Hey all. Thought I'd comment on a couple of Rome II mods I've installed that have significantly improved the game for me..
Changes the time scaling so you get 2 or 4 turns per year instead of 1. This prevents your generals/agents from, say, dying of old age before you can even finish getting to the battlefield, which is an all too common occurrence in vanilla.
I'm using the tweaked version of this provided by Santini, which isn't quite as extreme as the default Radious version. Makes diplomacy less absurd and seems to help the AI deal with some of its campaign map issues (only some though).
Sick of 30 second battles where entire armies rout moments after engaging? Significantly ups the morale of all units, resulting in longer battles and the execution of actual tactics such as hammer and anvil strikes. As with the Campaign mod, I am using Santini's tweaked version, as with the default mod even the lowliest troops will sometimes fight to the death.
Obviously these mods don't fix technical issues, or severe AI issues. They don't remove the idiotic flags from open battlefields. They don't make turn times faster in long campaigns. But they SIGNIFICANTLY improved my enjoyment of the early game.
Update Night is a fortnightly column in which Rich McCormick revisits games to find out whether they’ve been changed for better or worse.Back before Rome became the big boss of the Mediterranean civilizations, it was just one of many cities on the Italian peninsula, distinguished primarily by being founded by a murderer with a taste for dog milk.
It’s this early phase in Rome’s existence that’s the setting for The Creative Assembly’s new Total War: Rome II DLC, Rise of the Republic. The £12 pack whisks players back to 399 BC, plonks them into the sandals of its first politicians, and asks them to guide the nascent city to control all of Italy (and small bits of north Africa) on a shrunk-down version of the standard grand campaign map.Winning the game is dependent on control of the entire region. Or, you can crush Rome into the ground and build an empire with one of eight other factions, messing up the primary school education of kids everywhere in the process. As a brand new republic, playing as Rome gave me fun political crises to chart my way through, but these other early cities have their own fancies and foibles. The Samnites live in the bit around modern-day Naples, and can magic up an army at the drop of a toga thanks to their religiousness. Taras, on the other hand, prefers science to religion and players can harness the brainpower of philosophers to boost their research speed.
These varying factions are new additions to Rome II, but they’re certainly not the only update the game has received since its launch in 2013. The Creative Assembly has stuffed their game with a continent’s worth of playable factions in the years since release, offering some in chunky campaign packs like Rise of the Republic, some (like Greek States Athens and Sparta) in paid-for culture packs, and a few (like Armenia, Getae, and Massilia) for free.
There’s distinct variation in how each of these factions plays: in their unique units, their starting position, their rivals, their objectives, and even the time they existed. Rome’s first few years are rocky, for example, beset on most sides by other cities and tribes that aren’t keen on an expansionist upstart ruled (in part) by the unwashed masses. Step into the city ruler’s sandals 300 years later, though, and Rome is poised to become the European powerhouse it was in real life. The druid-fancying Insubres, on the other hand, have an easier start but will take longer to convince the rest of the Latin, Greek, and Italic cultures on the peninsula that menhirs and moustaches are the way to go.
There’s a big difference between a power like Rome and the wild barbarians of the north, the Greeks of Athens and Epirus, or pirate raiders like those from Tylis. Rome II offered an array of challenges and playstyles at launch, and that list has only gotten longer since, allowing for two campaigns to start off satisfyingly different in tone, expectations, and approach. There are even appreciably different visions of poster boy Rome: the free Imperator Augustus campaign pack splits the empire into three after Julius Caesar’s death, letting players pick Octavian’s classic Rome, Lepidus’ Iberian-centred bit, or Antony’s Greek’n’Turkish portion of the empire.
Coming back to Rome II after a few years away, though, I was more interested in Rise of the Republic’s challenge to build Rome from nothing. As with modern British democracy, playing as ancient Rome means balancing the wills of the plebs against the demands of the sneering hereditary elite, and as with modern British democracy, I found it was the latter that had the actual power. When the plebs kicked off, I could placate them with bread and circuses; when the patricians got upset, they attempted to secede from my imperfect union, spawning army stacks and stealing cities from my growing Roman empire.
