4:17 This is literally the best advice for ANY creative type. Having a beta/first draft with flaws is infinitely better than something that you can spend months, years, decades working on to make ‘perfect.’ Eventually, you gotta bite the bullet and release

"Trying to add as many Warlords models as possible" I swear on my life, every single modder's journey begins with a content-dump phase (usually until the game engine can't handle any more) and refines from there

I think Empire at War is perfect game for Warhammer 40k mod. Something like Abaddon's Revenge with Thrawn's Revenge mechanics would be my dream. Just imagine mix of Battlefleet Gothic: Armada and Dawn of War 1. Unlike many other universes, Warhammer 40k has no problem putting together a list of units in space and on ground for many unique factions.

Mass Effect. I really wish for a fully developed EAW Mass Effect mod. The one for Sins is entertaining but space battles in EAW are just much more fun to me. I was really sad when I realized that that one ME mod won't go anywhere.

Warhammer 40k. There is one on the Workshop, but author is from Ukraine. So development is halted currently.

There’s another Halo mod (last time I checked) that just came out in beta called “humanity’s rebellion”. unlike Campaign Commander though it focuses on the Space Battles. I think development on that one is still going

The EaW community absolutely hated us for trying to create a non-Star Wars mod. It was wild. Put a real chip on our shoulder that made us insufferable jerks for the next decade.

2:51 that Sci-Fi at War mod was awesome, even if it was really barebones. Being able to play as the Daleks in the campaign and fight factions from other universes was great, it's the closest the Doctor Who community has ever been to getting a Dalek-themed strategy game

Mass Effect is for sure the one I always wanted to see a full mod for. Thought about trying to make one so many times but whenever I've started learning how, life gets in the way!

I always wanted to see an "Crossover At War" type of mod, sad that the last one died.

i think a warhammer 40k based mod would be awesome, likewise i think a star wars mod in dawn of war soulstorm would be great too

I was a modder of Star Trek Armada 2, and when EAW came out there was a lot of excitement about it. We were all playing with the XML files from the week it came out, but within a few weeks all of us went back because the step up in difficulty of mod making and lack of cheap 3d tools. In Armada I used milkshape 3D, which was like a £20 registration fee, rather than hugely expensive software like 3ds max.

Remember the World in Conflict WW2 conversion that was being developed on ModDB back in the day?

Personally? I would love to see some truly massive mods for Star Trek. One set before and during the Human-Romulan War, one set around the Federation-Klingon war, and one set around the Dominion war. The tech trees would be interesting for each, especially the Federation. Going from Emmettes to Yorktowns, or Crossfields to Constitution refits, or Constellations to Sovereigns... it would rule!

I was so excited when I checked ModDB a while ago, and saw that Campaign Commander was being worked on again, one of my all time fav childhood mods, especially with alot of the art style etc being taken from Halo 2

I really like the concept of the various full conversion type mods that have come about for EAW, like the Starship Troopers mod that was in a few of the screenshots you used in the video, or Fire in the Sky (for 40k). It's pretty sad that most of these mods are abandoned, unfinished, etc. because some of them had tons of work poured into them already.

This did remind me of one universe I really enjoy that I once noticed _could_ potentially function as an EaW mod, though I'm quite certain I'm the only one particularly interested in that possibility and I by no means can be bothered to put the very high amount of needed work in. The universe in question being that of Transformers Animated, which through the two All-Spark Almanacs has a surprisingly high amount of lore actually relevant and usable for a large-scale strategy game. Besides that, more realistically, seeing more obscure areas of Star Wars lore (say, the hypothetical Xim's Revenge), or even not so obscure but still mostly not covered ones like the Sequel Trilogy would be very cool, especially in the EaWX style. Excited for RevRev putting a step into that direction.

There is an under-rated BSG mod too I loved playing. Its ground assets are not there yet, but its space combat is very good. And this is coming from a person who prefers the older original BSG rather than the new series (an odd take perhaps). I played it back before I bought a steam version so this was several years ago. I might need to check it out again.

