I recently recreated Spirit of the Law’s overpowered civilizations as a data mod with the Advanced Genie Editor and I thought I could show you guys how I did this. This guide is a bit long, so I’m dividing this into four parts.
Part 1: Creating the OP Cavalry Civ
SOTL’s OP cavalry civilization has the following stats:
Civilization that OP Cavs will replace: Byzantines
Tech Tree: Spanish
Civ bonuses:
- Cavalry +20% HP starting in Feudal (Franks)
- Start with +150 food (Lithuanians)
- Wheelbarrow, Hand Cart free (Vikings)
- Stable units cost -15% in Castle, -20% in Imperial (Berbers)
- Land military units (except siege) receive 50% less bonus damage (Sicilians)
Unique Unit: Cataphract
Unit Techs:
- Stirrups (+33% knight attack rate)
- Farimba (cavalry +5 attack)
Team Bonus: Units resist conversion (Teutons)
To modify civilization bonuses, you need to be familiar with Genie’s Techs and Effects tabs. All Techs and Effects are assigned index numbers, which you can find in this spreadsheet:
Most civilization bonuses are assigned under AGE’s Techs tab. However, some effects are defined under a civilization’s tech tree, which is located under the Effects tab. Looking at the spreadsheet, you will see that the Spanish are one of the civilizations that have bonuses defined under their tech tree effect.
With this in mind, let’s start creating our tech tree. Go to the Effects tab and copy all the Effects commands from Spanish Tech Tree effect (index number 446) into a new and/or blank effect (I personally copied the commands onto effect 838). Name this new effect Spanish Tech Tree OP. Under Spanish Tech Tree OP, delete all commands that start with “Set tech…” and “Multiply attr…”. After this, you should be left with 17 commands that all start with “Disable tech…”. Now go to the Civilizations tab and select the Byzantines. Change the Technology Tree to Spanish Tech Tree OP (838) and the Team Bonus to Teutons Team Bonus (404).
The free Wheelbarrow and Hand Cart bonuses are defined under the Vikings Tech Tree. Specifically, they are defined by the four effects commands that start with “Set tech…”. Copy those four commands, return to Spanish Tech Tree OP, and click the Ins Copies button. Be aware that pressing the Paste button will overwrite the first four commands with those Vikings commands.
Now let’s start replacing the Byzantine bonuses with the OP Cav bonuses. Byzantine civ bonuses have Techs index numbers of 283, 284, 397, 401, 417, 418 and 419. The non-tech tree bonuses for the OP Cavs have the following Techs and Effects indices:
- Cavalry +20% HP starting in Feudal - Techs: 290, Effects: 285
- Start with +150 food: Effects: - Techs: 697, Effects: 734
- Stable units cost -15% in Castle, -20% in Imperial - Techs: 586 and 613, Effects: 610 and 638
- Land military units (except siege) receive 50% less bonus damage - Techs: 771, Effects: 796
With these indices known, we copy and paste the original Techs onto the Byzantine Techs one at a time. To keep it simple, paste Cavalry +20% onto tech 283, +150 food onto tech 284 and so forth. After after each paste, be sure to change civilization dropdown box to Byzantine. There will be five Techs to copy total, leaving you with 2 extra Byzantine Techs. To deal with the extraneous Techs, set the effect index to -1 and rename them to prevent any confusion. Deleting these unused Techs will probably won’t screw up AOE2, but it will change the index numbers, making my spreadsheet kind of useless.
Now lets copy the unique techs. Stirrups, the Castle Age technology, has a Techs index number of 685. Copy Stirrups and paste it on top of Greek Fire (464). Don’t forget to the change the civilization to Byzantine. Do the same with the Imperial Age technology Farimba (577), pasting it on top of Logistica (61).
Now let’s test this mod offline. To do this, navigate to your local mods folder. This is usually located at C:\Users(username)\Games\Age of Empires 2 DE(steamid)\mods\local. In the local folder, create a folder and name it “SOTL OP Cav civ.” Inside SOTL OP Cav civ, create a folder named “resources” and a file named “info.json.” Editing info.json with a text editor, paste the following line of code:
{"Author":"Unpublished","CacheStatus":1,"Description":"No Description","Title":"SOTL OP Cav Civ"}
The “Title” field is the data mod name that shows up in the game settings menu.
