I bought this game solely for its Lord of the Rings mod and I don’t regret it at all | Top News

It was the year 2006 and the British from The Creative Assembly were preparing for the launch of Medieval 2: Total War. They were riding the wave of success and I could only see from afar that medieval epic without even being able to taste it. Of course, in 2008, a year after its Kingdoms expansion and with the game downgraded, I lied to my mother. I told him to pay me for a game he was never going to play. Do you know why? That same year he came out Third Age Total Wara mod that turned it into The best unofficial Lord of the Rings game. I couldn’t stay without him, so between lies and punishments, I got what I wanted.

Third Age: Total War, Tolkien’s best non-game

With The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II hitting its stride in 2006, thus ending LOTR’s legacy in strategy, the community said “hold on, now we’re here.” They rebuilt the bases of the original game to house Middle-earth, its factions, castles, characters… and even a story mode to follow in the footsteps of The Fellowship of the Ring and bring the One Ring to Mordor. A real savageryand yes, what the title says is true: I didn’t touch the base game for the remaining years, and I don’t regret it at all.

And it is that, the Anglo-Saxon study has been asked actively and passively to timidly set foot in Middle Earth Enterprises, who hold Tolkien’s rights. If they have made “eyes” to Games Workshop and its Warhammer Fantasy, why not the same with the British? While we sit and wait, these are the benefits of the mod:

• Total reconversion of the game map to move the Middle Earth to grand strategy.
• 125 new types of settlements and another 25 more taken from Tolkien’s compendium.
• 14 factions to control as gondor, Rohan, eriador, rhun either Mordor.
• The British Legendarium is the game manual.
• Castles and fortresses such as Minas Tirith, Edoras, Helm’s Deep or Gundabad to scale and recreated in detail.
• Swords, units, armor and more, all remodeled.
• Mounts like the mumakil, ents either trolls they are playable.
• Includes a campaEsports Extrasmode of The Fellowship of the Ring.
• local multiplayer mode.

Although there have been many Lord of the Rings games, the truth is that the power of this license is not comparable to that of Star Wars. Tolkien’s imaginary has not been able to expand much and has been limited to 3 genres: strategy, adventure and action. There are experiments, yes, like that Conquest that was nothing more than a “LOTR Battlefield”. For this reason, my hand does not tremble in affirming that Third Age: Total War is not even a bastard child, it is a more than worthy successorbut not official.

Of course, and although I would like to see the “past times”, it is only limited to the war of the ring. It is, to call it somehow, the most famous event in the entire Legendarium and what gives visibility to the mod -and almost any game based on it-. Almost like the Empire period in Star Wars, a recognizable event, wide, vast and where you can easily include a story.

Even with its flaws, such as the fact that we can’t control individual units —the importance of the hero came with Warhammer in 2016—, Third Age manages to stick out its chest. The Fellowship of the Ring campaEsports Extrasis quite laughable because Aragorn, for example, is accompanied by rangers; while Legolas does so accompanied by Forest Elves, while Gimli is surrounded by dwarves. This makes the “Community of 9” becomes more than 20. But even with that “advantage” the same goes for enemies and in Moria you will be facing units of 3 or more Balrogs. A festival of the absurd that I love.

How to install Third Age Total War?

In that 2008, installing this mod was playing with fire. Now, enjoying the best non-game of The Lord of the Rings is darn easy. You will hardly need the base game with its expansion, and three .exe files:

1. We downloaded Part 1 and Part 2 of the mod, as well as the TATW 3.2 Patch. The latter is a more current update to the game.
2. When they are downloaded, we run Part 1 and follow the prompts. Once installed, we continue with Part 2 of the mod.

With this I would be. But, in case you play on Steam, there are a couple of things to do additional steps.

• We open the following path “Steam/Steamapps/Common/Medieval II Total War/mods” (the game recognizes the expansion as a mod, don’t ask why).
• We will see several folders, some correspond to the expansion campaigns and another is “Third_Age_3”. we edited the name from one of the Kingdoms (America, Britannia, Crusaders, Teutonic) campaEsports Extrasfolders with the name LOTR. Any campaEsports Extrasis worth it.
• The “Third_Age_3” folder, which includes the mod, we have to name it as LOTR as well

With this, once we start the game and click on the campaEsports Extrasthat we have modified, Third Age: Total War will open automatically.

Why are there no longer mods of this depth and importance?

With the release of the first Total War: Warhammer in 2016, I thought it would be the best possible foundation on which to build a revamped version of Third Age: Total War, but there was a “war” almost secretly with the modders. About the same level as Rockstar Games, who did not take kindly to some creations, CA also frowned on mods. Past Attila: Total War, the code on which the following games are built was armored.

You cannot change the map or add external elements to the stage. The community, at best, has been able to overcome barriers with character editing. This is what saves us from having nothing for gaming. However, the most affected is Third Age: Rise of Mordor, the call to be its successor-sequel mod is in limbo. After several bickering, the community has realized that modd at the same level as its predecessor is impossible. A pity, because he looked criminal.

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