The new DLC takes advantage of Rome II’s overhauled political system, but it also adds a new feature: family trees. These trees produce individual characters over time, each with their own traits, skills, and “intrigues.” These intrigues are mini-missions that can be used to curry favour with rival houses, provoke problematic peers, or boost your own skillset through things like marriage, bribery, or humanitarian visits to far-flung provinces. Playing as Rome, I controlled the scion of house Furia, securing the favour of the two other biggest voting blocs in the Republic in part by showering them with favours.
Not that I really needed to. The new family tree system was a neat way to connect me with the world and ground me as a powerful politician, rather than an omnipotent floating mouse cursor, but the truth was that I didn’t really need to engage that much with it. While I had to smack down a few secessionists in the early game, through either luck or process of elimination I ended up sharing power with two other noble houses who entirely approved of my actions and who made no moves to depose me. I may not have had the most influence in the Senate — giving me slightly smaller bonuses to development — but my Republic was totally stable, and my rivals were happy to keep its borders expanding.
No, indolence was more of a threat to my burgeoning empire than active intrigue. Despite its various overhauls, Rome II still starts to slow down significantly in the later stages of a campaign. It’s a problem in all aspects of the game, from the drudgery of moving larger and larger armies around, to mopping up tiny factions, to fending off suicidal rebels. The once-careful apportion of skill points to a network of spies, generals, champions, and politicians becomes boring busywork, and the time between turns increases hugely as more of the map is uncovered and AI enemies wage war against each other.
For me this frustration built over time toward the same end. No matter how different and how exciting a faction’s early- and mid-game is, its end-game still becomes a tiresome exercise in tidying up, generals forced to play genocidal Whack-a-Mole with straggler civilizations and pop-up barbarians appearing in hard-to-reach corners of your empire. Even in Rise of the Republic, with its diddy-sized Italy-only map, I spent 20 grinding years wiping out Gallic armies in the frozen north of my empire, wasting turn after turn trying to chase Asterix and Obelix around alpine forests.
Harder difficulties require more interaction with Rome II’s expanded and clockwork-esque systems of interlocking parts: a game where every ounce of influence, gravitas, food, and public order can matter. The kind of people that can track all of those elements across huge empires should probably be running real countries, though, such is the amount of information they’ve got to keep in their minds. It’s also not clear exactly how your reactions to the game’s situations really make a difference at first, though due to the small selection on offer, you’ll find out soon enough. I got informed that I had been spurned from a banquet so many times in one campaign that I started to think my guy must’ve been the smelly senator in class.
Rise of the Republic may have an older vision of Rome, but it’s a spruced-up game from its original incarnation. CA adapted quickly to complaints about the vanilla game’s AI, releasing a patched-up version a year later that they subtitled the Emperor’s Edition. More modern tweaks have come with subsequent DLC packs, adapting enemy behaviour both on and off the field of battle. I certainly felt like I was fighting against devious rivals most of the time, but that’s not to say that Rome II’s AI is completely immune to stupidity
I almost lost an otherwise-even city fight when half of my force couldn’t work out how to park their boats on land. Watching them oscillate between two perfectly viable jetties while their friends got royally Caesared a few hundred feet away was minutes of groaning frustration. Similarly, cities in general seemed like a problem for my friends and foes alike, their tight quarters causing enemy troops to stand off for no reason and my guys to walk up to ramparts and just… stand there. We get it, guys, it wasn’t too long ago you were wandering around forests with your wolf mum, but ladders and doors are not that complicated.