Inside the resources folder, create a folder named “_common.” Inside _common, create a folder named “dat.” Inside dat, place the modded empires2_x2_p1.dat file (you aren’t editing the original empires2_x2_p1.dat, right?). After setting up the mod folder, the OP Cavalry Civ will now be playable (remember that the data mod always resets to default when you play a standard game).
While you can now play as the OP Civ, it would still be nice for players to know what the hell they’re looking at. To do this, we will need to create a UI mod. First, create a folder named “SOTL OP Cav Civ UI”. Inside SOTL OP Cav Civ UI, create the same JSON file as earlier, but change the title to “SOTL OP Cav Civ UI”. Also. create a folder named “resources”. Inside resources, create a folder named “en”. Inside en, create a folder named strings. Inside strings, create a folder named “key-value”. Inside key-value. create a file named key-value-modded-strings-utf8.txt. What this text file does is replace existing strings with modded strings by index.
For this mod, we will be replacing three strings: the civilization name, the “click to play as (civilization)” prompt, and the civilization description. For the Byzantines, the indices for these three strings are 10277, 90277 and 120156. Overall, the text file looks as follows:
10277 "OP Cavalry Civ"
90277 "Click to play as the OP Cavalry Civ."
120156 "Cavalry civilization \n\n• Cavalry +20% HP starting in Feudal Age \n• Start with +150 food \n• Wheelbarrow, Hand Cart free \n• Stable units cost -15% in Castle, -20% in Imperial \n• Land military units (except siege) receive 50% less bonus damage \n\n<b>Unique Unit:<b> \nCataphract (cavalry) \n\n<b>Unique Techs:<b> \n• Stirrups (+33% knight attack rate) \n• Farimba (cavalry +5 attack)\n\n<b>Team Bonus:<b> \nUnits resist conversion"
The tech tree for your OP Civ will still show the old Byzantine tech tree. Given that you’ll be spamming cavalry units with this civ, though, I don’t think that’ll be a major issue. Plus, editing the tech tree appearance is honestly not worth it, given you have directly edit the original JSON file.
Part 2: More Unique Techs and Units Notes
If you are porting over two unique techs from the same age, you need to edit the Required Techs and Button boxes under the UT’s Techs entry. Supposed you want to give your OP Archer Civ Kamandaran and Pavise, two Castle Age UT. For the UT you want to place in the Imperial Age, change the required Techs from Castle Age to Imperial Age and change the Button value from 7 to 8.
While playtesting, I found weird glitch involving Perfusion and Conscription. Originally, I had Perfusion be available to the Infantry Civ in the Castle Age. However, if you research Perfusion in the Castle Age and then research Conscription in the Imperial Age, the effects of Perfusion would be removed, making your units be recruited slower. I have no idea why this happens, but moving Perfusion back to Imperial Age fixed this issue.
Let’s also say you want to change the Aztec’s unique unit from Jaguar Warriors to Mameluks, as seen with the OP Monk Civ. To do that, copy the two Mameluke Techs entries (269, 368) and paste them on top of the Jaguar Warrior entries (431, 432). You won’t be able to research Elite Mamlukes yet, though. To do that, go the Elite Aztec Mamluke entry (432) change the required Tech from the original Mameluke tech (269) to the new Aztec Mamluke tech (431). Don’t forget to also change the civilization to Aztecs.
Note that the default AI will not recruit unique units if that unique unit is from another civilization.
Part 3: Khmer No Building Requirements and Shadow Nodes
The OP Gunpowder Civ in the mod has the Khmer’s no building requirement bonus. To give the Gunpowder civ this bonus, copy the Khmer requirement tech (638) and paste it onto a Goth tech (I used 327). In the pasted Tech (which I renamed “Gunpowder requirement”), change the civilization from Khmer to Goths. You will notice that all other dropdown boxes have a value of -1, which means this tech is automatically researched when you play as the Goths.
