Vil's Game Improvements: Total War Shogun 2 Partial Release

I've released the initial portions of VGI: Shogun 2 on TWC and Nexus (pending approval). There's not much more to say about it not already covered here or in the release descriptions. It's been rearranged slightly since my last post on the subject; the Technology module was broadened in scope and renamed Campaign, Ancillaries has been completed, and two new minor components (Starter Armies and Difficulty) were added. There is also now a Base file containing common assets and patches for some issues in the vanilla game that I came across in the course of my work.

Future plans are focused on the major AI and Battles components; I also intend to continue balancing and expanding the Campaign module, with specific changes in mind for diplomacy and general economics.

Vil's Indarys Featured in Morrowind Modding Showcase

Vil's Indarys was recently featured in the community-made mod review series Morrowind Modding Showcase. Check it out--my mod shows up at 2:36!

Other People's Games

Little to share from the projects I'm working on at the moment, so I wanted to take a quick moment to plug some games that I think deserve some attention.

OpenMW
Not strictly a game, OpenMW is a community-driven open source implementation of the Morrowind game engine and construction set. Their intention is not to merely recreate the game engine, but to improve upon it, incorporating greater flexibility, addressing hardcoded bugs in the original game, taking advantage of modern graphics capabilities, and more. It's a truly impressive undertaking and they are drawing quite close to version 1.0, which will be as capable of running Morrowind as the original .exe. I'm particularly excited to see what new features they will be able to implement, and the release of OpenMW 1.0 and beyond may provide the impetus for me to return to my half-finished VGI Morrowind project.

Kings of War
I learned of Kings of War during their second edition Kickstarter last fall. A fantasy mass-combat wargame by Mantic Games, Kings of War is essentially a streamlined version of Warhammer Fantasy, but one with numerous advantages. The rules are elegantly minimalistic, featuring everything necessary to capture the feel of large armies clashing while still allowing games to be played in an hour or two rather than a full afternoon. This approach extends to army design as well, with the vast majority of units utilizing the same common pool of special abilities. Each army still retains a distinct identity thanks to its unit design, but is more approachable and balanced thanks to the common elements. Public testing of the game's second edition, featuring several major improvements, is currently underway, and I'm looking forward to repurposing my WHFB High Elves once it's released.

Full Thrust
Full Thrust has been around for a while and I'll admit I've never had the chance to try the rules out, but it's definitely the first place I'll go when I'm looking for a space wargame. The rules are relatively generic, allowing easy adaptation to various settings, and strike a good balance of detail and ease of play. Of particular interest to me is its fan-driven compilation/expansion/consolidation project, Full Thrust Project Continuum (previously Cross Dimensions), which combines and cleans up the rules spread across the original official rulebooks in much a similar vein as the CAV 2.M project. This is definitely a game I would be happy to jump into if I could find an opponent or two, as I quite like the model line.

CAV 2 Mystery Models Part 4

Last but not least, the new Adon and Malvernis models. This will probably be the last CAV content for a while; I need some time to collect playtest results, not to mention the other projects I'm working on.

CAV 2 Mystery Models Part 3

Templar are up next. As with Ritterlich, the majority of these models are associated with a UCOR new in CAV 2 (Viper in this case), calling for a fairly large degree of new background material.

CAV 2 Mystery Models Part 2

Round 2! This week we have the Ritterlich and the Terrans. I realized after posting last week that the six Mil-Net kitbash models were actually released with one-page descriptions and I had simply misplaced the articles. As these articles were originally hosted on Mil-Net which remains offline, I will include descriptions of these models based on the official background in these posts.

CAV 2 Mystery Models Part 1

One unfortunate side effect of the limited support for CAV 2 was the lack of any further Journals of Recognition providing background and descriptions of models newly added to the game. This left over two dozen models with no more description than their in-game data card. At best, some were hinted at in the original Journals of Recognition or given a few lines in a Mil-Net article. Over the next few weeks, I intend to provide a brief description of each of these models, starting with those belonging to the Rach faction. These descriptions will form the basis of a Journal of Recognition-style document which I will release alongside the final CAV 2.M rules.

As a side note, it's probably obvious by now that I've given up on the schedule I mentioned at the start of the year. For now, I'm going to stick with 'most Thursdays' since that seems to be working so far.