Friday, November 11, 2016

Africa and Oceania

Update: After learning how to improve map visuals I went through some of the maps from the African update (around half of them) and improved their textures and props. I also added Nomad support for the new maps that didn't have it. New Asian maps have also been added and more African maps are on the way.


Note: Forgot to mention, if you get "Out of sync" in multiplayer, go to where you have the game installed, delete the RMM folder and run the Patcher, then try again.

The long awaited (took more than I thought) big awesome update with new maps from Africa and Oceania is here!

A total of 19 new maps, plus fixes, changes and additions to existing maps are part of this update. Including new animals and natives for the new maps.
One of the fixes adresses the bug which caused starting units (such as explorers) to not spawn at the beginning of a game. This bug should no longer occur on any of the "official" maps.

Before we go any further, I want to make it clear that none of these maps were made by me from scratch, they are made by the community map creators Garja, Neuron, R.F. Gandalf and Durokan.
All maps are, however, modified by me to fit the African and Oceania themes.
Proper credit has been given for each map creator ingame during the map loading screen.

I also have to mention that the new loading screen images for the new maps are taken from the Wars of Liberty mod, although they are also modified by me to fit the project.


Now, let's go through each of the new and old maps from this update:


As mentioned above, all maps received the "starting units do not spawn" fix and Control Flags have been removed from all maps. The only Control Flags still present are the ones each player starts with and the ones from Trading Posts.

Water Maps: a new map option which randomly chooses between all water maps; water maps are maps with a water homecity flag, and are basically all maps not present in the Land Maps option.

Sahara / Large Sahara: a large, arid desert where all resources are concentrated around oases.
Congo / Large Congo: a dense jungle where the numerous trees are both a blessing and a curse.
Nile River: a river splitting into the resource rich Nile Delta.
Savanna: the iconic African Savanna, a grassland filled with exotic wildlife.
Madagascar / Regicide Madagascar: a huge, isolated island in the middle of the ocean.
Kilimanjaro: the peak of a dormant volcano.
Unknown - Inland: replaces the old Unknown map which was extremely bugged; the new map randomizes between properly made terrains with some African flavor.
Unknown - Coastal: same as above, only that it randomizes water maps.

Australia / Large Australia / Regicide Australia: the gold rich Australian Outback.
Indonesia: a large archipelago with diverse wildlife.
New Zealand: the last major landmasses settled by humans.

Rockies - Lower: a valley in the Rockies mountains; to contrast Himalayas - Upper.

Irrawaddy Valley: a valley surrounded by wood rich canals.
Khingan: a very randomized map inspired by the AoM Acropolis map.

Guinea Coast: coming soon.
Sahel: coming soon.
Great Zimbabwe: coming soon.
Horn of Africa: coming soon.


Regicide Yellow River: now actually looks like Yellow River.
California / Ozarks / New England / Plymouth: cliff texture inconsistencies/bugs fixed.
Pampas / Sonora: increased map size.
Plymouth / Orinoco / Texas: added more trees; for Texas this is actually a bug fix since the map was always suppose to have random trees but the codes were bugged.
Winter Wonderland: added proper mercenary and KotH support.


Besides these map changes, the new African animals are the Zebra and Dromedary and the new natives are the Saltpeter and Dahomey.
Also, added proper Mongolian voices for the Mangudai and Mongol Scout and Korean voices for the Wukou Pirate and Wukou Jong/Junk.
New voices have also been added for the new Sufi native warrior, the Bishari Archer; instead of making a new elephant unit for Saltpeter which proved difficult, I instead moved the War Elephant to Saltpeter and added a new camel archer for Sufi.

And this should be about it. As always, if you find any kind of bugs make sure you let me know so I can fix them as soon as possible.

Thank you for your time and as always, thank you for playing!




28 comments:

  1. Great job! The screenshots made me excited, looking good.

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  2. When I play as japanese and ally with americans, the armies only give one troop.
    American contentiental army gives one marine instead of six
    American continental force gives one gatling gun instead of seven marines and two gatling guns
    American continental army gives one saber instead of six sabers and three gatling guns

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  3. Very nice! I like the new maps and find the new numbered map options cool too. I haven't tested each and every single one yet, but so far they all look very good.

