Preview of Third Age - Total War 2.0

[King Kong]

2.0 Preview

Part 1 - Main Campaign



New Factions


- Reworked Eriador
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=343032

- The Kingdom of Arnor
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=343032

- The Orcs of Gundabad
no screenshots yet, see here for a little information



New Heroes & Units


- King Thranduil

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

- Saruman

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

- Eregion Smiths (credit to Louis Lux...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

- Single Sauron & Balrog Units (only for custom battles)



New Gameplay Features


- New Battle AI by Germanicu5

- unit stat changes (bigger difference of militia - elite units, more balanced siege weapon costs, several other changes)

- Costs for custom battles balanced

- Improved faction standings: Good & evil won't easily have good relations anymore

- Winter textures


- Less AI stack-spam

- Better Campaign map balance

- More realistic recruitment times
I.e Eldar units or Mumakil need 3 turns to be recruited, elite units 2 turns

- generally lowered unit availability

- automatic experience from castles deleted

- improved AI generals and better pathfinding

- Generals live longer

- Trait and Ancillary changes & fixes

- movement distance of diplomats and ships increased

- New character names for Eriador and Dale

- More trade ressources

- Map improvements




New Graphics

- New Siege Weapons for the Evil factions




- Visual Enhancement by Louis Lux

- Several Interface changes (with help from cedric and El cid)


- New loading screens

[Amon Amarth 930]

Part 2 - The Fellowship Campaign



A completely new and heavily scripted role-playing campaign that is going to be totally different from any other "usual" campaign that you know from Total War games.
You can play with all famous Heroes of the books and the movies, aswell with several of your ally's armies with the final goal to destroy the One Ring in the Mount Doom and to rescue Middle-earth from the Shadow of Mordor.



The story is roughly based on the story of the books, but also includes fictional parts and events and everything is told with atmospheric texts, pictures and videos.



To get there you will have to follow the footsteps of Frodo and his companions and you will have to fight several famous battles of Middle-earth, but you will also have to succede in smaller missions to be victorious over The Dark Lord of Mordor.

Some Impressions:

A mission example for Aragorn


mission details


To battle!


An overview over the active Quests and Missions


Another famous battle



Feedback and suggestions always welcome!

[King Kong]

Credits:

Amon Amarth 93 (Fellowship campaign scripting)
Jean=A=Luc (Eriador unit descriptions and all the texts for the Fellowship campaign)
MasterBigAB (Faction and Fellowship videos)
Louis Lux (Visual Enhancement and the pictures for the Fellowship campaign)
Germanicu5 (Battle AI)
cedric and el Cid (interface symbols)
the community for their suggestions, feedback and help!



Finally, I want to say an especially BIG THANKS to Amon Amarth 93 for the hard work and all his patience over all the stressful and time-consuming last months.
Making such a "role-playing" campaign was often very tedious and often very frustrating, for something that most players will have finished in some hours.
Nevertheless, I think we did something new and special for a total war game and that was worth the troubles.

Cheers mate!



And while I hope that all contributors will get some rep, please don't forget to rep Amon Amarth 93, since without him, we wouldn't have even started this ambitious project.

[Turael]

OMG! Third Age is about to get even more epic...

[AgentGB]

WOw! you really have out done yourself! total overload atm

gonna be up late now

edit: christopher lee FTW

[Space Wolves]

Oh my god yes!

[Eöl]

Well done King kong!!!

Its good to see that you keep amazing the community.

VEry nice that you changed the unit recruitement times. Will make it much more realistic!

[W4SPY]

Very Very nice.....well done on the best total war mod EVER....jus a quick question,is it using a bigger map now?

[Hermes Trismegistos]

Incredible! Some of these things I would have considered as impossible with the Medieval engine! Looks really great!

[Mirandia]

amazing!
we cant wait!

[Drake789]

Nice! Now I really can't wait!

[Ludicus]

Absolutely superb.

[FOR GONDOR]

omg finally the preview to 2.0 this must mean that in a few more days we will be able to download this

[KingLeonidas300]

I cant breath.................. oh my god

[Disastras]

Everything looks great! The team should be VERY proud!

[Aronor]

Saruman looks really great and the new siege weapons for the Evil factions are awesome.As for the fellowship campaign,I can't wait!!! You've done a great work!!!

[Louis Lux]

Looks amazing but honestly I prefer my Saruman

[HappyGoodVibes]

This mod is awesome.

[karamazovmm]

breathtaking, can I use this mode with XAI?

[Outlawstar15a2]

I must say all the new heroes look awesome. And the Fellowship campaign sounds breaktaking to say the least. I eagerly await the day I can sink my teeth into this.

One question though, is the Fellowship and the improved standard campaign two separate entities or will they use the same data files?