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[Kagus]

You mean the southeast Asia/Africa ones? Nah. I hear there's some fun stuff though, like the Berbers being able to have a unique trash unit via technology, in case you want to try counter-spamming Byzantium.

As for the HD improvements, it's basically just widescreen/high-res support. When the original AoE2 struggled with 1024x768, it's kind of a welcome change.

[CABL]

Trying to 100% Batman: Arkham City. I have only one thing to say: Fuck Riddler and his challenges.

[askovdk]

I'm taking Alpha Centauri Alien Crossfire up for a spin again.
That is a game that truly has stood the test of time and is still great. Especially the voice acting of the excellent fictional quotes add so much character to the fractions.

… Now I’m day dreaming of having a multi-season TV series based on the AC settings (preferably without the Caretakers/Usurpers).

[Parsely]

I'm taking Alpha Centauri Alien Crossfire up for a spin again.
That is a game that truly has stood the test of time and is still great. Especially the voice acting of the excellent fictional quotes add so much character to the fractions.

… Now I’m day dreaming of having a multi-season TV series based on the AC settings (preferably without the Caretakers/Usurpers).

I'm imagining the showmakers of The Expanse working on it...

I-it's... beautiful... :cry:

[nenjin]

Me playing Monster Hunter World:

[xaritscin]

installed Age of Empires 3 in this PC. works surprizingly well even on full screen (not really full, Windowed at full screen size basically). first match played in standard map was Aztecs vs British, it went surprizingly well, perhaps too well but yeah, the AI was harassing me anyways so i guess im just getting better at dealing with this or its because the progression pace in AoE 2 is more drastic with the machine rushing to the Castle Age then throwing knights at you, at least here i can do what im supposed to do which is rushing to grow my population and get enough resources while keeping myself busy with the Explorer/Warchief unit (the machine is better at this honestly, got no time to look for goodies in the wilds).

im probably gonna tackle the Asian Dynasties expansion later. honestly i dont understand why the devs decided to not include all the Civs in the last expansion, they are basically sidegames. it works good in AoE2 but oh well. i havent picked an european power yet not sure which one to choose, i usually went with the Spanish.

speaking of civs, im also looking at one mod called "Wars of Liberty" which from what i read on their site is kind of an unofficial expansion/revamp of the vanilla game:

-the list of civilizations is severely expanded by including some underlooked european factions including the Balkans, more Asian states including the Southeast ones, African civilizations like the Zulu and Etiophia, lifts some of the Native Americans from NPC tribes to proper civs or adds new ones like the Mapuches from southern South America, independent states like Canada or Mexico are also added as new civs (almost all the known independent colonies appear), Australia makes an appearance here too and im pretty sure Oceania has also a presence in this mod but they havent been revealed yet

-the timeline was moved towards the colonization of Africa, the wars in America, rebel movements in Asia and turnmoil in Europe, Oceania being settled and according to some mechanics they are extending this towars WW1 as the final endgame (not sure how they're gonna pull that), so in this case many of the vanilla leaders were changed to more contemporary characters save for the Natives they still have some familiar faces

-each faction bloc has its own mechanics apart of their civilization bonuses and gimmicks and the like for example the former "anglo" colonies like USA, Canada or Australia make use of some sort of political party system; the African estates expand their ages or civ tech trees by using Libraries to obtain knowledge from other sources; European powers have unique units they can learn at the 4th-5th age (traditional AoE style i guess) and so on

-religion has a place in the game in the form of Temples replacing Churches and expanding their uses, players can pick up to 3 religions (Laicism + 2 historically accurate religions for that civ) which provide new techs and units, its basically like an expansion of the Age of Mythology "God Favour" resource but less fantastic and more down to earth with the timeline, albeit apparently the south american civilizations actually do have some sort of god powers (WTF), i think this is like a fusion between the religion methods of AoM and the Religion Techs from AoE 2 which i think were more complex than in this one (have to play enough to remember)

-new maps, because we like more places to loose matches (no but seriously, there's a lot of cool maps added from around the world like Hawai, Iceland, Ethiopia, Cerrado and other more silly maps..)

-there's also an expansion of the mercenary system apparently, including the option to add Spies (sounds good, albeit it makes me remember Rise of Nations to a degree, will have to see if its implemented)

TL:DR i'll probably look for the latest version to see whats in and what's not, then give it a try.

[Kagus]

Spanish in AoE3 aren't quite the big boys they used to be, and are instead considered one of the weaker factions. You can spam hordes of pikemen though, which is always fun.

