Like any big daft fantasy blockbuster, The Elder Scrolls needs war. Unfortunately, Bethesda’s open-world games have never been too great at the whole mass battle thing. Even Skyrim’s nation-rending civil war never amounted to much more than a gathering of drunk LARPers waving sharp sticks at each other in the snow. The Elder Scrolls: Total War – a complete overhaul to Medieval 2: Total War – launched this week, bringing some proper bombast to battlefields across Tamriel.

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It’s good to be king, and even better to be a sorcerer commanding a swarm of the undead. While the Total War series has grown into more fantastical settings by itself, it was the fans to first stick pointy ears on the venerable strategy game. Thanks to its robust mod support Medieval 2: Total War still has a large and active modding scene. While there are dozens of mods with historically accurate factions, today we’re going to get our Hobbit on and take a look at what’s good for your Elf. It’s mods that make it all fantasy.

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According to an ancient Sussex proverb, there are as many factions in the 20-year-old Total War series as there are sand grains on a beach, as there are angels dancing upon the head of a pin, as there are grenadiers in the armies of his Imperial Majesty Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, King of Italy, Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, Co-Prince of Andorra. This is providing, of course, the answer in each case is between 100 and 200, depending on whether you include the DLC and think Sicily is a real country.

From stinky hill tribes through trim Teutonic phalanxes to bawling rivers of undead, Total Warring has certainly come in all shapes and sizes. At a recent hands-on event for Total War: Three Kingdoms, a heinous idea occurred to me: why not confuse and upset all the developers in attendance (plus a couple more over email) by asking them to pick a favourite faction? The results, which involved surprisingly few headbutts, are below.

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‘Definitive Editions’ of Total War: Empire, Total War: Medieval II, and Total War: Napoleon include all their expansions and DLC and bits, and folks who already own the base games on Steam have been upgraded to their fancy new versions for free. That’s a tidy little gift from developers Creative Assembly, and gets a total phwoar from me. Despite what the name might suggest, the games aren’t revamped or modernised or nowt, they’re just everything all in one package – but that’s not me grumbling. Like I said, a total phwoar, eh? A total phwoar, right? Ah forget it.

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Total War has been enjoying its time among the greenskins and the undead, but we’ve been waiting to see exactly which period it’d land in when it returns to its historical roots for its next major installment. Now the answer is here. Total War: Three Kingdoms.

The year is 190CE. China is in turmoil. The Han Dynasty crumbles before the child-emperor. He is but a figurehead; a mere puppet for the tyrant warlord Dong Zhuo. It is a brutal and oppressive regime, and as Dong Zhuo s power grows, the empire slips further into the cauldron of anarchy… Only one thing is certain: the very future of China will be shaped by its champions. Total War: Three Kingdoms is the next major historical strategy game in the award-winning Total War series.

This is both unexpected and precisely> the kind of setting I was hoping for. A mostly self-contained conflict with a clear end-goal and set of factions. The trailer follows.

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Total War might have been away in the land of elves and orcs for a while now, but it hasn’t forgotten its historical roots. In fact, Creative Assembly are working on three historical Total War games: one is an expansion to an older title, one is a spin-off of sorts called a Saga, and the biggest of the lot is set in an entirely new era. New to Total War, that is. Being historical it will definitely be something old. A big blog post today gives some hints as to what we can expect and I’m just going to come right out and say one word: Vikings.

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Medieval II: Total War is coming to Mac and Linux, nine years after first arriving on Windows. The port is being handled by Feral Interactive and will be released on Thursday January 14th. The pack includes both the base game and its expansion, Kingdoms.

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