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Recent News

Dedicated forums for mods at TWH

New Empire: Total War Interview with CA

Tips Of the Week updated!

New ETW Articles

ETW Landbattle article at Gamespot

News Archives

Dedicated forums for mods at TWH

Posted by Gaius Colinius on September 6, AD 2008 @ 10:14 AM

You've probably noticed the two new forums on the forum listing and are wondering what fresh hell is this?. Well, we have some homegrown mods and it's time to give them some extra exposure so we're going to use mod sub-forums.

At the moment, they are not sub forums (10/10 for observation) but they will be soon. In the meantime, do pop into Mongolphobia Mod by el_bandito and Amazon: Total War by SubRosa to see what they have to offer.

Amazon: Total War is a mod for RTW and it features two new Amazon factions, that of Amazonia and their rival New Amazonia. Amazonia is a monarchy founded thousands of years ago on the north-eastern coast of Asia Minor, and replaces the faction of Pontus. On the other hand New Amazonia is a democracy that was founded by lost Amazonian soldiers in the forests north of Scythia (others of whom would also create the state of Sarmatia). Both belong to a new culture, with new units, generals, retinue members, and traits.
SubRosa is constantly working on it so it's not in a final release form but you can download a beta release. Head on over to the forum to find out more.

Mongolphobia Mod is a mod for M2TW Kingdoms that utilises the retrofit mod. It features the two previously unplayable factions; The Mongols, and the Timurids with freshly buffed strengths and brand new units. It also adds the Papal States and rebels.
The mod is created by el bandito who is of the opinion that the Mongols are not already hard enough to fight so he has buffed them considerably. He has also made changes to units from other factions. He has also added a number of very fun units like inferno catapults and smoke bombers.

You can discuss this here if you wish and if you want to find out how to get a sub-forum for your own mod, click here.

New Empire: Total War Interview with CA

Posted by Gaius Colinius on September 6, AD 2008 @ 9:42 AM

Strategyinformer have interviewed CA on ETW and it seems that along with the standard Grand Campaign, we will also be getting an Episodic Campaign entitled The Road to Independence which is a first for the Total War series.

As well as that protecting trade routes will become very important so all powers will need to be maritime powers to maintain their position.

Agent types are being trimmed somewhat. Spies & assassins have been replaced with "Rakes" and there's a new agent class called "Gentlemen".

Naval battles can feature up to 20 ships on each side.

The campaign & battle AI will now "talk to each other" and work together, which hasn't happened in previous Total War games.

CA plan to make this a very moddable game, which is great news for the legions of modders out there.

There's no word on the minimum specification required to run the game but it will definitely be DX9 compatible so it will run on both XP & Vista.

Visit the thread here to see for yourself. Many thanks to Stormer for the heads up.

Tips Of the Week updated!

Posted by Gaius Colinius on September 6, AD 2008 @ 7:41 AM

The Medieval 2: Total War Tips of the Week page has been updated with no less than five new tips from our experienced and knowledgeable forumers. They include tips on how to best use cannon-type artillery, maximising merchant income and my favourite use of javelin-throwing cavalry. Visit the pageto see them all and visit the thread on the forums if you have some of your own to suggest.

New ETW Articles

Posted by SubRosa on August 29, AD 2008 @ 12:48 PM

Several new ETW articles have been released in the aftermath of the Leipzig Game Convention, or the Battle of Leipzig (which several interviews had the chance to play using the new ETW land battle system).

Gamespy has a very in-depth article here, which goes into detail on the new land battles, using the above-mentioned Battle of Leipzig as a showcase of the new AI, which will decide its objectives on the battlefield in relation to what is happening on the Campaign Map. This new Battlefield AI will use terrain to its advantage as never before. Among other things it will have its troops hide in buildings and wait deep in cities, forcing enemies to come at them in narrow streets where their artillery and cavalry cannot be brought to bear.

That is just the tip of the iceberg, as the article also covers aspects such as the different forms of government the player can have (including revolutions), as well as taxation, and the total revamping of the Strat Map's city management system.

To top that off Total Video Games has an article here that continues the news goodness in an interview with Kieran Bridges of the CA, who talks about pirates (yes there are Pirates in ETW, and they are playable in Custom Battles!), multiplayer options, and more.

You can find links to all of the Leipzig articles here on the Official Empire Total War site.

