Vapourware Good 5th-6th century AD Mod for any Total War game?

[AwesomeButton]

I've played the vanilla Rome: Total War - Barbarian Invasion. I quite liked it, even though it was the vanilla expansion. I've also played the mod, let me check its name, Invasio Barbarorum (https://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?113-INVASIO-BARBARORVM-(IB)-(BI)). It was really evocative of the era, and I enjoyed it. Then in more recent times I've played about 40 hrs of Total War: Attila. I'd put that as the least fun, because the dumbed down mechanics were already in full force, and the cracks in the campaign AI were pretty visible. Or maybe it's kind of my fault because I tried playing a barbarian faction.

I'm wondering if there are good mods in this timeframe that I've missed because I haven't been following the scene for a while. If there is a good Rome 2 mod for that time, I'm willing to try it out too.

 

[Victor1234]

It's a bit earlier than 5th century, but you should try the submods of that mod you linked. I can recommend the Somnium Iuliani one and the Restitutor Orbis. I liked the setting of the first better, but the 2nd one is newer with slightly better mechanics.

This same team did release a (limited) version of the mod for MTW2: Kingdoms called Invasio Barbarorum II set in the same period and you can also find that on TWCenter. They did one mini-campaign set in Britain and another set in Africa during the Vandal invasion, with the intention of combining them and releasing a proper grand campaign but they never got around to it before the team broke up. It's a shame because they barely squeezed Restitutor Orbis out, let alone made their ambitious projects for later games work. Still, if you like either setting it's great and more similar to RTW than it is to Attila.

If you didn't like Attila, you probably won't like the mechanics in RTW2 either, but I'll mention the mods anyways. There's Fall of the Eagles for Attila and Constantine: Rise of Christianity for RTW2. Both of those games are so borked in general and limited in modding capability compared to previous games though. I tried Troy, Atilla and RTW2 but the campaigns are just terrible so I'm of the opinion the series peaked with MTW2:K.

You can tell new Total War games are even worse though. There are literally no total conversion mods for the Warhammer games. At some point CA locked the campaign map and models from modders so you just get minor UI/model/AI tweaks but nothing like what existed before for the old games.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Thanks! I had already installed Restitutor Orbis, and I'm choosing what provinces to abandon at turn 1, making guesses where I'll get attacked

 

[Victor1234]

Thanks! I had already installed Restitutor Orbis, and I'm choosing what provinces to abandon at turn 1, making guesses where I'll get attacked

Heh, probably everywhere considering the mod! Here's also another one for MTW2:K that I didn't mention. Looks like after the IB2 team ended work, some new guys picked up the Britain campaign and are still working on it as recently as this November. They also added some historical battles like the big dustup between Aetius and Attila.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/insularis-draco

 

[AwesomeButton]

Excellent! I've always been of the opinion that the proper size for a TW map is a region. The performance is better, the campaign AI manages more easily, more detail on the map can be afforded, CTDs are less frequent. It's no coincidence the TW games began with a region-sized map, and the best games in the series have been region-sized campaigns - Viking Invasion, Teutonic Order.

Unfortunately the corporate drive has always been to make bigger and bigger maps, to please the masses.