___ Rohan wiped from the face of Middle-earth. Aragorn fell at the Battle of Hobbiton. Gondor lost Osgiliath and Minas Tirith. Celebron died defending Caras Galadhon. The last troops of light defend themselves in Silver Havana. Relive the story? Looks like history has outlived me.
___ With this simple start, I want to introduce you to one of the best mods for Medieval II: Total War (and indeed among all mods) – The Third Age Total War. Which according to the overbrain sounds like "Third Age". Total war" Well, you guessed it, this mod takes the events of the game to the world of Middle-earth. More precisely at the end of the Third Age. And you, in turn, will have to decide to what sounds the new era will be reborn. To the sounds of elf songs or goblin drums.
___ Initially being a kind of “rethinking” of the LOTR mod for Rome: Total war in a new way (and rails), the mod grew to enormous proportions and became widely known. The best part is that this mod was developed by people from different parts of the world. People not from multi-million dollar companies or industry leaders. Without having huge funds, but having unbending faith in your project. Cooperating on various forums, drawing information from books, films and stories, we slowly put together this mod. Not long ago a patch was released for version 3.2, which adds various goodies and further expands the game, which proves active support for the project.
___ What is this mod?? Well, don’t expect total changes to the gameplay. First of all, the mod is aimed at changing the setting of the game. So, if you are an experienced player TW, then you will feel at home. Well, for those who are not familiar with the series (to study the march), describe it in a nutshell: You build and bend. It may be too cluttered, but it fully explains the principle of the game. For those who want to know a little more about fashion, the following text is written.
___ Stop stop. Let’s put aside the Battle for Middle-earth and talk a little about the history of the development of the mod. No, there will be no dry reports or template reports here. The history of the creation of the project is full of drama and twisted even better than other series. It all started with a project to transfer the army of Gondor to the original games. But as often happens, things didn’t go beyond words and everything died out somewhere halfway. Then, someone somewhere picked up something and began to type up their work. A small company of people gathered, working on an idea that created the mod on their own. The mod became famous due to its publicity on the TW form – twcenter. Seeing that a lot of people were interested in the project, the mod began to be actively developed. Although there was quite a large number of modders, programmers and people just wanting to help from the TV center and CC (this, in turn, is one of the largest Slavic forums for the TW series), the whole project, one might say, rested on the shoulders of one person. King-Konga, who, by the way, was awarded the best 3-D artist award for his work. Later, the completed project collected many awards on various local forums and gained great popularity. And now, not so long ago, a new version was released – 3.2
___ Where to start? https://pedalada10casino.co.uk/login/ Well, perhaps the first thing that catches your eye is the graphics and design. Each time we will be greeted by a well-made introductory video, showing us a short version of the backstory in the spirit of “the clouds have gathered, the epic will begin”. In the menu we will have to choose between battle, fellowship of the ring and company. The first is ordinary skirmish, nothing unusual. The Fellowship of the Ring is a scripted company that guides you by the hand through all the main events of the universe. From the passage through Moria to the Battle of Minas Tirith. The company offers us to choose between twelve factions. Each of them has its own units, buildings and amenities. But more about them a little later.
___ Stylized to resemble Tolkien’s universe, hundreds of icons, cursors, inscriptions, objects, cities, units are amazing. Maybe somewhere the model is angular or the texture sticks out, but against the general background it’s not even noticeable. You can really feel the painstaking work with which all these models were created. Some were taken from the film, some from various sketches, and some from real models. Trees in Lorien sway in the wind. Mount Doom in Mordor spews sulfur and magma. The fast and powerful river Isen glistens and splashes. You can feel how much work has been done on the appearance of the mod.
___ The units themselves turned out no less beautiful. The glare on the Gondorian shields shines brightly in your eyes. Erebor gnomes swing sharpened axes. The mane of the Rohan steeds blows with the wind. Goblin wargs look terrible (in the good sense of the word) and inspire righteous horror. But still, somewhere you come across clumsy models, looking at which you want to burst into flames. But we’re not grafadrochers to throw away an excellent game because of a couple of crooked models?
