Hi Guys,
I've played recently a couple of good mods and I'd like to share with you what I've found out.
I've written three in-depth reviews of the following mods:
-
Stainless Steel Historical Improvement Project
-
Broken Crescent - Buff and Shine
-
Wrath of the Norsemen
I haven't written reviews, but I've had much fun with and I'd advise anybody to play a few other mods.
The "grand mods" that change most of the aspects of the game and that are de facto new games using the M2TW engine:
*
Third Age Total War (with many
submods, still developing)
*
Europa Barbarorum II (still developing, obviously)
* Stainless Steel SS6.4 (with numerous submods, not only SSHIP)
*
1648: Thirty Years of War
The following mods I also consider as finished, polished and including very well-thought-out mechanics (I admit having no much experience with them yet):
*
Hispania in the Middle Ages
*
The Italian Wars - Ultimate
Some advanced mods I find a bit dated and containing problematic gameplay issues:
*
Bellum Crucis 7.0
*
Deus lo Vult with Battle Balancer
*
Chivalry II: Sicilian Vespers
*
The Last Kingdom
* Wrath of the Norsemen
I admit having no interest in fantasy mods of Hyrule, Warhammer or Westeros, neither in China where the much-acclaimed Rise of Three Kingdoms takes place. I'm looking forward to the conclusion of work on Albion TW, Tsardoms TW, and The Great Conflicts. I don't know much about Rus 2 TW, Fleur de Lys, Machiavello, but they may also be very good.
Disclosure: I'm a member of the SSHIP modding team.
The opinions are obviously subjective. The reviews don't discover new planets but provide insights that are relevant from my perspective. They're based on the recent, 2018, experience, and I hope they'd be useful for those who are looking for an interesting historical game.
My perspective is as follows:
Originally Posted by
Jurand of Cracow
Criteria
I assess any M2TW mod in 5 categories:
- Gameplay: is the game immersive; are you forced to play the best you can; is the AI and diplomacy reasonable; is there money-recruitment balance achieved; are the different mechanisms well interconnected and conditioned (like ancillary<>script<>usefulness for the player); are there pure stupidities or strategies open-to-abuse.
- Historicity: is the historical role-playing credible; is playing the game in a historical way rewarded; how does the turn of the events in-game reflect what I perceive historical, do the factions/rosters/provinces/resources/buildings feel historical to my taste, is there a good trait/ancillary mechanism that reflect things I'm reading in the books; is the map like a true map.
- Battles: how does it feel to play them; how does the BAI behave; are the units reasonable/historical/nice, how does the battlefield feel like (trees, hills, water); are there stupidities and bugs related to fighting.
- Artistic values: a.) graphics: how do the map, the battlefield, the battles, the units, the 2D pics look like (so all the stuff related to models, animations etc.); b.) sounds: music, voices, other.
- Technicalities: are there CTDs; how does the UI look like; how many bugs and unfinished issues linger; are there guides and explanations on how to play.
What I’m looking for in a Total War mod
I’m most interested in points 1, 2, and 5, while less in 3 and even less in 4. In particular, I’m looking for:
- A challenging game: I do everything I can to win. I don’t give the AI money for free, I don’t turtle just for turtling – I turtle because it’s a superiors strategy. The need to make choices: there shouldn’t be easy choices and obvious solutions, everything should come at a price so every action should be well thought-out.
- A feeling of “gaming a story as it was in the books on history”: the armies, the cities, the generals, the rebels, the crusades, the deaths, the civil wars and family feuds – everything should be there. Fast conquests should be possible but at risk of falling apart.
- Management of the faction: investing in the buildings, keep an order, safeguarding the borders) to be an equally important goal of the game as the conquest. I'm a Civilization-raised type of person (I mean: Civ 1 of 1991) that means I'm a devoted builder.
- An interesting development of the traits. The characters should take traits and ancillaries based on their actions. The traits should be historical (reflect the middle-ages’ reality according to our best knowledge of history), meaningful (each should be relevant for the gameplay), logical (eg. they cycle-of-life: young and middle-aged generals get the traits fast, but in the old age they're losing them; as a result the oldest generals should not be the best, but those of 30-50 old for fighting and 40-60 for governorships), producing consistent personalities (one general should not have completely contradictory traits).
- The relevance and interplay of various mechanisms in the game: everything should have consequences, no chrome just for the sake of chrome. Interactive events are woven into the fabric of the game, the scripts should have an impact on the traits, the traits should condition the options for the player of using a particular general etc.
- Battles that are played to win, not easy or based on exploits. Especially, I’m looking for the BAI behaving reasonably given the pace of the battles (in some mods it’s faster, in some slower). I think the battles are an exciting part of the game that makes the Total War games different from, say, Europa Universalis type of the games.
JoC