8/19/2019 Best Mods For Medieval Total War 2
Top 10 Contents[]
Empire has received a fair amount of critique, especially after successful Medieval 2. It focuses on the 18th-century warfare and many did not like the way the CA have implemented optimization and mechanics in Empire Total War. Mods, however, started to fix the situation, adding better depth, lore, enhancing graphics and even adding campaigns set in different time periods. Best Empire Total War mods are gathered here for you to judge them and vote for the best of the pack in your opinion. Now, what do you fancy - more units, better mechanics or grand strategy map overhaul?
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War Of 1812 Mod
This Empire Total War mod focuses on a seldom explored historical period. The Second war of independence is the highlight now, and you can take Canada to glory by freeing them from the powerful overlord. Or choose another side and try to pin the rebels down by force.
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Additional Units Mod - Empire (AUM-EMP)
Best Empire Total War mods will always include custom unit models, and this is no different. AUM-EMP contains almost a hundred of new units, dozens of naval war machines, 4 Field Marshals and more than 60 Ornamentum units. Ready to fight for the colonies in the New World with your new soldiers, m'lord?
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Colonialism 1600 AD
It is rare for Total War Empire mods to offer experiences such as this one. It transports the player back in time, to the 17th century. The mod gives access to new pike formations, new global borders, historically accurate soldier models, religions, and alliances. We can dive straight into the adventure or establish an alternative history of a new colonial empire.
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HiFiMasteR Sound Mod Final + Fife and Drums
Best Empire Total War mods always have something to do with the sound and music. The author of this modification offers us a brand new experience with an overhaul of the playlist, using rousing orchestral music and instrumentation (piano, violins, etc.) The sounds of rifles, cannons and battles in general is improved as well.
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Regiments of American Revolution [RoAR]
One of the best Empire Total War mods for those who love immersion and authenticity of history. This mod includes the uniforms and the weaponry of soldiers who fought for American Independence during the 1775-1783 period. Gear and uniforms changed over time in real life, and the mod reflects that as well. Neat.
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Since its release in 2007, the Kingdoms expansion for Medieval 2: Total War has received some impressive mods. The medieval setting lends itself perfectly to full conversions, and the community has embraced replicating beloved fantasy settings of all sorts -- as well as simply shifting the historical settings elsewhere in the world's timeline.
While mods for this game are generally slower to show up than others in its genre, it's clear that the modding community has put in a lot of hard work. (Some mods have even taken years to complete.) To honor that dedicated community and highlight their awesome work, here's a few of the best mods for Medieval 2: Total War: Kingdoms that have come about recently.
Call of Warhammer: Beginning of the End TimesModder: Beginning of The End Times Team
Inspired by an older Warhammer mod, the Call of Warhammer: Beginning of the End Times is intended to provide a more dynamic experience for Medieval 2. The mod boasts a map which is said to be triple the size of the original mod, and gives access to a ton of factions.
Another cool update in this mod is that the Chaos Incursions will now gather their forces over time rather than spawning randomly near their target, as in the original mod. While the Chaos Incursion gathers its forces, players can hire unique mercenary groups to help them when they need a quick army.
Tsardoms Total WarModder: Wallachian
Moving the action to the Balkans, Tsardoms Total War drastically changes the game by introducing a new area and new factions to match. The player is thrust into the fall of the Roman Empire and the following struggle between nearby regions. Additionally, with this new setting, players will be able to fight through some notable historical battle of the time period and area.
There's no specific release date as of now, but there is a 'Battle beta' that players can check out on ModDB.
Chronicles of MyrtanaModder: rafmc1989
Strategy games are all well and good, but the Chronicles of Myrtana mod aims to create a more unique RPG experience for Medieval 2: Total War: Kingdoms. The mod follows the events of the Gothic franchise, with expansions and addons included in the story.
The intent to make a faithful Gothic mod led to unique RPG elements being utilized throughout the story, as the player takes control of the hero and begins his journey through the story of the Gothic series.
Download the mod here.
The Last KingdomModder: echuu
Starting in the year 865, The Last Kingdom mod explores the conflicts of Northern Europe. Players can choose from 13 factions to battle for supremacy across the Isle of England and the mainland. This mod includes new historical heroes and units for players to expand their control.
The period of the Viking invasion is a big draw for the community, with the mod clocking in at a 9.6/10.
Third Age: Total WarModder: TW_King_Kong
With a medieval setting, it was only a matter of time before someone created a Lord of the Rings mod. And while there might be a few out there, Third Age: Total War is one of the best. It's so good in fact, that it has a considerable number of submods all on its own.
