For King or Country is a total-conversion for British RTS, Medieval 2: Total War. Only fitting then, that somebody releases a modification emphasising an important part of Britain’s intricate history; The English Civil War.

This Medieval 2: Total War modification adds an entirely new campaign, allowing you to side either with the right-wing loyal Royalists, or the democratic Parliamentarians within an accurately realised 17th Century Britain. Unit types, towns, buildings have all been changed to suit the new period of time in which you will play, ensuring an entirely different campaign experience. Battles have changed too, delivering what Total War aficionados may contemplate as a stepping stone between Medieval 2 and the upcoming Empire: Total War with the inclusion of thoroughly reprogrammed AI in order to reflect the new approach to battlefield tactics at the time.

We at GameOnYou wouldn’t of course be talking about this game if we didn’t either anticipate it or highly recommend it and for FKoK we proudly broadcast the latter. Hit the break for the interview with creator, AlphaDelta.

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GameOnYou UK (GoY): Medieval 2: Total War was created by a team of 70 industry professionals. For King Or Country is a modification of notable quality, and we’d like to ask how many people you have on the development team, and what the experience has been like in creating a modification of comparable quality to the original?

AlphaDelta (AD): For King or Country was developed by a team of 1, myself. Although I have had help in the form of contributions from other notable community members; Grandviz (Campaign and Battle AI), Headlock (Battlefield smoke mod), Macky (Faction Descriptions), GrnEyedDvl (12 turns per year script), Point blank (Unit stats). The website was kindly developed and financed by ‘Tharros’.
Thankfully, the M2TW engine is a highly flexible piece of software and is in general: “modder-friendly”. A modder can cut a lot of the corners that a development team would not dare to. For example, there are no ‘far LOD’s (level of details)’ in For King or Country. This hurts performance to a small extent but saves me a lot of development time.
Developing For King or Country was (and is) time consuming but it has been a much simpler task in comparison to the previous project I helped develop (Broken Crescent).

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GoY: Medieval 2: Total War is a game of swords, arrows and horses. How difficult was it creating a mod with such contrasting units and gameplay?

AD: The Creative Assembly (the developer of M2TW) had the foresight to include musket units, cannons and pikemen - so the majority of the under-pinning mechanics were already implemented before I started work on the mod. One area that has received a large overhaul has been the AI in battles. Unfortunately, medieval warfare was quite different to 17th century pike and musket warfare and it’s been a challenge to rein in the units and try to make them behave as a single mass of men.

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GoY: For King or Country is a highly detailed modification, containing accurate units, weapons and scripts. What research did you undertake in order to achieve such a level of detail?

AD: Research was a huge task and remains a huge task. I purchased just about every Osprey book I could acquire that related to the English Civil wars, and I read them all religiously.
After seeing the abundance of material available on the war I was determined to avoid unnecessary historical inaccuracy.
There were so many important men and regiments in the war, that it’s been fundamental to ‘get them right’. From day 1 of development I wanted historical commanders, not just historical by name, but by portrait picture, starting position, traits, regiment, force size etc

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GoY: The vast majority of modification projects do not live long enough to see completion. What precautions did you take to ensure that FKoC made it to the public?

AD: The single most important factor in guiding development has been sticking to a strict scope and avoiding ‘faction creep’. It would have been very easy to say “Ok I’ll add the Scottish Royalists, the Irish Confederates, and yeah why not add the Welsh..” but it would have done the mod no good whatsoever.
The level of detail required to make a mod these days means that a limited scope is not just an option but a requirement, especially if you intend to make it historically accurate.
Very few people have the passion and time required to sit down for a thousand hours and develop a fully fleshed out modification that matches the original game in terms of scope.

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GoY: Are there any particular aspects which you were impressed by upon playing Medieval 2 which you purposefully implemented or adapted for FKoC?

AD: Apart from the AI, I was impressed by every aspect of M2TW. Most of the M2TW gameplay elements have been adapted and implemented.

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GoY: The success of a modification depends greatly on the support it receives from both the community and established publications. Would you say this statement applies to FKoC, and what support have you received through its development?

AD: The support from the community has been immensely helpful. Aside from the contributors that provided invaluable work, there is a large body of historians and a smaller body of English Civil war re-enactors that have provided me with in-depth knowledge and resources.
The expertise of the forum goers is staggering and I sincerely hope they continue to discuss the history of the period.

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GoY: If you were going to create a modification for any game apart from the Total War series, what would it be - and what do you think you’d add?

AD: I hate to be boring, but I would make an English Civil War mod for “Mount and Blade”. The thought of playing FKoC in first person is just orgasmic!

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GoY: Finally, Are there any gameplay tips you have for potential FKoC players?

AD: Sure here are some suggestions I posted on the forums for general gameplay:

• Don’t re-organise your pikes and muskets.
• Don’t try to micro-manage pikes
• Use the default formation, group all of the muskets and pikes and use them as one mass.
• Use < and > to rotate the mass of pikes and muskets.
• If the formation becomes messed up, you can hit 1 to select your pike/musket group then double click on the ground, they’ll reform their original formation.

A lot of people have found it difficult to use Dragoons. Here are some tips for how to use them:

• Skirmishing - Bring them to the front and harass the enemy as it comes towards you.
• Flanking - While your line infantry are engaging bring them to the flanks and rear.
• Protecting friendly cavalry - Mix them in the ranks of your cavalry and they will protect your cavalry from enemy cavalry.
• Anti-artillery - Their long rang and widely dispersed ranks make them an excellent choice for sniping enemy artillery units if you cavalry is tied up elsewhere.
• Ambushing - Put them in a hedge/tree line and they’ll ambush the passing enemy. I think in 1.15 they aren’t able to hide but they can in 1.2

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If you want to find more information on For King or Country, check out the official website, or the TWCenter Forums.

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