#darthmod

Download empire total war darthmod

France is allied to Spain, and usually I don't really want to risk a war with them, but recently France somehow made enemies out of every German nation in existence, which seems like a pretty good opening for me...

Uncertain Waters

For those of you who had pre-purchased and awaited the coming of Empire: Total War, you should be able to remember how badly made the game was at first.  Massive amounts of bugs and crashes were experienced and patch after patch was needed to stabilize the game.  Even simply deciding to embark an army from your fleet would crash the game.  Though Empire: Total War had a rocky start, it was yet again saved by the Total War mod community. 

Besides the frustrating bugs and crashes found in Empire: Total War during its initial release, there were also many other issues that had players upset, the most prominent of these was the AI.  Playing against the computer was simply the most disgracefully easy experience ever to be had by strategy enthusiasts.  The AI was predictable and rather boring since it rarely responded to flanking maneuvers or imminent threats.  And all too often, it’d be seen throwing its general into the player’s front line.

Another issue—though a little less complained about—was the unexplainably inaccurate artillery.  Even for smooth-bore 18th century cannons, the artillery of this game was piss poor to say the least. However, this problem came with the release of Napoleon: Total War ( for reference, Empire: Total War was released on March 3rd of 2009.  Napoleon Total War was then released less than a year later on February 23rd of 2010).  If one takes the time to look at both games in depth, the latter looks better, runs better, and was released without any notable bugs.  The two games even look entirely different.  

The problem lies with Creative Assembly’s haste in releasing Empire when they ought to have waited another year to improve upon it with all of the nuances of Napoleon. Many players seemed to argue that they would have rather waited a full year than to waste their cash on a broken game. All is not lost, however. Had not been for the Total War mod community (in this particular case, Darthmod specifically) Empire: Total War would just be another bad gaming memory. 

The Dark Side is Best Side

Darthmod Productions is a well known mod creater for various Total War games and rightly so.  It can be argued that any Total War game that has a Darthmod available is a much improved experience.  In the case of Empire: Total War, it is this writer’s opinion that Darthmod makes the game extremely fun—at least more fun than the vanilla version.  

Darthmod makes a large number of changes as well as adding new content.  New units are added to each of the major factions.  The uniforms are redone to make them historically authentic and they really do look quite pretty (come on, it is the 18th century after all).  One also gets to see more of those pretty uniforms as unit size is almost doubled.  Rather than the vanilla's 160 musketeers per regiment, one will find they can increase the size to over 350 soldiers.  Cavalry regiment size is also increased by double as well.  This means that battles can become even grander and more epic than ever before.

Cavalry in the vanilla version were usually useless and would generally find themselves losing to infantry.  Darthmod changes this by increasing the charge damage and also allows for the cavalry regiment to actually charge through the enemy, rather than be immediately stopped after impact.  This feature gives the battlefield a more realistic touch.  Another of many examples would be how artillery is also made to be more accurate and more deadly on impact.

New sounds and visuals are also included.  When a regiment is ordered to move, its drummer or trumpeter will begin to play a tune to march to.  Orders will also be heard as regiments engage.  Cannons and muskets also have new report sounds to increase realism as they crack and burst with increased violence.  Explosive shells also sound and look much better too.  Finally, as your troopers continuously fire, they will begin to fill the field with smoke, a very real problem faced by 18th century armies. 

And of course, most importantly of all, Darthmod fixes the AI.  It should be said that even after this fix, it still is not as good as one would hope, but it is still a great improvement.  The AI will usually pull some flanking moves and will respond to the player’s attacks and flanking movements.  And finally, they no longer throw their general into the fray right off from the start. 

Hello, Everyone!  Today I didn't feel like writing a review of any particular game, because 1) I haven't been playing one particularly interesting or relevant that I'm sure it'd be interesting and 2) Fuck it.  I have been playing an awful lot of Total War lately, so let's just jam all those titles into this article.  For those of you who don't know, Total War games are a mix of turn-based and real time strategy, with administration, economic growth, and agent and army movement on the campaign's turn-based side, and all the fighting taking place in real time battles requiring tactical processes and, when playing an installment with cannons, who has the best fucking cannons.  I really like Total War, to be frank.  Most Strategy games that I've played that take such an active interest in fighting are typically restricted to building a base and an army as fast as you can, then rushing your opponent.  And while that can be fun if you were in the mood for it, I find it more irritating than anything else.  If you are still part of group A who knows enough about Total War, though, you would also know that many of the installments have their own quirks, like how Rome: Total War has the economic sense of a bankrupt weasel and will end any plans of world domination, or how many of the earlier games have issues like path-finding and misinterpreting orders.  Which is why I play with Darth Mod.

If you're not a fan of modding, Just give this a chance for the Total War games.  Darth Mod (which can be easily downloaded at moddb.com) is designed to correct the problems of that show up in the game as well as improving on some of the mechanics and content.  For example, Creative Assembly does TRY to keep the game historically accurate.  However, you end up with a lot of generalizations and inconsistencies with the actual history that we know of when it comes to whatever time period we are going to absolutely demolish.  And why wouldn't there be?  It's a huge game, one which will needs a lot of time and consideration on the part of the creators to at least get the damn thing out there in a presentable version.  Darth Mod won't fix all of them, but it will modify the attributes of some units and buildings, as well as add new units to diversify the game and bring more historical relevancy to it.  Plenty of concepts, like economic development, diplomacy, army building and tactics, and what constitutes a wise plan are changed for the better by Darth Mod.

As far as I know, there are Darth Mod versions for every Total War game from at least Rome: Total War to Shogun 2: Total War.  After being snubbed by Creative Assembly at their modder's summit (or whatever, I don't know/care), Darth (the creator) has decided he won't make anymore, on account of his butt hurt.  I would bet however he comes back for Rome II, because it's too good to pass up for him.

So if you happen to be a Total War fan (or just happen to have a lot of time on your hands), I recommend downloading the latest version of Darth mod for whatever installments you have.