Hi Arbitur, I loved you in Arby n the Chief. 40k is a good choice, or some book-based mods like Expeditionary Force. Things like Expanse, Honorverse, Bobiverse, Lost Fleet would be cool too just to see how they'd function given the relatively unique mechanics in those settings, but probably well beyond reach for a mod.

The Problem with EAW modding is that the learning curve for a single individual is so steep, that no matter how cool your idea is, if you don't have a team, resources or talent, it's almost not worth doing at all. ~Someone who tried to mod the game since it came out and failed spectacularly.

The ideal one for me has to be Mass Effect, after all "I am the very model of a scientist salarian..." 🤣

Star Craft is a universe that EaW gameplay would really fit. Assets are technically avaliable, if you get a shovel.

I've always wanted to make an Empire at War mod set in the StarCraft universe with lore-scaled units. Problem is with doing that in Empire at War is that the StarCraft 2 engine, the one I am proficient in, is already highly robust on its own and it would probably be better to do such a project there. If you tweak the units enough, you can definitely recreate a lot of the interactions in EaW - including the hardpoint system, someone actually did it in a Real Scale Legacy of the Void campaign mod for StarCraft 2. And due to saturated terrainining tools the ground battles would look incredible and still have the highly responsive StarCraft 2 pathing, something ground battles in EaW sorely lack. So if I ever make an Empire at War-esque mod, it would be in the StarCraft 2 engine.

I think Petroglyph's new game The Great War Western Front could use some modders since not many mods have really came out between now and the modding update

Agreed, we definitely need a Mass Effect mod.

Personally, I'd love a FREESPACE mod. One which can focus more on fighters and a smaller number of larger ships. There's already 3 races to pick from as well. I wouldn't care that there was no ground-base combat.

Kotor one is nice but definitely needs some work with its units being just reskins. Stargate Pegasus is fun as well as the Star Trek one

There was an old halo space mod that i combined with the ground one back in the day for some very janky but amazing fun

Seeing Ultimate Empire at War in that ModDB list was such a flashback, was really looking forward to that one and was super sad when it fell apart

One more idea - BattleTech. A great franchise with extensive lore, history and astrography and great rosters of both ground and space units. That would be glorious!

Starship troopers, and Barrlestar Galactic would be amazing. As would Battletech

I know there's an old Gundam seed mod from back in the day but I would love to see a universal century Gundam mod with mobile suits units for both space and ground. I would play the s*** out of that

I'm probably one of like 3 people alive who would like to see that, but a mod mixing Freespace universe space assets with Battlezone ground units would be sick. I don't have any modding skills (aside of I guess making missions in Freespace 2 using tools provided by the developer, heh, I even made the attack on Death Star II there but using Freespace ships, with all the fancy scripting you can imagine,including a would be super star destroyer crashing into the station and exploding) nor time to learn them nor patience to actually do the project so it will always be something to dream about.

The only thing filling that ‘hole’ is that you, Corey and your team, are literally the heart and soul of not only Empire at War mods, but Empire at War as a whole I’m not gonna be one of those dumbasses who thinks that ‘mod making=game making’ but y’all are pretty much the sole reason this game is relevant. Thank y’all for introducing me and thousands of others to this game that was release two years after I was

Definitely wish there were Battlestar Galactica or Babylon 5 mods out there. Especially with the Babylon 5 reboot/reimagining coming out hopefully soonish, and given Battlestar had some amazing visuals and designs, not to mention rather unique methods of fighting from the two main factions, it could definitely have some interesting gameplay

I do remember the old Babylon 5 mod i really liked it but it was not fleshed out and the longer the game went on the worse the performance got i think it was the old memory leak issue. It was a joy to play with the Omega & G'Quan.

BattleTech could be interesting, as it'd have more emphasis on the ground combat (especially if it's based on the Succession Wars era, when the Inner Sphere didn't have WarShips).

dont get me wrong a Warhammer 40K mod would be awesome for this game...but i can understand why they mostly only did star wars mods for a star wars game

I'm really wanted to play EaW with Mass Effect mod, but author stopped working on it unfortunately...

