This mod aims at improving every aspect of the incredible game that is Age of Empires 3 and its expansions. From new mechanics to new civilizations, cards, technologies, units, buildings, maps, soundtracks and game modes, the Improvement Mod focuses on replayability and gameplay smoothness and has been in the works since 2009, making it the perfect choice for players who want to get the most out of the game and then some, without changing it completely.
Improvement Mod
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Description
Italians are now available as Consulate allies for Indians.
They focus on mercenaries and defenses.
Cool :)
So everyone gets spahis now?..
Everyone? What do you mean with everyone?
Consulate allies always gave Asians their best units.
Ottomans have Spahis so they are sharing them with their Indian allies for a price.
What's the problem here?
Problem is the vanilla game already has very lazy design that makes all armies feel pretty homogeneous. Do you really think hussars wore the same uniforms, whether they are used by West Europeans or Ottomans? (edit: Ottomans didn't even have "hussars," but I guess the term is used in game for generic horsemen and spoke on that basis) Or architecture was same for all people at that time? Even the Europeans, lazily grouped as East and West, has great variety among their cultures and development, which are stripped for cheaper and faster development.
As a modder I cannot expect you to reinvent the game, but by giving the three unique units that made Ottomans the Ottomans and let them stand out among the other factions, especially Europeans from whom they got their every other asset, you are taking away the uniqueness of that faction; not to mention it is historically laughable.
While I know this pretty lame game mechanic is not presented by you and other units were already there, by giving the last thing that makes them unique you actually make the Ottomans like a modded in faction whose assets were recycled from other factions, having no unique aspects of their own.
My dissent is for general RTS modding actually and not this mod, as people are so afraid of variety and asymmetry they try to make opposing forces very homogeneous among each other. A good example is WW2 mods that give the Allies Tiger tanks, and Germans Shermans. While this example has some historical accuracy in fact, it takes away from the beauty of contrasting forces clashing and turn it into a simple "red team vs blue team" scenario.
Sorry to bother you. I have no problems with you developing the way you want. I just wanted to express my opinions and you seemed to be the first person passing by that can understand my thoughts.
I do understand what you're saying and diversity among civs (Euro civs especially) has been one of my main concerns since day one.
(I even removed Hussars from Ottomans a while ago and gave them Sowars instead, but they didn't fit that well so I reverted the change)
But what you need to understand is that, although it might seem like I somehow took a unique unit from Ottomans (though they are still Ottoman, I mean... Consulates dude, that's how they work!), I also gave Ottomans another unique unit, the Azap, on top of their other unique units like the Abus Gun, Galley and Imam, units which no other civ has access to (even if most of them are just reskins).
Ottomans are actually the European civ with the most unique units.
Now let's talk about royal upgrades and how my mod uses them to make each European civ even more unique.
Royal upgrades are unique upgrades for common units, like the Redcoats upgrade for Musketeers or Niddle Gunner upgrade for Skirmishers. My mod made all royal upgrades to give a different texture for their unit, so in other words, an Imperial Redcoat will look different from an Imperial Musketeer.
And I went even further by also making royal upgrades for artillery and ships, something not present in the original game at all.
All of these changes come together and add a lot of diversity into the game.
I know it can be better, it can always be better, I'd like European buildings to look more different between civs as much as you do, but the amount of work required... It's just not worth it sometimes...
Especially when people don't appreciate your work. Just saying.