As for mods, I mean... Personally I like to learn and play the original game before hopping onto total conversions, but eh. AoE modding scene has always been pretty decently active.

For yurpean factions, Russia is great fun if you want to bring a swarm of gentle bullets to the battlefield, Turkish Janissaries like to go maximum overbeef and repel invaders with pure moustache power, and the Dutch can just do all sorts of filthy nonsense.

TAD is pretty good in my opinion, even though I'm aware it's the black sheep of the family. Are you playing the Steam version? War Chiefs units/factions are actually included in TAD on Steam, but the version management is sometimes a little derpy.

India has got some absolutely ridiculous units, and that's not even counting the war elephants. Japan has several different strategies it can go for, not least of which being "You thought the Russians knew how to spam? Hah!"

China is a bit tricky to learn and get right, but it rewards that patience with a wealth of goats. Also Age 2 artillery rush, but that's not very important.

[xaritscin]

yeah adding mods without playing the original directly sounds like a weird move but i played this years ago and still get the hang on things so it sounds fair honestly, besides, this mod has been worked so well it has its own installer and you can order it to copy your folder so it i can still play the base game while having access to the mod.

i guess it makes sense Spain isnt as strong as the others seeing that its like the most basic civilization for starting the game. also the strong emphasis on shipments means you have a lot of mercenary options to choose compared to the other civs which have extra stuff on their colonies. but anyways, i dont really play online so dont mind i too much against the AI, in fact, i feel it more tame than before.

i tested the mod yesterday and welp, they didnt lie, most of the units got skin swapped into something more consistent with the era. even the ages got moved (at least in name), the enlightenment is now the start. ran it with Spain, there were still some lancers/pikemen but the rodelero for example was removed (makes sense, this isnt the age of discovery) instead i have some more gunnery infantry and the cavalry. was thrown in a 2v2 with Malta as an ally against the Dutch and the Australians.

it ended well, only complain perhaps is that the european colonies start with lvl 10 in their home cities, i dont remember if that was the case in the base game. still had a pretty basic deck of course so i still have to unlock stuff. the match went well timed, had enough infantry and cavalry to take out the trash spam (not sure if you can use the term "trash" here taking in account units seem more expensive but yeah), then amassed enough wealth in age 4 to send the units to supress the military and siege the enemy bases.

[George_Chickens]

Spanish in AoE3 aren't quite the big boys they used to be, and are instead considered one of the weaker factions. You can spam hordes of pikemen though, which is always fun.

As for mods, I mean... Personally I like to learn and play the original game before hopping onto total conversions, but eh. AoE modding scene has always been pretty decently active.

For yurpean factions, Russia is great fun if you want to bring a swarm of gentle bullets to the battlefield, Turkish Janissaries like to go maximum overbeef and repel invaders with pure moustache power, and the Dutch can just do all sorts of filthy nonsense.

TAD is pretty good in my opinion, even though I'm aware it's the black sheep of the family. Are you playing the Steam version? War Chiefs units/factions are actually included in TAD on Steam, but the version management is sometimes a little derpy.

India has got some absolutely ridiculous units, and that's not even counting the war elephants. Japan has several different strategies it can go for, not least of which being "You thought the Russians knew how to spam? Hah!"

China is a bit tricky to learn and get right, but it rewards that patience with a wealth of goats. Also Age 2 artillery rush, but that's not very important.

The Ottomans always seemed a little OP to me. They just shredded everything they were up against. I loved playing as them for that reason, it was so easy to take out your enemies before they even got gunpowder.

[scourge728]

Japan has several different strategies it can go for, not least of which being "You thought the Russians knew how to spam? Hah!"

*insert joke about the Russio-Japanese War here*

[Kagus]

Spanish in AoE3 aren't quite the big boys they used to be, and are instead considered one of the weaker factions. You can spam hordes of pikemen though, which is always fun.

As for mods, I mean... Personally I like to learn and play the original game before hopping onto total conversions, but eh. AoE modding scene has always been pretty decently active.

For yurpean factions, Russia is great fun if you want to bring a swarm of gentle bullets to the battlefield, Turkish Janissaries like to go maximum overbeef and repel invaders with pure moustache power, and the Dutch can just do all sorts of filthy nonsense.

TAD is pretty good in my opinion, even though I'm aware it's the black sheep of the family. Are you playing the Steam version? War Chiefs units/factions are actually included in TAD on Steam, but the version management is sometimes a little derpy.

