Chat and Play

That's right, the Improvement Mod's Lobby program has been released to all using the patcher! It is still in beta of course, which means its a bit buggy and has some missing features, but be sure to try it out with your friends and leave your opinion. Note that you need Java installed for it to work.

What is the Lobby? What it suggests, you can enter the chat room, find player to play with and set up games. Remember the the Lobby by it self will not make a playable connection between players, you will still need to use a program specifically designed for that like Hamachi or Tunngle.

The Lobby's main function is to find other players playing the Improvement Mod.
Look for "launcher.exe" in your main AoE3 folder.

You can read all about the Lobby right HERE!
I have added some new information in the "Help and Tools" tab here on the blog as well, check it out!

Realism Reloaded

The "accuracy update" has been released for everyone to test out. Please report any problems you might find. Remember that the chance to miss is very low but it does happen. This new feature affects all ground ranged units but it does not affect buildings and ships.

It's still a work in progress until I can add it to every single unit that needs it.

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There is something I wanted to do for a while, and I thought I did it for cannons but it proves I was a bit wrong, something that will add lots of realism into the game but might piss off some players.

I can make ranged units meaning cannons, archers, spearmen, riflemen and so forth, to have a small chance to miss their shots, to fire but not hit their target every time. This new feature would balance out with the other lost feature I added a while ago, height damage bonus which gives a very small attack bonus to units which fire from higher ground than their targets. The chance will be very small, as is the height bonus, but they can both decide the outcome of a battle, even in the favor of the weaker army.

Now, this also means a new luck factor is introduced, something that might piss off hardcore fans, but since most people seem to want more realism, I thought this would be an awesome thing to add. This new feature can be added to any unit, even melee, but it makes more sense to add it to ranged units since those are the most used ones and it would make melee units more viable and important. Plus, muskets were really inaccurate...

I will make a survey as always, but it seems the survey/poll feature offered by Blogger is bugged, and it does not properly record votes. So, I beg you to leave your opinion in the comments section of this post.

Thank you, and please help me take a decision!

AI problems

I know the AI can be shit at times... My AI is based on the Draugur AI, which people said it was good, so that's why I used it. I then tweak it to train my units and build my buildings, as well as using the extra population I added. I also tried to tweak how it played, since people complained it was too slow and none aggressive.

I tried over and over again, and while a friend of mine seems to have nailed it I want to achieve that by my own terms. So, I left this message to someone here on the blog:


"Well, let me explain then.
What people don't seem to understand is that the AI has different personalities and strategies. Napoleon for example, favors cavalry and native units and has a balanced attack strategy, which means he attacks but he also builds protection for his base.

Elizabeth, British, she is a boomer, which means she first builds a powerful economy and then attacks.
Isabella, Spanish, she is a rusher. She doesn't care about base protection and spends all her resources on units with which she attacks you as often as she can.

But even with these built in strategies they do change the way they play sometimes. In one game for example, Isabella could chose a turtling strategy, which means she will build base defenses and attack less.

People just want the AI to attack continuously at all times, and while I am not completely against it, its simply very hard to tweak the AoE3 AI since it works in a weird, "lazy" way and requires a lot of codding to make it do even simple, basic things.

I did however, released a prototype AI. What is different in it? Simple, I removed all strategies and made everyone a rusher, even if some of them need an economy to evolve, like the Dutch because their Settlers cost coin, even so I removed every bit of personality and strategy from the AI and made what everyone seems to want.

And if this still doesn't satisfy my warmongering fans, then I will increase their rushing status even more and see what happens.

Thank you and please vote in the survey."


These are the personality descriptions from the AI file:

Elizabeth: Infantry oriented boomer, favors natives
Napoleon: Cav oriented, balanced, favors natives
Isabella:  Rusher, disdains trading posts
Ivan: Infantry oriented turtler
Frederick: Cavalry oriented rusher
Maurice: Turtler, boomish, huge emphasis on trade
Henry: Artillery oriented boomer, favors trade
Suleiman: Artillery oriented, balanced
Gall: Extreme rush, ignores trade routes
Hiawatha: Balanced, trade and native bias.
Cuauhtemoc: Randomized, but usually light boom, defensive.
Kangxi: Infantry oriented turtler
Tokugawa: Extreme rush, ignores trade routes
Akbar: Cavalry oriented, balanced

Remember that they might change these strategies from time to time.

The Campaigns Update v2

Update has been released! It contains fixes and improvements all over the place. Especially the campaigns, be sure to check them out. Actually, check everything out and report all problems you find!

Go to the features tab and read all the update notes from version x.x. Those are changes made through the patcher.

Everything is ready for version 5.5 but I will postpone until I'm sure there are no major bugs. So please, report all problems and help me out a bit (more)!