Third Age includes the major factions that you would expect from the LOTR setting (Gondor, Rohan, Isengard), as well as less commonly known factions (Rhun, Harad, and Dale). The full map of Middle-Earth includes settlements straight from the lore and locations with historical significance, like the Three Towers.
Tamriel Total WarModder: Tamriel Total War mods Team
The Elder Scrolls is a beloved series among many gamers, and this mod brings all Medieval 2's strategic fun of world domination to the land of Tamriel. This mod contains a detailed map of Tamriel, and the 20+ factions each have their own territories to start with, based on the lore of The Elder Scrolls series.
Players take part in a variety of historical events -- starting around the time of The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, and ending 50 years later. With such a long time period, players are likely to take part in a few key events from both Morrowind and Oblivion.
Medieval II: Total War: Kingdoms has a ton of mods available. The few mentioned here don't even scratch the surface of all the awesome content the game's community is making. If you're looking to take your strategic warfare to a new place or time, there are plenty of options like the ones we've mentioned here. Check out ModDB for even more!
What are your favorite mods for Medieval II: Total War? Let me know down in the comments!
Published Jun. 25th 2017
Modification Tutorials
You'll find guide to various aspects of modifying Medieval II: Total War here.
Getting Started
Primo made a guide to installing patch 1.2 and using the unpacker.
Gaius Colinius had the dubious pleasure of using Vista and thanks to Foamy, he was able to get around the problems caused by the Medieval 2: Total War unpacker sending the unpacked files into a hidden folder, known as the 'Virtual Store'.
Mythic_Commodore takes us through the process of replacing the generic movie background with a newer, cleaner background.
Units
Mythic_Commodore takes us through the export_descr_units.txt (EDU) file.
As a follow up to his previous article on the export_descr_units.txt file (EDU) Mythic_Commodore now shows us how to create new units. It's very detailed and yet very readable. All wannabe modders need to stop by here!
Buildings
Mythic_Commodore takes us through the export_descr_buildings.txt (EDB) file.
Mythic_Commodore previously took us through the EDB file and now he shows us how to create new buildings.
Modifying the AI
CavalryCmdr wrote an exhaustive guide to modifying the game AI on our forums and it was high timethat it got much deserved exposure on our main site as well.
We're currently building up our database on game modification articles and hope to expand this section. If you have articles or tutorials you'd like to see here send them to Gaius Colinius. Only quality tutorials will be accepted.
Click here to return to the Modifications Portal Home.
While we wait for the next Total War game it’s worth considering upgrading Shogun II. Finding Shogun 2 mods is always going to be a pain until the Steam Workshop comes to Total War – especially as good ones seem as rare as a tasteful Horo. We’ve gone through those available and picked a selection of the better-maintained and better-designed ones. Remember, not all these work well together – so if you’re going to install multiple mods, use something like the All-in-one pack, the Zen pack or the Radious Collection.
Darth Mod
The enemy campaign AI in Total War games is famously inconsistent, with a tendency to cheat or behave bizarrely in the presence of an non-AI character. In our recent chats with the developers, they’ve admitted the difficulty of creating believable AI without taking shortcuts (and look damn shame-faced when we brought up the subject of AI cheating).DarthMod redresses that, making apparently rational AI behaviour in the campaign, land battles or sea battles. It’s the simplest of mods, but makes more than a background difference. The enemy AI makes better use of its units and the subtle alterations in morale, arrow spread and so on, really change the battles. Given that it also increases unit sizes and densities, fighting a DarthMod AI is always a more reliable challenge.
The Rights of Man (TROM) 3
TROM is a fix-pack for Shogun II. Where Darth mod alters the general AI, TROM focuses on a hundred little fixes to improve the user experience. Firstly, it extends the campaign to 1640, giving players more time to achieve their objectives. It does however, include some AI changes – specifically to help some of the factions use their units and territories better, but also changes to their agent abilities and to improve the use and value of monk units.
AUM-SHO
The Additional Units Mod adds 11 new troop types to Shogun II as well as unlocking the faction-specific units for use by all players. The new units are not exactlystunning – they mostly look like reskins or variants of existing units – but they certainly do add a little more length and life to campaigns and battles. If you want more units, try the Realism + or Radious mods. Update – AUM-SHO doesn’t work anymore, using Radious will give you most if not all the units included though.
Zen
Similar to the Realism + mod, Zen is a top-level mod that overhauls the game. The ashigaru (peasant) units are a particular focus, having been made substantially cheaper and having larger units, to reflect how common they were, and the AI has been tweaked to produce less of them. Similarly, to give players a fighting chance, battles have been slowed down and initial garrison sizes increases, so the game doesn’t degenerate into opportunistic warfare immediately. Every clan has been given a unique feel, by altering their unit rosters, giving the units correct Japanese names, and giving each clan a single, unique Hero unit.Update – Zen only works when it’s installed on its own.
