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.

Age of Empires 2 HD

"In Age of Empires II: HD Edition, fans of the original game and new players alike will fall in love with the classic Age of Empires II experience. Explore all the original single player campaigns from both Age of Kings and The Conquerors expansion, choose from 18 civilizations spanning over a thousand years of history, and head online to challenge other Steam players in your quest for world domination throughout the ages. Originally developed by Ensemble Studios and reimagined in high definition by Hidden Path Entertainment, Microsoft Studios is proud to bring Age of Empires II: HD Edition to Steam!"

"So what will this include? The original AOE II: The Age of Kings and The Conquerors expansion, all remastered in HD by Hidden Path. This will enable 1080p+ resolutions, and also include enhanced textures, lighting, and water and fire effects. As a Steam exclusive release, it will incorporate Steamworks, and have achievements, leaderboards, matchmaking, and the ability to save to the cloud. Steam Workshop support will also be included, enabling sharing of mods and user-created content for the game."

http://www.ageofempires.com/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/221380/

First AoE3 goes on Steam and now this...!?

I think we all feel the same way, amazed and very happy. Most of us here played the classic and beautiful AoE2 and know it has unmatched gameplay.

Maybe a completely new AoE game would have been better, but since the AoE franchise seemed dead once again with development on AoE Online being stopped, this is better than nothing. This re-release of AoE2 will surely be successful and will show Microsoft how loved this franchise still is if they get it right.

I still have a few problems with AoE2 though, such as civilizations uniqueness. For example, Aztecs and Japanese have an European techtree with just 1 or 2 unique, specific units... This is silly and disrespectful compared to something like AoE3 but what can you do.

Even so, it is a great game and the competitive player base might grow into something huge.
Who knows.

It comes out on April 7 so don't miss it!

"Improvement Mod"

Many of you might not be aware of the upcoming "Improvement Mod" for AoE3 vanilla, but in case you ever see it I wanted to let everyone know that I have nothing to do with it.
It is a simple, small mod focused on making everything free and unlimited, like unlimited pop, units and other stuff like that.

I tried to speak with the developer to make him maybe change it's name to avoid confusion but he doesn't seem too wiling to do it. I just hope he won't use this name to advertise his mod to people who know my mod.


Anyway, I really need some help from the community with something new and awesome!
I want to give names to Town Centers like Forts have. Names of historical colonial cities and/or towns as well as made up names as long as they fit.
Remember that I need names for Euro Town Centers, as well as Native and Asian ones. I need around/at least 5 names per civ.

I will post here the names I like and what might make it into the mod.
So, lets get started, I'll go first:

- British
Charlestown
York
Jamestown
Newport
Trenton
Annapolis
Maine
Plymouth
Saybrook
Lexington
Monmouth
Kingston

- Dutch
Breuckelen
Nieuw-Haarlem
Willemstad
Paramaribo
Oranjestad
Mauritsstad
Batavia
Rensselaer
Kralendijk
Beverwyck

- French
Louisbourg
Montreal
Tadoussac
Quebec
Montreal
Saint Laurent
Saint Colette
Ajaccio
Acadie
Bilocci
Martinique
Guadeloupe

- Iroquois
Mishawum
Haudenosaunee
Hochelaga
Kanatahseton
Onondaga
Ganaraske
Teyagon
Akwesasne
Canienga
Tonawanda

- Sioux
Winnebagoes
Assiniboines
Minnetaree
Salamanca
Saratoga
Oglala
Ojibway
Arikara
Wajaje

- Aztecs
Yautepec
Texcoco
Tlacopan
Tepanec
Azcapotzalco
Oaxaca
Zacatecas
Xochipili
Itztli

- Spanish
Juarez
Guanajuato
San Miguel
Merida
Morelia
Guanajuato
Guadalajara
Cartagena
Quito
San Andreas
Santiago

