The most recent Patcher update was released on: 19/02/2024



The Improvement Mod touches on every aspect of the incredible game that is Age of Empires 3 (2007) and its expansions, improving and tweaking every feature the game has to offer while also adding many new features and content such as new mechanics, cards, techs, units, buildings, maps, civilizations, soundtracks and game modes.

The mod is focused on replayability and gameplay smoothness, powered by an advanced AI and improved visuals with upscaled and HD textures. Cards no longer have level requirements, all civilizations have new bonuses, units move and turn faster, ships can move over shallows, advancing through ages is faster and more rewarding with randomly chosen politicians, randomly chosen consulate allies and revolutions and much more. Check the "Features" section for more details.

Campaigns, skirmish, multiplayer, all ways the game can be played in were tweaked and expanded with more teams, diplomacy, a plethora of new maps featuring new flora, fauna and natives and improved game rules. The mod and all its features are also fully ESO compatible.

The mod is recommended for AoE3 Complete Collection (Steam version) as it contains everything the mod needs, although it can be installed over any version as long as the game has both expansions and ALL official updates.


Main features of the Improvement Mod:

- new American, Asian, African and Middle Eastern maps plus new Regicide, Custom and Special maps (over 60 new maps)
- new Native allies for the new maps and new fauna, flora and props
- new playable civilizations added: Americans, Italians, Swedish, Colombians, Maltese
- new Consulate allies added: Americans, Italians, Swedish, Chinese, Japanese and Indians
- new Politicians, Revolution leaders, Firepit dances, Council members and Wonder shipments
- added an Observer civilization; make sure to put Observers in their own team (the mod has 4 teams)
- added the advanced Editor by Reyk and Mister SCP, with numerous new options and trigger effects
- new unique resource for European civilizations added: Fame (used at the Church and Capitol)
- the European Capitol now has new Fame costing units, techs and armies, similar to the Consulate
- added new unique bonuses for every civilization and new starting team bonuses
- Ottomans now have access to Export and the Consulate (reworked their Mosque to Asian standards)
- randomized Consulate allies, Revolution leaders, Fire Pit dances, Wonder shipments and age up Politicians/Councilors
- fixed the cliff lag and a silent crash from TAD related to an Indian Town Center model
- the monument in the King of the Hill game mode cannot be captured by any Age 1 units anymore
- adjusted the price and age requirement for Trade Monopoly and disabled certain techs in Deathmatch mode
- Native civilizations can now train outlaws via the Embassy and they also have new economic techs and cards
- Docks now have a build limit and Fishing Boats no longer take population space (but have a smaller train limit)
- starting in a later Age as an Asian civilization now gives free Wonder Wagons for missed wonders
- removed the randomness in attacks for many units, including ships; ships now fire consistently
- ships can now move in formations and they can sail over shallows on which ground units can also walk
- added water treasures to American maps and also fixed other map related issues and inconsistencies
- added numerous new ground and naval treasures for all maps and new guardians and mercenaries
- naval trade routes, the Fountain of Youth, Fixed Guns and Redoubts are now featured in both old and new maps
- villagers now stand still while gathering from Mills and Plantations for consistent gather rates
- most European artillery now moves exclusively in Bombard mode at a higher speed (like Asian artillery)
- all ground units are now significantly faster for a smoother combat and faster map traversal (inspired by AoEO)
- multiplayer save game support, OOS restoration, repair all damaged walls button and other quality of life features
- many balance changes and gameplay tweaks across the board, some inspired by ESOC
- returning gameplay features such as defensive buildings being able to attack military buildings
- improved and more challenging AI made to work with the newly added features
- tweaked unit hitboxes, turning rates and formations for better and smoother pathfinding
- several inconsequential objects and units no longer have collision to improve pathfinding
- added a new "Break Formation" tactic for all units which keeps units in place while moving
- new and fixed animations and visual effects for water, smoke, dust and blood
- new visual rendering features such as "Alpha to coverage" (antialiasing for transparent textures)
- added a new graphics option that can switch only cliff models to low poly variants for maps with cliff lag
- added better low poly cliff models, ported over from Age of Empires Online
- ported all AoE3 Definitive Edition map textures in higher resolution and also added several new textures
- improved map details: ported AoE3DE flora textures and added more vegetation (no performance penalty)
- improved framerate by tackling laggy underbrush models from the original game
- the game now runs properly on Windows 10/11 without needing WinXP compatibility mode
- removed excess fog from all maps and toned down the bloom (for clearer visuals)
- added new high quality sounds and diversified the existing sounds in the game
- full LAN and ESO support with 4 teams to play with (from the original 2)
- increased population limit and increased unit selection limit (from the original 50)
- overall new units, cards, techs, buildings and hotkeys for all civilizations
- redesigned UI with upscaled and new textures
- homecity widescreen fix for 16:9 resolutions
- revived diplomacy feature for multiplayer
- and much, much more

  • View media
  • View media
  • View media
  • View media
  • View media
  • View media
RSS Articles

Over 40 New Maps!

News 2 comments

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:

new maps

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.

Improvement Mod Patcher Updated


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!


New Features

New Features

News 11 comments

New awesome and ground breaking features are here, DE doesn't want big mods just yet and I don't plan to stop working on the mod any time soon. All of...

Randomization!

Randomization!

News 1 comment

Somewhere around the start of the year I released the UHC2 version of the mod in the form of "age3b.exe", an extra executable along with some extra files...