Realism +
The main Shogun 2 Realism project has focused on balancing the combat of the game, without looking at the campaign. This expansion focuses more on the main world view, but also rejigs the battle system by extending their length. It also makes you focus more on the units, by letting you see their martial art animations and changing how they advance during the campaign – for example, Ashigaru actually become closer to professional soldiers the longer they survive. On top of the units from the AUM-SHO (above), there are another 30 unit types added to the game, many of which are faction-specific; other units have had their names changed to the true Japanese names and even the unit-recruitment system has been revamped.
On the campaign side, the changes are more fundamental. Both buildings and arts have been deeply changed, factions are much more long-lasting, cultural influences (Ikko, Buddhist, Catholic allegiances) play a campaign role, and cashflow is a problem throughout the campaign. Similarly to DarthMod, it also fixes the unrealistic AI behaviour by including the universal AI mod. Because it uses several other mods as a base, it’s best only run alone.Update – No longer updated. Radious
This is a combination pack, mingling several different mods, so that players can create their own Shogun II experience. Players can alter the unit roster, the building availability and cost, the way how units gain experience and subsist, the way characters mature, the in-game AI, the game techs, and a huge naval mod.
AIOM-SHO
The All in One Mod combines most of these mods, as well as maybe a hundred others, and allows you to choose which to implement.
Blockbuster games like DOTA, Counter-Strike and DayZ have are all connected by the fact that they started off as total conversion mods. These are labours of love created by code-savvy fans who one day thought ‘What would ARMA be like with zombies?’ or ‘How would Warcraft III play if I controlled just the one hero?’
From these little kernels of inspiration, a phenomena were born.
But we’re going to put aside those success stories for now, and look at the best total conversion mods that are still completely free. After years of work and hundreds of hours of development, these mods are so well crafted that if you squint just a little, you may just mistake them for full standalone games.
The ability to completely transform your existing game into an entirely new one using total conversion mods is yet another reason why gaming on PC is so good. So, as part of our PC Gaming Week 2018, here's our pick of the best total conversion mods you can install and play right now for free.
1. A Game of Thrones - Crusader Kings II
Released not long after Crusader Kings 2 itself, A Game of Thrones is not only a perfect fit for the mechanics of Paradox’s feudal grand strategy game, but hands down the best video-game set in George R.R. Martin’s blockbuster fantasy world.
A Game of Thrones may sometimes appear to be all battles and dragons and bad language, but really it’s a saga of political intrigue, scheming and Machiavellian plotting; who should be married off to whom, and for what gain? What would assassinating a certain lord do to your claim on their land? How do you clamber your way up the feudal ladder to get to the Iron Throne?
Its themes meld perfectly with Crusader Kings II, and this mod realises George R.R. Martin’s world right down to the writing and the topographical lay of the land.
And yes, of course there are dragons..
2. Enderal - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
One of the most polished total conversion mods ever made, Enderal could just about pass off as its own triple-A game.
German developer SureAI (who also made stunning Oblivion mod Nehrim) pulled out all stops, writing and voicing tens of hours of dialogue (that arguably outdoes Skyrim’s oft-risible script), and painstakingly building a beautiful new world that offers around 100 hours of content.
Within Skyrim’s rather action-orientated engine, Enderal manages to find its own identity, and in many ways harks back to old-school RPGs; it’s tough, with a traditional levelling system, no fast travel, and slow pacing, while offering a powerful story that often ventures into darker, more mature territory than Skyrim’s mass-market take on high fantasy.
3. Gekokujo - Mount & Blade: Warband
Mount & Blade: Warband is the quintessential feudal sandbox, letting you create a character in a central-European kingdom and build them up into a roving mercenary, a heroic commander or, ultimately, a lord who answers to no one. You go about this through a messy, delightful mix of direct combat, RTS-like strategising, and RPG-like decision-making.
Gekokujo takes all that, and whisks it off to Sengoku-era Japan. The world map spans the entire Land of the Rising Sun, complete with major kingdoms, villages, cities, holdings, and lords for you to saddle up with (before, inevitably, betraying them).
Medieval 2 Total War Mods Steam
Weapons, armour, clothing and architecture are faithful to the setting, and a whole world of dialogue and events has been written to convincingly migrate the inimitable Warband formula to the Far East.
4. X-COM/UFO: Enemy Unknown - X-Piratez
The original 1994 turn-based squaddie alien shooter X-COM UFO: Enemy Unknown has been kept alive thanks to the OpenXcom Extended open-source project. Based on this, X-Piratez is a fascinating piece of punky fan-fiction set in the same universe, borrowing ideas and mechanics from the whole gamut of X-COM games.