- Chinese
Guangzhou
Jilin
Heilongjiang

Fujian

Luoyang
Yunnan
Sichuan
Xinjiang
Guizhou
Chengdu

- Japanese
Hokkaido

Kyoto

Satsuma

Hienuki

Kokufu

Tosando

Nagato

Ryukyu
Ouchijuku
Takayama

- Indians
Calcutta
Bombay
Panaji
Marmagao
Simla
Madras
Bengal
Mangalore
Punjab
Bikaner
Bahawalpur

- Portuguese
Salvador
Bahia
Sao Paulo
Sao Vincente
Rio Grande
Sao Luis
Olinda
Recife
Porto Seguro
Ceara
Itamaraca

- Russians
Novozybkov
Rostov
Georgiyevsk
Khabarovsk
Zimniy
Saratov
Vasilevsk
Snezhnogorsk
Novoarkhangelsk
Belgorod
Belozerks

- Germans
Quedlinburg
Hildesheim
Goslar
Lubeck
Berchtesgaden
Breslau
Potsdam
Konigsberg
Tertholen
Brandenburg
Arguin

- Ottomans
Granada
Koprulu
Mustafa
Celebi
Karamanli
Kosmidion
Incegiz
Edirne
Lale
Seljuk
Marmara


The list is pretty much done. Thank you to everyone that contributed and I hope you will like them in-game!

Fame-ous Update

And it's out! Please note that there still is an annoying bug that I couldn't fix yet, related to European houses, settlers and the AI... I will fix it, but it was taking too long so I released the update with it.

At this point I kinda recommend a re-installation of the game and mod, simply because some stuff has been removed from the mod and might still be present in your game and, well do it only if you think it's necessary, if you experience problems or things don't behave as I describe them.

So what does the update contain? Well, new stuff for everyone, Europeans, Natives, Asians, and Revolution civs.

Europeans got the new expected resource, Fame, which can be used on all kind of stuff, from Home City cards to techs and armies. The second thing Europeans got are Fort banner armies, which are basically the Consulate armies Asians get.
I don't think it was fair how Asians got so many units at once for basically free, since Export doesn't really cost anything. So, I added the Consulate armies to each corresponding civ, trainable at the Fort, changed their cost to gold and Fame, and voila!

Revolution civs and Natives got bigger training blocks. What does it mean? It means that I doubled the number of units they can train at once, from 5 to 10. Revolution civs get it for free and Natives get it from the new Confederacy Support tech. Natives can also call an Euro Expeditionary Brigade, similar to the Consulate ones, from the Native Embassy.
I really think that with these additions, Rev civs and Natives got a lot more stronger. Also, to help Natives, I made all cannon artillery unable to fire from point blank range, which means there needs to be a little distance between them and their target to be able to fire. This makes them very vulnerable to melee attacks.

Asians got some changes in Consulate armies. Just a bit. Not much to do here. They are too perfect...

I plan to take a new approach with Revolution civs, and make them what everybody wants them to be, full featured civs. I'm thinking to give them villagers, Imperial Age upgrades and all the stuff normal civs have. The purpose of Revolution will only be to play as a new American civ, like Mexico, Colombia or USA.
Still thinking on this one.

Other stuff the update brings can be found here...
- added the Miner as Mercenary on American and Asian maps
- changed how Fisheries and Town Centers are placed
- fixed some units with area attack damaging buildings (if you happen to notice melee units damaging buildings with their melee attack, let me know...)
- added a new resource for all Europeans, Fame, which has the following characteristics...
-- it can be gathered from Town Centers by Envoys (improves gather speed in Age4)
-- it can be used on Church and Royal Decree techs
-- it can be used on Royal Armies and Treasury Support cards, and can be exchanged for Shipments at the Capitol
- fixed AI building more than one set of walls
- units are (a little) less likely to get run over by trade units
- Natives can now train Scouts from the Town Center from the beginning of the game
- the Fort can now train armies similar to the Consulate ones; the cost of the army will be cheaper than the overall cost of all units from the army
- changed livestock units for some European and Native civs
- Natives now have WarChief pets enabled form the beginning of the game

- after Revolting, military units can be trained in blocks of 10, instead of 5 (also added to the Native Confederacy Support tech)

- added European Brigades to the Native Embassy for all Native civs
- artillery can't fire from point blank anymore, which makes them incredibly vulnerable to melee attacks, so protect your artillery!

