Anglo rework image - Age of Empires III: Wars of Liberty mod for Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties

~The Future of WoL - PART9~ Anglo Rework

The Anglophone culture represents all the countries that have been shaped by their relationship with the British Empire, modernity, etc. Historically speaking, no process has ever been simple nor too fast, and in this case, it shows. The anglophone civilizations are supposed to show the dichotomy between two ways of living, between two ideologies and how that conflict shapes nations and peoples.

The Anglo culture we all know had a problem, though, it was extremely USA-centric. To be honest, it was just a frame for a USA civ and both Canada and Australia felt kind of out of place within that system. Also, some of their mechanics and narratives weren’t so developed to our current standards (they had nothing ‘Anglo’ about them, they were just mechanics with no gameplay justifications) so we decided to take a look at them and see how we could make them better. The result is one of my favorites and I’m very excited to share it with you.

First, we realized the Fur Trade was the very first thing that had to be changed: it was just too North American oriented, and if we wanted to make a true anglo culture frame for all present and future civilizations, then that had to change. The new idea is simple, every Anglo culture civilization will receive an explorer dog and a set of explorers that will excel at one resource, the Fur Trader being that option for Canada. Can you guess what will the USA and Australia get?

Another thing that will get retouched but kept will be the age-up system. The party system is a great way to tell the story of a people, or a group of peoples, fighting about different worldviews on the frame of modernity. We want, though, to further emphasize on that change, making the decisions more meaningful. The party you choose will no longer just give you a unit and a tech, but it will each, in a particular way, boost a playstyle within the civilization. When playing as Canada, do you want to focus on Native Posts? Or maybe you want to focus on helping your ally? Well, choose your parties wisely, because those decisions will shape the way your civilization behaves. When playing as the USA: Do you want an agrarian economy, focused on villager work? Or maybe you want to invest more but get an industrial economy?

It is not a secret that Wars of Liberty will keep growing, and you can expect to see quite a bunch of new Anglophone culture civilizations. With that in mind, it became clear to us that their roster was just not good enough, so while we are keeping many of those units, we are going to add many more units to make this roster so rich no civilization will feel alien to it. The anglosphere reached every corner of the world and their units will show that.

And while we’re talking about how far the anglosphere can reach, we ask ourselves: What unique features will this culture get that will make justice to all the diversity we’re trying to portray? This was the Anglo culture’s biggest issue: The congress wasn’t very fun mechanically and narratively it was too narrow, working mostly just for the USA and barely for the other civilizations. Besides that, the Anglophone culture had no other feature worth noting. We finally found the answer to our issue: If we wanted a feature that could portray all the corners of the world, why not basing it on our own mod’s diversity? That’s how we ended up designing the Anglophone culture’s key feature: Each anglophone civilization will borrow different aspects from its ‘host’ culture. To take Canada as an example: Their ‘host’ culture is Europe, and therefore, they have access to the Mill, the Plantation and Factories. Two late-game resources and a particular european factory. In this case, the Factory. Canada will be, in that way, very european. But that’s not all. Anglophone civilizations get a brand new Unique Building: The University! A building that will host each politician’s unique technology, upgrades for the borrowed systems and more! Now, a little puzzle for you. Since Canada borrows from Europe, the USA can’t do that so, what culture do you think the USA borrows its features from? Happy guessing!
If you’ve been reading carefully you have probably realized there has been quite a spoiler already revealed for the future of this culture, but I won’t talk about it yet.

I think that basically covers it all. I hope you are as excited as I am for this culture rework! For my next article I will talk about the future of the Wars of Liberty maps. How many will there be, What can you expect of them, what playstyles will we favor and how. At the end of the day, my next article will talk about how you all will experience the game, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself so I’ll finish here.