Alright !
Some of you may have follow my ship modding topic since its creation last year here: [Ships] Famous Ship You’d like to play
But I mentionned during all the creations that those ships were part of a wider project, and here is the said project.
Empire of Sails - XS Partial Conversion Mod Project - Intro
What is Empire of Sails ? Basically, I love ships, I love age of empires 2, so bringing ships that are missing to the game is my base goal.
But you don’t build an empire just with sails, you need also men and inovations.
As an old veteran of the Age franchise, I palyed hours and hours through the entire game franchise, except the mobile version, and saw lots of things I enjoyed in every chapter of the saga. But the one that always catched my attention more than the others is, you guest it, Age of Empires 2.
But as a good Swiss, I’m rebelling against my monarchal authority to make my own territory and that’s how my Age of Empires 2.5 project, aka Empire of Sails, started.
Empire of Sails - More than reskins / Less than Datamods - Origin
Back in The Conqueror days, I discevored a term that I did not know about as a kid, the term “Galleass” from the intro slider of the Battle of Lepanto. As a child I was already fan of romans and pirates so of course Galleon and Galleys were names that rang bell to me, but Galleass was a mystery. We don’t have this unit in the game at all, but with time, playing other games, growing up, watching documentaries, and even the making of a naval game prototype in Unreal Engine 4, I’m still waiting for the game to introduce those Galleasses. So one day I decided to make them myself, even if it wasn’t the first ship I tried.
The first model I did was a Venetian galley idea, because galleys are cool, and also because the town in which I live has a Napoleonic Galley replica built by volunteers at the start of the 21th Century.
In my opinion, the game currently lack regional flavour on the naval topic. The naval rework introduced with The Last Chieftain gave fresh air to the waters, and Chronicles naval warfare too is a cool addition to this game.
But I can go further. That’s where the project comes, adding ships that are missing to the game, and adding some pirate era ships because why not ?! (blame Arian for making badass battleship mod, that inspired me too ahaha)
Back in 2017 I used to work on some datamod project to give very single civ their skin version of units inspired by IndependantArchitecture mod project, mine was IndependantUnit bascially. But nowaday, keeping a datamod up to date is A NIGHTMARE, so datamod was never an option from the start. Yes it would allow more flexibility, but then keeping it balanced, avoiding ID conflict with newer updates, just thinking of it give me too much pain in my brain to consider it as a “No”.
This is where the XS comes into play. As a professionnal programmer and game deisgner, beeing able to play with a such powerfull tool as embeded programming code into Age of Empires 2 is as cool as minecraft command-blocks with redstone, but even better infact. The XS allows to reach some datas way more easily than triggers, and has the advantage to be extremly quick to update without even changing the scenario file when done right.
The XS serve as both the backbone to reskin things, as I used some graphic files not directly tied to the unit reskinned, and as a core system to change stats without requiering any trigger at all in the scenarios. Then by just inserting the script file name in the map RMS parameter, the core module loads itself on mission start without the annoying datamods activating system. That method also allows me to let verything that must stay vanilla to be updated by the devs, and I can even push my own units balancing furhter by grabbing vanilla stats to give to my modded units so they keep balance tracks of the original game without requiering any edits to the mod. That’s my main goal, making something easy to use for designers, because I’m a lazzy person and I prefer spending couple hours making an automation code that will then do the job for me isntead of repeating the same task over and over risking errors due to an heavy ADHD of mine.
