TMC News - November 2019 I - Tolkien Modding Community

It's newstime again in the Tolkien Modding Community and since I haven't found the time to write a second one for October it's going to be a longer article again ^^

The team behind The Fourth Age: Total War - The Dominion of Men for Rome: Total War released the fourth official patch, describing it as the culmination of more than 10 years of modding effort by hundreds of contributors! The patch includes further graphical improvements, balance adjustments, quality of life additions. For more details have a read here.

Beside that, there has been released another map pack for Third Age: Reforged for Medieval II: Total War which you can pick up here.

To stay at the Total War series and even at the same mod, the Reforged team seems to have some eagles as work in progress. Will be interesting to see how they will work in the end.

Meanwhile there is a lot of activity at the new modding project Silmarillion: Total War. What I love at that mod-team are the plenty of articles they are writting, even thought there could be sometimes more text. But they have some structure while progressing, you can find an article for the House of Finarfin, the Orcs of Angband, the Dominion of Tol-in-Gaurhoth, the Guarded Kingdom of Doriath and the Elves of Ossiriand. There is much to discover, so have a read at them. I am looking forward to see more from the developers there.

Another recently quite active modder is Theodron at his modding project The Blood of Numenor. Two articles cover the Kingdom of Belegaer - which represent the southern colonies of Numenor - and the Kingdom of Numenor, even though it looks like as if Theodron wasn't capable to find words to give some description ^^

To stay with Numenor, some progress can also be seen at Last Alliance: Total War for Total War: Shogun 2. A first Numenor roaster has been presented there which is still work in progress. If I understood it correctly, some kind of mini campaign is in work, you can take a look at it at the video below.

Regarding other mods in the Total War series, there is a new unit preview at Total War: Rise of Mordor for Total War: Attila...

... and some developement news from the submod for it, Rise of Mordor: Submod, which seems to be a bit more active. They announced the work on a campaign in Europe, for more details have a read here.

Switching now to another game series, Battle for Middle Earth, Battle for Middle-earth II: Rise of the Witch King to be more exact, there is also some activity going on, worth to keep an eye on. The introduction here can be done by the mod Age of the Ring which expands a bit it's collection of undead and malicious creatures.

And as some modding projects are expanding their collection of creatures, others are doing the same on their Gondor units. One can wonder if lord_ellessar even plans to have other factions in his mod Folks of Middle Earth (edain submod) :D
He is by the way searching for people helping him at his modding projects. He is looking for a mapper, a rigger (for rigging he can show how to make it) and an animator.

His work is based upon another mod which might be known to you, Edain Mod. They wrote three articles after having been quiet for some months. In the first one with good and bad news they explain that in the light of the changes to copyright laws in Germany, they have had to remove several pieces of music and voices from Edain. But on the other hand, Edain 4.5 seems to be very close. The other two articles are covering the Economy in Edain 4.5 and how the faction Lothlorien will look like in the new version.

On some little note, Halbarad1996 is also eagerly working on his mod Ashes of War.

Coming now to a rather little game, Age of Mythology: The Titans: Venlesh, some know him rather with his alter ego Edu, seems to have had some step forward with the AI at his modding project Legends of Middle-Earth 5.0. You can see below a playtesting with the AI in a 2v2 match in Moria. Also he did some nice job at the Barrow Downs even when he is not really satisfied with it himself.

Coming to my own modding home at the end, the Mount & Blade series, there hasn't been a lot of activity on moddb at Mount & Blade: Warband except that the moddb page of 'The Third Age of Middle-Earth has been deleted by a former developer of the team. Efe however mentioned that he will just open up a new one when the time for it has come. I hope they don't ditch that mod, it has had a nice own style of art.
Efe is also working on a mod for the upcoming Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, The Silmarillion - A Tolkien Project and he made some early tests with models.

The main activity comes however from the eager working modders at the modding project Kingdoms of Arda. It's always a pleasure for the eye to see what they come up with and the artists did all a great job there!

MikeTheEmperor has done some nice job at Harlindon and Forlindon at his game project World of Middle Earth - WOME. You can find the respective articles here and here.

And that's it for today. I hope I have made a nice and informative overview for you about the happenings in the Tolkien Modding Community. As always, should I have forgotten to show off the recent progress of some of your favourite mod teams, don't forget to comment about them below. I will mention them then in the next newsarticle. Feel also free to join the Tolkien Modding Community Discord! Have all a nice day!
Earendil