It's newstime again in the Tolkien Modding Community and it goes also a little bit back to the roots, with rediscovered mods.
Released or updated mods
Two mods have been updated. One of them, Legends of Middle-Earth 5.0 for Age of Mythology: The Titans, got a bigger patch. This version will include a slightly updated AI from the one he already managed to get to work in the last patch. Players should please report bugs, so it can get improved-. Hand-in-hand with the AI is the full inclusion of 9 Random Map scripts made especially for LOME; two of which were created for 5.0.3. A few civilisations have gotten reworked too, not to forget the large emphasis, Venlesh/Edu has put on the campaigns. For the full list of changes, read the article The Road Goes On and think about giving it a try!
The other update is the new version 0829 for CK2: Middle Earth Project (CK2:MEP) for the game Crusader Kings II, which got a hotfix already. It fixes the broken event chain for the new training system and blocks the markets line of buildings for numenor groups, removes the Claim Gains from the Purgesome and contains some work on Wonders and bugfixes. Have a full read at their article here.
Activity at modding
There is hardworking folks at the modding project Age of the Ring for Battle for Middle-earth II: Rise of the Witch King. Screenshots of some new maps by Fudge and Haldir (updated by Fudge) have been released and also a progress screenshot on Dol Guldur, all of them pleasant for the eyes to see.
A new old mod of which I was unaware before and which I have added to the lists now too is The Strategy and Tactics Submod, a submod for Edain Mod. TiberiumLeader wrote a developement article about the new features for the faction Arnor, like Guardians of Tharbad, Horsemen of the Grey Havens, Honor Guardists. You can have a read about it here.
lord_ellessar is also eagerly working at Folks of Middle Earth (edain submod), another Edain submod. Just when I thought he has finished all Gondor fiefdom troops and starts with Rhun units that maniac continues again at Gondor fiefdom units. But they are just too beautiful to complain about :D
Not as beautiful on the other hand the first new screenshots of IvanHoe95, who announced that he will start from the scratch again with his modding project Blood in The West for Mount & Blade: Warband. We wish good luck with that!
A nice eye catcher is the Gondor Veteran unit, created by Avelium for Kingdoms of Arda for the upcoming Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord.
Coming to the Total War series, to Medieval II: Total War: Kingdoms to be more exact. Theodron has worked on some user interface for custom battles at his modding project The Blood of Numenor. A sad thing the new home screen he showed of and which you see in the background is not from any Tolkien related work but from the book series 'The Dwarves', which I can really recommend to read.
Activity can also be seen at Silmarillion: Total War, with a nice article about the Falathrim Roster. I like that they are writting down all the background stories and link to Tolkiengateway as reference, even though it's a bit too much linking ^^
Another article about the Dev Diary November can be found here
Rediscovered mods
When I started this moddb group I initially only collected mod links and wrote articles about new found ones. Now I continue a bit with this, going back to the roots one could say. One submod I already mentioned above, the other two are for the BfME-series as well.
First one is Kingdom of Arnor, a mod for Battle for Middle-earth II: Rise of the Witch King. As the name indicates, it adds an almost completely functional vanilla Arnor as a playable faction, with new units, fixes and better Arnor heroes. The last version has been released two around two months ago.
The other mod is creatively just called An Edain SubMod which made a release in September 2016. I think everything is explained by itself here. A lot of interesting stuff to see, the Khand track is nice to hear.
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
