Announcing GoT Retro Mod news - Game of Thrones mod for Medieval II: Total War: Kingdoms

Greetings!

I am Firestorm, one of the modders working on the latest release of GoT Enhanced. This article is to announce the upcoming release of a submod for GoT. I wasn’t sure what to call it, so I will just name it the retro mod. Though the name is just a label, as this has been developed on the old Westeros Enhanced, same as the official GoT Enhanced mod.

Why the retro mod? It was in 2017 that I discovered the GoT Enhanced mod, with all the beautiful work on it, especially the amazing models created by Vltima Ratio. Back then, I didn’t think it was possible to have such amazing models in Medieval II Total War. So I decided to get involved into it and together with Mr. Nygren and the help of a few others we released GoT 5.5 and later 5.6. In the aftermath, I looked at it and it didn’t feel like the game I used to love so much back in 2017. Hence I decided to go back and start from scratch with the hope to achieve something different.

It is a retro version as I did setup the faction rosters similar to the first few GoT versions. The household units have been given priority, followed by the regional units and last, the bannermen/minor houses. It is a retro mod, as there are several rebel settlements on the map, same as in the first ever version of GoT. That helps a lot the small factions, and there is better balance in general. It is a retro version as I used mainly the first models of Vltima Ratio, created in 2016 and early 2017. He remade most units from scratch later on but I think the earlier units were better looking. The look of their helmets, shields and other parts, they were darker and more realistic in my opinion. Just look at the Northern Spearmen below:

Nonetheless, this mod looks very similar to the GoT Enhanced, as they share most assets. This is also set at the time of the War of Five Kings. So, it will look familiar to all who played GoT 5.6. The playable factions are:

So the White Walkers aren’t playable here, and the Free Cities have been replaced by the Dothraki.

There are a lot of features from the older GoT versions coming back. The character voices from the TV show is one of them. I find it a cool feature. Also some interactive scripts are back, like the Iron Bank demanding to be paid back, or the Night's Watch asking for support from the Seven Kingdoms. Also magic is back in Westeros. Melisandre will spawn shadows again. There is also a newscript that sort of emulates the ability of the White Walkers to animate the dead, once they win a battle. The Children of the Forest lurk beyond the wall, they have the ability to launch fireballs, which can be devastating against the White Walkers and any OP unit.

Now, all the great houses have banner carriers, not just the Boltons. Mercenaries are back on the map, there are a lot of new sellswords on both Westeros and Essos.

But there is a lot of new stuff as well. The mod is on a different map, smaller than GOT 5.6, but nonetheless is beautiful. The building tree has been revamped:

Now, you will have to build in order to improve your faction's economy and military.

Many of the buildings, especially the military ones can't be destroyed, hence the player can't take advantage and give back a ruin to the AI.

Most of these buildings are from Westeros Total War 1.0 and other Westeros mods, besides some I made myself.

There is also improved artwork/ui, a lot of new strat models, new ancillaries, new scripts and a lot more. Essos is not as polished as Westeros, it is there just to give the Targaryens a starting position. The Dothraki faction is very limited and it is there just to counter House Targaryen early on. If the player tries to expand to Essos with a Westerosi faction, he/she must rely a lot on mercenaries and there’s no recruitment pool there.

Though it wasn’t planned at first, I added the custom settlements from Westeros 1.0, except Moat Cailin who couldn’t make it work. I also managed to retexture some Vanilla settlements for some of the important castles in Westeros. Below you can see all the customised settlements on this mod:

Castle Black

Winterfell

The Eyrie

Pyke

Dragonstone

King's Landing

Casterly Rock

Lannisport

Highgarden

Sunspear

The mod is on advanced internal testing though would appreciate your feedback. If you are interested, stay tuned, as hopefully will be able to release it within 10 days at most.

Sorry for the long post, stay safe as Winter is Coming.