This mod has been a long time in coming. The idea of a sort of semi-'historical' mod focusing on the Roblox clan environment which I participated in when I was younger has always been something appealing to me, and was the objective of many of my first modding projects, both here on ModDB and outside of it.
My first such mod was for the Paradox Interactive game "Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday", and included such factions as the Mobile Bloxxers (my own group), the Vaktovian Empire, the X-101ST Legion, and others. It approached maturity in the tail end of 2011, but was lost in its entirety when the laptop I was using at the time died. Later, I attempted another such project, this time for the Hearts of Iron successor game "Darkest Hour". This mod made it onto moddb, but was once again mostly lost in a computer incident.
At this point I mostly gave up on using a grand strategy game as the basis for such a project. It didn't translate well to the small-scale combat of Roblox clan wars, nor did it allow me to incorporate the various disparities of technology and skill in a way that was pleasing or made much sense to the player. At the end of the day the game was just a Hearts of Iron recolor, despite my efforts and despite what had already been years of research by that time.
I only returned to the idea of the RoWar mod in 2019 or so. This time, I decided to use an RTS game, one I already had much experience modding and (importantly) had some experience 3d modeling for. This was the 2004 Axis & Allies RTS. On the framework of that old game, I created a much more immersive experience. In this new mod, the sights and sounds of combat returned, with specific units and capabilities across many factions, though the base game's regiment and supply system was ill-fitting when trying to replicate the sort of combat that was common in the clan wars, and there was again no satisfying way to implement spacecraft and the like.
Development of that mod ended in 2023 - it had basically stopped completely before 2022 even ended. There simply wasn't enough interest in the mod or the game it was made for, and the limitations of that game's engine were a continuing source of frustration.
Now, Empire At War is a game which I have also modded for a long time, working on various personal mods and submods over the years, as well as more recently lending a hand in development of some public mods. While I could do almost anything demanded of a modder - from AI work to mapping - creating ALO models and ALA animations for the game appeared completely impossible, and so I ruled out any serious projects. That is, until I found out about the recently developed ALO/ALA exporter tools for Blender.
Now full of hope that I can finally make this dream of mine a reality, it is my belief that I can do a meaningful amount of work on the mod every week or so, or at least every two weeks, enough to justify this ModDB page. Help and support are of course well-appreciated, and it will be a long, long run until completion, but I for one am feeling excited for what possibilities may finally be realized over the course of this total conversion.
While I hope to produce updates more regularly here on ModDB than I did for my two previous, aborted attempts at modding this game, I have also set up a discord server for this mod, which all are free to join, and within which I will try to answer any relevant questions one has about the mod, its development, or the history surrounding it. In any case, thank you for reading!
Discord link: Discord.gg
