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Is this actually any good?


dancer

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I don't mean to sound rude (but I may come across as that), but is this series of games any good?

I love ASOIAF and I loved the Age of Empire and Age of Mythology series to bits. I'd play on them all day and night and I guess some of you guys did that as well.

What parallels can be drawn between Westeros: Total War and Age of Mythology, and are they worth getting?

Thanks.

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I don't mean to sound rude (but I may come across as that), but is this series of games any good?

I love ASOIAF and I loved the Age of Empire and Age of Mythology series to bits. I'd play on them all day and night and I guess some of you guys did that as well.

What parallels can be drawn between Westeros: Total War and Age of Mythology, and are they worth getting?

Thanks.

Westeros itself is a free user-made mod (modification) of the game Medieval II: Total War. You need that game and its expansion, Kingdoms, or the Gold Edition containing both (usually available pretty cheaply these days), to run Westeros: Total War.

The game and the mod are rather different to the Age of series. The game is divided into two distinct gameplay styles. The first is turn-based and similar to Civilization, if you have ever played that. You have cities which you build up and develop, upgrading different structures to produce better troops, merchants and priests. You form armies out of your troops and march them around the map of Europe/Britain/Westeros.

When they meet another army or attack an enemy city or castle the game shifts to a real-time strategy battlefied. This is more reminiscent of the Age of games, but the traditional tactics in those games (build large force, hurtle them at enemy) won't work massively well here. Things are a bit more realistic, so you need infantry to slug it out, pikemen to deal with cavalry, cavalry to try and flank the enemy, archers to attack the enemy at range and so on. Morale is an important factor: getting the enemy to panic with a well-timed cavalry charge straight into their rear even when they've got a lot of men still alive can lead to victory even for a smaller force.

Both the game and the mod put a lot of weight on diplomacy (the mod far moreso actually, and the improvements they've made over the basic game are impressive). Declaring war on everyone in sight will get you killed in short order. Sometimes it's better to wait things out whilst your two neighbours kick the hell out of one another and then sweep in once they're exhausted. Actively cooperating with an ally is something that doesn't work very well in the basic game, but in the mod it's frequently essential: the mod starts with Robb Stark's host thundering down towards Riverrun to hit Jaime Lannister's forces, whilst Roose Bolton races to take the Trident ford before Tywin can reach it, if you choose to play Stark, of course. The only way for the Stark player to win in the west is to coordinate your attacks with the Tullys, which is nicely done.

Before spending money, it might be an idea to check out the demo here.

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  • 2 weeks later...
OK I think I'll buy this game (I liked Rome) but if I buy it off Steam do you know if I can still mod it with this?

Yes.

Extract the zip file to your Medieval II Total War\mods folder. It should create a folder named Westeros in that directory.

Browse to C:\Program Files\Steam\Steamapps\Common\Medieval II Total War\mods.

Rename one of the Kingdoms campaign folders (Americas, Brittania, Crusades, Teutonic) to something else.

Rename the Westeros folder to the name you changed previously.

Select the name you used from the Launcher.

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OK I think I'll buy this game (I liked Rome) but if I buy it off Steam do you know if I can still mod it with this?

Most definitely. I play the game using Steam. :thumbsup:

There a couple different ways to set it up so let me know if you have any trouble getting it to run.

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  • 1 year later...
  • 1 year later...

Adding to thread *blowing off dust*

Just picked up m2tw gold (2 disc pack <$9 usd), DL Westeros mod and patch.1.5 from TWCenter) Loaded game, patch, Westeros mod.53. Wouldn't work. Trashed entire install with Control Panel, reinstalled without patch 1.5 It now works great. The Westeros mod isn't too bad. Looking forward to v.1.0.

Cheers

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  • 2 weeks later...

I whole-heartedly commend the Westeros Total War team for their wonderful work on this mod. I have played the beta 5.3 version and I have to say it is truly a fine piece of modding work (even if it is still a work-in-progress). From Stainless Steel to Middle Earth Total war, this game ranks high upon my list of favorite Medieval II Total Wars mods. Please keep up the fantastic work.

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  • 1 month later...

Yes, it's really good. It's early stages where the Greyjoys think their German and things like that, but future versions are apparently only going to get more authentic and realistic for the Westeros universe.

If you can ignore the niggles, it's fantastic actually. I love the backing screens, the artwork, the quotes, and the game itself is pretty awesome anyway - and fits the Westeros world well.

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