Improvement Mod version 5.4

After almost an year later the newest installer powered release has arrived! Its the biggest update ever and it couldn't have been possible without the mod's patcher. The patcher is also one of the main reason's for why I need to release this as fast as possible, because the 5.2 patcher cannot connect to the content server anymore creating problems for a lot of new players.

Is it the last big update? Probably not but I can't promise anything right now, lots of things going on and, well I just realised how damn fast time passes and I don't know how much I'll work on the mod in the future.

Remember that if you've used the patcher before then this update is nothing new to you, still for those interested here's what the update changes:

- tweaked the AI military
- added a new USA HomeCity
- added moving wakes for all naval units
- fixed ships space blocks, which results in better formations, better maneuvering for canoes and overall more realistic naval battles
- Aging Up changes
-- starting with Age3, Minutemen, Warriors, Irregulars and Peasants get damage and HP bonuses with every age
-- the Colonial Age (Age2) now costs 800 Food and 200 Wood; more changes are planed for Age1 and Age2
-- each Age increases villager limit by 10, made possible by the increased max pop (see below)
- fixed ranged cavalry melee attacks; enemy units must be very close for the ranged cavalry to switch to melee
- improved mercenaries distribution on Asian maps
- the Winked Knight can now only be obtained through the German Command Centers card
- improved/tweaked/updated the "Blood, Ice and Steel" campaign, scenarios and cutscenes
- added butterflies to berries and cherry orchards...
- melee cavalry now fight more dynamic and realistic
- European Houses can now train and manage livestock like Livestock Pens
- the Livestock Pen is now the East European food producing building, replacing the Bakery
- all newly created European Home Cities now get the Royal Decree card for free
- added the Miner as Mercenary on American and Asian maps
- 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...
-- there is a small continous trickle of Fame for all Europeans
-- it can be gathered from Town Centers by Envoys; Aging Up rewards Fame
-- it can be used on Church and Royal Decree techs
-- it can be used on special 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
- important changes made to Revolution!; after revolting...
-- you can still train 10 Settlers
-- military units can be trained in blocks of 10, instead of 5 (also added this to the Native Confederacy Support tech)
-- you get a new infinite Factory card, although Factory build limit is 3
-- Outpost build limit is increased by 4
- 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!
- all European politicians are unlocked from level 10 (wasn't fair before)
- added the Lancer to the Dutch (the Spanish Lancer is still better)
- changed how European Minutemen and Asian Irregulars work, now they are infinite but you can call out a new group only after the previous group got to 1 HP
- added the Black Powder Boat to all Native civs
- added historical names to Town Centers for all civs
- further improved all Revolution civs; Revolution is now a very viable option
- added the Sowar to the Ottomans (the Indian Sowar is cheaper to upgrade)
- enabled another AoE2 lost feature, height bonus attack damage, which means that units which are on higher ground, like hills, do slightly more damage to units that are on lower ground
-- the bonus is very small but its there
-- the higher the ground the bigger the bonus
-- if you thought this was already enabled you are mistaken
- improved and tweaked all vanilla and TWC campaign scenarios and most cutscenes
- added Hotkeys for all  the new units and buildings added by the mod
- further improved civ bonuses, each European civ is now more unique (read each civ's description for more info)
- fixed the Japanese Monks' healing animation
- increased maximum population capacity to 300
-- House, Village, Longhouse, etc. build limit increased to sustain the increased population; Teepee's now sustain 5 pop
-- you start with 200 max pop and each Age adds another 20 pop to the limit; the Chinese and British get 40 free pop in the Imperial Age
-- you can achieve 300 pop only by researching the Reformed Government tech and by building all available Town Centers
-- the Reformed Government tech now also makes villagers to use no population space
- when advancing to the Imperial Age, Europeans can chose a main political party, each party researches for free a powerful Imperial Age upgrade
-- The Liberal Party researches for free Immigrants
-- The Conservative Party researches for free Aristocracy (Peerage and Spyglass)
- all map native units upgrades are now researched for free once you reach the required Age
- added map territorial Control Flags, capture them to generate more experience points
- Longbowman upgrades and all Mortar, Hand Mortar and Morutaru upgrades now increase maximum attack range (balanced the Mortar a bit more by decreasing its max range and having it re-increased with upgrades)
- added water treasures on American maps (similar to the ones on Asian maps)
- Asian War Tents can now heal nearby units (mini Field Hospitals)
- when destroyed, defensive buildings (Outposts, Castles, Warhuts, etc.) spawn a few Levy units (Minutemen, Warriors, Irregulars)

If you have problems with the UI not displaying resources correctly go to "Options" and press the "Restore Defaults" button!

I thank everybody who played and helped me improve the mod, you are all great and remember, if you find bugs, report them! :)

Revolutionary

The next installer powered update is close and this time I mean really close, a week away at most, I know I said this before in the last months but this time I really mean it.

