Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Improvement Mod version 4.8 (works with Steam)

Alright, it's done! The 'Improvement Mod' is now compatible with the Steam AoE3 game.
Remember, when installing the mod for Steam use this path in the installer:

/Steam/steamapps/common/Age of Empires 3/bin/

Now here's the thing, I fear, not sure about it, but I fear that if you start the game with Steam, it could check your files for changes, and when it finds them, it might 'update' your game to the original version, so I recommend starting the game from inside the 'bin' folder using 'age3y.exe'. I am not sure about this, I need reports from more people to be sure. I also need to remind you that this mod is for 'Asian Dynasties' ONLY! So when starting from Steam, select TAD.

But, as far as 'working' goes, it works perfect! Tested my self with the help of my good friend Daniel.


Regarding in-game changes. As I told you before, the Japanese can now ally with the U.S.A. through the Consulate and get 4 U.S. units and some awesome techs. This alliance replaced the 'Japanese Isolation' one.
Now don't be sad, one of the units from the 'Japanese Isolation' was added as a native in place of the Sohei, and the Shinobi is now available in the Japanese Home City, so nothing has been lost.

Also, more changes have been done on the European and U.S. Priest. And let's not forget the balance changes some people requested here on the blog.

And that's all for now. Let the problem and bug reporting begin!

13 comments:

  1. All works fine when launching straight from steam, no problems at all. It's wonderful! While finishing off one of the enemies, a song from Pirates of the Caribbean started playing! Did you add new music too?

    A few problems I found, my team mates were buildings walls through my settlement, which was very annoying and the USA Flag Carrier seems to never stop walking, even when standing still! Finally, when upgrading to fort walls, some of the wall sections have their backs facing outwards! It's no problem at all but it does look a bit strange!!

    Thanks for a great mod Madnos!

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  2. Yes, I also added new soundtracks.

    The Flag Bearer bug you found is weird, I will check it.

    The Fort Walls position is not a bug, you just need to know how to place them so they will look good.
    The game can't detect which part of the walls faces your base and which part faces the outside... it's just a simple trick of positioning you need to know when placing walls.

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  3. Thanks for updating it for STEAM, looking forward to playing this.

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  4. how about the hatamoto samurai from the consulate? perhaps make them trainable by the shogun?

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  5. Wow, this has more bugs than the previous version. Adding the US to the consulate is a great idea, but none of their units auto upgrade. They have colonial age stats even in imperial age.

    The consulate spahi still doesn't auto upgrade but isn't as bad because it has industrial age stats.

    The mongolian army still costs the same, it should be 645F 300W based on the hand mortar cost.

    I'd also like to point out that the hatamoto samurai and consulate ninja are different from the mercenery ninja and ronin, so maybe it would be good to allow the monastery to train them.

    I looked at the consulate mortar stats again and found out that it's actually stronger than a regular mortar in addition to costing less pop. They should really be the same.

    The US flag bearer doesn't have a death animation.

    Civs that have grenadiers can't build artillery foundry in colonial age even though it's a colonial age unit.

    There's really no point in being able to buy a command post in colonial age when you can't build it yet.

    A minor issue: when upgrading to legendary natives when playing as asian, it changes the yamabushi name back to sohei again.

    And I think the mortar still does too much damage. Why would one use the factory to make artillery when mortars are more effective? Even if they can't fire at close range, other artillery does very little damage at that kind of range and no player would leave artillery alone undefended anyway. The real issue is being able to fire at 40 range from behind walls and no enemy can get even close to it.

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    1. 'zxeelyzyn', the US Consulate has a tech which upgrades all of the units, called 'Military Promotion'. Saw it?
      The Spahi is already upgraded to guard...

      When you said to check the Mongolian Army cost, i thought you were referring only to population cost... I'll check it again.

      That ninja and samurai might have different names and stats, but their models are the same as the other samurai and ninja, so as i said, nothing has been lost. Though make them trainable by the shoguns is a good idea.

      Yes, yes, the Mortar and Flag Bearer will be fixed in the next update.

      What...? Of course they can't build Artillery Foundries in Colonial Age... this would be too unbalanced, A.K. overpowered.

      Oh... i forgot about that... I'll make it ship in age3.

      Uouch... didn't knew about that. I'll fix it too.

      How the hell does the Mortar's 150 damage compare to the Great Bombard's 750 damage against units and buildings?
      So what do you propose then? Make the Mortar able to attack only buildings again?

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    2. correction:
      great bombard - 500 attack; 28 range; 1000 damage cap; ROF 8; penalty vs cavalry and artillery; unable to fire at moving targets
      mortar - 150 attack; 40 range; 750 damage cap; ROF 6; no penalties; faster training time

      against a group of units, they practically do the same damage but mortars cost less pop.
      suggestion: lower the damage cap to 300.

      It is not OP to able to train grenadiers in colonial. Why enable grenadiers in colonial when you can't build the artillery foundry to train them? Why have have a card that improves grenadiers in colonial when you can't even train them? Besides, the ottomans need some sort of anti-infantry in colonial.

      I saw the military promotion tech. It only improves stats by about 10%. All consulate units should auto upgrade by age. It is rather unbalanced to have guard spahi in colonial age and veteran units in imperial.

      and btw, the intervention card for the japanese still delivers yamabushi when allied with the US. Should probably change it to something more appropriate.

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    3. I am not really convinced how penalties work... So, everything bellow 1.00000 like 0.50000 is a penalty? Because I had two guys on AoE3 Heaven, one saying penalties do not exist and everything is a bonus and the other one saying penalties do exist... So, who do I believe now...?

      What's the big deal with Grenadiers... I can simply make everything related to them be unlocked in age3. Also, the Ottomans have the Azap which has a small bonus against light infantry.
      But, you might be right about Grenadiers, and although i hate it from all my heart, I'll make them train in age2...

      What 'intervention card'...??? Man, be more specific...
      I see only 4 techs in the US Consulate.

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    4. And please tell me 1 Consulate unit which upgrades when age-ing up???

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    5. Yes, anything below 1 is a penalty.

      The chinese and indians can have grenadiers in colonial, but not europeans, the grenadier as always been a colonial age unit. For the ottomans, I was talking about heavy infantry. Before, they could train abus guns because the artillery foundry was buildable in colonial but not anymore. The azap is an anti-cav unit and the bonus is against light infantry which are basically the aztec equivalents of cavalry.

      Every consulate unit that you didn't add auto upgrades per age. They all have the following line in their tags.

      AbstractConsulateUnit


      The intervention card is a home city card that gives a shipment of consulate units from whichever ally you are aligned with or going align with. If allied with the US, it still delivers the japanese yamabushi.

      Also, when changing the pop value of a unit, you should also change the build and kill xp of it as well to balance things out.

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    6. Ah, balance... i always said i'm not to good with balancing things out...

      Now i think i understand... they don't change their looks, only their stats... that's nasty...

      I made the Art Foundry buildable in age2 again.

      Fixed the Intervention card and the xp thing.

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  6. there's a bug on the US card "command center"
    the command center wagon cant create a building

    and the card "hire swedish fusilier" only ships 8 units yet the displayed number is 10 (the tooltip also says it only delivers 8)

    and the flagbearer doesnt have death animation they just fades, also sometimes they continue to walk even on stationary mode.

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    1. Ah, yes, i made a mistake there...

      Thank you for the Fusilier report too but i know about the Flag Bearer problems and they will be fixed in the next update, along with everything else.

      Delete

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