TMC News - August 2020, II

Here it is, the second newsletter for August 2020. This time again with a relatively big section about (re)discovered mods. Also I got reinforcements for my team here, more about this at the bottom. I hope it is again a good overview about the happenings in the Tolkien Modding Community ^^

As usual JUS_SAURON updated his mod Power Of the Ring - Campaigns Of Middle Earth. He is doing it in bigger time jumps now, not sure if he read my comment in the last newsletter about it. And der-Kalli has released an addon, a texture pack for Battle for Middle-earth.

At Legends of Middle-Earth 5.0 for Age of Mythology: The Titans Venlesh has released two campaigns at steam: Adventures at Middle-Earth and The Silmarillion. Give them a try if you haven't already.

At the modding project Lord of Universalis 2 for the game Europa Universalis IV Macbeth has linked a gameplay video of a rather exotic faction, deep in the South of Middle-earth.

Coming already to the BfME game series, Battle for Middle-earth II: Rise of the Witch King to be more exact. Gnomi has written an artivle about the development of Edain Mod in the year 2020 until now. He reviewed what they did so far with the release of version 4.5 in the beginning of the year and the BattleZone Cup. Their plans for the future, so version 4.6 contains the long promised faction of the Misty Mountains. The next upcoming patch, version 4.5.4, will come in the near future, with mostly a fixpatch and only containing smaller changes. Have a full read at the article here.

The team of Age of the Ring is meanwhile entertaining their players with weekly challenges. The numbers 4, 5 and 6 have been given in the last weeks: Eaves of the Golden Wood, The Shaman's Beast and Scouring of the Shire. And lord_ellessar presented some fancy Glorfindel unit for Folks of Middle Earth (edain submod).

A surprise of the last weeks has been the announcement of the developers of The Fourth Age: Total War - The Dominion of Men for the game Rome: Total War to work on a new submod with the main concentration on the Wainraiders. It will feature fully overhauled factions, an updated campaign map, and new mechanics and gameplay systems all designed to effectively transport the setting of the main campaign to T.A. 1864. Have a full read here.

Eager as always the developers of Heirs of Elendil for Medieval II: Total War: Kingdoms, showing off far more pictures than I can view to you here. So also go to their mod page to take a look at the others. They seem to concentrate currently on units for Rhudaur and Eriador, some nice looking Elves made it also into the game thanks to the provision of them by Louis_Lux.

At Silmarillion: Total War the House of the Hammer or Wrath made their introduction.

At The Blood of Numenor Theodron wrote a little article about the mostly sporadic and inconsistent work on the mod in which he is also looking for reinforcement of his one-man-team. You can read it here.

A lot of nice work has been shown off again at Total War: Rise of Mordor for Total War: Attila. They seem to have really productive weeks and their work can really be shown around I have to say. They also wrote a little Development Log for August 2020, summarising the happenings since the last log. You can have a full read here.

Meanwhile Rise of Mordor: Submod uploaded a little clickbait video, telling that the update 2.0 is coming soon.

The developers of Persistent Lord of the Rings (PLotR) for Mount & Blade: Warband still haven't updated their mod. They seem to wait until TaleWorlds has fixed the private server issue which is a clever move since otherwise they will get a lot of complaints themselves. So they stay with posting pictures from time to time.

Long time we have had nothing at this section, now we got some newcomers into the Tolkien Modding Community, mods of old and mods which somehow escaped my sight until now. And we will start with the game Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring, a game which gives one a little bit the feeling that it is the predecessor of the BfME game series. MatttheLegoman noted that the Dwarven mighty catapult is inspired by Sierra's WotR, to give an example. It also has an actively developed mod, PalMz' Insane Warfare Mod which has currently the version number 0.5.1. PalMz17 seems to be a bit a lonewolf there at modding but as long as he has fun that doesn't matter in my opinion.

A second mod for the same game is One Balance to Rule Them All (v0.2) by aidenpons. It seems to have been finished, here I am again not sure if he is actively working at it.

Then I forgot for a long while about a game which I played intensive for many weeks many years ago: TripleA. It's originally a board game which has been developed as a free to download computer game. One can select different maps and thus different settings. And guess what, there is also a LotR mod for it! The moddb page seems to be a bit outdated, therefore better download the game directly at Triplea-game.org. The mod 'Middle Earth: Battle For Arda' can be found here.

For Crusader Kings II two more mods have been added to the list, both have been given up on as far as I have seen. One is Middle-Earth... in Earth, the other one is Quenta Silmarillion: A Middle-Earth Project SubMod.

At the modding project The Last Battle of Middle Earth for Civilization V, developed by RomeoTheMaster, I am not sure if it is still getting actively developed, perhaps he is just taking a break.

Another interesting modding project is the one NOAHakaVOSEN, Command and Conquer Generals - The Battle For Middle-Earth for the game C&C: Generals. In that mod you will be able to play as USA or Mordor.

And not less than three mods for Minecraft have been added: ArdaCraft, Minecraft Middle Earth and Lord of the Rings Mod. Sadly none of them present at moddb but I linked the respective pages. Screenshots are from the mod ArdaCraft, the installation tutorial for Lord of the Rings Mod.

MikeTheEmperor wrote two nice little articles about his recent work, Vale of Flowers and The Shadow Lands. Piece by piece Middle-earth seems to be completed.

And at The Battle for Middle-Earth: Reforged they showed off a new Easterling model.

Following my call Looking for a Sam I can tell now happily that three community members have answered to it. So welcome with me CaseBody, MattTheLegoman and Argeomer (aka Thousen_Muchachos at discord)! Since I am biased a bit to my own modding home at M&B it is really nice to have now someone at board for BfME (Matt) and Total War (Case) as well, beside their knowledge at other games/mods. And Argeomer mentioned that he plans to do a series of gameplay videos of lesser known or old mods. I am looking forward to how it will all develope in the Tolkien Modding Community in the futur!