India has got some absolutely ridiculous units, and that's not even counting the war elephants. Japan has several different strategies it can go for, not least of which being "You thought the Russians knew how to spam? Hah!"

China is a bit tricky to learn and get right, but it rewards that patience with a wealth of goats. Also Age 2 artillery rush, but that's not very important.

The Ottomans always seemed a little OP to me. They just shredded everything they were up against. I loved playing as them for that reason, it was so easy to take out your enemies before they even got gunpowder.

I just like them because I don't have to think about clicking the "spawn another villager" button... Also lots of boom-boom shooty, yes.

[xaritscin]

i dunno playing as Japan feels a bit handicapped due to the whole no houses use shrines, oh you cant hunt so livestock is mostly useless but you can get some orchards here and there when not using rice fields to produce food, also some units cost a lot of population so good job trying to have a decent army before getting harassed by the euros. at least you can compensate by doing some resource management to ensure you have a constant supply of wood and gold. not so much sold with the Consulates as they seem barely useful. also ahving to rely on villagers to jump ages makes them a bit more difficult to win a match.

i guess that's more or less the approach they wanted in the vanilla game. if you play Natives you can spam units early or so but may fall behind lategame, Euros have a constant performance over the length of the match while Asians are mostly about keeping up on growing resources then building an army for the late game. well that's what i see so far, not really accurate on that statement.

i think im gonna check them in the modded game to compare but i feel more compelled to use some of the native factions, specially the Incas or Mapuches.

[Kagus]

Shrines are considered one of the best parts of Japan. Giving up hunted animals sucks, sure, but cherry orchards use forage gather rates rather than farming gather rates, and as such aren't that bad. A couple cards, Toshogu to age up, and you've got a bunch of much-harder-to-kill "villagers" that give you vision and resource trickles while also increasing your popcap instead of reducing it. Japan's got really economy, and if you dare let them play on a water map with fishing? Prepare yourself for ultimate boom. They've got the best fishing/whaling in the game.

And yeah, sure, you can fiddle about with samurai... And they're pretty decent with the right cards and upgrades and whatnot, don't get me wrong... But ashigaru.

Ashigaru musketeers come online at age 2, can be built in groups of 5 for free from dojos and are very reasonably priced anyways, and have a buttload of upgrades that make them entirely too strong for their versatility and price.


Yumi archers are fun too, and yabusame can get some funny multipliers, but c'mon. Ashigaru. Just... Lots and lots of ashigaru.

Or if you really wanna be silly, stack mercenary cards and get the Japan-exclusive yojimbo merc, who is obscenely powerful against almost every unit type in the game. Expensive as hell though, both gold and popcap-wise.


Consulates are also amazing, for a variety of reasons, and can often be a central point of someone's strategy. Japan in particular with their unique Isolationism and the funkiness it spits out.

[xaritscin]

ok im recommending Wars of Liberty to everyone, outside of a few design isues with the home cities this mod has been well thought. had a blast running a 1v1 Incas vs Portugueses in the Australia map. the scenere was consistent  both in biomes and historical background (aboriginals, outback caravans, inmigrant settlers, dingos, emus, etc... you can even get unlimited food source due to rabbits which have low resource amount but reproduce like crazy by themselves), the best part is that each faction i've played has its unique gameplay points contrary to how they were fleshed in AoE 2 (engine constraints of course but yeah) for example the Incas have their own units and buildings, they have bonuses based around gold generation, their warchief works like a healer and warden unit (temporal invulnerability to surrounding units) which can appoint a second unique unit that does the scouting and treasure hunting part. in addition to this the Incas and other South American civs can build monuments which are tied to the religion system of the mod, i wasnt able to procure any kind of god power because im not sure how do these things work but it was consistent aesthetically with the rest of the structures.

i havent delved much in how the machine is playing but it seems like the good ol vanilla AI, perhaps if i up the difficulty a bit or look at the configuration options when setting the match. but yeah, really good mod even when there's still factions missing.

EDIT: hmmmm there seems to be some bug with the Aztecs, not sure what happened but i guess its from the latest updates

[Robsoie]

The gals can't just take a break from x-piratez-ing on the version released last month.
Their hideout just got invaded by demons coming directly from Doom. The battle was raging as the demons were outnumbering the crew but in the end  heavy shotguns prevailed.
The notable loss of that battle was the parrot that got burned down by a sneaky imp that came from behind after travelling down in the sewers to infiltrate the base.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)