We now need to edit Shadow Node techs (659, 660, 661, 666, 667, 668). In general, shadow techs control the all the requirements for buildings and ages. For each of the Shadow Node tech, add Gunpowder requirement as a required tech (do not remove the Khmer requirement tech from required tech if you want Khmer to continue using the no building requirement bonus). Because the minimum required techs for all of these Shadow Nodes is 1, and because Gunpowder requirement is automatically researched, you will now be able to play with the Khmer building bonus with the Gunpowder civilization.
I tried creating a new Shadow Node tech for the Gunpowder civ requirement, but I could never get that to work. Instead, it seems like only way for apply the Khmer requirement bonus is by editing the existing Shadow Node techs.
Part 4: key-value-modded-strings-utf8.txt index references
Here are some more index references that can help you create your key-value-modded-strings-utf8.txt.
Civilization names section:
10267 "Full Random"
10268 "Mirror"
10270 "Random"
10271 "Britons"
10272 "Franks"
10273 "Goths"
10274 "Teutons"
10275 "Japanese"
10276 "Chinese"
10277 "Byzantines"
10278 "Persians"
10279 "Saracens"
10280 "Turks"
10281 "Vikings"
10282 "Mongols"
10283 "Celts"
10284 "Spanish"
10285 "Aztecs"
10286 "Mayans"
10287 "Huns"
10288 "Koreans"
10289 "Italians"
10290 "Indians"
10291 "Incas"
10292 "Magyars"
10293 "Slavs"
10294 "Portuguese"
10295 "Ethiopians"
10296 "Malians"
10297 "Berbers"
10298 "Khmer"
10299 "Malay"
10300 "Burmese"
10301 "Vietnamese"
10302 "Bulgarians"
10303 "Tatars"
10304 "Cumans"
10305 "Lithuanians"
10306 "Burgundians"
10307 "Sicilians"
10308 "Poles"
10309 "Bohemians"
10310 "ReservedCivI"
10311 "ReservedCivJ"
10312 "ReservedCivK"
10313 "ReservedCivL"
10314 "ReservedCivM"
10315 "ReservedCivN"
10316 "ReservedCivO"
10317 "ReservedCivP"
10318 "ReservedCivQ"
“Click to play as…” section:
90270 "Click to play as a random civilization which hasn't been selected yet."
90271 "Click to play as the Britons."
90272 "Click to play as the Franks."
90273 "Click to play as the Goths."
90274 "Click to play as the Teutons."
90275 "Click to play as the Japanese."
90276 "Click to play as the Chinese."
90277 "Click to play as the Byzantines."
90278 "Click to play as the Persians."
90279 "Click to play as the Saracens."
90280 "Click to play as the Turks."
90281 "Click to play as the Vikings."
90282 "Click to play as the Mongols."
90283 "Click to play as the Celts."
90284 "Click to play as the Spanish."
90285 "Click to play as the Aztecs."
90286 "Click to play as the Mayans."
90287 "Click to play as the Huns."
90288 "Click to play as the Koreans."
90289 "Click to play as the Italians."
90290 "Click to play as the Indians."
90291 "Click to play as the Incas."
90292 "Click to play as the Magyars."
90293 "Click to play as the Slavs."
90294 "Click to play as the Portuguese."
90295 "Click to play as the Ethiopians."
90296 "Click to play as the Malians."
90297 "Click to play as the Berbers."
90298 "Click to play as the Khmer."
90299 "Click to play as the Malay."
90300 "Click to play as the Burmese."
90301 "Click to play as the Vietnamese."
90302 "Click to play as the Bulgarians."
90303 "Click to play as the Tatars."
90304 "Click to play as the Cumans."
90305 "Click to play as the Lithuanians."
90306 "Click to play as the Burgundians."
90307 "Click to play as the Sicilians."
90308 "Click to play as the Poles."
90309 "Click to play as the Bohemians."
Civilization descriptions are split into several separate sections. The first 27 civs (Britons to Berbers) go from 120150 to 120176. The Rise of the Rajas civs (Khmer to Vietnamese) go from 120177 to 120180. The Last Khan civs (Bulgarians to Cumans) go from 120181 to 120183. Lithuanians are 120184. Finally, Burgundians are 120185, Sicilians are 120186, Poles are 120187 and Bohemians are 120188.
