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Last Sunday Empire: Total War had its tenth birthday. This is a good time to look at the Modding scene which is still active today.
When you think of modding and Empire: Total War you might think about DarthMod, the Additional Units Mod, American Civil War – The Blue and the Grey, the Ornamentum unit pack which was incorporated into many mods made by a team around danova or Imperial Splendour to mention some of the maybe best known mods. But this was long ago from around 2009 to 2012. What state is Empire modding in today?
While looking at the TWC-index Medieval II: Total War has the most viewers followed by Rome II. Then on the third place are either Rome I or Empire, both leaving newer games like Thrones of Britannia or Attila behind them. This is quite interesting when considering that Empire isn’t moddable to the extent of the other games. People are still being interested in Empire. The result is the same when looking on ModDB. DarthMod is usually under the Top 50 mods followed by Imperial Splendour on place 100 – 200.
But what does this mean for the modding scene?
DarthMod received its last update in 2013 and other great mods like American Civil War – The Blue and the Grey or A Proper Empire: Terra Incognita haven't been developed anymore.
But when looking back on the last year, the Empire modding scene is still active. The biggest surprise was the return of hip63 at the end of last year and that he revitalised The American Revolution Mod joined by Geronimo2006. Also other mods like Empire Realism by JaM, Colonialism 1600 AD by Geronimo2006 or Imperial Destroyer by Lordsith were updated during the last year. The War of 1812 by rohan97 had received an update at the end of February and the last update from an Empire mod was the anniversary beta by the Imperial Splendour team (PikeStance, oleg2242, Cro_Hunger999, myfate and me) for their late campaign "Rise of the Republic". Ottoman Total Overhaul by Goutlard sadly received an update only on ModDB.
And these are just the bigger mods hosted here on TWC. Several ‘minor’ mods were published or receive an update too. The most popular of them is the Additional Units Mod made by Swiss Halberdier.
Also Bran’s Empire Campaign AI by Bran Mac Born as well as his DarthMod submod. Alwyn, author of several mini-mods, released his Simple Navy Mod. Another unit mod is Vanilla Units Enhanced for all European Nations! by Bavarian Grenadier. In addition PikeStance released Imperial Splendour submod adding more Battle Smoke and oleg2242 released his submod Corps de Conde for Russian service (unit pack).
Some new modders appeared on TWC and released their work: Durango released his Interface Visual Enhancement Mod and Frank Garrett released his tweak Unlimited Elite units Mod. Submods were released too by new modders, ATTAREQ released his Imperial Destroyer submod Star Destroyer and myfate started modding with his Imperial Splendour submod for improved Naval Battles and Lancers.
The newest member of the Empire modding scene is MAIAN who released just a few days ago 3 submods for Imperial Splendour, a more blood submod, a fog removal submod and a realistic battle submod. Finally 3 mods on ModDB received updates: Regiments of American Revolutionary War 1775 -1783, Jacobite rebellion and the Spanish mod ALEXTHESPANIARD MOD.
So modding Empire isn’t dead yet. Of course activity ceased over the times when new games were released, modders grew older, got full-time jobs or even founded their own gaming studio like DarthVader who was joined by husserlTW. But the previous paragraphs have shown that many mods are still being updated. New mods, on the other hand, are rare and are mostly submods. The same accounts for modders. Most modders are veterans of TWC modding and continuously worked on their mods for years.
So what keeps modders working on Empire or joining the modding scene?
To answer this question rohan97 states that:
With the Empire engine you can do as much as you like because it covers a period which you can change to whatever you want and due to the campaign map already having much of the world it is really a great game for changing to other time periods.
This is also stated by Lordsith:
I like the time of the period of the game, and it's large strategic map with almost the whole world. Battles with muskets and cannons are much more fun than in melee periods, especially naval battles, IMHO. So that is my main reasons why I still working on Empire total war.
I joined the [Imperial Splendour] team because at first I really wanted to help them finish the mod earlier and experience the realistic atmosphere the mod provided, but over time it became more of an obsession in trying to achieve accuracy regarding all aspects in the given time period.
While I owned earlier games prior to owning Empire, I was playing Empire when I first visited TWC. I actually loved the Napoleonic period. I love how each branch of service (Foot, Cavalry and Artillery) complimented itself. The reason why I bought Empire over Napoleon was that it was more grand strategy oriented. To be honest I love the whole premodern period. When I came to site I wanted to talk strategy but instead discuss historical inaccuracies.
It covers one of the most interesting periods of history with plenty of options and different types of warfare. It was the first Total War with naval combat, which even today you won‘t see covered in many games. At the same time, it was the first Total War game I started modding on my own. So a combination of those factors makes me return to the game again and again.
In addition a maybe larger interest in the Revolutionary Wars on the side of modders and players may contribute to this fact too.
But surprisingly it seems like all the shortcomings of Empire were are contributing factors to people who saw the potential of the game and wanted to fulfil that through modding. Many things were half-completed at the release and I think historical accuracy wasn’t taken in high regard during development.
