Lord of the Rings Mod for Crusader Kings 3 Now Available
The first version of LotR: Realms in Exile mod for Crusader Kings III launched today. Its creators set themselves the goal of transferring the fantasy world created by J.R.R. Tolkien to the popular medieval strategy from Paradox Interactive.
- An early version of the LotR: Realms in Exile mod, which brings the Lord of the Rings universe to Crusader Kings III has launched.
- For the time being we can play as Saruman or King Theoden of Rohan, among others.
- Although the map in the mod is so far limited to 25 provinces, it is already impressive in scale.
The Lord of the Rings universe has been very popular around the world for many years. The lovers of the world created by the British writer J.R.R. Tolkien are numerous among fans of Paradox Interactive games, including the Crusader Kings series. Some of them even made efforts to transfer Arda and its setting to their favorite game. It is enough to mention Middle Earth Project for Crusader Kings II. Early version of the latest attempt of this type, developed for Crusader Kings III, launched yesterday. Meet LotR: Realms in Exile.
In the current version, the number of elements available in the LotR: Realms in Exile mod is quite limited. There is only one starting date (year 3000 of the Third Era). After choosing it, we can decide on one of the few rulers of the period, more or less in central Middle-earth. There are, among others, King Theoden of Rohan and the sorcerer Saruman of Isengard. Each of them has his own culture (for the time being there are five - Rohirrim, Leofring, Istari, as well as two kinds of people from Dunland), religion (People of the Dark, Free People, and Sauron's followers), and family. All of them have to deal with various challenges posed to them by numerous random events (in tone for the The Lord of the Rings universe) and enemies whose armies they will fight on the map. What is important, as the creators of the mod assure, is that it is the most detailed project in the history of Tolkien's presence in video games. In the future, it will consist of "thousands of provinces". Although currently there are only 25 of them, the scope is already visible. In addition to the general outline, it includes models of the most famous settlements and locations, inspired mainly by The Lord of the Rings trilogy directed by Peter Jackson.
Moreover, in the early version of LotR: Realms in Exile, published yesterday, we can find, among other things, special mercenary troops, unique features of characters referring to those possessed by The Lord of the Rings characters, or a system of magic through which Saruman can influence other characters, prepare explosives and summon Uruk-hai. More details can be found here.
It will certainly be interesting to observe how LotR: Realms in Exile will develop in the future. In upcoming updates we can expect more nations, cultures, religions, characters and much more. There should also be other races known from the pages of Tolkien's novels, such as elves, orcs or dwarves. A certain foretaste of what they may look like in this mod is given by another fan project for Crusader Kings III - The Lord of the Rings. You can find it here.
