Total War: 1942 Beta 1.0 Released on may 7th 2019!

 The full 1.0 BETA of the Rome Total War mod "Total War: 1942" has been released on may 2 2019 - the article arrives a little late. The mod is a total overhaul of the vanilla game, made by Dagovax Sirrianus and Saloth-Sar first and foremost - with me doing the quotes, faction descriptions and some placements of troops in the campaign. The mod offers entirely new rosters, animations, WW2 sound, a world wide map - it is World War Two in Total War - and the animations etc makes it real!

Total War: 1942 - the first legit WW2 mod for a Total War title. Unlike earlier attempts on the Empire Total War, and Medieval II: Total War engines - the mod actually succeeds in bringing the feeling of the World War Two battlefields to a Total War mod. It doesn't just have the tanks, artillery and infantry, but it also delivers the sound, the animations for the planes when they move, the moving turrets of the tanks, realistic shells and bombs, infantry with realistic animations, explosions, mortars and everything. It doesn't feel like Rome Total War with tanks, it feels like World War Two in the Rome Total War engine.

Total War: 1942 Official BETA 1.0:

Download Total War : 1942 v1.0 (Release) - Mod DB

Instructions for the CD-version of Rome Total War or Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion:

"Instructions:
1) Extract all the content inside the folder "Total War - 1942 (v1.0)" to the root of your Rome: Total War version.
If you have BI installed, you dont need to copy the bi folder. If you dont have bi, you need to copy bi folder too.

2) Run the movie swapper to get our intro movies. (run it again to swap old intro back)

3) After extracting, open the Total War - 1942.exe and start playing!

Note that there are 2 kind of custom battles: Battles fought on sea, and battles fought on land. Keep the custom battles seperated (all units are in the faction selection screen, so use ships for SEA maps, and the rest for land maps).

Multiplayer:
In the included README file there is a guide how to play this mod multiplayer on GameRanger.

NOTES:
We are aware of random crashes during campaigns. This is because the game engine is very old and we are overloading the engine a bit with all those content. So save the game more often and restart when you have a crash. When you are really stuck in the campaign, contact us."

Instructions for the Steam-version:

"Steam needs players to go to the Steam library, then right click "Rome Total War", then click on "Egenskaper" at the bottom but will be a different english word similar to characteristics but probably not that one - as Google Translate showed it but i think it is wrong.

Then when clicked on one has to click on the "set starting alternative" and then once there add the line: -nm 1942 -show_err -mod:bi\1942

But the mod also need to be (the full mod) in both the C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Rome Total War Gold folder, and in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Rome Total War Gold\BI-folder.

So Steam needs two versions."

Background might be vanilla with new title for Steam. Should still work. FMV-movie might not play with Steam using this method. I am not sure how to make the movie play on Steam.

Changes since the DEMO from september 2018:

1. All 18 playable factions have finished armies, and the 19th faction is the only one that isn't in use yet.

2. More historical battles, and custom battle maps - including maps with new custom WW2 fortifications such as new walls and new towers.

3. A Campaign spanning the entire world, where you can play as any of the 18 playable factions. A 19th faction (the United Nations) is also on the map but should never be defeated - because it is the senate and if it is beaten the alliances between the Roman-based factions (that is the Allies, such as the USA, Britain and the French Republic) would not hold anymore.

4. New sound of units, weapons, machines, voices, music etc.

5. Intro-videos for the four main factions of the USA, German Reich, Imperial Japan and the USSR.

6. New Agents for generals, captains, spies, assassins, and diplomats on the campaign map - and of course new ships.

7. New custom settlement strat-models for many factions, both for the Soviet faction especially - but also some settlements with custom fortifications based on the new fortifications in battles.

8. New custom walls, towers, rams and such in the campaign.

9. New Quotes, faction descriptions, faction selection screen UI:s and such.

10 New rebels, mercenaries, garrisons etc placed out and spawning in the campaign.

11. Victory conditions for every faction, historically accurate armies in Africa and in the South-East Asia theater.

12. Forced Diplomacy - you can force any faction to accept your deals using the Forced Diplomacy function. The AI usually betrays it's human allies if playing any other faction than the Roman-based ones. As such the Forced Diplomacy feature is necessary to force your allies back into line if they betray you. Usually the protectorates are less likely to betray you than the ones who are just allied. So a tip is to force a traitor-nation to become your protectorate using this method if they ever betray you.

I regard "Forced Diplomacy" as cheating if used against enemies. But to keep for example Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Finland in line if you are the German Reich - it is necessary. The same is true if you are one of the smaller factions and do not want all your allies to attack you at one point. If you want to keep the mod accurate to history this function helps.

To use it, simply send a diplomat to a faction, then click on the ?-mark when you are in the diplomacy-screen, after which an advisor should pop up on your upper left corner. Click on the "show me how"-button and the Forced Diplomacy should be active. It doesn't work with Bribes, and you always do need to give the AI something - just give them map information or 1 gold/dollar etc and they'll accept any demands.

Temporary preview video, as the version previewed in this video is slightly outdated and also personal. I will make a new one with the recent version soon. But this version still shows the gameplay of the mod- beware that many units are wrong, and that the quotes, faction descriptions and so on ain't finished in this video from march 18. But at least it has some cool battles with great armies.