Start becoming a modder, some stupid noob questions

Age of Empires II: DE II - Modding
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I think every new modder has some strange questions at the beginning, so I think it would be cool if some Thread like this would be pinned, to encourage asking for early help. But maybe I’m just too anxious.

My biggest concern is when I use the AGE that I somehow break something hardcoded in the game. Just for an example: My first mod I want to make is adding 4 new civs from which each include one of my Trash unit designs I created here .
Each of this units is designed to be Trained at one of he standard production buildings. But as we all know they have only limited slots for Units to be produced inside. Is there any way enable more than that 4 units (like by shifting the icons to the third row and the upgrades to the 3rd row? And what can happen when the shared units like Condo and Genitour are in? Can the game be confused then?

Then I ofc want to get into the modder Community, which are the sites to go regularly on to stay in touch? I think especially in the begiining just reading some threads of established modders which make some like blog-wise documentary or whatever to get a feeling what is modding about would be really cool. Cause I know I have a very specific POV on the game atm but want to widen my experience / insight… I’m probably not the typical type of modder, I’m very technically minded, so I definetely need some understanding for the “beauties” that I like when playing with them but have no idea how they are created. Especially artwork.

Third I want to protect my privacy. Luckily there is the option to publish with your microsoft acc, which is really cool. But then you don’t get the direct feedback like you get with your steam acc mods? This is probably the price you have to pay for privacy :smiley:
(Edit: It’s not so much about privavy in the common sense, it’s more about deciding with whom I want to stay in which kind of contact. There are always people you get more or less along with and it’s sometimes bad to have closer contact with people you don’t get along with.)

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Edit: an other practical question:

Cause of all the updates, PUPs, DLCs and so, is there a way to create a data mod so it is “easy to maintain”? I thought about leaving the core game basically intact but only add new civs that use the modded features. An Idea of mine would be to give all things I make new special IDs with a certain number prequel so it can be separated easily from the stuff already in the game.

If this is possible it would be viable to just copy paste “new actual data mod” and “my additon” to a new mod together whenever there is an update.

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When creating custom civilizations, I recommend modifying an existing civilization instead of trying to create one from scratch. That’s essentially what the Civilization Builder does when it generates custom civilizations.

Yes, it should be possible to enable more than 4 units. Take a look at the Train Button stuff in AGE.

In my experience, if you have two units/techs sharing the same button, the game won’t crash, but you’ll only be able to press one of the button.

The official Age of Empires Discord server has a channel for AoE2 modding:

The Citadel is another modding Discord server:

You can also my post on creating custom civilizations with AGE:

Are you referring to Steam Workshop? Because the Definitive Edition, unlike the HD Edition, does not use Steam Workshop for mods.

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