Finally, you can come here to our ETW forum to discuss these amazing enhancements to the TW game engine.

ETW Landbattle article at Gamespot

Posted by Hussarknight on August 25, AD 2008 @ 10:19 AM

As some of you may be aware, a large games convention is currently being held in Leipzig, Germany. At this convention SEGA has for the first time showed working land battles! Gamespot has written an article about the demonstration and what they have to say looks very promising. Apparently we won't only be able to garrison units inside buildings, Gamespot's articles also mentions the use of minefields!

It all looks very promising, so go read the article here and discuss it here on the forums. Many thanks to Legion Of Hell for the heads-up.

New modding article for M2TW: A Guide to the export_descr_buildings.txt file

Posted by Gaius Colinius on August 24, AD 2008 @ 7:04 AM

The Arch-alchemist Mythic Commodore tired of simple transmutations, such as creating new units and investigated new & exciting elixir relating to the export_descr_buildings.txt file.

Mythic Commodore has kindly shared his secret recipe with us so that we too can understand some of the arcane text files that govern the behaviour of M2TW. You can view the recipe at the link above or visit the new and growing collection of modding articles for Medieval 2: Total War here. You should also visit the feedback thread to leave thanks and comments.

New Faction Overview: Scotland

Posted by Gaius Colinius on August 22, AD 2008 @ 8:59 PM

The faction overview for Scotland is up and you can view it here. Once again, EnemyofJupitor used his vast experience to write the unit & campaign overviews and Kor used his encyclopaedic knowledge of history to write the introduction paragraph on the index page for faction overviews.

Only 2 playable vanilla factions left to cover now: Portugal & Moors. I hope they are of use to ye guys! If you have feedback or suggestions to share, visit the thread on our forums and let us know your thoughts.

New in-game video of E:TW and a brand new site!

Posted by Kor on August 13, AD 2008 @ 11:12 AM

There is a new video out showing actual in-game footage of ships in the upcoming Empire: Total War. You can view the video here. Thanks go to Intrepid from Creative Assembly for pointing it out to us here - you can also use this topic to discuss the footage, which shows the American and British fleets fighting it out using massive broadsides and boarding actions. Apart from that, there's wonderful water to oggle at, as well as some spectacular explosions.

Also, a brand new official Empire: Total War site has gone live. You can visit it here. Note that the soldier has a different appearance on the different language sites available!
Props to Smileyman007 for pointing this out; you can discuss the site in the topic he created here.

ETW US Box Art Caption Competition

Posted by Gaius Colinius on August 7, AD 2008 @ 7:25 PM

We've been running a small little contest on our forums to pass the time until more Empire: Total War news comes out. The idea of the contest was to come up with captions for the image on the US Box Art for Empire: Total War. We've had some good submissions which are listed below but the winner is:

"What do you mean Vermont want in? I just designed the damn flag with 13 stars and it's gonna stay at 13 stars!!"

from cherub007.

The runners up were as follows:

"This is my musket. There are many like it, but this one is mine..." - Ubernoober

"MY LEGS ARE MADE OF BOATS!" - Ecthelion

"This is SPARTA!!!!!!!!" - SubRosa

"Remind me again why I'm ten feet in front of everyone?" - Leo IV

"With that many men holding flags, how many guns can we possibly have?" - Smileyman007

"Argh! Those ships have set my britches on fire!" - Guy Fawkes

"This game costs how much?" - Guy Fawkes

"Hi, I'm Barry Scott and these are my big ships!" - LordTaeglan

"Achoo" - SwampRat

New Faction Overview: Egypt

Posted by Gaius Colinius on August 6, AD 2008 @ 6:13 PM

The faction overview for Egypt is up and you can view it here. This is a slightly unusual overview in that I did up the tables & stuff but EnemyofJupitor used his vast experience to write the unit & campaign overviews and Kor used his encyclopaedic knowledge of history to write the introduction paragraph on the index page for faction overviews.

The good news is that there are only 3 playable vanilla factions left to cover and one of those is half done. After these three are complete, there will be a big push on getting the non-playable factions done (Papal States, Mongols, Timurids & Aztecs) before pushing onto the Kingdoms overviews.
I hope they are of use to ye guys! If you have feedback or suggestions to share, visit the thread on our forums and let us know your thoughts.