But most of the time, Rome II’s battles lend themselves well to spectacle. That’s especially true after its latest graphical update, which makes it look almost as spiffy as a strategy game released in the second half of the 2010s. New lighting effects make soldiers stand out and water sparkle, and even the campaign map looks nicer — although the low-level clouds that drift across the zoomed-out view are an unnecessary annoyance. It’s on this campaign map that I spent most of my time in the game, auto-resolving most battles once my armies had superiority over my rivals’, but I still engaged in the odd battlefield fight as a palate cleanser. The rock-paper-scissors interaction of spear, sword, and cavalry troops is easy to understand in this early timeframe — certainly much simpler than Total War: Warhammer’s fantastical equivalents.
Its grand campaign still suffers from the aimlessness that has plagued Total War’s late-game since time immemorial, but the wealth of campaign packs now available for Rome II do at least offer neater and more manageable goals for desk chair generals. Total War: Warhammer has it beaten into a wizard’s hat in terms of scale and silliness, and it still has a tendency to turn into a genocidal grind, but Rome II is in a much more stable state than it was at launch. That makes it well worth a visit if you want your grand strategy with more Gauls than goblins.
At its best, the Total War series casts a spell over you. Your empire rises from nothing, surrounded by enemies who are poised to trample it into the dust. Each decision on the strategic level is a gamble on the immediate future, where “one more turn” isn’t just a stepping-stone to a new upgrade, but a perilous step onto thin ice. Each time you take to the battlefield is another do-or-die moment, a possible Hastings or Austerlitz that can open the road to conquest or plunge you into a desperate fight for survival.
But the Total War series has also been defined by massive, abrupt swings in quality. While the series has been on a linear trajectory in terms of graphics, the quality of the games underlying those vivid battlefield vistas has varied wildly. Total War at its best is interactive Kurosawa and Kubrick. At its worst, it’s a middle-school history textbook as told by Drunk History and filmed by the cast and crew of The Patriot.
So before the series (temporarily) leaves history behind for the grimdark faux-history of Warhammer fantasy, let’s put into order the times that Total War was at its best… and why sometimes its lows were so very low. We’ll save the worst for last, because if there’s one thing that every Total War fan loves, it’s an argument over which games were the biggest disappointments.
Total War: Shogun 2
Claim to Fame: Of all the Total Wars, it’s the Total-est.
Hidden Flaw: Secretly conservative and unambitious
Hidden Flaw: Secretly conservative and unambitious
If you could only play one Total War, if you could only have one for your desert island exile, it should be this one. Shogun 2 is where all the series’ best ideas have been gathered into one game, and married to a gorgeous aesthetic inspired by its setting. And with its Fall of the Samurai expansion, Shogun 2 also turned into the best gunpowder-era Total War.
All Total War games have had impressive graphics for their time, but Shogun 2 remains beautiful even today. Its look owes more to films like Kurosawa’s Ran and Kagemusha than to reality, and gives each battle a vivid, dreamlike quality that’s unmatched by any other Total War. Once the battle is joined and the last reserves have been committed, Shogun 2 is a game where you can just zoom to ground-level and watch individual sword duels play out amidst all the lovely carnage.
The series’ return to Japan and its self-contained strategic context also solves a lot of other problems. The factions are all roughly balanced because they are from the same civilization and share the same level of development. The narrow and mountainous geography of Japan also gives the perennially hapless campaign AI a chance to succeed.
No other Total War game does a better job combining the fantasy, the history, and the game design. This is the series at its very best, its arrival at a goal it started chasing with Shogun and Rome.
Total War: Attila
Claim to Fame: Tries (and succeeds!) new ideas
Hidden Weakness: It’s about as balanced as Caligula
Hidden Weakness: It’s about as balanced as Caligula
After Rome 2, it was hard to be optimistic about the future of Total War. Shogun 2 succeeded because it took a couple good ideas from Napoleon Total War and ignored just about everything else the series had tried since Rome. Was the future of Total War just going to be repackaged hits?
Attila takes a look at that trend and veers off in a new direction. It changes the basic rules of the Total War series in order to do justice to the death of the Roman world. Cities burn, regions are devastated, and an endless onslaught of nomadic tribes attempt to burrow their way into the Roman empire and carve out a place in the sun. Meanwhile, Roman generals turn against successive emperors, and the Huns hit like a tsunami.
