So.... Apparently I won a modding award.

It appears the stream where I saw this is no longer available......

Tuskmod has recently won the 2015 overhaul mod of the year.... Uh. This is... So unexpected. Especially since I was completely unaware that CA was even holding a convention. :doh:

There are so many talented teams in this community, most of whom I couldn't even manage to compete with when it comes to raw mobility, diveristy of talents (Hah. Me spriting, or doing 3D modeling would actually kinda be a joke...) I really wasn't expecting to be a contender until 2016, or 2017. This might just be me being harsh on myself, as I do tend to see my work as being far less complete then the handful of fans I regularly speak with tend to see it as. At the same time, had I ever decided Tuskmod was complete, would it have ever gotten as good as it has now?

Its simple, this mod is the product of just my ideas, and its normally correct that overhauls should go to large teams with diverse talentbases. The reason I see for it is a pretty clear one, the more people you have, the more ideas your group will have in the long run, and the better your team as a whole will get at weeding out implausible ones (Provided the members are on a roughly even playing field.)

My ideas have almost always been just my own, as... Feedback has been scarce. The communities I tried to earn the trust of early on at the time were worshiping the ideas of mirror matchups in tournaments, and generally insulted me for trying to balance diversity. As we all know, the multiplayer community for Attila is now almost dead, and me trying to draw them under my wing as a source of feedback for improving the mod I make had fallen apart in a disastrous way. I don't hold a grudge against them for not trusting me, nobody knew my name, and as of now, my work is still fairly unsung among this community. I still wish I could have "Saved" Attila multiplayer before its death.

Of course, I guess its time to consider what this means for the future of me Modding, For Tuskmod, For Tuskhammer, and other such mods in the future.
If I have won an award already, I suppose its time for me to do my best to try and make this a second coming of darthmod. I say this without a hint of irony either. I always wanted to make tuskmod this, but for the longest time, I have been all too shy about this goal. It wasn't until halfway throughout the tuskmod project that any of the community began acting like it trusted me at all, I didn't want to make promises that you guys wouldn't believe I could keep, but a sudden shift happened which became the golden age of feedback for my mod which is what inspired me to take on my biggest projects with it, the initiative system, dynamic garrisons, and the impact damage revamp.

I blame this popularity spike on Maximus. The biggest spike I have ever had in interest in my work was after he posted a video on how tuskmod revamped cavalry movement speeds to his liking, and it was uphill from there. Sure enough, after this point, CA patch after CA patch had an fallout of me receiving message after message about how CA had copied tricks I had used sometime in making my mod (Of course, I have enough faith in them that I think they thought of at least half of it on their own independently of me.)

But of course... If none of you had really reacted to his content, and taken a risk on the creations of a still unknown modder... Its very likely that I would have been satisfied with a less ambitious project.

Now... Back on topic. Its time that I make this mod heard, because my efforts to make the current total war the best total war, through the powers of modding and refinement, will always be most effective with the voices of everyone getting involved in it. I said we should make this a second coming of Darthmod, but here is hoping that it might become more then just that, because, I want to share my excitement in the Total War, and I want to play my part in keeping the community alive and healthy.

What more reason do I need then that?

As such, if you are in fact a fan of tuskmod, its time to contact your local friendly youtubers, your favorite unit modders, and the like. Its time to start a long series of happy collaborations. (I may drive myself half-crazy trying to make things work perfectly in advance, but I will do it...)

For now, I will celebrate by making today about updating the AI to be more empire-forming focused, and I will quickly be targeting a much faster to complete "Empires update," of tuskmod, which has the express goal of... Making empires not only survive, but flourish and develop on the map.

Glad to see you're still working hard at this mod walrus, keep up the stellar work. Congrats on the award you deserve it!

Honestly, this mod excites me in ways other mods just dont.
The logic appeals to me.
I like the perceived focus that everythign should serve a purpose, every unit is screaming "pick me pick me!!"

Well deserved.

Literally only seen this mod once and heard it mentioned a couple times, something I also personally felt was happening to Ancient Empires as we've had our own problems with other people taking ideas from us and generally being insulting to us (I guess that just happens to modders who want to make a difference), until lately when we got up on the top 6 for players choice with a mod we made that wasn't even working. Honestly though good on you! Anyone who has worked on Attila that hard after its basically been abandoned by CA and the total war community deserves an award! I really hope you reach your goal of becoming the next Darthmod, I loved it to pieces and was a huge fan, also it will be nice to have ancient empires have some real competition in Attila to make us do our best ;).

I wish you all the best,
Petellius: battle mechanics and BAI for Ancient Empires.

I have been fairly hyped for AE, actually. My theory as to why the project has become the project of such massive amounts of drama is that the era you chose put you not in competition with the base game of Attila, but instead, the much more popular DEI. Very few people actually get to compete with DEI without being looked down on, and its unfortunate, as while DEI is an excellent, huge, and impressive mod, its community makes life hard for independent modders who want to depict the rise of the roman empire.

Admittedly, I was shocked that Tuskmod was mentioned at the awards at all. Very few people outside of Maximus's viewers on youtube actually know about tuskmod. Despite the quality that I definitely believe have done reasonably well in maintaining, a community just never formed.
Without that, how can I expect anyone else to have heard of my mod?

Hopefully, things will change once CA makes its announcement video of the winners in the contest, same with AE.

Whether you create for approval or not, this sort of recognition tends to really drive you to do better rather than move on to something else, so it's great to see. Have to say I find it pretty difficult to play without your mods now.

Heh. That's pretty much the first thing I felt when I heard the news. "Whelp. I owe the community big time now. Lets get a big update cooking."

Wishing you the best and much inspiration and patience with this mod, WalrusJones !
I only read about it today so keep it up !

I will have a try with it...Cheers !!

Don't post a lot any more, but I thought I remembered that name from the stream. Congratulations!

Heh. I must thank you, not just for the congratulation, but actually getting me to start modding in the first place.

Believe it or not, trying to figure out how the steam workshop worked, and making UAI compatible with it was my first modding experience ever for the total war series.
If I had never asked you if I could try to make your mod compatible with the Shogun 2 workshop, I might have not installed PFM have started modding, and no, I am not kidding.