Total War Update: Modders Triumphant, CA Giving Mixed Signals

Hey there, wargamers! Just a quick update today on the state of TW, and what you need to know. As we reach the end of January, we find ourselves growing ever closer to the release of Warhammer, and we see CA's interest in renovating Attila slowly dying off. They've had a good run this year with their product, which launched last February, and it has had its share of good and bad updates. Only a single final DLC or content pack is rumoured, and as is the tradition with most TW games, Attila will soon pass into the curatorship of the modding community. But it seems that there is both triumph and controversy brewing there also.

Recently, two Attila mods have drawn praise from the TW community. Firstly is the Rise of Mordor mod, and the other being Medieval Kindoms 1212. Those who have a history with TW might remember the glorious days of modding Medieval 2. Medieval 2 seems to be a high point for many TW veterans, myself included, and although my copy wasn't a steam version, thus denying me a play time count, I'm sure it was the game I spent more hours on than any in my gaming history. Many modern TW players have asked, "was M2 really that good?" and most old schoolers will argue for hours why it rocked so hard. My love for M2 mostly came from its extensive modding scene, and I remember discovering the Third Age, a Lord of The Rings themed mod, and practically falling in love with M2 as if I were seeing the game for the very first time.

Third Age completely rebuilt the world in M2 around the Tolkien mythos, with full rosters of Gondor, Rohan, Mordor, Sylvan Elves, Dwarves, lavishly recreating the aesthetic of the films, but also adding units from the books that never made it into the films, like Hobbits equipped for war, and The Knights of Dol Amroth. The badass team behind Third Age has risen from the darkness to build their successor mod using the Attila engine. Attila feels like a good place to remake this mod, since it verges on the early medieval era, has appropriate unit types to fill most of the Lord of The Rings aesthetic, and has sufficient modding tools to support these designs. The mod is only in its infancy, but it is already evoking the excellence of its predecessor. The only thing that seems to be a stumbling block for it so far is that CA hasn't provided nearly as many modding tools as they once did. The map of Attila is proving difficult to adjust in order to give the players a true Middle Earth campaign experience, and so far CA has refused to release their map editor. We'll touch on this subject again at the end of the article, but for now, know that this modding team has earned my thanks for their efforts, and they are in fact petitioning CA in order to release the tools they need to bring you a superior Middle Earth experience.

Give em the "Gondorian experience" ;)

The second mod making similar waves is the Medieval Kingdoms 1212 mod. This mod looks to capture the sprawling landscape of M2, complete with its multiple eras of the medieval age, from the late dark ages, to the introduction of gun powder. This mod is a simpler, but equally welcome change of pace than Rise of Mordor. It hopes to give the gamer the feeling of M2, but with the advent of the graphical quality of Attila. It feels great to see familiar M2 style units clashing on my screen again, and I recommend you all check it out, as many famous youtubers, such as Lionheart, Warrior of Sparta, and Heir of Carthage have already been taking a look at the early access builds of the mod.

This all leads me to my final thoughts about TW for the day. The most enduring legacy of games like Rome Total War, and Medieval 2 has not only been their inherent quality, but the dedicated communities that they earned, who tirelessly built amazing mods and game fixes, free of charge, long after they got their money's worth from the games. Modding has been near the heart of TW since its inception, and CA has even acknowledged this, holding their own little awards show, recognizing the efforts of community contributors. It is, therefore, rather disheartening to see that CA has offered little in the way of a full array of modding tools for the community. Don't get me wrong, I know this isn't CA so much as it is their publishers, clawing tools out of the public's hands, so that they have exclusive rights to the game's content. Sega probably foams at the mouth when they think that modders can simply unlock all factions in a TW game, thus reducing the value of DLC packs, but removing these tools will ultimately harm the longevity of their games, and even hurt potential sales. Famous mods can actually sell a game. There are many among the TW community that had no interest in Attila, since the time period did nothing for them, but having access to the high medieval era, or a faithful recreation of the Tolkien mythos can do a lot to spur sales, even so long after the game's release. Mods can do what DLC sometimes can't: renovate the game's commercial appeal, and draw in new customers. Limiting modders' tools may be a slow path to the death of TW's community if they are given no way to participate, other than eating whatever the publisher offers them. Which leads us to this:

Total War: Warhammer recently announced that they would not be supporting mods, or providing modding kits. This is pretty bad news. Credit to CA, they are clearly not happy about this, and probably wish they could give us full access to modding tools. It's likely that this state of affairs is due to the licensing of the Games Workshop units and aesthetic. It makes a certain amount of sense that the community would be given limited access to in game assets, when they represent intellectual property that simply doesn't belong to CA or Sega outside of narrow, licensed usage. However, I cannot express enough how disappointing this feels. Games like Dawn of War were very much open to modding, and they were licensed products, published and developed by THQ and Relic. CA has promised that modding tools will be available for future historic games, but I'm not yet convinced that we the community are slowly losing our stake in the game. CA is a company made up of game devs who are gamers themselves, but they are responsible to corporate overlords as sure as any developer. I hope that you enjoy what you see in the mods I've mentioned, and that you hold hope in your heart that TW will continue to support the community that supports it so lovingly.

Update: Warman from the Medieval Kingdoms 1212 team has informed me that the modding tools used on Medieval 2 were community developed, and not provided by CA, whereas the tools used on Attila were from CA. As they've demonstrated with their mod awards, CA really does care about the community, and I hope that the next historic game continues that trend, and that campaign map tools emerge.