Attila might be the most inventive and exciting design Total War has ever had, particularly at the strategic level. For once, dynastic politics don’t feel like a waste of time, and the different types of factions give the game a real “clash-of-civilizations” feel. And unlike the original Barbarian Invasion expansion for Rome, Attila gives the non-Romans their historical due so they aren’t just interchangeable hordes descending on the fading light of civilization.
That said, there’s no other Total War game where you can feel the darkness drawing-in the way it does in Attila. It lends a real sense of gravity to those battles. Lose a battle in earlier Total War games, and you suffered a setback. In Attila, a lost battle likely means that a city and its inhabitants are about to disappear. No pressure.
Medieval: Total War
Claim to Fame: Perfects the early Total War design
Hidden Weakness: There’s not all that much to that design
Hidden Weakness: There’s not all that much to that design
In its second outing, the Total War series attained near-perfection. I’m still not sure a more balanced Total War game has ever materialized. The Risk-style map is easy for the AI to manage, and the different starting positions of each kingdom and empire allows for some true AI superpowers to form and challenge players late in the game.
To this day, I have an almost Pavlovian distaste for all things Byzantine because of an especially painful game in which they slowly, inexorably rolled my English empire back from Poland and Egypt all the way to the Channel. Yet those bitter memories are tempered by all the apocalyptic battles we fought along the way as my increasingly beleaguered armies fought a doomed holding action across Europe against the tide of imperial-purple death.
The other thing Medieval did brilliantly was portray a world completely torn to pieces by religious strife. Jihads and Crusades marched back and forth across the Mediterranean, each a terrible force in the right hands but driven by a ceaseless need for conquest that almost invariably led them to disaster. The logic that governs other military campaigns (most importantly, knowing when to stop) doesn’t work with militant religious expeditions. So huge armies of zealots march to their death repeatedly over the course of this game, throwing the game into chaos.
The role of the Pope in Medieval: Total War also deserves special mention as one of the most enjoyably infuriating villains of any strategy game. Just when things are starting to go well for a Catholic ruler, the Pope can always be trusted to screw things up for the next ten years, which makes Medieval a pretty good argument for the Peace of Westphalia.
Medieval is a triumph of simplicity, and it took a decade for Total War to come close to matching it.
Napoleon: Total War
Claim to Fame: The greatest hits of the horse-and-musket era
Hidden Weakness: Has very little to do with actual Napoleonic warfare.
Hidden Weakness: Has very little to do with actual Napoleonic warfare.
On the heels of the disappointing Empire, Napoleon did two things to right the listing Total War ship. First, it got specific about its era. Rather than being a vague pastiche of 18th century warfare, it focused on the armies of the Napoleonic wars and the career of the man who gave the era its name. That makes for a better and more manageable strategy game than Empire but, it also means something far more important: extravagantly detailed military uniforms!
Napoleon still doesn’t completely come to grips with warfare in the horse-and-musket era. When the campaign begins, none of the foremost powers of Europe have figured out that you can have two and even three ranks of soldiers firing simultaneously if the guys in front take a knee. It takes years of research for someone to have this idea, apparently. Grenadiers also throw grenades at close range, which is Total War at its most endearingly literal.
But it doesn’t matter because Napoleon is such a beautiful, wistful game. The lighting is more dramatic than in Empire, giving all the action the look of the great oil-paintings that memorialize many of the pivotal moments of the Napoleonic Wars. Smoke billows and hangs over lines of blue-coated French soldiers, soldiers march into battle to the sound of fife and drum, and waves of cavalry dash themselves against dense squares of infantry.
After the unfocused Empire, Napoleon gave people what they wanted: huge, bloody battles between fabulously-dressed European armies and the chance to play through one of the most astonishing military careers in history. With its Peninsular War DLC, Napoleon also helped establish a trend of odd, experimental expansion campaigns that would eventually help the series to break new ground with games like Attila.