I've noticed a little bug recently, regarding the UI and gathered resources not being displayed correctly.
The way to fix this is to go to "Options" and press the "Restore Defaults" button. This will fix the UI and afterwards you can change any setting any way you want, make them like they were before loading the default settings, but you need to press the "Restore Defaults" button at least once.

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Alright, so, as some of you know, some time ago I began to work on the game's campaigns, improving scenarios and cutscenes, fixing bugs my mod created and making them more enjoyable. I focused mainly on the vanilla campaign "Blood, Ice and Steel"(1) and TWC campaign "Fire and Shadow"(2).

The vanilla campaign went smoothly, no major problems, a real joy to work on. But then I got to TWC campaign... It is a real damn mess. Just play it and you'll see, one minute you're Iroquois, the other you're a cheap, poorly made American nation, the other you're Sioux, and at all times you're a combination of all 3...
This had to be fixed to make a proper campaign which offers what it promises, the American Revolution and the American-Indian war.

Both acts from the "Fire and Shadow" campaign have about 3 scenarios in which the player controls a Native civ, and in the rest of the scenarios the player controls an American civ. I basically used the American civ I already made for my mod and gave it to Act3 (Steel) from vanilla and to the "Fire and Shadow" campaign. The "Fire" act version of the civ is made to feel a bit older, a bit more British, to fit the timeline.

The real problem here were the Home Cities. Like the civs, the "Fire and Shadow" HC is a mess, so I transformed it into an early American HC with some British flavor in it. It has less Native cards but I think its better this way.
Another problem here is a feature which TWC added for campaigns, a Home City button present in the campaign menu which allows you to visit the scenarios HC at any time. This button is present in TWC and TAD campaigns but not in the vanilla campaign. I tried everything I could to make it appear in the vanilla campaign, no luck, it seems to be "hardcoded"(3). I can however transfer the button from one campaign to another, but it can't be used by both.

So, I did the following thing: Both vanilla Act2 and TWC Act1 use the same HC, Philadelphia. Meaning that, when you edit the cards in one campaign, it transfers to the other one as well. Which means that I can transfer the HC button from TWC campaign to vanilla. Why? Because vanilla is the first and a player is suppose to play it before TWC campaign to understand everything well, plus the vanilla campaign is bigger so it makes sense.

Actually, I know most of this doesn't really make sense and please hold your suggestions/criticism until you see it.(4)
When do I release this update? Well, I promised it will be soon, but it looks like it will take longer. I also plan to release updated hotkeys for all the new buildings and units I added so stay tuned, I will announce the release in this post.
Thank you.


1 - "Blood, Ice and Steel" means: Blood - Act1 - Morgan Black; Ice - Act2 - John Black; Steel - Act3 - Amelia Black
2 - "Fire and Shadow" means: Fire - Act1 - Nathaniel Black; Shadow - Act2 - Chayton Black
3 - "hardcoded" means something beyond current modding capabilities and/or beyond my capabilities
4 - Yes, I used the word "campaign" a lot in this post. Please excuse my poor English and also please excuse my exaggerated use of commas and dots...

Summary

Someone requested something on the forum and my response, well, I want everyone to see it since it basically describes how things are going for the mod and how they will go in the future.

http://impmod.freeforums.org/civ-changes-t53.html

"These are not "basic things"...
To be honest, its a bit late to request these. The only work I'm planing to do in the following weeks is add hotkeys to the new buildings and units I added, revisit TWC campaign and find a use for a beta tower I got my hands on.
And that's pretty much it. The mod will probably take a very, very, VERY long break and I'll probably just work on bug fixes, if any appear.(1)

I had enough modding for a good while, kept doing it almost continuously for many years now. Plus, my PC is dying, my social life is crap and did I mention my PC is dying...?(2)

Please don't take me wrong, you're ideas are not bad. Especially the Spanish one, I also thought about it and I totally agree about the Cranequier. But you are missing an important point relating the game. The Cranequier and Longbowman, they are not in the game for historical accuracy and they might not have super stats either, but they do one thing extremely well, add some well deserved variety and eye candy. I know everyone wants muskets and rifles everywhere, but it won't happen while I'm in charge. If I can make something even slightly accurate and good looking at the same time, then fuck logic, I'll add it. And it also needs to require a small amount of work.

Thank you for playing.(3)"


1 - No, the mod is not dying, but I do have less motivation to work on it than I had before.
2 - It is indeed true. Everyday when I start my PC I fear it will be the last time or it won't start at all. And yes, I am too poor to buy a new one.
3 - Thank you to everyone that has ever laid an eye on my mod and considered its not total crap.

As always, we will have to see what the future brings. I will probably still do big things to the mod even if I said I won't, but nothing is guaranteed.