Still waiting for that SG-1 galactic conquest/campaign that was shown off years ago. Also a remake to Scifi would be interesting.

One thing that stopped me when I created a mod for EAW was that all the plugins that were available for the Alamo engine (the engine that EAW uses) were for 3DS max 8, 7 and 6. Are there by now any new plugins for newer versions of 3ds max or maya? Maybe even for Blender? Also a big problem with the engine was (at least for me) that using any amount of modded content led to a quickly rising amount of desync problems in multiplayer sessions. So far I did not try to get back into modding for EAW because of those two problems, even though EAW is in my opinion one of if not the best space rts in the star wars universe. Sure, many mods for other games do stuff better and EAW never really held what was (at least in Germany at the time) promised by the press but what Petroglyph delivered was nonetheless a really solid game. Not flawless but definitely fun, especially with friends.

I think a lot of new, aspiring modders (especially younger ones) make the mistake of being too ambitious with their scope, wanting to make a large scale mod from the get-go when they don't have the basics figured out yet. I made a small scale personal mod for the base game a long time ago with next to no prior modding knowledge (I still have the files on an old USB drive), and it took much longer than I initially anticipated. It wasn't anything special, mostly making some neutral and unused units buildable by certain factions, tweaking certain gameplay mechanics, adding "new" units via existing models with new abilities (such as the "Tector Star Destroyer," an ISD with no fighters, the Tie Scout's sensor ping, the ability to spy on neighboring systems and a build limit of one) and giving the pirates a bit more variety for their starfighters using a few Warb Null models. You know, the kind of mods that were a dime a dozen back in 2006-2009 on sites like FileFront and HeavenGames. It was decent enough for what it was, though I lacked the skill to tweak some unexpected issues that cropped up, such as the AI spamming the newly enabled units (Imperial IPVs everywhere...).

You know Mr. Institute? damn

I love the Start Trek alliance mod mostly. The ground war needs a bit of love and can be unsettling at times. The space war is fairly decent and just has a few hiccups. For instance space stations are very weak and sometimes doesn't spawn reinforcements. A single fighter can take out the shields and several hard points on a space station. Overall its still a fun mod to play around with.

Is there any plans for increasing the size od maps in thrawns revenge or fall of the Republic?

I mean…there is a halo space battle mod that is fairly pretty good for space battle and their model, do for now it only space skirmish and still need some pretty good work on it.

I'm still waiting for a functional TOR mod.

there NEEDS, I say again, NEEDS to be a Battletech mod for Empire at War:FoC, not only it is a great setting but after listening to some lore videos I actually think Battletech would fit EaW's setup BETTER than Star Wars, the FTL method, the map, warships and the way they fight, dropships being the primary means to get forces to the ground but too unweildy to be used anywhere but designated landing zones, the battle mechs, oh dear lord the FUCKING BATTLE MECHS, holy shit it would be glorious! and the era's you could play out, the age of war, the reunification war, the ameris civil war, THE SUCCESSION WARS, hell, ignore the whole "all warships were destroyed" thing and toss in the clan invasion and all the shit that came after, and as far as ready assets go all the shit in mechwarrior 4 would probably work, hell, can probably grab assets from the battletech mods as well if they're willing, only the space assets would need creating really

I would love to learn more about where to begin! Do I need a background in coding? I'll learn whatever, but I guess the biggest personal barrier was getting it together and learning my first coding language. I would love to make a mod for both medieval 2 total war and Empire at War. I thought it would be fun to bring those "what if Star Wars was invaded by WH40K" hypotheticals into a fun toybox mash up. Players could select the Tau, The Old Republic, The Covenant, and the Klingons for a four way slug fest in space via the EaW FoC engine. In medieval 2 One could pitch the armies of Isengard against an alliance between Milan and the Fremen of Dune. Sort of a true battle sandbox in the context of a mod. As kids it was fun to play with our friends and combine our toyboxes, making our plastic army men fight or team up together, it would be fun to do the video game version of that for both a fantasy and sci-fi setting with these games. Maybe a campaign game would have a huge Invasion map, as splinters of Halo, Star Trek, Homeworld, Warhammer40K, Dune, and other universes factions are cast adrift in small pockets in the Galaxy Far Far away. Maybe it could be called Universes Collided or True Sandbox or something

Of all mods, I'm saddest that dawn of victory never got to see release, either in EaW or Sins of a Solar Empire. I do hope they're able to realize something interactive with what they've got, it would be such a terrible waste otherwise.