Continue reading about the best Total War games on page two.
Shogun: Total War
Claim to Fame: Laid the groundwork for everything to come
Hidden Weakness: Not a lot built on those foundations here
Hidden Weakness: Not a lot built on those foundations here
It’s appropriate that Shogun lands in the middle of this series. It’s the founder of a great strategy game empire, and I have an affection for it that goes far, far beyond the game itself. What Shogun did was almost unimaginable at the time it came out. It let you control an entire strategic campaign, from any side, but also take command of epic real-time battles? It was a dream made real.
Shogun is also a beautiful, elegant game in a way that few of its descendants have managed to replicate. The hand-drawn map with its miniature figurines representing armies and agents deployed in the field, the throne room from which you conducted your diplomatic affairs, the traditional music that played during battles… Shogun does everything possible to make you feel like you’d been transported to another place and time. On the battlefield, where each province has its own unique map, armies wage war over a mythic topography of Japan, where armies fired arrows from sheer mountain slopes and cavalry rolled like thunder down through deep valleys.
It has its flaws and strange touches like little movies showing ninjas dying tragicomic deaths while on missions, or geisha murdering your rivals with the same delicate fastidiousness with which a cat attends its litterbox. The strategic layer itself is very thin, and the near-identical factions were interchangeable. But those issues are nothing compared to how new and amazing this inaugural Total War was.
That Shogun rates so low on this list is a testament to the ways in which the Total War series grew beyond its origins.
In the chapter entitled The Resurrection in his work The Three Mountains (1972), he stated that the eight years of ordeals within the would occur between his 53rd and 61st birthdays. By August 1977 he had developed. During this time, he was preparing the highest vehicle of his doctrine, in which he meditated, verse-by-verse, upon the extremely esoteric Gnostic text.Renunciation of CopyrightsAlthough he never formally received any income from his works - he lived off the charity of his students - at the 1976 International Gnostic Congress Samael Aun Weor he clarified his stance on the copyright of his works by stating. —Samael Aun Weor Prediction of DeathBy 1972, Samael Aun Weor referenced that his death and resurrection would be occurring before 1978. Furthermore, in the same work, it is stated that this ordeal occurs prior to resurrection, and the one going through it is 'deprived of everything, even of his own sons, and is afflicted by an impure sickness.' Samael aun weor pdf.
Rome: Total War
Claim to Fame: The first “modern” Total War
Hidden Weakness: How much time do you have?
Hidden Weakness: How much time do you have?
Wait, what the hell is Rome: Total War doing down here? It’s the game that made the Total War series a blockbuster franchise, so how is it one of the low-points of the series?
Simple: Rome is the snake in the Total War garden. It was seductive and promising, but it also introduced a raft of new ideas and complications that were either poorly-conceived or poorly executed. New Total War games came and went, but the rot behind the edifice remained.
Yet there was undeniable greatness here. The sprite-based armies of the first two games were replaced by unbelievably detailed and lifelike armies of individual 3D models that brought history to life as never before. Watching legionaries go leaping over the ramparts of a Greek citadel and into hand-to-hand combat with dense rows of archers, or seeing lines of infantry and cavalry marching across a European plane towards the last army of a barbarian king gave me chills. The Roman endgame, with its sudden plunge into civil war between the Roman faction, may also be the best finale that any Total War campaign has ever managed.
But Rome is also the game where the series developed AI problems that it would consequently prove unable to solve despite repeated efforts. While the gorgeous 3D battle maps were a revelation, the 3D strategic map proved to be a millstone around the neck almost every subsequent Total War game. The AI factions couldn’t use it effectively, nor could they build the kind of advanced empires needed to support high-level units. The strategy half of the Total War equation was practically lost.
Rome was impressive for its time, but it left a legacy of mediocrity. Rome was a huge success in part because it was so gorgeous and atmospheric that nobody noticed the game didn’t work.
