I posted a reply to someone else here → Australians civ and Oceanian maps - #3 by TheSquidEmpire
where I brainstormed some ideas for an Australian architecture set and I decided to do a concept illustration of how it might look like for the discovery/commerce/industrial house:
I get the feeling that a custom architecture set is just too much work for the DE devs to do considering they’ve avoided it for pretty much every new civ (except the incans) but it’s fun to speculate and imagine : )
I really like this idea 
its a good way to represent that they are convicts
I love this civ suggestion (I’m totally biased though), and would defo buy it as a DLC, whereas I haven’t coughed up for Mexico or KotM yet.
I don’t see the fact that Australia didn’t become a federated nation until 1901 a problem. Is there a rule somewhere that says a civilisation can’t be an offshoot of another? There’s already USA, Mexico and AOE2 Burgundy…
I agree that an Australian civ shouldn’t progress beyond ~1850, and don’t see the shortness of their existence to that point a problem either. The Incan empire lasted a mere hundred years, and the Aztecs only twice that. The AOE3 community now seems to be about strict factual accuracy, but the game never was originally. It was a wonderful hypothetical “what if” North America was fought for and settled by any European colonial power, not just the British. Time frames and historical accuracy became more elastic with each new expansion. Why can’t that still be the case?
I’d always wanted to see this “what if” approach applied to Australia. Although it was the British who colonised the content, it was done so in haste because France was making its own plans to colonise. The Dutch, Spanish and Portugese had been sailing the waters around the continent well before Cook claimed it for England. And shortly after the ~1850 cut-off date for the game, Chinese and Japanese flocked south to make their fortunes. To not play out this “what if” in the Great Southern Land would be such a missed opportunity.
The obvious caveat though is that First-Nation consultation would need to be conducted, as the colonisation of Australia swiftly led to the genocide of its original inhabitants. Let’s not forget the arrival of Europeans in Australia was far from rosy.
If I can throw a few suggestions, ancillary to The Squid Empires supurb civ idea, to bring Australian maps to life:
And some of the purely decorative animals:
Afaik “Digger” has been used in Australia since the mid 19th century, would probably make a better unique unit name than an unit simply named “Trooper”
the USA and mexico where actually independent in the games time periode and the USA arguably ended the game as a great power.
while i wish we had gotten other nations over them they still have a lot more going for them than australia does.
the barrier for entry into AOE2 is also lower since that game has like 40 factions, and at least burgundy did something and was de facto independent.
the inca are unique as a culture, and the largest native empire in the americas, that alone makes them worthy to be added.
by that point we certainly are moving into the territory of fantasy. and really at this point it seems more like you want a map pack (which why not?) rather than a faction. australian and new zealand maps could be cool.
@coconutcrab1234 it’s cool to hear about your interest, thanks for saying so 
I like your animal suggestions! Of course emus and red kangaroos would be the best for flock animals. I think the idea of hunting predators (like aoe2?) is interesting but wouldn’t it be more consistent to just have them as treasure guardians? Tasmanian tigers and devils, inland taipans, and cassowaries would all make nice treasure guardians 
@HoopThrower I’ve actually never heard of digger being used before WW1. Imo even if it was I’m pretty sure the word is strongly associated with the world wars. It’d be like calling the US regular a doughboy… I get Trooper is pretty vauge but the idea I was going for was like the police troopers in early Australian history e.g. in waltzling matilda.
@jonasnee4671 I agree with your arguments RE the Inca, US and Mexico. My dream would be something like a (south pacific and Australia) map pack, a bunch of new native settlements to go with, and a full revolution option for various euro civs (Brits, French, Dutch, Ports) to go to Australia. Now that we’ve seen how in-depth the French revolution option was made to be, I’m sure we could get a full-on unique Australian civ revolution that would make it a “semi-civ” in a way that fits both the time period and gameplay!
I wrote it in a different thread a while back but here’s my ideas for maps I think would be a good varied representation of the south pacific + Australia:
(p.s. thanks to @M00Z1LLA for his map template! Polynesian Maps - #16 by M00Z1LLA )
I think adding an Australian civ, and a Polynesian civ would be great fun. Maps would obviously be included but the civs are the meat and potatoes.
One thing I was thinking about as a cool idea for AOE3 in general but which now I think would apply especially well to an Australian civ/revolution option would be mines as a replacement for plantations. Obviously you can’t just have an underground mine villagers disappear into because then you’re unraidable.
My thought is that you’d be able to build (or get via shipments?) a small number of “prospecting shafts” on the map at a time which would after a while create a new mine - e.g. silver, copper, coal, gold - with rarer mines less likely. The new mine would replace the shaft I imagine and then you’d be allowed to sink a new shaft somewhere else. Perhaps there’s a build radius rule too, so they can’t be placed too near exisiting mines or shafts.
For an Australian civ I think they should be unable to build plantations and instead have to rely on mines and possibly livestock (maybe a card that makes sheep worth gold instead of food + you get a new free “shorn” sheep when you harvest a fattened one?).
Perhaps by default an Australian civ gets a new prospecting shaft wagon each age up who can sink a new shaft? More carts might be available from cards or from the capital (parliament) building if you reach age 5. Perhaps there could be economic cards to power up prospecting shafts, e.g. they strike their mines faster, or they are more likely to strike a better resource.
For a revolutionary version of Australia I would have an infininte card in the deck that ships 1-2 prospecting shaft wagons. It would be balanced similarly to the South African diamond mine in my mind.
I’ve been working on a further architecture concept for an Australian civ town centre. I didn’t want to post it until I’d finished the whole set but with the PUP coming up there’s a slim chance they’re announcing something to do with Australia so I thought I better post what I have just in case…
Love the art. Really captures the vibe
It would be odd to add australia before you have persians or moroccans or danes.
Given that the OP was making concept art I thought he was planning to mod the civ in himself. But apparently he legitimately believes FE is planning a playable Australia civ which, well, it’s kinda funny in an endearing way,
Civ design is rather uninspired (by his own admission, he only plays European civs), but there’s solid ideas and the art’s gonna be useful some day for sure.
I like this idea more than having Australia be a whole civilization like the US and Mexico. The modern nation of Australia is a bit too recent (1901 AD) of a development to be represented in the earlier ages of the game.
That said, a DLC set in Oceania would still be neat. The Maori and Hawaiians at least have potential to be fully playable civilizations, but I think Aboriginal Australian nations would work best as Native tribes to ally with since their nomadic foraging cultures might be tough to translate into playable empires.
Yes, I think an Oceanic dlc would include Maori and Hawaiians…so nothing from Australia…
honestly if I knew even the first thing about modding I would totally give it a go! I’m sure it would be a lot of fun
I finished my town centre concepts! It took me ages to come up with a design for the middle ages. In the end I’m really happy with the design
they look amazing!
(20 charakters)
They are really cute… also you need three versions of town center: exploration TC, commerce TC and industrial TC…
I did do all three ages!
Another thing, I had some more ideas and I wanted to edit the original topic but I can’t so I’ll just chuck those here instead.
In-game Australia is roughly like this:
Australia starts with a Town Center, their explorer, and 10 convicts. They can’t train settlers at all and instead have to rely on convicts from the home city.
Home City only
Barracks
Stable
Unique buildings:
Some more card and improvement ideas:
Compared with Australia, I would prefer them to consider Austria…
Australia would complement a second Asia DLC with Korean and Indonesian civs. I teresting idea.
Problem is they don’t have enough federal states to match the age up system of the other 2 post-colonials.
