“I remember first reading Ibidil’s post about his pursuit to create a historical mod about Britain in the seventh century, and thought, ‘Who is this guy?’” Adorno says. Thankfully, the rest of the team came to see Britannia through Ibidil’s eyes. Their expertise in modding, and history, made for a productive harmony. As more versions were released, the team kept growing Michael ‘Motomataru’ Richter from the US, Matthias ‘Phaiak’ Grohmann from Germany, and Marco Aurelio ‘Yeyo’ Balbás Polanco, Leyre ‘Elyllon’ Ramirez Erviti and César ‘Caesar’ Iñarrea Sangués from Spain were brought into the fold. Asbjørn Lindegaard ‘Adorno’ Møller from Denmark had been developing scenes and locations as a hobby, and decided to join forces with Ibidil before the mod’s first official version. He knew that to succeed he couldn’t go it alone, so he tapped into Warband’s budding mod scene. Ibidil was wise to the low completion rates of mods-the TaleWorlds online forum is peppered with blogs for mods that never left the nest. An opportunity arose-“I wanted everyone to enjoy the Dark Ages,” Ibidil says. He released a rough beta of the mod, and Warband modders loved it. But Ibidil couldn’t hide his desire to tell stories.

He wrote a quest here, changed textures there, and little by little the fictional kingdom of Calradia turned into Britannia. He even translated the Canu Heledd, a series of early Welsh poems, into his native Spanish.īrytenwalda was never intended for other players, it was “a simple mod, just for myself”, says Ibidil. He loved the rich and complex history of seventh century Britain and wanted to bring the period to life-he found it a shame “names like Penda or Cadwallon were only known by historians”. Not many records remain from the period, hence the name ‘Dark Ages’, but this only empowered Ibidil. “It was a world with very defined dynamics, of small and warlike kingdoms, with kings who knew that everything played out on the battlefield,” he says.

This change came from reading about the fall of the Roman Empire, and post-Roman Britain. Like Britain itself, Ibidil progressed from Rome to the Dark Ages. Ibidil dealt with documentation relating to the mod as well as editing the battle system and organising the work of those modding models and textures-giving him a well-rounded suite of experiences to bring forward.

Ibidil became involved after a community of Spanish gamers felt its nation was portrayed with too many historical inaccuracies Iberia: Total War was developed in part to address these issues. Ibidil is a creative type, always telling stories in whatever way he can, and he found recognition in the modding community for his work on Iberia: Total War, the 2005 total conversion mod to Rome: Total War.

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