Medieval 2: Total War
Claim to Fame: Medieval again but like Rome this time
Hidden Weakness: Medieval again but like Rome this time
Hidden Weakness: Medieval again but like Rome this time
This is a tough game to rank because it shares almost all of its flaws with Rome: Total War but without the novelty and freshness that Rome could boast. On the other hand, it does work ever so slightly better than Rome.
That’s partly down to the setting. Rome tells its story from a position of Roman supremacy. The Romans can keep upgrading cities and units until nobody can stop them. The barbarian factions, on the other hand, are operating with a huge series of handicaps, so a lot of the wars are lopsided. Medieval assumes rough parity between the various medieval kingdoms and their armies, and so at least the fighting tends to be good. Toss in some early pike-and-shot warfare in the late stages of the game, and Medieval features a pretty good tactical game by the end.
Still, it’s all stuff that the series had covered in its recent past, but tied to the terrible design for Rome. While it may be a better game than Rome, it’s not memorable like Rome. Rome is a tragic hero, fatally flawed and hugely ambitious. Medieval 2 is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Empire: Total War
Claim to Fame: Total War attempts grand strategy
Hidden Weakness: It fails
Hidden Weakness: It fails
This may be the strangest Total War ever made. On the one hand, it’s wildly ambitious. The action takes place across the Americas, India, Europe, and the sea lanes in between. There is technological progress as the Enlightenment paves the way for Industrial Revolution. It’s the first Total War to really try and represent historical complexity, to wrestle with the double-edged swords of progress and imperialism. No, the campaign AI never really got a grasp on the game or the multi-region world map, rendering a lot of this new complexity dead-on-arrival, but Empire gets credit for trying something new.
On the other hand, there may not be another Total War that gives less of a damn about the era it depicts. Regimental uniforms? Empire has never heard of them, but instead imagines 17th century warfare to be something conducted by a bunch of guys wearing identical wool coats dyed different colors. They carry muskets and rifles, but aren’t too clear on their purpose, since the AI just charges with everything it has the moment it spots the enemy. Sailing ships? Empire thinks they, and the wind that powers them, are too complicated, so it reimagines the Age of Sail as a more sluggish version of Sid Meier’s Pirates. A community theater Gilbert and Sullivan revival shows more care and concern for historical detail than Empire. The jury is still out on which is more fun, however.
And finally…
Rome 2: Total War
Claim to Fame: Remember how much you liked Rome?!
Hidden Weakness: Yes, we do.
Hidden Weakness: Yes, we do.
Credit where it is due: the Emperor’s Edition made Rome 2 a lot better than it was at launch. On the other hand, when you’ve hit rock-bottom, up is the only direction you can go.
Rome 2 may no longer be the worst Total War game ever made. It works better than Empire does these days. But it remains uninspired, full of systems that don’t really work well together and held hostage by a sprawling map that’s full of empty space and endless delays. Want to sail a fleet from the Adriatic coast of Italy to the tip of Sicily? That will be three turns, please. Want to make like Caesar and invade Gallia? Hope your legion brought their walking shoes, because that’s all they are going to be doing for a while.
Rome 2 somehow dumps everything that made Rome memorable while also losing the refinement that made Shogun 2 the pinnacle of the series. Dynastic politics remain a feature, but without any engaging systems to help manage them. The Roman Civil War strikes like a bolt from the blue, devoid of any feeling that old allies and friends are somehow turning against one another. Even the battles themselves feel like cartoon versions of history, as flaming arrows turn into 2nd century B.C. cluster bombs, and the Rome 2 version of Egypt appears to be on loan from Age of Mythology.
Rome and Empire may have been flawed, but those flaws stemmed from ambition that went beyond “old game, new engine”. Rome 2 aims low and still falls short. If anything can be said for it, it is that Rome 2 is the game that seemed to shake the series from its torpor, leading to the beautiful, series-salvaging chaos of Attila. Ironically, then, the weakest Total War in the series’ history may be the most important one since the first Shogun.