So, this is your chance to get involved into the mod's last minute development and add an awesome, revolutionary idea!
And by revolutionary ideas I don't necessarily mean things no one has done before in any other mod, I mean radical, game changing ideas, like the increased population, the control flags, water treasures on all maps, the new euro resource and so on.

Note that the game has many restrictions modding wise, not everything can be made, but if you have an awesome, radical idea don't hold back and share it, it might just be possible and cool enough to become real!

I'll delay the installer release a bit if necessary but if I see no activity in this topic then I'll go ahead and release it earlier.

Water Treasures

Alright, scrap that, I added water treasures on American maps! They are mostly the same as the Asian ones of course, but I'll try to add new ones over time.

This is of course still in development and there will be bugs and some inconsistencies. If you have problems with maps failing to load please report the name of the map, as well as other problems you might find.

This is also a big feature the mod adds and a step closer to version 5.5... I mean 5.4! Why did I change it? Well, I kinda wanted version 5.5 to be the final one, but since the game still has and will have bugs, modded and un-modded alike, the next version will clearly not be the last.
When will it come? Who knows. The more problems you guys report the faster I will wrap everything together and do it. And yes, I need bug reports, not suggestions for new stuff.

Thank you and please help me to make the mod better!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have added a new graphical enhancer to the mod called SweetFX. It makes AoE3 look a bit more colorful, smoother and clearer.

To enable it you must have all visual settings maxed out, especially "Shader Quality" which needs to be put on "Very High". To disable it put "Shader Quality" on "High" or lower.
You can also enable and disable the graphical enhancer in-game by pressing the "Scroll Lock" key.

Please leave your opinion about this visual enhancement in the comments!

Conquest Age

A huge update just rolled out, not necessarily huge in size, but more like in importance. What does it contain? Well, lets just say now you really feel like conquering the New World!

The update adds control flags for all maps. What are control flags? They are points on the map, randomly generated, which if captured give line of sight and a small XP trickle over time. You start with one flag near your Town Center and as you explore the map more and more flags pop up.

And that's not all! You know how Asian maps have water treasure which are completely awesome? Sadly I cannot add them for American maps too (not without starting a project which would take weeks, even months, which will probably prove useless since they might be "hardcoded"), so I decided to do something different for them. I took the Fishery, a water building I made a while ago, and transformed it into a capturable water trading post. So now those annoying pirate ships I added on American maps have a purpose, to protect their fisheries. Kill them and take the fisheries for your own.

I hope you enjoy these completely new features and if you find any problems, and you'll most certainly do, please report them!
Thanks for playing!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm looking through the mod and I'm starting to question decisions I made a long time ago. For example, do Europeans really need all of those buildings? When I started this mod one of my main objectives was to add as many buildings as possible, but now I look back and it simply doesn't look as good as it once did.

So, I decided to make some changes. Now my main objective is to make every European building as useful as possible, because we had many useless buildings or many buildings that did too little.

First of all, I will make European Settlers able to build Town Centers and Trading Posts just like Native and Asian villagers.

Second, Banks will disappear from the French and Barons will disappear from the British, the Dutch will keep their Banks though. Furthermore, Lumber Camps and Livestock Pens (the new Bakeries) will also disappear from all the civs that had them. I do have a plan for Livestock Pens but I need more time to figure it out.

Third, the Capitol will receive a utility makeover, the old Forts will make a comeback and I will probably combine the Command Post (Saloon) with the University.

Now, instead of the Lumber Camps, Banks, Barons and Livestock Pens, which were resources production buildings, the Church will take their place. You will be able to research a tech at the Church which enables it to generate coin. This will be present for all European civs, they will now have only one coin production building and that is it.

Why do I do this? Well, mainly because the old setup was too "over powered" for Europeans. And because this is how other, non-euro civs also have it.

This is all for now. I know some of you might dislike the new changes but I think it will turn out good.

Don't fight the system, embrace it. XD

Nah, I'm just kidding, death to all politicians!

Age of Empires 2 "Reborn Edition"

Ok so, we were all disappointed that AoE2 HD brought nothing new to the table, and because it is laggy as hell, and some animations are even broken, but the game still is somehow popular so since Hidden Path were clearly not the guys to go ahead and properly change the game they gave it to someone who can, a team that worked on RTS games before, SkyBox Labs.

Check this out for more info!

Let me highlight some important stuff from that post...

"I’m proud today to announce that we’ve been working with SkyBox Labs to ensure that AOE II HD’s future is brighter than ever."

"we are thrilled to announce a new partnership with the team behind the community driven Forgotten Empires project." 

"Working with the FE team will allow us to focus on improving what the community has been deemed most important over the years!"

"Throughout the summer we’ll be providing a series of patches to the core title to continue improving the game, fix bugs, improve performance, and more."

 And some nice recent changes...

"Maximum unit selection increased from 40 to 200.
Internal game’s frame rate is no longer forced at 20 frames per second."

So yes, things look extremely well for the Age of Empires franchise once again. I hope we will get the AoE2 game we all dream of!
Who knows, maybe they'll even bring LAN back...