I’ve always wanted to try and mod this game however I do not know where to start or I just think way to big of scale but I would of love to still find out one day where the best point to start a mod would be from.

I only bought sins of a solar empire because there was no complete Halo mod for empire at war lmao

Is Corey and the team going to make mods now covering other Sci-fi stuff now?

Farseer is working on space stuff for Halo CC??? He absolutely NAILED the ground combat, so I am super excited to see what his take on Halo space combat would be like!

I wish I were capable of learning how to mod, because the potential of total conversions for EaW is enormous. WH40k and Star Trek are the obvious choices, but just imagine even a space-only mod set in the Freespace universe!

Who tf would want a sequel theme

you should make a stellaris playthrogh with the mod

A warhammer 40k strategy game similar to empire at war with modern graphics and up to date gameplay would be a dream, but sadly that would never happen, they would just mass produce turned based games instead of expanding into strategy. The last strategy game they made was dawn of war 2 and thats at least 2 decades ago.

Yeah I'm kind of starting a Star Trek mod but I've got to learn rigging. Hence why I was asking you about updating your video for Blender 4.0 since so much has changed.

As i am currently watching Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, i kinda would like a mod that adds it in. It has space stations, lots of ships, and ground units. To me just seems like a great franchise to build from.

I really miss the filefront days - in my opinion that is when EAW was at its peak.

I've always wondered about this, but I always assumed it was simply because this is a Star Wars game and therefore attracts a lot of Star Wars fans. I didn't know about all that stuff that happened with the assets, that boosted production of Star Wars mods while others got left in the dust. To your point about not being sure why someone would like Empire at War if they don't like Star Wars, in my case the reason I play Empire at War is that I'm a massive RTS fan and Empire at War is one of the best games in the genre I've ever played, and in my opinion THE best game for space battles in the RTS genre. And to be fair I don't hate Star Wars, I think it's good, I like it, but I'm not as much of a fan as others. And finally, regarding the question of what universes need total conversions for this game, the combination of space/ground in Empire at War is what makes it unique over, say, Sins of a Solar Empire. The problem is that different scifi universes have varying settings - some might take place purely in space with space battles, while others might have limited ground-based engagements. As an example Mass Effect would not work well in Empire at War as a total conversion, because there's only a handful of ground units in the trilogy and you'd need to grasp at straws to fill the ground combat roster. But Halo would fit PERFECTLY in an Empire at War styled game, as it has a full roster of ships and ground forces for both factions and would allow for campaigns that take place both in space and on the ground.

I hope with this new update making moding easier will help

I would really like to see a mod set during the Fel Empire, about 200 years after the battle of Yavin.

i said it before and I will say it again - a proper legends of the galactic heroes mod.

Do you have a video on what each of the Mods that are out and what they Do?

Might have missed it, do you have a how to start modding video. Like ive wanted to learn to do that for ages but have no idea how you start

It's interesting because in so many video games Star wars mods are usually the first one to be added

Great video, very interesting insights!

