About Modding Tool

I gotta say that now I can create my own game and I don’t have to wait for the devs to balance and upload it as an update. This is really helpful!

I realized how simple it is to understand and work on the modding tool as soon as I watched the tutorials on Youtube. It is really easy and simple. Learned lots of shortcuts during my progress and that made it soo much easier.

Please share tips about:
Updating “Description of the mode”.
“Transfering changes from original mode to new mode”
“Adding picture on mode”

About some issues:

Some Campaign Hero Models are not recached so they would appear as a square box.
I was trying to give some civs a hero from the campaign but was unfortunately not possible :frowning: due to this issue.

Next thing is that I don’t see any option to reskin available units from one to another. If anyone knows about this, please let me know.

Some technologies and units are nonexistent some were removed in April 2020 as I read notes in the description etc. It would be really nice to add all of them back, so modders can put them back into the game.

Edit: (Spoiler alert!) I saw some new technologies for some civs :slight_smile:

Overall, it is really fun and simple!
Thanks!

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I think the mod tools are a great first start to adding mod support. I’m impressed with how they managed a mod system in game and with the raw scripting support that’s in the game. I never expected the tool to have breakpoints and rpc functionality. I get the feeling that this mod tool is something they use internally too with how much developer quality of life work they put into it.

But I would really love if they enabled the ability to upload your own models and change the UI. I don’t think it’d be horrible to allow users the ability to override the xaml files inside the game to customize their UI. My ideal solution is that they add a type of mod that can be used to customize the UI that’s useable in quick match/ranked.

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What tutorial videos did you watch? I haven’t checked out the mod tools yet, but I am interested in mods after they release it in the update

Yea

Also it would be really cool if we are able to activate multiple mods to take effect, instead of 1

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This is where you can find all necessary information

The tutorial videos are here:


Thanks! This is really neat. I have a silly question: how do you access the content editor?

Go to Steam>click mouse 2 on AOE4>select properties>local Files>Browse>EssenceEditor.exe

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That seems to be an issue these days with an IP. They want too much control, but also they don’t their game turning into i.e.
AoE4: The Simpsons mod
AoE4: Seinfeld mod :laughing:

They don’t their game becoming so far removed from AoE where people are making AoE: StarCraft 3

I’m confused. Are mods only alternate game modes? I was hoping for UI enhancements and quality of life mods. If anyone saw the N4C tournament - that overlay should be a mod. I want to check all my techs and queues without selecting everything.

I honestly dont understand this tool yet. So you can create your own units and technologies and makes them public for other players?? wouldnt that create unbalanced matches???

it can only be used for custom games at the moment.
Therefore, it wont affect quick matchmaking

I saw someone did “Menu UI Enhancement” mode and it was pretty neat, don’t know how he did it but is available.

I am still exploring it.

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RTS games have a long and storied history of custom game types. It’s all opt-in and unranked, so whether or not it’s balanced isn’t the dev’s concern.

Thanks a ton. The Essence Editor looks promising, and I will try messing around with it.

Just a heads-up, but this can cause problems with the retail version of your game - Reddit - Dive into anything

I’m not saying “don’t do it”, more "don’t yell if something breaks :sweat_smile:

will result in mod data being written to your Retail My Games folder, instead of the Public Update Preview environment.

Yes. After building a mod the editor will save the mod file in
“\Documents\My Games\Age of Empires IV\mods\extension\local”
or
“\Documents\My Games\Age of Empires IV\mods\replacement\local”

To fix this during the PUP, simply drag your mod over to
“\Documents\My Games\Age of Empires IV - Test\mods\extension\local”
or
“\Documents\My Games\Age of Empires IV - Test\mods\replacement\local”

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Thanks that left me very confused with built mods not showing up! - I done a symbolic link to stop me copying for now.

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Nah, it works perfectly, didn’t experience any crash at all.

Don’t know why it is a problem, but for me, it runs perfectly.

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Does anyone know how to create triggers in the editor? The official manual is lacking this information.