Articles - Improvement Mod for Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties

HA! You thought it was DE, but it was me, Improvement Mod!

Like I said before, I don't plan to stop modding the original game so here's an update that adds 42 new maps plus 9 Regicide variants and a new global wall repair button which, when clicked enables repairing on all wall pieces a player owns (so no more individual repairing for each wall piece) across the map.

The new maps have been taken from the now abandoned ESOC project and from the great map maker Gandalf's collection. However unlike their ESOC counterparts the maps in my mod have fixed layouts and terrain, fixed starting units spawns and Nomad and King of the Hill support, and they also feature new fauna, flora, treasures and natives.
Oh and the mod now also features HD terrain textures at double the original resolution (with no performance costs) ported from AoE3DE, for all old and new maps plus a few completely new terrain texture sets for some new maps.

And you can now see the map layout in the lobby before starting a game!
Here are the new maps bellow:

Now, maybe you've noticed that some of these maps are already in DE or will be in DE with the upcoming African DLC. That's because most "new" maps in DE are just existing, old maps the community has made over the years, added in the game and then renamed and maybe retextured.

Anyway, several original maps have also been drastically changed and rebalanced in this update, such as Andes, California, Hispaniola, Ozarks, Pampas and New England (changes made by the Fan Patch). So you really gotta play the old maps and the new maps to see everything that's new. There's even new treasures to find in the old maps. There are reports that the Circle of Ossus might be looking for ancient treasures in some locations.

So run the Patcher or get the mod manually and experience the greatness of this update and that new repair button that repairs all walls and makes dreams come true.

As always, thanks for being here and thanks for playing!

Listen, I get it. DE is out so why would you still be playing this mod for the old game over the "new game"?

The best answer I have for that is because, even though DE has adopted many fixes my mod had for years (they recently accepted my alternative fix for the box formation issue for infantry, after they butchered it for cavalry), this mod still has many more amazing and ground breaking features DE doesn't even dream of. And I have recently invested personally in even more such features!

Let me give you a quick rundown on some of the new stuff:

1. Through the mod, Age of Empires 3 "legacy" as they call it, is now more compatible with Windows 10, having the display features fixed if the game's exe is not ran in compatibility mode (though it's still recommended just in case). Oh and new the High/Low poly Cliffs option is fixed now, so you can play those Gandalf maps with more than 5 FPS.

2. Ottomans are now a semi-Asian civilization, they have a changed Mosque, to better match the Monastery, they now have Export and yes, they also have a Consulate with new unique Asian allies (Indians, Chinese and Japanese). I flipped the board on them for uniqueness. They of course also have new cards for the Consulate and mercs.

3. Ships can now move over shallows on which ground units can also walk. This is big. AoE3 as you know, does not have the best water combat, and the fact that ships are huge, water is small and that they get blocked by shallows doesn't help either. Well, besides my other changes to make water combat better, ships are no longer blocked by shallows such as those on Northwest Territory and Indochina. Speaking of which, you can now dock and make ships on Bayou.

4. On the topic of ships, remember how they used to fire their cannons randomly, resulting in cases where if two identical ships fought, the one that fired first could actually lose the battle because of random cannon fire? Yeah, that's no longer the case in the mod either. Ships now fire consistently and accordingly to their assigned rate of fire.

5. And one more amazing thing for this post: you know how villagers walked randomly around Mills and Plantations while gathering, resulting in wasted gather time which was only increased the more villagers you had on one Mill or Plantation? That's gone as well. When they gather from Mills and Plantations, villagers now stay in place just like on Farms and Rice Paddies.

I said "for this post" because I don't really plan to stop. The way to keeping this mod desirable is to offer features DE does not have, and to offer an overall more enjoyable AND replayable experience.
Yes, you could say it's a bad idea to keep investing in and working on the old game, but DE doesn't yet want big mods to be made for it and will likely not want that for a long time to come, because of continuous official updates and even the possibility of future DLC and "expansions", now that AoE2DE broke the ice in that regard, which will make a lot of the work us modders could put into the game for a big mod pointless.

Right now I'll continue working on my current mod as best as I can. I am also working on updating the entire UI to something nicer and cleaner (using some inspiration from DE) and I might even use DE to update some of the uglier textures in the game, like terrain textures. But we'll see about that.

So regardless if you still do it or not, if you've ever played my mod I want to thank you again for giving it a chance and I hope you'll try it again sometime.

This has been an exciting year for the mod. In the modding community we had a lot of breakthroughs in modeling and UHC features, and then there's AoE3DE which will release soon and... god help us all.

I've already talked about some of the new stuff UHC2 brings in a previous post (stuff like 95 unit selection limit, multiplayer save and load game system, many engine fixes) but this post is about a specific, new, lit feature which right now is exclusive to the Improvement Mod: tech randomization.

