Download Link for the v1.0 Patch:
Full documentation and changelogs: Age of Empires III: Unofficial Rebalance Patch - Google Docs
Github Repository: Age of Empires III: Unofficial Rebalance Patch - GIthub
A small but focused Unofficial Rebalance Patch for AoE3:DE, aimed at addressing some long-standing balance concerns - particularly with Ottoman Empire and Baja California (and some outlaws) - while preserving the core feel and flow of the game.
Why am I doing this?
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Certain civs have had a consistent competitive edge in ranked play, leading to exhaustively repetitive matchups (everyone uses Ottoman Empire and Baja California Revolt, and sometimes Brits, France and Spain, leading to the same types of games being played over and over again) and fewer viable strategies beyond spamming what is âuber strongâ (or unbalanced) to farm elo.
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The official patches were grinded to a halt, with the game being completely abandoned by its developers and managers (in a completely unbalanced state, no less), which prompted me to begin this effort, just like the community previously did in AoE III Legacy with the ESOC Unofficial Patch.
Communication with the official AoE3:DE team has been unproductive, and itâs unlikely weâll see support for custom ranked queues that permit mods (like this mod or other balance mods in particular) anytime soon. The game still has an active official ranked ladder, and many players will be reluctant to leave it - but that doesnât mean the community canât act.
The proposal is to create an Unofficial Rebalance Patch, focused on addressing critical issues such as the Ottomans and Baja California, and of course any other unbalanced mechanic or unit - and invite the community, including top-level players, to help with suggestions for even more precise balancing and adoption.
For championships and normal lobby play, this already works (could become even the norm if enough top players and most of the community commit to using it).
The only remaining main challenge is creating a parallel ranked system (there is little to no possibility the DE team would comply if we asked for a Custom Ranked Queue feature), which then requires one of these solutions:
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A custom launcher (similar to W3Champions in Warcraft 3 or the ESOC Patch in AoE3 Legacy). Potentially hijacking the original gameâs API calls to point to a custom leaderboard, for games with Data Mods [with this Data Mod in particular] in ranked matches (probably possible through forcing the âSafe for multiplayerâ flag for all mods in the game executable) so a leaderboard for a Unofficial Ranked Queue for players using this rebalance mod can actually work properly (both for querying leaderboard/match data to show it in the player UI and to store it to the parallel Ranked Queue server). The same approach is to be used for the actual matchmaking, it is expected to use the elo ratings and metrics retrieved from the parallel leaderboards to do its matchmaking process, all using the original game logic where possible.
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As a fallback, using the Age3 LAN Server (github. com / luskaner / ageLANServer) to host matches and record results to an external Ranking Leaderboard maintained by the community (with automated verification of match result via spectator bots joining in all LAN games or even Replay Parsing each replay to determine who won each game and to feed the leaderboard data with elo calculations from this history).
If integration with official ranked matches (or even modding the launcher) isnât possible, we can still create an external ranking system based on Lobby or LAN matches, with as much automation as possible to keep it simple.
The ultimate goal is simple: take control of the competitive meta away from the official team (which actually has none anyway, as they literally donât exist) and allow the community to experiment with and maintain its own balance, while keeping the game competitive. The patch is still in testing and many if not all of the current changes to Units, Techs, Cards and other assets, could be reverted or remade in different intensity or direction in its future versions, as more testing and community participation and feedback is done.
What this patch does (so far):
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Tones down overperforming units and strategies without gutting civ identity (See full changelog below);
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Is compatible with the âAdditive Modsâ feature from AoE3 DE without any extra intervention. The majority of the changes are simple protomods and techtreemods changes to units done through additive mods that do not alter the files directly;
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Works in all online and off-line matches (normal lobby matches, LAN matches, etc.), except for Ranked queue, which is a separate issue that has to be solved through one of the above solutions.
If youâre tired of seeing the same civs dominate (to an exhaustive extent) and want to explore a fresher competitive meta, this is your place to be, ^^.
If you have any suggestions about architecture (of the Parallel Ranked Queue solution), unit, tech and card balance tweaking (especially suggestions about the tweaks that are already in the Changelog), or even want to help with coding or other stuff, just send an email or private message, signed with your in-game name.
Letâs make AoE3 ours again, like we did in the good old Legacy times.
â FSDavila Gaming