Isengard take the orc path, an event code is used to set them at war with the good guys at some point, otherwise not.
"Chaos forces" - those forces that, while not under the control of Sauron, still opposed the free people and not Sauron. Primarily former servants of Morgoth not serving Sauron - the Balrog of Moria, Smaug, etc. They would of course have access to orcs. Perhaps make the Great Goblin and co belogn to them.
Mordor - and the Easterlings, Southrons, etc. Self-explanatory. Led by Sauron. By far the largest and most powerful civ at the start of the game. I have *ONE* thing to say about them though. Make sure they don't offer cease fire too often. Harlan's Isengard scenario would be so much better if I didn't have to break a Cease Fire with Mordor due to their damn Great Wall every other turn. (at least he could have changed the message to "Against the power rising in the east, there is no hope! Cease fire signed!").
And what for a 7th civ? Impassable Terrain civ. Some location being impassable MUST be implemented, and not with the "wall of orc" Harlan used in his scenario.
Included features would be the hunt (by both sides) for Gollum.
Also, diplomacy would be severly restricted as follow
Isengard can talk with : everyone except "walls"
Mordor can talk with : Isengard, Chaos Forces.
Chaos forces can talk with : Mordor, Isengard.
Elves can talk with : Free people, Isengard.
Free People can talk with : Gondor, Elves, Isengard.
Gondor can talk with : Free people, Isengard.
Walls : Have you ever seen a talking wall? Neither have I. Allied with everyone, no negociations possible. No message when they try to negociate, either.
It would be attempted to make every non-wall civilization playable.
Free People would be the civilization with the "quest" objectives. They would be the one with the hard-to-implement means to take out Smaug and destroy the ring (though I am considering the idea that they might have to capture Gollum or some other such idea before this can be done ; so that they can understand what the Ring is and so on.). Militarily they would have access to the largest array of units of the good guys, humans, dunadans (rangers), elves (rivendell), halflings (though as for finding *use* for those...) and dwarves)
Gondor would be a straightforward military game. They would have access to all humans and dunadans units of the arsenal, and their primary part in the game would be to stop Mordor from scoring points. They would control many of the key target cities (Minas Tirity, Osgiliath, etc).
Mordor would also be pretty straightforward, though they would have alternative path to victory, such as recovering the one ring (which would also require some Gollum-hunting, though I'm not too sure yet how to implement that). They would actually have a rather weak military early on ; Mordor's key advantage would the the means of training a large army quickly. They don't have strong or powerful units, but the means of throwing 10 units away to take out one of Gondor's (or anyone else) units. They have a few *very powerful* units (ie, Nazguls) but most of their units are on the weaker side.
The Elves play a very defensive game early on, where they have access to few units other than powerful defensive machines. They are the antithesis of mordor , relying on a very small army of very powerful units.
The Isengard play a game of versatility. They can go the Free Peoples way (to represent Saruman gathering followers among the free people), or they can make a 180 turn and go the Mordor way, building hordes of cheap orcs, or instead go their own way, building an army of not so cheap stronger orcs (eg, Uruk-Hai). Given their tactical situation, the small but powerful approach (Uruk Hai, free people to an extent) is perhaps wiser, as they don't have the number of city Mordor has available to take the "the more the merrier" approach.
The Chaos Forces are a strange team. Their game is similar to the elves, but with a touch of Mordor : their early units are orc-style units, used mostly for defense, though with more offense capacity than the Elves have, and able to take a "raiding" approach to thin out the enemy, but their late game focus more on the elven "super hero" approach, with the ability (perhaps through some form of quest) to generate Dragons and other massively powerful nasty critters, which along with the Elf-Lord would be among the very few buildable units in the power range of the heroes units.
any help is welcome 
