Zhanguo (The Warring States) Total War

Getting tired of retracing Alexander’s footsteps across Persia and Egypt? Tired of becoming Imperator in the name of the Senate and the People of Rome? Did you lead your warbands in laying waste to Capitaline Hill 10 times too many? Are you tired of leading the Poeni in monopolizing trade in the Mediterranean for the hundredth time? This mod will take you a few thousand miles East and around 100 years back in time for new adventures, for more massive wars, for new philosophies, new terrain and a new map in which to test your generalship.

Zhanguo Total War starts you off in the year 480 B.C.E. Confucius is nearing the end of his life. The once great united Chinese state has fractured and you must take the reins of Chinese vassal state or principality and lead your armies to conquest. The Senate and 3 Roman House relationship will be represented by the House of Tian and the 3 Huan of Lu. They dominate the state of Qi. The former powerful houses of the now splintered Chinese state such as the Han, Wei, Zhao, Zhi, and Fan now all have their own claims to territory, some conflicting. All are vieing for power in the power vacuum. To the south, the Wu and Yue formed powerful states, the king of Wu is an extremely dangerous foe, having been tutored by the genius, Sun Tzu, himself.

This campaign is a great undertaking. It takes Rome Total War to a part of the world where warfare was a completely different matter than in the West and Middle East. You will not see phalanxes or testudo formations here, but you will see heavily armored infantry, swift, yet hard-hitting cavalry, chariots, horse archers, and a new assortment of weapons, some even nastier looking than the falx or rhompaia. There will be glaives, battle axes, curved swords, and a fine assortment of other weapons of war, with which your soldiers will be equipped. Aside from the ones that your foot soldiers and cavalrymen will be equipped with, there will also be a new variety of siege weaponry at your disposal.

You will n ot only be seeing a completely new roster of units and a new map, however. In order to go the whole way, this mod has even more work. They will be including a brand new set of buildings, all with the classical Chinese look. This modification has stated that it is going for balance of historical realism and gameplay. So while you can expect fully realistic units, factions, and territories, you will not have to worry about one faction becoming a super faction and steamrolling everyone else into the dirt. With the new map’s geography, you will be able to focus now on land trade and be unhindered by having to maintain a navy strong enough to keep from being blockaded, since the majority of the map is landlocked. Only on the far east of this map will there be a significant body of water.

All in all, this proves to be in interesting mod to keep an eye on. The have completed around 15% of their units, finished their entire map, and are starting the building sets and the rest of the units. They have not set a release date, but promise only to release it when it is done. Personally, I am scratching off another 2 GB of space on my hard-drive preparing a copy of my RTW folder in which to install this mod!

The Zhanguo Total War team can be reached at their forum here:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=27200
And they also visit our own Modification Forum occasionally at:
/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=t&fn;=9