AoK: Realms mod for Age of Empires II: The Conquerors

A new Realms patch is live, coming with balance changes, new content, and assorted fixes.

The biggest gameplay change is that the controversial gold pricetag on the Mandinka villager has been made optional. Players who were thrown off by the fundamental shift and just wanted to use known build orders will now be able to research a technology and revert to a more traditional playstyle, while those who were fond of the unique gameplay the bonus provided are free to ignore that tech. Other bonuses are left unchanged, so the group ruled by Mansa Musa will have a gold-centric economy either way.

Furthermore massed Pesilats will be less overpowering, Viet spies will function a bit better, and many more changes have been made to improve the overall balance.

There's also been partial support for independent architecture added: the Spanish, Celts, Byzantines, and Southeast Asian civilizations have been given duplicate building graphics, which will allow players to use custom architecture mods that, for example, change the Spanish buildings while leaving the the Frankish ones untouched. This is made to be compatible with the Independent Architecture mod for the HD edition and WololoKingdoms, so you'll be able use existing collections of architecture sets.

Beyond that, scenario designers will appreciate more tropical birds, an expansion of Realms' large selection of rocks and trees, new heroes, a few units with a fantasy bent, and more.

Though the mod has been progressing in a number of ways, there are two areas where I can't do much myself. The first is voices: it's obviously not ideal that Tibetans speak Chinese, but I don't know of any source for old-fashioned Tibetan speech similar to the in-game dialogue. If the lack of correct voices also bothers you and you have a knowledge of a language that should be in Realms and a microphone, please contact me. I'd jump at the chance to not have Farsi-speaking Armenians.

Translation is also something that people have asked about, but I don't personally have the language skills to produce Realms in anything but English. I have taken some steps to simplify the translation process, but it's ultimately going to require some dedicated multilingual fans for any translation work to occur.

Finally, a changelog:
All melee units given slight area damage to combat stacked Pesilats
Carracks +15 wood, 10 gold cost (to 135/85)
Armored units class restricted to Militia line and Knights
Armenians: Starting trickle reduced to 5 wood, 4 food (from 10/8)
Armenians: Ayrudzi +4 build time (to 25 seconds)
Armenians: Lose Bracer
Bamars: Lose Bloodlines
Bamars: Get Parthian Tactics
Bulgars: Lose Siege Engineers
Bulgars: Knights attack 10% faster in Castle Age (from 15)
Burgundians: Lose Guilds, Siege Engineers
Burgundians: Team bonus effect reduced
Burgundians: Lose Block Printing, gain Illumination
Chimus: Condottieri benefit from armor bonus
Franks: Forage bonus reduced to 20% (from 25)
Dravidians: Archer line -8 train time in Castle Age (matches crossbow)
Dravidians: Lose Siege Engineers
Dravidians: Varu is now affected by Burgundian Team Bonus
Dutch: Cannon Galleons have no minimum range instead of half
Dutch: Beguine heal rate increased to 1.875 (from 1.25)
Jurchens: Lose Arbalest
Jurchens: Villagers +5 frame delay, benefit from Fletching, +1 range per age rather than +1/3 in Dark/Feudal
Hindustani: Lose Halberdiers
Malays: Reduced (Elite) Pesilat dodge ability, speed decreased to 1.05 (from 1.12)
Malays: Elite Pesilat upgrade cost increased to 800f 750g (from 600 each)
Mandinkas: Gold villager cost is optional
Moors: Light cavalry attack 15% faster (from 20)
Saracens: Team bonus effect raised to 2 (from 1)
Slavs: Farmer bonus reduced to 10% (roughly)
Tufans: Lose Hussar
Tufans: Stone Conservation reduced to 30% (from 40)
Viets: Archer move speed bonus increased to 15% (from 10)
Viets: Diep Vien class changed. Will no longer return to build location and are more resistant to being auto-targeted