Introducing Dark Terrains, a terrain mod for Age of Empires 2 that reduces the brightness of the original terrains and adds a sleek, visually-appealing aesthetic.
This mod not only improves the gameplay experience by reducing eye strain caused by prolonged exposure to screen light, but it also enhances the overall look of the game.
Upgrade your Age of Empires 2 experience with Dark Terrains, play more games and give your eyes a break.
Sorry dont fancy the battleground becoming the underground realm from heros of might and magic III
Only OGs know what in talking about haha
That’s a good idea, for games I might want to play shortly before bed and don’t want vibrantly bright games! I know Windows OS has a red filter, but that’s not quite the same, and not necessarily what I’d want.
I’d prefer a combination of this along with decreasing the brightness of my monitor, rather than the red filter
Nice work, GregRising 
Cool I’ll give it a try.
nice contrast, make important detail stands out.
btw do you know any way to make a transparent terrain? sort of like overlapping, especially with datamod?
Thank you man 
Tell me which data mod so I can try and see if it works.
Really nice idea, and graphically well done too.
I think the duplication of terrain graphics needs a little more thought, though, since some mechanically distinct terrains look indistinguishable. For example, rock (unbuildable) looks the same as road 2 (buildable but you can’t place natural resources on it) and one of the dirts (buildable and you can place natural resources on it).
Also the water looks so bright!
On a related note, I’d highly recommend getting computer glasses/blue light blockers if you haven’t already. Those pretty thoroughly neutralized all eye strain/headache/melatonin suppression issues I’ve had due to screen time.
any datamod in general is what I mean
Thanks for the info! I’ve heard mixed thoughts/reviews about such glasses, so it makes it harder to know what to do. Some websites believe the hype, others say there’s no truth to the claims. Honest reviews like yours help shift the balance toward me probably getting them someday
Sorry, tried to play your mod tonight, but it’s been forever since I played AoE2:DE last, and I don’t know if I installed it correctly. Don’t you just need to subscribe to the mod, and then make sure it has a checkmark in the Installed Mods list, and then play? (I’ve always felt AoE’s “Subscribing” to a mod is confusing wording, and the process isn’t totally intuitive until you’ve done it once or twice, but it seems like that should work.)
I did that, tried playing Highland map in a Skirmish vs. AI, and this is what I saw:
EDIT: Yeah, that process should’ve worked, imo. I tried subscribing to/installing a different mod as a test (one that I won’t name the name of because I don’t want to give free advertising to a mod I dislike), and that one worked
Yeah, at the risk of sounding like a shill (I have an immoderate distaste for ads/sales pitches), I’m of the mind that most people that frequent these forums would benefit from them. I use a pretty inexpensive but functional off-brand <$12. If you like, I can DM some recommendations.
Are you calling us nerds 11.
Last time I pointed out AoE2DE’s high-saturation, strong-contrast color design is problematic and eye-straining, another poster replied “you can turn down gamma in the menu”. 
As if I haven’t played hundreds of other games on the same monitor without ever touching gamma or brightness once.
It’s invigorating to see a respected voice in the community has also noticed.
You have another terrain mod that’s overriding dark terrains. disable all terrains mod except dark terrains and restart the game then it should work.
What is the full form of OG?
I really like this mod. I have some difficulty about recognizing some terrains where you can’t place any buildings and mangrove shallows which can be seen in golden swamp map. Also noticed it doesn’t cover for shallows, roads, rice farms etc.
Thanks a lot !
Now one of my top 3 mods along with small trees and cicero BO ! !
Yeah, I had to uninstall all terrain mods in order for it to work. I had a “No Snow” mod, too, that was probably getting in the way.
I think this Dark Terrains Mod would benefit by making the snow footprints be a slightly lighter shade of the terrain, rather than snowy white (for when snow is on maps):
Lol, it’s funny the birds have human-sized footprints 
I think that’s probably a part of the game as opposed to the mod doing it