The Circle of Ossus

The Circle of Ossus

News 10 comments

The mod embraces the fantastical universe and story created for the original AoE3 singleplayer campaign and tries to expand upon it with more Circle of...

Improvement Mod Discord Server

Improvement Mod Discord Server

News

New AoE3 Improvement Mod Discord server. Link inside.

RSS Files
Improvement Mod Patcher Updated

Improvement Mod Patcher Updated

Full Version 92 comments

The Patcher downloads from a private server controlled by a third party. If this raises security concerns for you, use the manual download instead. The...

Improvement Mod Manual Install

Improvement Mod Manual Install

Full Version 16 comments

It is recommended that you use the Patcher to install the mod, however if for some reason the Patcher doesn't work you or it raises security concerns...

Improvement Mod USA and Custom Maps *OLD*

Improvement Mod USA and Custom Maps *OLD*

Full Version 1 comment

DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS! I am leaving it here as an archive of my previous work, but if you want to play the latest version of the mod then avoid this.

Improvement Mod version 5.4 (installer) *OLD*

Improvement Mod version 5.4 (installer) *OLD*

Full Version 29 comments

DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS! I am leaving it here as an archive of my previous work, but if you want to play the latest version of the mod then avoid this.

Improvement Mod version 5.4 (manual install) *OLD*

Improvement Mod version 5.4 (manual install) *OLD*

Full Version 2 comments

DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS! I am leaving it here as an archive of my previous work, but if you want to play the latest version of the mod then avoid this.

Improvement Mod version 5.2 (manual install)*OLD*

Improvement Mod version 5.2 (manual install)*OLD*

Full Version 22 comments

DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS! I am leaving it here as an archive of my previous work, but if you want to play the latest version of the mod then avoid this.

Post comment Comments  (0 - 10 of 835)
Guest
Guest

Thanks for the awesome mod!

Is there a significant difference between Improvement Mod AI and Asian Dynasties AI in the campaigns? Should I prefer Asian Dynasties AI for more vanilla experience?

Reply Good karma Bad karma0 votes
mandosrex Creator
mandosrex

The campaigns actually use the TAD AI regardless of what Skirmish AI is selected. I did this to avoid possible issues that might negatively affect the campaign experience. However, it is a buffed version of the TAD AI, just like the Skirmish version of the TAD AI available in the Patcher.

Reply Good karma+1 vote
Guest
Guest

Não consigo instalar, da erro

Reply Good karma Bad karma0 votes
mandosrex Creator
mandosrex

Eu não acredito em você.

Reply Good karma+1 vote
AmazingBoufwen
AmazingBoufwen

Holy S..t my dude, what an amazing mod. Not even joking, i walked away from that (cough) "Definitive edition of aoe 3" (cough) and found this absolute gem. One question tho. I love everything about this mod except the changes to the graphics, especialy the trees and the ground textures. is there a way to have the old graphics/textures with all the other features of your mod. that would make this mod perfect for me.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
mandosrex Creator
mandosrex

Well, no. The new terrain textures are too integrated code wise (there's also a code element to them, not just the textures). What probably made it look worse for you is the fact that not all trees were changed yet, only some, so some look high resolution, others low.
I know some of the new terrain textures are very different and also affect visibility differently but it's something you have to get used to. If I had the chance to change them I had to take it.

But I am glad you enjoyed it. More things to come.
Tomorrow I will release some changes for Nomad, to make it more enticing.

Reply Good karma+1 vote
AmazingBoufwen
AmazingBoufwen

Im sure il get used to the new ground and trees/fonna after the textures get standartised, because those berry bushes and some trees stick out like a motherf....r.
I have to give praise for the new civilizations, soo prof. made its mind blowing. Then the big thing for me is the unit speed and pathfinding change, it makes it so much smoother and just a better feeling and control over your units. Also the lumber camp (My god that was just genius) (finaly there is enough wood without choping the whole map!) the 95 unit sellection!!, 250 pop...etc (i can go for a whole A4 page) i mean the mod is a labor of love, no doubt, so thank you again for all the work you put in the last 13-14 years. (This is what DE should have been in my opinion)
I would maybe just ask, if you could classify your mod as a game version like 0.5 or 1.0...etc what would you classify it as? Just to get a feel for the progress and the future of the mod.
thanks :)

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
mandosrex Creator
mandosrex

Oh, well, I dunno. I never had a beta version or anything like that. I try to treat every update as if it's the last. Not that there's gonna be a last update any time soon, but I always want the mod to be as playable as possible with as few issues as possible.
I really don't know, it's not how I work. I used to give updates numbers for a while and I stopped at version 6.0 but that was many years ago. If that was version 6.0, the current version would be like... version 50 or more. Maybe approaching 100. So yeah, as you can see it makes no sense. I like to work and release as fast as possible. I don't worry about versions (or patch notes some times, unfortunately).

Reply Good karma+1 vote
Guest
Guest

why did it ask for product key?

Reply Good karma Bad karma0 votes
mandosrex Creator
mandosrex

What?
If you just installed the game and installed the mod, you need to run Asian Dynasties (age3y.exe) first and enter a cdkey there and then run the mod.
If it keeps asking for a cdkey every time you run it, try running Asian Dynasties and the mod as administrator and make sure your antivirus isn't blocking any of them.

Reply Good karma+1 vote
Post a comment

Your comment will be anonymous unless you join the community. Or sign in with your social account:

X