With Rome 2 on its way, now is the perfect time to revisit what many still consider to be the best Total War game. Whether you just want to enhance your Rome campaign, check out another ancient empire or change settings entirely, we’ve got all the best and brightest mods for your perusal.
DarthMod
Every Total War game has its own version of DarthMod, the spectacular AI mod from Darth. This DarthMod not only enhances the AI, but also introduces new formations for each faction, giving you new tactical options on the battlefield. There’s also a series of tweaks and fixes to maps, building queues and naval battles to enhance your whole Rome experience.
Europa Barbarorum
Europa Barbarorum is the best mod for those seeking absolute historical accuracy. It was founded by a group of history buffs who felt that Rome’s depiction of the ‘Barbarian’ nations was out of step with historical reality. Europa’s barbarians aren’t hordes of savages, they’re organised and disciplined. The remake doesn’t just apply to the Barbarian hordes, either: factions all over the ancient world have been altered and adjusted in the name of accuracy. If you demand absolute realism from your Total War games, you’ll want this.
Europa Barbarorum is the best mod for those seeking absolute historical accuracy. It was founded by a group of history buffs who felt that Rome’s depiction of the ‘Barbarian’ nations was out of step with historical reality. Europa’s barbarians aren’t hordes of savages, they’re organised and disciplined. The remake doesn’t just apply to the Barbarian hordes, either: factions all over the ancient world have been altered and adjusted in the name of accuracy. If you demand absolute realism from your Total War games, you’ll want this.
Rome was, understandably, focused on the Romans. They got multiple factions with competing motivations, while everyone else just got one. This mod flips things around. Rome is reduced to a single faction and some rebels while the Greeks take centre stage. Extended Greek mod gives you five competing Hellenic factions along with new units, character traits, buildings and more, bringing the Greeks up to par with the the original game’s Romans in complexity.
Every version of Total War gets a Tolkien mod, and Rome is no different. The Fourth Age is set after the defeat of Sauron and the destruction of the One Ring. Factions include Gondor and Arnor, Adûnabâr, Rohan, Harad, Rhûn, Dunland, Dale, Elves and Dwarves. It offers a very different depiction of Middle Earth from the Third Age setting we’re all familiar with from Lord of the Rings. If you’re more interested in that period, check out Medieval 2’s Third Age mod.
If you’re looking to plunge back into Rome in anticipation of the sequel then Roma Surrectum is highly recommended. This mod starts the game during the Second Punic War (Rome 2 appears to involve the third) with Hannibal in Italy, threatening Rome itself. Roma Surrectum’s major selling point is it’s 28 unique legions, each of which has its own appearance and standard, and can only be recruited in the correct area.
Warhammer: Total War is the mod for those of us who spent far too many of our teenage years painting in-ordinate numbers of little plastic models. It remodels the campaign map and factions to resemble the Warhammer Fantasy universe, offering you the chance to play with Games Workshop’s particular spin on Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and Men and the ever spiky forces of chaos. Go forth and claim blood for the blood god.
Rise of Persia relocates Rome’s struggles to the middle east. Set in 559 BC, it depicts the power struggle over the fall of the Assyrian empire. A new campaign map sets the scene, while all new factions and units populate it. Letting you decide who unite Persia and create one of the most formidable powers in the ancient world.
Rome: Total Realism –
Like Europa Barbarorum Rome: Total Realism was driven by the desire for a more authentic and historically accurate version of Rome. The changes are extensive, playable factions go from twelve to seventeen, the campaign map has been extended all the way to India and hundreds of new units have been added. An enormous amount of attention has also been paid to presentation, with graphical overhauls, new intro videos and a professionally composed soundtrack.
Like Europa Barbarorum Rome: Total Realism was driven by the desire for a more authentic and historically accurate version of Rome. The changes are extensive, playable factions go from twelve to seventeen, the campaign map has been extended all the way to India and hundreds of new units have been added. An enormous amount of attention has also been paid to presentation, with graphical overhauls, new intro videos and a professionally composed soundtrack.
