The Long Night
The Long Night is a half-alt history/half-fantasy mod that I started working on two years ago to test my abilities as a Total War modder. The mod is currently unfinished, as I don’t really have the time to work on it due to school and being tied up in other projects. I figured I may as well release this mod rather than let it sit on my hard drive until the end of time, especially with two new historical titles coming out this year.
The Long Night takes place in a 7th century Europe where an ice age has dominated the climate for over a century. Most northern lands save for the British isles have been left uninhabitable and desolate, and their populaces have moved south in search of warmth and food. The most fertile lands in the world belong to the venerable Roman Empire and the formidable Sassanid Empire, and as a result both have relatively stable food supplies. However, these two factions face multiple external threats, with Rome being completely surrounded by both enemies and potential enemies. Barbarian kingdoms belonging to the Franks and the Goths still stand, though they all face internal or external strife. The Avars seek to expand from the infertile steppes to more fertile land in the south, and the remants of the Ostrogoths stand in their way. The Anglo-Saxons share the barely-survivable British isles with many hostile factions. Yet, in the east, a newly unified Arabia, under Islam, is perhaps best poised to survive and thrive in this new world.
An Eternal Winter: The campaign map is now locked in an eternal winter, where the season does not change ever. This means that snow will forever coat the ground, and that there is year-round attrition. There are also some minor changes to the campaign map itself, such as new lighting. There is also the removal of wildlife from the desolate north, and icebergs added in northern waters via Terry.
Custom Historical Battles: The Long Night features custom historical battles built from the ground up, although only two of them are in a playable state at this time. These historical battles serve as a mini-campaign for the Begotten overlord: the Undergod.
Demonic Invasion: Starting in 666 AD, a Demonic invasion will occur, with the forces of the Undergod invading Europe from the northeast. Precipitating this will be multiple events and a great plague, signs that the end times near.
Dynamic Minor Settlements: A feature carried over from my first Attila mod, minor settlements can now be converted to agriculturual centres that provide more food at a cost of income and security, or fortified settlements which can withstand heavy sieges while costing a significant amount of money.
New Units: Most playable factions have a great deal of new units, specifically the Imperial Remnants and the Ostrogoths. While I can’t verify that they are all balanced to the quality of Total War games, they do freshen up the Attila campaign experience. Also, don’t expect these units to be very historically accurate, although I tried not to go too far into the realm of unrealism.
Major Cities: In the Long Night, there are twelve special provincial capitals that have been selected as Great Cities, giving them their own custom settlement building with unique effects and unique garrisons. There are also a few wonders scattered around the map, such as the Hippodrome in Constantinople.
UI Changes: There are some minor UI changes in this mod to fit the theme of ice age, with most buttons being turned blue, a new frontend background (including blowing snow!), new loading screens, etc.
Story Events: All playable factions in the campaign are assigned a mission on the second turn to form a kingdom/empire, Age of Charlemagne-style. The Imperial Remnants also have some custom dilemmas and events, and I plan to add more for both Rome and other factions later.
Vanguard Units: Similar to the Regiments of Renown of Total War: Warhammer, Vanguard Units are elite units, of which only one of each are available at a time. However, unlike them, Vanguard Units are completely unique, not just upgraded versions of existing ones. As of the initial release of this mod, only a few are available in the campaign, and they are unlocked through the researching of technologies. These replace mercenaries. I will be adding more later.
As I stated above, this mod is somewhat unfinished, and there’s a lot to do before it goes into Beta, so expect a lot of bugs and unfinished content. Here’s a rough todo list of what is to be expected in future updates.
– Add Chinese faction, along with other emergents like vikings and moors (should be easier for the latter two).
– Balance pass on all custom units.
– Building arts for new ampitheatre, Alexandria, Salona, and Barcelona.
– Character arts for Byzantium.
– Finish the historical battles and add a few more.
– Finish vanguard units for the factions that don’t have them.
– Finish begotten invasion script, specifically pertaining to Undergod immortality and more waves.
– Fix babychucker onager for Begotten.
– More units for Avars, Caliphate, Sub-Roman Britain, maybe some for barb kingdoms too.
– More survival elements like an apocalypse meter (similar to war weariness) and food shortage events.
– New story events.
– Victory Conditions.
Hardballler – Creating much of the Vanguard Unit system for me, as well as helping with some scripting odds and ends.
Me – Everything else.
Please make sure that you run this mod with unit sizes on Ultra. Most unit sizes have been downscaled to reflect reduced manpower, and there may also be some other issues with the Begotten units if you do not run unit sizes on Ultra. Also, don’t expect this mod to be compatible with very many mods except for basic graphical ones. Lastly, MAKE SURE YOU RUN THIS MOD IN ENGLISH!!! Failure to run the game in English will probably result in a lot of crashes.
and no this mod has nothing to do with GoT