But read the statements from myfate:
The most important reason for starting modding is I'm just not satisfied with the game and I 'd like to make it satisfying. And somehow I enjoyed the modding more than playing the game, it's like making the story in my mind real, I think it's far more interesting than just playing games.
I started modding out of necessity, I like the 18th century but even more the formations that were used at that moment, for this reason I try to modify what I consider to be "historical errors not important".
Empire was a total mess-the campaign AI did nothing-it was passive-diplomacy did not work-the battle AI was wonky. I enjoy the time period of the game and wanted to play the game but could not, so I tried some of the mods and found them wanting. Darthmod seemed ok but needed some fixes and so I started with that and after play testing I decided to go full out and re do most of Darthmod it. Then I applied those changed to the vanilla game also. Once I completed it Empire was now in a playable state for me to enjoy.
Well I suppose I was drawn to modding around 2009-10 partly because I felt the smaller factions needed a more diverse unit roster and more historical uniforms. Around that time I was researching Portuguese uniforms, and discovered that during the War of the Spanish Succession they were mostly white coated, whereas in default Empire Total War it was more a blue-grey colour. So I began by simply changing the colour to white, by replacing the textures. I then bought some books about Portuguese military history, including Manuel Ribeiro Rodrigues' book about 300 years of Portuguese military uniforms (around the time of the Icelandic volcano [Eyjafjallajökull], which delayed the arrival of the book from Portugal). With the help of Google Translate and the pictures in the book I created the Portuguese Unit Pack mod, which was later incorporated into the American Revolution mod.
I was told by several to mod it. At 40+ that was intimidating. With Encouragement, I began to mod. I continue to mod because I work with a great mod and a committed team of great modders working hard to bring the best game imageable for Empire. I am speaking of Imperial Splendour. When version 3 is completed, it will be like nothing seen before. Any player that loves the time period would find a new love for a great game and a great time period in history. I want to ensure the dream is realized.
I found that I enjoyed experimenting with changes, discovering unused or underused features (such as the cancelled Fourth Rate Frigate), using those features and seeing the effects in the game (especially when I can base this on historical research - in the case of the Fourth Rate Frigate, with your [the authors] help on the historical research).
Wanting to change features to make the game more challenging (for example, removing gabionades, which restrict cannon to a narrow firing arc, enabling the player to neutralise the enemy's artillery by outflanking the enemy army) or to remove features which I see as less historical.
Wanting to change features to make the game more challenging (for example, removing gabionades, which restrict cannon to a narrow firing arc, enabling the player to neutralise the enemy's artillery by outflanking the enemy army) or to remove features which I see as less historical.
This still doesn’t answer the question of why keep modding? For me it’s a part of my personality – I just can’t stand leaving things unfinished and Imperial Splendour is far from being finished. In addition I have a special interest in that time period since I started to read the Aubrey-Maturin series and developed a fascination for the Electorate of Hannover, its society, political structure and law. Despite having played other games featuring that time period I think Empire offers the best groundwork for a great game featuring that period. The possibility to create faction specific technologies allows individual developments for each faction, as well as the startpos and historical character mechanics allow to add many historical characters. So Empire offers really in-depth alterations of each faction in order to make them individual.
JaM and Lordsith already stated similar motivations. Another contributing factor can be the community here at TWC. Players can point modders to bugs or inconsistencies in the game or their mods itself. This, in turn, can arouse the ambition of modders to repair them.
Let me again cite Bran Mac Born:
I keep modding Empire because I get a lot of requests for special mods and tweaks from players all the time-happy to help them out.
Cro_Hunger999:
The [historical] research helped me understand the past better and with that the present, it gave me an insight how trade treaties functioned, what the main trading centres were, and, most of all, it helped me understand the ideas of the 18th century enlightenment and how it was expressed in reforms in the fields of bureaucracy, economy and society, modding is not just for playing mods, it expands your capacity and enriches your knowledge as well as giving you a basic level of understanding foreign languages.
So we see a dedicated, but of course smaller, modding scene still improving Empire and bringing it to a new level or even trying to do something new. Modders are attracted by the world map or time period and even by the flaws of Empire to improve them. Also modders keep modding because of the love for the time period covered in Empire, to ‘get the job done’ or to educate themselves and improve abilities.
At the end I can just say, reinstall Empire and have a look, you might have a very different experience as 10 years ago.
But I’ll leave the last words to -Durango-
Empire, to me, was 1000 small steps from greatness at release. Bugs, imbalances, lack of naval invasions, fort lag - we know by now what gave ETW a lacklustre reputation in the eyes of many players. But so many of those issues turned out to be very much fixable by the community's talented modders. Piece by piece, we create, test and polish our additions to bring this game closer to the potential it set out to reach. Whether using large or small mods (I focus on niche aspects myself) the game is now rightfully fantastic! It really reminds us not to judge a book by its cover, and instead look at what improvements are possible. That, and the fact that the time period and scale of Empire is worthy of modding effort simply on the grounds of no other game delivering anything close to the same experience. I'm not the only one out there hoping and praying for a phenomenal sequel in the years to come.
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