But what did I use this new feature on? Well, I used it in one of the most controversial ways possible, I made European politicians, Revolutions, native Council members and Consulate allies random.

But how does this randomization work?
At the start of each game, a set number of techs are picked from a list to be made available that match to the player. Just like random mercenaries which have been in the game since the WarChiefs expansion.
Politicians (and councillors) and Consulate allies are random but shared between all players that play the same civ. So all French players will have the same politicians, all British players will have their own set of politicians and so on. This was made this way to ensure mirror games are still as fair as possible. Revolutions however, and randomized individually per player, because they are less impactful and for even more diversity.

As for Asian Wonders, I plan to add this feature to them as well and again because of technical reasons, it will be done the same way as I did it for Natives, keep the Wonder buildings the same but randomize the shipments they send.

The feature is now only available on the "age3b.exe" version of the mod that you can start the the game's folder (remember to put the exe in WinXP SP3 compatibility mode).

And yes, such a system requires rigorous balancing. Which is why I always need help with balancing and why you can join the mod's Discord server to help out.

As for the elephant in the room, yes, I plan to make an Improvement Mod for AoE3DE if I can.
I just hope there will be people who want to play it.

Special thanks to Kevsoft from the Project Celeste team for making all of this possible!

For a more detailed post, go to the mod's blog.

The Council of Cardinals

The Council of Cardinals stands as the governing body of the Circle of Ossus, and maintains the authority to make executive decisions in all aspects regarding the interests of the order and its subsidiaries. The Grand Cardinal has the highest authority from within the Council.

Cardinals are sworn in by the Grand Cardinal, or by unanimous vote of the Council. Once appointed, Cardinals can retain their position for life as long as they serve the Circle faithfully. Those that do not act in the best interest of the order can be forcibly removed on grounds of treason and executed, if they do not step down willingly. The Council can hold anywhere from five to twelve Cardinals at any given moment, including the Grand Cardinal.

One notable Circle subsidiary were the Bavarian Illuminati, founded by Adam Weishaupt in 1776. Weishaupt served as Grand Cardinal for the Circle of Ossus and he used the Illuminati as cover up for rebuilding the order to its former glory after the defeat in the Americas, by attracting Europe's elite into the fold.
For his first act as Grand Cardinal, Weishaupt ordered the construction of the Havana Ossuary to secure a better foothold for the Circle in the New World.

The Boneguard

Militarily the Circle of Ossus can rely on the forces commanded by their Cardinals and generals all over the world. Their unparalleled knowledge of science and alchemy allows them to outfit their men with equipment superior to any other in the world, with artillery a thousand times as powerful as the standard nine-pounders of the day. In addition, the Circle is able to create mysterious white colored animals with superior strength and abilities, that charge fearless into enemy lines.

The Circle also commands an elite corps of troops known as the Boneguard. The Boneguard are a unit in personal service to the Council of Cardinals, operating on the orders of the Council or Grand Cardinal.
The Boneguard are led by Inquisitors, commanders and generals who carry out the will of the Circle.

Boneguards are masters of sword and gunpowder, knowledgeable in all military tactics and chosen from the top ranks of commandeered armies, and as such, Boneguards usually find themselves outside and above the regular chain of command. The Captain of the Boneguard is chosen by the Grand Cardinal from among the current members of the corps.

The Boneguard and other members of the Circle are known to often communicate in ancient and dead languages as to not divulge sensitive information to those that serve them, and for other, more mystical purposes.

The Fountain of Youth

“... and so I stand before it, that which so many have failed to find. The Circle's archives tell of the death of the titan mother Gaia, and at her resting place, a temple built by the Atlanteans. Hidden and guarded by the Moon. The waters blessed with the gift of life. The Fountain of Youth. Tomorrow I will finally taste its waters and start my ascension; our will has only one resolve. But the knights are starting to get suspicious. Those savages have poisoned words. Morgan must be dealt with before he does something foolish.”

- Alain Magnan, days before his death

Although the Fountain of Youth has been the Circle's focus in the New World for more than 300 years, the order has been engaged in other ventures all around the globe during this period, searching for mysterious artifacts, unlocking forgotten knowledge and seeking to achieve god-like ascension through any means deemed necessary.

Many have opposed the Circle over the centuries but none have managed to deter the order from their ambitions. The Black family and their allies have put a hold on the order's plans on several occasions, however the Circle of Ossus has yet to reveal their full power and influence.

After a poll on the mod's blog, asking if people would use a Discord server for the mod, I decided to go ahead with it due to positive results.

Here's the link:
Discord.gg

I will use the server to post news, work in progress (some hot, never before seen stuff in there), ask for opinions and you can use it to tell me how shit the mod is and the infinite amount of problems you have.

It's a win win situation.

I hope to see you there.
Thanks for playing.