Set in a future where the X-COM resistance was crushed by the alien invaders, X-Piratez casts you as a buccaneering crew of space-pirates, robbing settlers and plundering ships until the intriguing plot inevitably brings you into contact with greater threats.
With its unique arsenal of makeshift weaponry, fresh tech tree and lowlife factions, it all feels refreshingly scrappy compared to the high-tech shenanigans of the mainline series.
5. Underhell - Half-life 2
From Black Mesa to Garry’s Mod, by way of Natural Selection, Half-life 2 has been the launchpad for several successful mods that went on to become fully fledged games. One of the ones that never made the jump, however, was Underhell.
Following a psychologically-spiraling S.W.A.T. operative who’s struggling to deal with his wife’s death, Underhell is part puzzler, part horror, part bullet-time shooter that’s thick in atmosphere and experimental storytelling.
The action flows like a fever dream between a dreamworld, spooky home and vicious action, making Underhell stand alongside The Stanley Parable as one of the more artful Half-life 2 mods.
Sadly, only one of the intended six episodes of Underhell was ever made, with developer We Create Stuff’s priorities shifting to other projects in recent years.
6. The Dark Mod (Thief) - Doom 3
Ademco low battery reset. The Thief IP, once revered for its revolutionary stealth mechanics and level design, was run into the ground with the facile 2014 reboot. Luckily, The Dark Mod, a total conversion mod for Doom 3, is as fine a spiritual successor to the original games as you could ask for.
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The Dark Mod eschews combat and action in favour of good old-fashioned stealth.
Stick to the rafters, extinguish candles with water arrows, and loot the rich and wealthy of a brooding steampunk city that’s somewhere between the worlds of Thief and Dishonored. The base mod (now standalone) is just the tip of the arrow, as it’s bolstered by hundreds of excellent community-made levels.
7. The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age - Medieval II: Total War
There’s no shortage of Middle-Earth-themed mods out there, but, like Gandalf at a Hobbiton pipeweed convention, this one stands tall among them.
So complete and detailed is The Third Age - from Rohirrim shield crests to the city layout of Osgiliath - that seven years on, it remains the most popular LoTR mod for Total War.
It’s spawned a slew of sub-mods too, including the relatively-recent The Third Age: Reforged, which adds new factions, animations and units.
As a sidenote, if you’re on the Total War: Warhammer battlewagon, check out the recently-released The Lord of the Rings: Rise of Mordor. It’s far from complete yet, but looks promising and could yet become the true successor to The Third Age.
8. Fall from Heaven 2 - Civilization IV
Staying on the theme of historical strategy games with a fantasy makeover, Fall from Heaven 2 is a superbly imagined swords-and-sorcery overhaul of Civilization IV.
It transports the history-spanning formula to a lore-rich fantasy world brimming with magic spells, Hero units (complete with properly designed models), demonic religions and its own arcane tech tree.
It’s not always easy for a total conversion mod to evoke a powerful atmosphere that really sets it apart from its base game, but Fall from Heaven 2 pulls it off with aplomb, thanks to an encyclopaedic amount of lore, and a soundtrack that immerses you in its faraway world of werewolves and wizards.
9. Fallout 1.5: Resurrection - Fallout 2
This one’s for the retro PC gamers for whom Fallout is a game of taking turns and isometric cameras - none of this pseudo-FPS nonsense.
Released in 2016, Fallout 1.5 is a total conversion mod for Fallout 2 which crams a 25-or-so-hour chapter between the events of the first and second games, taking you to the post-apocalyptic wastes of Albuquerque, New Mexico (no signs of a drug-lab camper van out in the scrublands, sadly).
Fallout 1.5 is well-written and old-school relentless, which you’ll learn from the off as you’re beset by sizeable mobs of ghouls and rats. True to the spirit of the original game, Fallout 1.5 also throws some dark questlines and morally murky quandaries at you, so be prepared to have your Karma sternly tested.
10. The Nameless Mod - Deus Ex
Another option for gamers of a certain vintage, the Nameless Mod takes Deus Ex’s cyber-noir tone of gravelly voices and shady conspiracies, and amplifies it.
Set in a city that’s a manifestation of tribal internet forum culture, it’s a strangely apt game given the make-up of society today.
Forum City is a place of lonely neon lights and zeal-maddened characters, weighed down by an air of constant paranoia that you must stop from spilling over into self-destruction.
What’s impressive about The Nameless Mod is how it manages to build on certain areas of the original Deus Ex; the AI is more responsive to your actions, and the story can pretty much split into two depending on your decisions, coming good on that bold promise that ‘Every Choice Matters’.
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