Reviews - Ekonk

Great mod with astounding attention to detail. Many new features, models, textures, and an incredible eye for historicity. Truly the Europa Barbarorum of the medieval period.

Great opening up of the camera. Bit fiddly to get to work but very much worth it.

This mod combines the open-ended simulation gameplay of the battles with an open-ended simulation campaign. Bit fiddly to get to work, but follow the instructions and you will be fine. Absolutely great mod!

If I rated this mod only for the new units and mechanics, I'd give it a 10/10. Unfortunately there's more.

PROS:
* The new units are absolutely gorgeous, some of the best I've ever seen in a Total War mod.

* The huge amount of customizable scripts allow you to create your ideal Total War. I love the AI mods.

* Campaign map is big and beautiful.

* New dust effects and stuff look great.

CONS:
* The new buildings are hit and miss, some of them look great but some of them look worse than vanilla (like stone walls).

* Mostly, this mod has a terrible presentation, which really harms the experience. Issues include:

* The English translation, so far, is a terrible machine translation. It's understandable, but it really takes you out of the experience. This will probably be fixed.

* The menu's and loading screens of this mod are, to be frank, worse than amateurish. This sounds like a nitpick but it really takes you out of the experience. Vanilla has a really clean menu and loading screens, they really get you into that grim Total War experience. This mod blows it, and it harms all the great work it showcases elsewhere. I know many mods have some janky menu's and loading screens, but this takes the cake.
The main menu is covered in logo's, text, and shoutouts in glowing text in clashing neon colours. Just, the opposite of atmospheric.
The loading screen images are hit and miss BUT HAVE BOTH THE NAME OF THE MOD AND THE NAME OF THE PERSON WHO COLLECTED THEM WRITTEN OVER THEM IN AN UGLY SEETHROUGH WATERMARK. That person basically ruined their own work collecting those pictures in the first place. There's nothing like taking you out of the anticipation of a battle seeing "art collected by Leeekaaa" and "BULAT STEEL LYNVO" splashed over the art in a really ugly font. These are so terrible that I wouldn't be surprised if a submod gets released to change it. **** I might even make one.

* The music choices are, IMHO, terrible (you can turn them off, though). Hearing the Game of Thrones theme on the campaign map or electric guitars in the battle tracks takes me out of the atmosphere quicker than a punch to the gut.

To conclude: this is an amazing mod wrapped in an ugly, gaudy package that detracts from the great work done inside. I know a lot of mods have this issue of presentation but this one takes the cake. It's a real shame, although if you just close your eyes during the loading screens and don't install any music packs, the absolutely phenomenal work is very enjoyable. 10/10 mod wrapped in a 3/10 presentation.

This Beta is the start of something great. Right now there are many visual glitches (text not fitting in boxes for example) and the lack of colour costumization stand out. However, this is an excellent project that really breathes fresh life into Uplink. I hope to see development continue!