___ Well, stop admiring the textures. Let’s start having fun. Once you are on the global map, you will be left to your own devices. A couple of dry tips don’t count. And so. You have several towns on your hands (or an entire empire, depending on which faction you chose) and a couple of troops. What will you do? No. It’s too early to fight. You have time to prepare before the big fights. And here you need to prepare thoroughly..
___ The economic and urban planning components of the mod have not changed much compared to the original game. The same markets, ports and roads. We are building mines somewhere else. Nothing unusual. Although there is still a difference – they removed the slightly tedious system of dividing cities and castles. But here the mod loses ground. You see, if in the original we could develop an ordinary village to the level of a metropolis, then now all this happens at a snail’s pace. And it turns out that having captured five nearby cities, you will have five villages with three hundred inhabitants who cannot even raise a militia. So we have to rely only on capitals and large cities.
___ But here comes a variety of little buns, unnoticeable at first glance. For example, for Tolkienists, on every construction, army, general have their own little information that briefly describes what this specimen is famous for. There is also the notorious “ring of power”, the capture of which provides various bonuses. Palantirs, the use of which can lead to rather disastrous consequences (what? find out for yourself). It’s these little things that make up the entire atmosphere of Middle-earth. Recognizable names, known history – it’s important, yes. But it’s the little details that complement all this.
___ But let’s be honest. This whole mod was started only to reproduce the epic multi-thousand battles between Good&trade and Evil&trade. And I hasten to assure you that everything is fine with them. A dozen unique units for each faction. Recognizable generals and battlefields. All this is directly created for cinematic battles. Recreate the famous Battle of Helm’s Deep? Lay siege to Rivendell? Or just push Barlog and ten thousand gnomes together? Nothing is simpler.
___ Battles are the juice of this mod. Thousands of sharp spears cover the sun and rain down deadly rain on the enemy. Mumaki, like death machines crash into squads. Wargs swoop down to take down their prey. A dozen factions, each of which has its own significant pros and cons. Each has its own tactics. For example, Rohan has the best cavalry troops – the Eorlings, but at the same time they have almost no good infantry and archers. Elves are a powerful and powerful faction, but very expensive and slow to recruit. But the orcs are dying like flies, but they gather instantly. So, replayability is at its best. After the same type of countries in the original Medieval 2, you won’t want to go back there. Especially during the "Invasion".
___ Sauron in the game is represented, no matter how stupid it may sound, by dad. He, just like dad, gives out tasks to everyone, pats the good ones on the head and reproaches the bad ones (in his understanding), and is also endowed with the power to call an “Invasion”. Similar to a crusade. At the call of Sauron, all the troops of Darkness will go to war against the chosen target and will not rest until they demolish it. Well, what about the Light?? They prefer democracy. By concluding various alliances, actively trading and developing relationships, they will try to resist the approaching Darkness. Successful or not will depend only on you.
___ I would also like to mention the music in the game. As we know, now the time does not tolerate any kind of philanthropists and for a long time original voice acting was banned, because you have to pay quite a lot of money. But over time, submods appeared that made up for this loss. And the mod developers themselves tried to voice as many characters as possible. For example, Grima Wormtongue carries the voice of the White Hand with a distinct Russian accent, which delivers.
___ If you want to plunge into the world of Middle-earth, but LOTR war in the north boring and LOTR battle for middle earth too petty? Well then. Then you can try playing this mod and get acquainted with the works of many people.
Here – Russian-language developer forum. There’s a lot of useful information, guides and other crap there.
Here – The same Russian-language forum, but directly with a link to the mod. Everything is painted and shown there. What, where and when.
Here is a torrent (may Kulakov forgive me), if someone is in the mood to pump out three gigs from file hosting sites. (Attension, version 3 on torrent.1 download 3.2 from the forum at the link above)