Empire of Sails - Current Content - Changelog
[Units]
Dock Unit:
- Flyut (Imperial Age, Transport Ship)
- Incendiary Raft (Feudal Age, Demoltion Ship)
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- Incendiary Ship (Castle Age, Demolition Ship)
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- Heavy Incendiary Ship (Imperial Age, Demolition Ship)
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- Dromakion (Imperial Age, Fire Ship)
- Galiot /Dark Age, Rower Ship)
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- Galizabra (Feudal Age, Rower Ship)
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- Bastrarda (Castle Age, Rower Ship)
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- Lanterna (Imperial Age, Rower Ship)
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- Galleass (Imperial Age, Special Ship)
Shipyard Unit:
- Hoy (Feudal Age, Cruiser Ship)
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- Zabra (Castle Age, Cruiser Ship)
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- Galeoncete (Imperial Age, Cruiser Ship)
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- Dhow (Feudal Age, Fast Cruiser Ship)
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- Xebec (Castle Age, Fast Cruiser Ship)
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- Polacre (Imperial Age, Fast Cruiser Ship)
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- Brigantine (Imperial Age, Sleek Cruiser Ship)
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- Frigate (Imperial Age, Sleek Cruiser Ship)
- Raft (Feudal Age, Light Cruiser Ship)
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- Cotre (Castle Age, Light Cruiser Ship)
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- Bermuda (Imperial Age, Light Cruiser Ship)
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- Dunkirker (Castle Age,Tall Ship)
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- Pinace (Imperial Age, Tall Ship)
- Line Frigate (Imperial Age, Tall Ship)
- Double-Frigate (Imperial Age, Tall Ship)
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- Man-O-War (Imperial Age, Tall Ship)
- Sail Ship (Feudal Age, Heavy Tall Ship)
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- Ship of the Line (Castle Age, Heavy Tall Ship)
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- Two-Decker (Imperial Age, Heavy Tall Ship)
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- Great Ship (Imperial Age, Heavy Tall Ship)
- First Rate (Imperial Age, Heavy Tall Ship)
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- Elite First-Rate (Imperial Age, Heavy Tall Ship)
- More will be added with futur updates.
Empire of Sails - What’s Next - Roadmap
Current guideline, may evolve with time.
[Alpha]
- Polishing descriptions
- Polishing Forum Thread unit infos
- Train locations (Shipyard)
- Techtree
- Custom technologies
- Land Units
- Localization
- Land Tutorial
- Technology Tutorial
- Francis Drake Campaign
- Custom civs
- Adding images to the mod preview
[Beta]
- Skirmish RMS map to allow online matches
- Custom AI for Skirmish mode
- 30FPS sails animation graphic overall
- Boucaneer Campaign
- Pirate Republic Campaign
- Thomas Cochrane Campaign
- Other Pirates Campaign
- Magellan Campaign
- Holy League Campaign
- Italian Wars Campaign
- Swiss Campaign
- Spanish War of Succession Campaign
And more…
[Civilizations]
- <Franks> French Kingdom (Imperial Age Extend)
- <Britons> British Empire (Imperial Age Extend)
- <Spanish> Spanish Empire (Imperial Age Extend)
- <Turks> Ottoman Empire (Imperial Age Extend)
- <Teutons> German Empire (Imperial Age Extend)
- <Slavs> Russian Empire (Imperial Age Extend)
- <Portuguese> Portuguese Empire (Imperial Age Extend)
- <Vikings> Sweedan Empire (Imperial Age Extend)
- <Danes> Danemark Kingdom (Imperial Age Extend)
- <Varangian> Norway Kingdom (Imperial Age Extend)
- <Celts> Scottland Kingdom (Imperial Age Extend)
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- <???> Dutch Republic (Imperial Age Extend)
- <???> Venetiian Republic (Partial Conversion)
- <Sicilian> Maltese (Partial Conversion)
- <???> Flemish (Partial Conversion)
- <???> Habsburg Empire (Partial Conversion)
- <???> Swiss (Partial Conversion)
- <???> Savoyards (Partial Conversion)
- <???> Dunkirker Privateer (Partial Conversion/Special Extend)
