China Ideas mods - And some notes on the limits of Modding

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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Mods before the holidays, get them while its hot

This one is more on the Fun side where I want to test and Implement Ideas I have had for a bit (also maybe boosting an art spam FI I have been focusing on)

Unit and building changes

New Banner armies

Mandarin army → 2 Iron Troops & 1 Manchus ( 620G 7 pop) - Unlocked with Atonement

This was already in the game with no icons apparently

Mandarin Duck Squad ->3 Chu Ko Nus & 1 Flame Thrower (200 seconds spawn time) - Only available at the Summer Palace, Unlocked with Mandarin Duck Squad Card

Iron Cap Prince’s Army → 2 Changdaos & 2 Flame Throwers (290 seconds spawn time) - Only available at the Summer Palace, Unlocked with Iron Cap Prince’s Army Card

Emperor’s Army → 4 Arq & 3 Hand Mortars (250 seconds Spawn time) - Only available at the Summer Palace, Unlocked with Emperor’s Army Card

Ever Victorious Army → 2 Iron Flail & 1 Flying Crow (360 seconds Spawn time) - Only available at the Summer Palace, Unlocked with Ever Victorious Army Card

All the spawn time are done to roughly match the 3 res per second time of existing banner armies

Shaolin Master - Roundhouse Attack changed to a charge attack, secondary effect changed to increased attack speed rather then 100% crit (secondary effect duration increased to 15 instead of 8), Damage cap increased to 340 instead of 200

Stun ability can also be done on Outlaws

Temple of Heaven Heal is now a Padre Style multiple unit heal (rate still the same)

An idea I have had for a while for melee abilities to make it more easy to be used, secondary effect changed cause the other effect is probably hard coded and I cant replicate it

The Stun ability is a test if there are other ways of making the early age abilities usable lategame and trying to explore new design space for outlaws (being weaker against heros)

Note: This effect will stack with 2 Shaolin Master

Summer Palace - Mongolian Army and Black Flag army added as base banner army spawn (It was already in the game)
Temple of Heaven - Now also acts as a Mountain Monastery Passive heal.

Cards and tech changes

Repelling Volley - Added back +10% Damage increase

Professional Gunners, Trunion, Heated Shot, Gunners Quadrant now available at the Confucian Academy

Mass Production (factory tech) - Now also affects Flying Crows

Industrial Shadow Tech (just aging to industrial from any age up) - Reduces Flying Crow spawn time by 40%

TEAM Engineering School - Also reduces the spawn time of new Banner armies by 5% (cause they all have arillery or siege units)

Mandarin Duck Squad - Now also unlocks the army at the Summer Palace

Iron Cap Prince’s Army - Now also unlocks the army at the Summer Palace

Emperor’s Army - Now also unlocks the army at the Summer Palace

Ever Victorious Army - Now also unlocks the army at the Summer Palace

Mongolian Scourge - Iron Flails gains +10% damage and 0.5 AOE

Fire Dragon Manual - Gives Hand Mortar the Grapeshot Treatment of faster movement and single mode action

Accupunture - Similar Balance mechanism added for the new banner armies (Net -5% Spawn time)

Attonement - No longer unlocks Iron Troops, Unlocks Mandarin Army instead

Manchu Combat - Gives Meteor Hammer +0.5 Range and Changdaos +0.1 melee armor

Imperial Shadow Tech (just aging to imperial from any age up) - Reduces Banner Armies Train time by 10% (including all the Summer palace stuff)

Porcelain Tower Restoration (NEW TECH) - Cost 2000 F 2000G Available at Imp at the Porcelain Tower built before Imp and sets the gather rate to Imp Gather rate.

Mandarin Merc Army - Now Infinite

Other more Misc Changes

Tech Descriptions for Changes - As a way to test my ability to edit Strings

Musket Infantry tag - Text Changed to Line Infantry (something I wanted to do for a while)

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Notes on the limits of modding

I learned a few things doing this mod on potential areas that will be hard to mod with the current system

  • Weird hard coded stuff - Like the crtitical effect of roundhouse kick, could not find a line anywhere in the data files referencing this so I suspect it is hardcoded somehow
  • Scalable wonders - I tried making the White Pagoda scalable but exploring how wonders worked made me lost my mind so yeah no go (with the Porcelain tower a tech works but making an upgradeable effect that still goes away after the wonder is destroyed is from what I can tell impossible)
  • Creating new tags - I read on some old post that this is possible so in the mod files I actually tried creating a new tag (AbstractHeavyArtillery) for the factory spawn units to streamline a few techs but I could not get the game to use it??? so yeah that also doesnt work (if anyone knows how let me know)
  • Weird ass behaviour - For some reason the Acupuncture card refuses to remove 2 of the effect relating to flying crows and heavy cannons, I can add and remove just about everything else but those 2 damn effects(replacing the whole file works but I dont want to do that)
  • Temporary Powers - The New Roundhouse kick secondary effect stacking was also due to using the Assign flag for the power (which would have solved everything) causes it to be done permanently instead of temporarily like the other flags - If there is another way let me know.
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What do you exactly mean by making scalable effects?

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So with the White pagoda, it was to have the Disciple bonus also scale or shadow tech with age ups even if you get it early

So say if I build it get to age 2 it will give 20% but later when aging up it should give 30%

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“Honorable one, have you seen my pet duck?” -the wrong campaign

I like this. It’s fun.

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The idea for these banner armies may or may not have been to allow china to FI and then have 3 buildings spawning flying crows and heavy cannons :wink:

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