Hi everyone!
Empire Forge is a free, open-source tool for designing your own Age of Empires II: DE civilization and building it into a real game mod. You can play it in skirmishes, against the AI, or online with friends. No modding tools, no scripts, no file editing.
As of this week, it’s available on the Microsoft Store! Empire Forge — Civ Builder for Age of Empires II - Free download and install on Windows | Microsoft Store
What you can design
- Identity: name, architecture, castle, wonder, monk, starting scout and voice. Every civ in the game has a voice to choose from, with samples to preview.
- Bonuses: choose from hundreds of civilization and team bonuses, including ones from the Chronicles civs, and scale many of them up or down.
- Custom bonuses: make your own when the catalog doesn’t have what you want: “Cavalry +30% HP”, “Militia line +3 attack”, “Blacksmith upgrades 50% cheaper”. Cards can start from an age, grow each age, or wait until a building is up. Use them as civ bonuses, team bonuses or inside a custom unique tech.
- Tech tree: switch units, buildings and techs on or off on the familiar tech tree, add regional units, and take as many as you like. Extras go on a building’s second page, just like the game’s own.
- Unique unit, techs and heroes: pick a unique unit with live stats, including the Chronicles units, and change its name, cost or stats. Choose or compose Castle and Imperial unique techs, and add a hero.
See it before you play it
- Fully-upgraded stats: every unit and building as it would be in a Post-Imperial game, with each number broken down into the techs and bonuses behind it.
- View Civ: your whole civ on one page, laid out like the in-game civ card, ready to share.
How it works
- Launch Empire Forge. It opens in your web browser.
- Design your civ in the step-by-step wizard (or one mod).
- Click Build Mod. A few seconds later you have a ready-to-install mod.
- Enable the mod in the game, set Data Mod to it and pick your civ.
Your game files are never changed: turn the mod off and the game is exactly as it was. The AI plays your civs too, including training your custom unique unit.
Built to last
Empire Forge reads your installed copy of the game every time it builds, instead of relying on an old snapshot, so patches and DLCs don’t break it. Viking Sagas is fully supported. Everything runs on your own PC: no account, no uploads.
Playing online
Everyone in the lobby needs the same mod enabled. The easiest way is to publish it through the game’s mod workshop.
Requirements
- Windows 10 or 11
- Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition (Steam, Microsoft Store or PC Game Pass) on the same PC
- The Xbox and PlayStation versions can’t load mods like these
Links
- Microsoft Store: Empire Forge — Civ Builder for Age of Empires II - Free download and install on Windows | Microsoft Store
- Website, guides & FAQ: https://empireforge.app
- Discord: NapKingCole's Empire Forge
- Source code (GPL v3): GitHub - napkingcole/aoe2-empire-forge: A new civilization builder for Age of Empires 2 · GitHub
Feedback, bug reports and civ ideas are very welcome, a lot of Empire Forge’s features came straight from players. I’d love to see what you build!
Empire Forge is a fan-made tool and isn’t affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft, Xbox Game Studios, World’s Edge or Forgotten Empires.