- <???> Barbary Corsair (Partial Conversion/Special Extend)
- <???> Bucaneer (Partial Conversion/Special Extend)
- <???> Pirate Republic (Partial Conversion/Special Extend)
- <???> West Indian Trade Company (Partial Conversion/Special Extend)
- <???> East Indian Trade Company (Partial Conversion/Special Extend)
- <???> United States (Partial Conversion/Special Extend)
[Technologies]
Blacksmith Tech:
- Matchlock (Imperial Age, Gunpowder)
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- Flintlock (Imperial Age, Gunpowder)
- Culverin (Imperial Age, Gunpowder Ship)
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- Long Gun (Imperial Age Gunpowder Ship)
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- Carronade (Imperial Age Gunpowder Ship)
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- Shooting Glove (Imperial Age, Archer)
- Finery (Imperial Age, Melee)
- Riveted Barding Armor (Imperial Age, Cavalry)
- Riveted Mail Armor (Imperial Age, Infantr)
- Riveted Archer Armor (Imperial Age, Archer)
Barrack Tech:
- Pikes (Imperial Age, SpearmanExtend)
Archery Range Tech:
- Brigandine (Imperial Age, Archer Extend)
Stable Tech:
- War Horse (Imperial Age, Cavalry Extend)
University Tech:
- Sextan (Imperial Age, Ship)
- Smokeless Powder (Imperial Age, Gunpowder)
Shipyard Tech:
- Fore-and-Aft Rigging (Castle Age, Unit-Lines Upgrade)
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- Full-Rigging (Imperial Age, Unit-Lines Upgrade)
Castle Tech:
- Landsknecht (Habsburg Empire, Imperial Age Extend)
- Wheellock (German Empire, Imperial Age Extend)
- Frenchlock (French Empire, Imperial Age Extend)
- Rifling (British Empire, Imperial Age Extend)
- Basilisk (Scottland Kingdom, Imperial Age Extend)
- Shallow Draft Hull (Dutch Republic, Imperial Age Extend)
[Units]
Barrack Unit:
- Landsknecht (German Empire, Imperial Age)
Archery Range Unit:
- Musketeer (Imperial Age, Gunpowder)
- Giant Grenadier (Imperial Age, Gunpowder)
- Ranger (Imperial Age, Gunpowder Skirmisher)
- Dragoon (Imperial Age, Gunpowder Cavalry)
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- Heavy Dragoon (Imperial Age, Gunpowder Cavalry)
Stable Unit:
- Lancer (Castle Age, Shock Cavalry)
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- Shock Lancer (Imperial Age, Shock Cavalry)
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- Imperial Cavalry (Imperial Age, Shock Cavalry)
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- Cuirassier (Castle Age, Heavy Cavalry)
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- Heavy Cuirassier (Imperial Age, Heavy Cavalry)
- Coszack (Imperial Age, Shock Cavalry)
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- Elite Coszack (Imperial Age, Shock Cavalry)
- Uhlan (Imperial Age, Shock Cavalry)
Siege Workshop Unit:
- Mortar (Imperial Age, Gunpowder)
- Culverin (Imperial Age, Gunpowder)
Castle Unit:
- Qizilbash Warrior (Turks / Ottoman Empire, Castle Age, Shock Cavalry)
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- Elite Qizilbash Warrior (Turks / Ottoman Empire, Imperial Age, Shock Cavalry)
- Reisläufer (Swiss, Castle Age, Spearman)
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- Elite Reisläufer (Swiss, Imperial Age, Sperman)
- Tercio (Spanish Empire, Castle Age, Spearman)
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- Elite Tercio (Spanish Empire, Imperial Age, Sperman)
- Austrian Knight (Habsburg Empire, Castle Age, Heavy Cavalry)
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- Elite Austrian Knight (Habsburg Empire, Imperial Age, Heavy Cavalry)
- Zweihander (German Empire, Castle Age, Infantry)
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- EliteZweihander (German Empire, Imperial Age, Infantry)
More will be added, or removed, based on dev plans.
Empire of Sails - Q&A
2026-10-24 - Why is it empty ?
- Because I just created the topic.
Empire of Sails - Credits
- Arian5201 for the Battleship and Elite Battleship model used for the First-Rate and Elite First-Rate.
- Therese(Elise) for Great Bombard Cannons sounds used for Mortar.
- dehiise for the Black color on his palettes mods.
- Zetnus for event mods.
- Sheonator Pseak on Youtube for his Wellerman Hurdy-Gurdy version that he authorised me to use in the mod.
- Age of Empires 2 DE / Age of Empires 3 DE for some graphics and sounds.