Still waiting for a Warhamer 40,000 mod Empire becomes the Imperial Guard and Navy Rebels become the Eldar Zahn Consortium becomes Chaos Tech buildings become Necron Structers Hostile Locals become Orks

I wish theyd been able to do more with battlestar galactica, the mods we got for it were...fine; but not very content full

A mod I would love to see would actually be Sonic, there are already three factions in Sonic with space traveling capabilities, 4 if you just count Sonic and friends, but they only would have 3 ships and several fighters. Guess it could be the hard mode pick. But besides them there’s Eggman with the Death Egg obviously being a pallet swap of the Death Star, the many different Eggman warships that are different each Sonic game, and he has plenty of ground forces. Next would be the Black Arms, who have 1 super ship in the Black Comet and a weird ancient ruins ship that could either be multiple different ships or just one really fragmented big one. And they would also have more than enough troops to constitute for ground combat. The final faction could be the Sonic X Metarex since they both have a few ships to pick from, and enough ground troops. Plus it would be silly to have a Sonic mod sitting right next to the Warhammer 40k and Halo mods.

I remember being one of the Devs of an Wh40K mod in the late 00/early `10s... but man did we underestimate the amount of work to make essentalli an enitre new game xD. Never really finished anything. And nowadays GW would lawsuit any new attempt at a mod into the afterlive instantly, anyway... There was a pretty cool Babylon 5 mod though, and i think a Wing Commander mod...

The mod for stargate is awsome but I wish there was a modern style rts game based on sg1

There were a bunch of total conversions, I plqyed them a decade ago.

Cover the Sci-Fi at war mod by Geronimo!

I would kill for a 40k and Halo mod (with sapce battles)

Im really hoping one day that we eventually get a sequel too this wonderful game. This game is a big part of my childhood, the modding community is great but like you've said the hole has made me kind of stray away from the game towards other games like sins or homeworld. I will probably come back to check out campaign commander, its been years since I did so and I thought it was abandoned

40k has the most potential. It's honestly quite surprising that there has only been a couple attempts at it from my knowledge.

warhammer 40k, sure weve gotten ground based rts and like two space base rts but no games combining the two EAW has the potential for that just no one skilled enough to not only endure the less patient sides of the fandom and make models for the like 9 main factions not even counting sub factions

This mod hasn't been maintained in almost a decade, but I miss Ultimate Empire at War. The installer was jank, but the gameplay was awesome!

Im pretty sure those are over at Sins of the Prophet....

Conclusion, Cory is going to make a Halo mod for us gamers 😊🙏

An outer worlds mod would be cool

I still think there is massive potential for a sins of the prophets in EAW. Halo has such a rich space sandbox

so this game still has a lot of active players?

A shame, really. Empire At War's gameplay would translate well even into other universes. I just wish I had the patience to learn the necessary skills to make a mod myself. My dream mod would be a crossover one with multiple sci fi universes, but if I had to pick one franchise besides Star Wars, I think it would be Trek, although I do wonder how that would handle ground battles.

what suprises me is that there isn't a usable Star Trek Mod.

I’ve always thought a battletech mod would be fantastic for EaW

I have always been kind an understanding of modders. I don’t understand what they do. I have tried to learn coding and failed, go dyslexia! I don’t have any money to contribute to modders but I do try to offer at least moral support

I'm not sure if this is a controversial statement, but for years I feel like the biggest reason there's not be as large a variety of settings compared to mods for other games is because the style of gameplay in Empire at War just does not fit a lot of the usual settings. I cannot possibly imaging a Babylon 5 mod working well in Empire at War; you would have to completely ignore the entire planetside aspect of the game unless you were will to flesh out original designs for a setting with factions that casually destroyed entire planets from orbit instead of landing armies.

I suppose a Dino Riders mod would be silly... right?

I've played star trek alliances I think, but it's just not that good. Battles take too long the shields regen way too fast for you to kill anything. I'd love to make my own but I don't have time between school and work. I have ideas based on the thrawns revenge mod but that's all they are ideas.

Oh that's what ModDB means? Lol, always wondered

Many good concepts, I admit, but neither of them feel... just right to me in an EaW scope, aesthetic, combat feel, and so on.

we need crossover mods

There’s an Old Republic at War mod so there’s that to phill your Swtor content

Yoden Mod is the funniest mod of all time

Id love to see a star trek mod and a star trek v star wars mod

I mean, is the lack of sequel trilogy mods REALLY a bad thing? I personally would like to forget it even exists xd