Update: concepts and renders.
Update: animation render
Update: concept -> render -> video
Update: screenshots part 1
Update: screenshots part 2
Update: Game Play preview
Update: script, one on one fight
Hello people!
This might be sort of out the blue, but we've been working on a total conversion mod for quite some time now, and it is almost ready to be released (80-90% finished)
The reason we haven't really posted anything about it before has to do with the fact that the mod is completely about russian history, and we're mostly making it for russian gamers. The mod will be, in fact, released in about two weeks on russian forums and (after I translate everything and subsequently get the bugs out 
) sometime later on these forums, if people are interested.
Short description:
The mod is titled "Rusichi: Total World" and takes place between 1157-1350. You play one of three bickering, divided russian kingdoms of the time: Kiev, Novgorod or Suzdal'. The goal of the mod is to unite the three kingdoms, surmounting many difficulties not least of which are mongolian hordes and civil war.
Highlights:
- Units: We've completely reworked the line-up for all three playable factions. Most of the units were made from the ground up by our art guys (Ronin and Lance) and those units are, simply put, awesome.
But besides the models and art, one of our scripters (Vint) has spent a lot of time trying to rework and rebalance their parameters - don't expect the usual vanilla fighting.
- Strat map:
A lot of time and thought went into creating a better map. And not just in terms of the actual map (which is obviusly new): we've included a bunch of innovative, game-play-changing (we hope 
) features. The three big ones:
1) Villages. These take the form of the minimal allowed (3x3) regions on the map (inside bigger regions) with a level one town (un-upgradeable). They form a significant part of your budget (lots of them), but are very hard to defend. Besides that, the AI has a (scripted) strong desire to take them from you. So sitting behind stone walls while the enemy lays waste to the countryside is no longer really an option.
2) Capitals. A completly new type of capital, and not just in terms of the model; a new concept:
-First version, concept testing:
The castle is inside town walls! And yes, the only way you can reach it is by going through the town. The capital and town merge to become one unit. And since it becomes so difficult to take, the capital in our mod is proportionally important with it's loss practically equating to game-over.
The updated in-game version:
(render)
How it looks in game:
3) New strat models. This doesn't effect the game-play but we've reworked the strat models for all major cultures, the towns for Russia and a few other bits and pieces.
Strat model concepts:
-Game play:
Our second scripter, Svarogych, has done some major work on very many aspects of the game play. Which include:
1)Civil war: when your faction leader dies, your heir isn't very good and the kingdom is large enough (>15 regions) your kingdom splits in two, with some of your less loyal and/or happy regions becoming a very hostile shadow-fraction. So not only do you now have to unite all of Russia, you have real rebels to deal with. Real angry rebels. Micro-managing the family tree becomes very interesting and important 
2)The three factions. We've tried making the game-play for all three factions unique, (the "sameness" really bothered me in Vanilla) while keeping them balanced. The economy (and build tree) is different for each, for exapmle. Novgorod relies very heavily on trade and merchants and have the strongest/best-equiped militia. Suzdal' is oriented towards agriculture with it's advantages and disadvantages. Kiev is somwhere in the middle, but have the strongest church build-tree, with the last level church available only for Kiev in it's one capital (which is also Kiev )
3) A lot of units are region based and the line-up is different for each faction. Those regions with unique units suddenly become very important.
4)Updated, smarter Mongol invasion. They appear at about half-way through, just as you're thinking this maybe isn't so hard, and they just about rip you a new one.
And the mod is hard. So much so, that we plan to hold a competition on our russian forum on who can beat it the fastest (with fabulous prizes!). And maybe even on these forums, if there is enough interest and we find the money to ship prizes . The usual game style we're used to in Total War just wont work, forget it, and all the prices have been balanced so that you can't just build things without thinking "do I really need this?" - money is ever in short supply. I'm betting that beating it first-time through is impossible (which was sort of the point) - I mean, I couldn't do it and I'm part of the team developoping the darned thing.
Rusichi: Total World, Introduction (Open Beta Released)
Studia Marka™
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very impressing there
Originally Posted by Tchouk
