Good mods to come back to

[Lushros Dofine]

It's been a long time since I've played Medieval II and I was looking for some mod recommendations. I'm very experienced with the Total War series, especially Medieval II, and I'm open to mods that feature any time period or fictional setting (like LOTR). I guess my one caveat is that I am looking for mods that have been completed or are extremely polished. In additon, my favorite type are probably "vanilla plus" mods.

For example, I love the Kingdoms Grand Campaign Mod because it adds to the base game rather than radically changing it, but it's been so long since the mod's information has been maintained/updated and now several bug fixes are missing, which drives me crazy. Does anyone have any suggestions for me? I would very much appreciate it. As I said before, I'm willing to give any mod a try, but a more polished successor to KGCM would be fantastic!

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

Nearly all of them!
-> SS is apparently nice if you can get it working
-> DaC is great fun, easier than TATW but a good deal more fun
-> Hyrule Total War is fun for whacking things in an absurd manner and abusing Goron siege weaponry

[Inardesco]

aidenpons eredeti hozzászólása:

Nearly all of them!
-> SS is apparently nice if you can get it working

Until you encounter the HRE. They will crash you into oblivion.

Also, SS is "meant" to slow you down. But you're given such a powerhouse economy that there's no way to be slowed down (from 10k to 30k treasury in like 10 turns). The only reason you're "slow" is due to not having any troops available to recruit.

[Gigantus]

aidenpons eredeti hozzászólása:

-> SS is apparently nice if you can get it working

Blasphemer! My latest copy\paste just so you have a chance to experience the delight that Stainless Steel is.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=861485547

[Gekkibi]

Here's my list of recommendations:
1) Europa Barbarorum 2

Still under development, but the latest semi-annual patch is very much playable and many factions are feature-complete while the less complete factions are only lacking some polish (some factions share the same government trees, have simplified reforms and may lack some unique units from their roster).

Honorable mention goes to Divide & Conquer, a sub mod of Third Age. It should receive its next big patch any moment now.

[Inardesco]

Don't expect the v2.0 for DaC to arrive anytime soon. I'd say first quarter of 2018 but not anytime sooner.

[EoNightcore]

There's actually anew mod that's been released recently.

It's called Total Vanilla, by 4zumi on TWCenter

There are two versions of it.

Total Vanilla 1.0

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?736084-quot-Total-Vanilla-1-0-quot-A-Medieval-2-Kingdoms-mod-(Vanilla-)

^ This one is like the base vanilla game, but includes:
-Ireland, Norway, Lithuania (complete with religion change), Novgorod, Emirate of Damascus and the Empire of Azumi.
-New Non Playable Factions: Tuareg, Apachean
-Special Unique Units for every faction, only one of it recruitable. With unique skins.
-New Unique Buildings, St. Peters, Hagia Sophia, Kaaba,…..
-Reworked recruitment. You can only recruit troops from buildings not any longer from walls.
-New Units, integegrated from the kingdoms campaign and some completely new ones.
-Some new events, like the smallpox event in the americas.
-Two new startup movies (when you start the game) and some new event movies (discover azumis empire, hold 100 regions, discover apachean, etc.)
-Debt script, that keeps the ai going and not going dormant, when bancrupt. But does not allow them to recruit new units until they have a positive balance again, but allows them to build buildings, so they can get out of debt.
-Added a new recruit system for the knightly order troops.
-Free Cities (Rebels) are now able to build and recruit (but stay relatively passive) after turn 50.
-Double movement range for ships and agents
-Now completely in english
-Some changes to guild boni, triggers, etc. Now you should not find a thieves guild everywhere.
-Changes to pike units, to make them more effective, some changes to unit stats, etc….
-More mongols

Of course, Total Vanilla 1 uses these mods as a base:
- Retrofit Mod by Unspoken Knight (TWCenter)
- Grand unit addon mod by Calendarius (TWCENTER)
- Stone Forts Complete by Gigantus (Twcenter)
- Dismounted Mailed Knights by Lord Condormanius (Twcenter)
- G5 Settlement Tweaks v1.01 for M2TW\Kingdoms by Germanicu5 (Tw Center)
And much inspiration and help from the TW Center Forum

[EoNightcore]

There's also Total Vanilla 2.0

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?760219-Total-Vanilla-Beyond-2-0-Release

"It provides more factions, more units and a bigger campaign map with more settlements (including the Americas and expanded to the East)
This mod has also a focus on crusades and the knightly orders, so the possibilities for troop recruitment in the Outremer and through the knightly orders are greatly expanded.
It is not intended for more historical accuracy, so don't expect it accurate beyond the vanilla experience."