    For now I don't have time to play AoE3 as much as I used too, but I still follow this site and its developement literally every day. If I find anything to correct or have a suggestion I'll say it as I've done in the past.

    For now, just one thing. The Swedish are still incomplete and are a Russia clone in my game. Is it supposed to be like this, or is it an error in my part? Just checking.

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    Replies
    1. Oh, also, why remove most Control Flags? I like the decision, but am curious.

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    2. Swedish are not finished yet.

      Control Flags had several problems. First, the very random way they spawned was not healthy and second, I never figured out what exactly to do with them, if I should give them line of sight or not.
      If I gave them too big line of sight, then they would be just this random thing on the map that you could activate by just walking near it without knowing, yet it would give you a good warning if an enemy army was moving close to your base. If I make the line of sight too small, then it's kinda useless and not giving it line of sight at all... Well, I don't know.

      I left the starting ones each player has because the speed boost is very good to have near your town center, and I also gave this bonus to trading posts since now they also have flags and since it makes them a little more special and important, and maybe makes native warriors a little better too since you can get them into battle faster.

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    3. I see. Yeah, I get what you mean. Funnily, I get the same feeling from this as when you made that change in envoys and town center fame gathering (I think it was fame, but you get what I mean).

      From all the very small and small changes you've made throughout this mod that you can remember, which ones do you like best and/or think had the biggest/best impact having in account how small they were?

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    4. I don't know. I feel that many of the changes I made when I started the mod were wrong, and that's why I reverted them. Like banks for everyone, stealth for skirmishers and many such "noob-ish" things.

      Unlock everything for everyone is not the way to go. The game needs to be challenging yet fair. Each civ needs to have it's own unique attributes and game balance should be a priority. These are things I learned over time.

      And the thing that sucks the most here is that, someone who checked the mod out in the past and saw how silly it was would have ignored it, but now that is has grown into something much better which they could enjoy, they wouldn't know because they have that old, fixed opinion about the mod.

      That's also why I think my mod has somewhat of a bad reputation in the modding community.

      But I will continue working on it for as long as I can.

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    5. Great mod. In my opinion the best, the others have many things but with many bugs, you concentrate the quality.
      Apart from this I wanted to comment some points that could improve:
      Iroquois:
      *his unique dance of population increase is not very powerful, in my opinion serious good that would generate a type of unit like the other tribes (mantlets for example).
      *does not currently increase the final population of 250.

      In level 100 some AI controlled nations do not have mailing letters.
      Works well at level 50.
      I have no idea of ​​other levels

      More nations: it would give more variety to the game to add more nations with different mode of game (for example use as base the system of the Asian nations and Native American).


      Again great mod and remembers the theme of the Iroquois (his dance does not increase the final population)

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  4. Could you add new mode without artillery to the game?

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  5. where is RMM folder i can't find it

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  6. on my game, shift button not working (ı cant build more buildings in one go). I wonder if it is general bug or it's only in my game ?

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  7. can i use popmodtrainer by nicifer with Improvement Mod?

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    Replies
    1. I have no idea what that is but the answer is probably no.
      Install other mods over mine at your own risk.

      Delete
  8. Wonderful initiative of new Natives (Saltpeter) would be wonderful if we have more new natives and units

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    Replies
    1. http://www.moddb.com/mods/improvement-mod/images/improvement-mod-dahomey#imagebox

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    2. Wow...seems awesome..can you also tell on which map these natives can be found? or is it a feature that is gonna come soon?

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    3. Dahomey will be present on the more northern maps, the more desertic/arid ones. While Sufi, Saltpeter, Bhakti and Jesuits (I'm also trying to remake Jesuit villages and make them look more oriental for African maps) will be present on the others.

      And yes, I am still working on Dahomey natives and more Afircan maps.
      It's A LOT of work. Like weeks.

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    4. Mod Latest version is 6.0 ?

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  9. Please make a pirate civilization in skirmish :)

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  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  11. During installation read "Exception during a webclient request"!
    I have Steam Version (complete Edition)
    Error( Give me a link with New files ?

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    Replies
    1. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxZxW4IntQ3cUnlSMjgybVAtQ2c/view

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  12. Would it be possible to get a mod with just the maps? Tbh the other features in the mod don't interest me.

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