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The big Fame update is coming really soon, I just have one annoying bug to fix, but before that I have another question for you all.

I was suggested to change how military units look, once again.
Instead of having them change their skins and/or models, basically their entire look, when upgraded (Veteran, Guard, Imperial and Native and Asian counterparts), now they will have all skins/models available from the beginning and have them randomized for the most variety possible.

This has both upsides and downsides...
The upsides are of course the nice visual refreshment and realism resulted from such a variety.
The downsides are that map natives (like Huron or Apache) and mercenaries have only one skin/model, which means no variety for them...
Also, players might get a bit confused and forget what upgrade they researched for their units.

And I plan to change this a bit, and have all units back to using the same skins/models once upgraded to Imperial, again trying to make it more realistic. It's normal to have rugged and uneven units in the Discovery and Expansion ages, but as you progress in time and become more advanced and civilized, you need to have clean and organized units, all using the same uniform. Sounds logical to me.

So, what do you think? Please vote in the poll.
Thank you.

Master Plan

Alright, so, here is my big master plan for the next updates:

1. Native Americans will (not probably) receive Export and Consulates. There is a very big small problem here, the buff which increases damage against buildings from the Fire Pit, applied on a European Heavy Cannon could result in something extremely OP... So I must find a way to maybe make Fire Pit bonuses not affect Consulate units. Not sure I can...
So, Natives will have only 2 allies in the Consulate, not 4 like Asians, and will probably gather Export slower.

2. I will be replacing the Dutch with the USA... AoE3 revolves around the colonization of America, and the main civ that came out of this business was the USA, as seen in 3 acts of 2 campaigns.
So basically, the USA is more important than the Dutch, which means I must do it... Sorry for all those who are against, but there is another good reason for why the Dutch are going out. The AI. Maurice of Nassau is the best candidate to be transformed into George Washington. His voice lines and attitude resemble Washington's the best from any AI. And no, I can't simply put lines from Washington from the campaigns. I mean I could, but there are too many things an AI would say and I don't have replacements for all of them, not even for a quarter of them...

3. Europeans will get a new 4th resource, Fame. What we see with Europeans after the 2 expansions, is that they simply got old... Old and boring. While they are probably the strongest, they don't benefit from bonuses and effects from buildings like the Fire Pit or Wonders or Consulates. The only real bonuses Europeans get are from the Royal Decree cards, which I also made a bit easier to obtain.
So the new resource will try to address that problem. It will be used on the current Decree techs (for example, if a tech costs 1000 Coin I will split that in half, meaning 500 Coin and 500 Favor) and for some new, very powerful Home City cards. Because let's face it, the most important thing for Europeans is their beloved Home City and King and such. Meaning that I might also address the Blockade tech.
These new special cards will consist of armies with the civ's unique units, and will be named Royal Armies, and of some new techs.

That is all for now. And it's quite a lot... I hope it will be worth the trouble.
What do you people think? Please give some constructive feedback, don't cry, or rage, or ask for impossible things...


1.5. Sadly, Native Americans won't receive Consulates... I know they are still a problem when it comes to number of unique units and firepower but... I really don't know what to do with them... And giving them Consulates won't necessarily make it better. I need another idea, and if you have a good one please share it.

2.5. The Dutch and USA deal, is not happening yet. I was given a little hope that there is another way, so I will wait and see what happens.
Also, I think the USA, or rather the Americans, will receive a remake because as most of you can tell, they are kinda messy... Their units, even their name, is not right for the time frame. I wanted an early American civ, but instead created a weird hybrid even named wrong for the time period.
I'm starting to see this is overall a bad idea, adding the Americans. But I'm not giving up yet.