As you can probably understand, there's alot of new features just like in Total Vanilla 1.

Seeing as how there's a page for all the features, I'll list some of the more interseting features, such as:
- Mongols – starting far east at Karakorum. (If the Mongols are not played by the player, they will get a huge money boost from 1218-1300. If they feel like it, they could visit europe with some stacks.
- Integrated units from the Kingdoms Campaign (used GUAM v6 + others that were not included in GUAM)
- You can now travel to the Americas with every ship using the northern route, southern route and western route. You will see the AI make use of them fairly early.
- Removed Timurid invasion, because the timurids are now the Cumans, Mongols gained theregore Timurid units, as the Timurids where Mongols with gunpowder anyway.
- Debt Script for AI Factions to prevent them from going into crushing debt.
- Doubled movement range for agents and ships.
- Movement range for armies is now roughly 1.4 times
- Buildable Stone forts, they tend to crumble if left not garrisoned
- Completely reworked the americas
- Also the landmasses are now much closer to the old world, so don't be surprised if you encounter the "new world discovered" event in the first few turns, as the ai now goes there.

and more.

All while trying to keep a vanilla feel to it.

[Armchair Civilian]

Stainless Steel's pretty damn good; yes you *can* develop an obscene economy, but if you play as any form of eastern faction, you'll wind up needing every penny of it. Plus the event scripting is to cry for :P

Third Age is a wonder of reverse engineering, with custom settlements and LoTR immersion galore; the 1.2 patch (which apparently i installed thinking it was the .52 version) has nerfed Imladris hard, but i spose that adds to the challenge :)

The new patch for EB2 looks amazing; the last version was a minor embuggerance even to get working, and the team recommends a fresh installation for said patch, so i haven't tried it YET... however, EB1 is quite possibly my favourite mod ever, and EB2 looks like it aims fo way surpass it, so it'a deffo one to bear in mind.

If you're looking for a more eastern-themed mod, with parts of India, then Broken Crescent is most certainly worth a look.

[Inardesco]

The Winking Skeever eredeti hozzászólása:

Third Age is a wonder of reverse engineering, with custom settlements and LoTR immersion galore; the 1.2 patch (which apparently i installed thinking it was the .52 version) has nerfed Imladris hard, but i spose that adds to the challenge :)

Really? You can still curbstomp OoMM before the barracks event and all regions needed for the long campaign, aside from maybe Barad-Dur and the destruction of Mordor.

In v2.0 they want to change Imladris in such a way that you can't recruit any troops prior to the barracks event because it's supposed to be a refuge, not a place where people can raise entire armies.

[Armchair Civilian]

No horse archer twins or Elrond of the spear persuasion is a pretty hard nerf for me :(

i can see where they're going with 2.0 but it'll just make any Imladris campaign even MORE of a bodyguard e-peen waving contest :P

[Inardesco]

Glorfindel still has Imladris Guard capeable of taking out entire stacks on his own. In v2.0 they'll change him to Eldarinwe Lancers though.

Imladris horse archers weren't that great. The Noldorin Bodyguard are much better imo. They're great archers and almost unkillable in melee.

[Armchair Civilian]

they're great archers, tho i'm always tempted to tweak their ammo levels to something more heroic ;)
That and the fact that the hypothetical nature of their stakes ability is rather frustrating.

[PanoRaMiC]

Gigantus eredeti hozzászólása:

aidenpons eredeti hozzászólása:

-> SS is apparently nice if you can get it working

Blasphemer! My latest copy\paste just so you have a chance to experience the delight that Stainless Steel is.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=861485547

i started your download. im stuck on how to get going with the BIN files. i downloaded bittorrent and it errors. Any other options?

[Inardesco]

Well, you stop downloading bittorent and just get Utorrent.

[Gigantus]

the first link will download all the 6.3 files (6) including the bin files
the second link will download only one 6.4 file

without a description of the error and when it occurs I can't help you further