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Since its release in 2007, the Kingdoms expansion for Medieval 2: Total War has received some impressive mods. The medieval setting lends itself perfectly to full conversions, and the community has embraced replicating beloved fantasy settings of all sorts -- as well as simply shifting the historical settings elsewhere in the world's timeline.
While mods for this game are generally slower to show up than others in its genre, it's clear that the modding community has put in a lot of hard work. (Some mods have even taken years to complete.) To honor that dedicated community and highlight their awesome work, here's a few of the best mods for Medieval 2: Total War: Kingdoms that have come about recently.
Call of Warhammer: Beginning of the End Times
Modder: Beginning of The End Times Team
Inspired by an older Warhammer mod, the Call of Warhammer: Beginning of the End Times is intended to provide a more dynamic experience for Medieval 2. The mod boasts a map which is said to be triple the size of the original mod, and gives access to a ton of factions.
Another cool update in this mod is that the Chaos Incursions will now gather their forces over time rather than spawning randomly near their target, as in the original mod. While the Chaos Incursion gathers its forces, players can hire unique mercenary groups to help them when they need a quick army.
Tsardoms Total War
Modder: Wallachian
Moving the action to the Balkans, Tsardoms Total War drastically changes the game by introducing a new area and new factions to match. The player is thrust into the fall of the Roman Empire and the following struggle between nearby regions. Additionally, with this new setting, players will be able to fight through some notable historical battle of the time period and area.
There's no specific release date as of now, but there is a 'Battle beta' that players can check out on ModDB.
Chronicles of Myrtana
Modder: rafmc1989
Strategy games are all well and good, but the Chronicles of Myrtana mod aims to create a more unique RPG experience for Medieval 2: Total War: Kingdoms. The mod follows the events of the Gothic franchise, with expansions and addons included in the story.
Best Mods For Rome 2 Emperor Edition 2017
The intent to make a faithful Gothic mod led to unique RPG elements being utilized throughout the story, as the player takes control of the hero and begins his journey through the story of the Gothic series.
Download the mod here.
The Last Kingdom
Modder: echuu
Starting in the year 865, The Last Kingdom mod explores the conflicts of Northern Europe. Players can choose from 13 factions to battle for supremacy across the Isle of England and the mainland. This mod includes new historical heroes and units for players to expand their control.
The period of the Viking invasion is a big draw for the community, with the mod clocking in at a 9.6/10.
Third Age: Total War
Best Mod For Rome 2 Total War
Modder: TW_King_Kong
With a medieval setting, it was only a matter of time before someone created a Lord of the Rings mod. And while there might be a few out there, Third Age: Total War is one of the best. It's so good in fact, that it has a considerable number of submods all on its own.
Third Age includes the major factions that you would expect from the LOTR setting (Gondor, Rohan, Isengard), as well as less commonly known factions (Rhun, Harad, and Dale). The full map of Middle-Earth includes settlements straight from the lore and locations with historical significance, like the Three Towers.
Tamriel Total War
Modder: Tamriel Total War mods Team
The Elder Scrolls is a beloved series among many gamers, and this mod brings all Medieval 2's strategic fun of world domination to the land of Tamriel. This mod contains a detailed map of Tamriel, and the 20+ factions each have their own territories to start with, based on the lore of The Elder Scrolls series.
Players take part in a variety of historical events -- starting around the time of The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, and ending 50 years later. With such a long time period, players are likely to take part in a few key events from both Morrowind and Oblivion.
Medieval II: Total War: Kingdoms has a ton of mods available. The few mentioned here don't even scratch the surface of all the awesome content the game's community is making. If you're looking to take your strategic warfare to a new place or time, there are plenty of options like the ones we've mentioned here. Check out ModDB for even more!
What are your favorite mods for Medieval II: Total War? Let me know down in the comments!
Published Jun. 25th 2017