Here's what to do about the skirmish file mentioned in the other Tips & Tricks post. This is for Mac, but it will probably work for Linux as well.
1) Go to the C: drive for your Battle for Middle-Earth II; go to users; crossover; Application Data, My Battle For Middle Earth II files.
2) There may be a skirmish file there already, in which case, skip to step 4.
3) Then, create (in Mac, use Textedit), a file called Skirmish (with the capital S). Change the ending to .ini instead of .txt as is the default for Textedit. Within the Skirmish file, type:
CurrentUserName =
UserNames =
Notice there are no spaces between the words and that there is a space before AND after the equals sign
4) Your current username should be constructed as follows:
If it is ABCD, the text after 'CurrentUserName = ' should read:
A_00B_00C_00D_00
In other words, after each ABC etc. you type '_00' (without the quotation marks).
If your name has a space in it, instead of the relevant letter you type '20':
For example, my username is 'Alex S', and my code is as follows:
A_00l_00e_00x_00_20_00S_00
5) Now, the UserNames section is pretty similar- you do the same text after all the letters, except the final letter- after that, you type '_00_2C_00'
So my UserNames section reads-
A_00l_00e_00x_00_20_00S_00_2C_00
If you have more than one user, you follow the same steps to make the name, then stick that text straight after the first username
For example, if I also had a user called 'Me' in addition to 'Alex S', it would look like this:
A_00l_00e_00x_00_20_00S_00_2C_00M_00E_00_2C_00
6) Play the game. Now, in the skirmish game mode, you should skip straight to choosing map/race etc., and all should run fine.
Hope I helped!
Alex S