Age of Empires II: The Conquerors > Game Mods > The Dark Ages

The Dark Ages

by David H. Cooper (aka fobbix) - 140 downloads

~~~ Purpose ~~~

To allow the game to be played through the ages instead of being rushed to imperial or castle age; along side starting with semi-dm resources which allows the action to start from the beginning of the game without making aging through the ages meaningless (as in DM). And to better balance the weaker civilizations for fairer and more competitive play.

To add a lot of lost value from the DM style of play (no upgrades etc) and not be as slow or as rock/paper/scissor like as RM.



~~~ Please Note ~~~

~~~ This description will have a few things missing from the most updated version of the mod. Check the Info Link for full details of all changes made (libreoffice calc file). Korean war wagon has been updated (only stats wise) to perform more like a Hwacha. Battering Ram available from the feudal age. Few feudal unit upgrades added. Mayan/Aztec feudal (only) fast conversion added. Load of bug fixes, and started on a new black forest map.



~~~ Description ~~~

Civilization Balancing for Rated DM Matches. Features include: Weakest Civilization Upgrades, Dark Age Start, Unit Reshuffle For Dark Age, Long Ageing Time (x10 cost), Dark Age/Preferred Bonus Resources For Start (Can Use RM or Regicide or Other Game Types Now), Alternative Gold Generation With Relics, Improved Villager Gather Rates Through Upgrades, Improvements To Existing & Newly Added Upgrades, Three Additional Units – Imperial Camel & Hunnic Horse Archer & Ballista, One Additional Buiding - Sun Temple, Halberdier assigned to its own type, , and Trade Carts Statistics redone to reduce lag.

~~~ Overview ~~~

This mod increases the tempo of the game with an increased Villager Creation Rate, better villager gather rates, and decreased amount of wood in trees that allows you to chop out progressively expanding spaces in forested maps. It is great fun to play this mod with normal game speed enabled, since it is like playing at the fast speed tempo without this mod being applied which gives players more opportunity to better macro and for spectators time to talk which shouldn't be undervalued.

Dark Age start and a brand new DM starting resources enabled by the mod (which excludes the need for the DM game type). Will see the game being played as it should be in an increased tempo with action at every turn with cavalry scouts, archers, and upgrades that keep existing militia units but disallow you to create any more, with all of these units being available even from the Dark Ages! Ageing up will take much longer with x10 amount of resources required and Dark Age and Feudal Age rushes will be a very real threat in the early ages with a variety of units and a certain elusive militia dilemma upgrade to play with and increased attack rates via feudal age upgrades for the weaker units.

From the fedual age you will be able to create a "Relic Monky" (Monk With Relic) for 250 gold. Relics have an increased gold generation rate for non-trade gold generation (Which is the main cause of lag). To counter balance the issues with having too much gold generation I have made Monasteries cost 250 wood and 500 Stone with the land mass taken to build a monastery is much larger (8x8). Currently the rate at which gold is generated is set to 30.

The Relic Gold Mod is extremely good for 1v1's and FFA's (Free For All) since it allows gold generation without allies. (Try 4 Player FFA on Black Forest :P)

The Trade Carts themselves now cost double the amount and 50% as long to build. They also costs 2 population each. They collect gold at around the same rate as orignally. Spanish have had there team bonus altered (which was over-powered gold generation from trade carts).

For all the changes I have made you need to look at the spreadsheet located at AoE2->Voobly Mods->Data Mods->DM Dark Ages Mod - Information.ods . The direct link is http://www.voobly.com/files/prompt/33164981 - to view you need a spreadsheet program, like the one found in office suites - [You must login to view link]

At the bottom of this page you will find a quick-start guide on how to start from the dark age.

The below lists a general overview of the changes.

---

~~~ Civilization Changes ~~~

~ Archer Civilizations & Japanese & Teutons (Excluding Turks) (Britons/Mayans/Chinese)

(Also repeated below)
Onager have +1 Range/LOS/Seek with newly added upgrade “Onager Mechanics” researchable in the imperial age (Counters Siege Onager a slightly bit better). Chinese also have “Siege Engineers” enabled. This might be extended for all civilizations without Siege Onagers especially Vikings.

~ Vikings

Have there infantry foot soldiers health increased by 50%. Berserker don't have this increase. Instead they have an attack bonus vs Cavalry (+7, Elite +14) and +2 Attack, vs Eagles (+2).
Onager has +1 Range/LOS/Seek (Onager Mechanics)

These changes have been made to Vikings because there civilization was the worst by far in the game. Quite literally you could do nothing at all with them.

Note: need more testing with Vikings can't decide whether they are OP or not (esp vs Mayan)

~ Britons

Can be aggressive and not just defensive with an increased attack rate of the cavalier (+4) (+6 vs Archer Bonus) and champions (+2).
Longbow Men/Briton Archer Units will no longer be thwarted by Rams (+8 vs Ram Bonus).
Onager have +1 Range/LOS/Seek (Onager Mechanics)

These changes have been made to Britons because there civilization could only camp beforehand.

~ Goths

Have +25 pop (which is now a proper civilization bonus).

Because of Multi-Queue (MQ). There original civilization bonus of barrack units being created 20% faster has been removed (as it made Rams useless against Goths). Also Perfusion has also been removed, which was another Barracks increasing unit creation advantage.

(MQ included in the User Patch which enables you to have multiple selected buildings and evenly distribute the creation of units amongst the buildings, without having to move selection between the buildings to create units in multiple buildings).

These changes have been made to Goths because there civilization was without a proper civilization bonus that left them one of the weakest civilizations in the game in Post-Imperial Age.

~ Huns

Replaced the unique unit to an ~ Light Mounted Archer with extremely low health and high & rapid attack value (10) that is about on par with a clash with Mongols Mangudai. Can also move around the map swiftly and attack from a range of 6. Has extra attack bonus vs. Pikemen (+10). Costs lots of wood but reduced gold (120/40).
Enforced to build Yurts instead of having automatic 200 pop (+25 pop per yurt).
Cavalry have 10% more health (minus bloodlines), Paladin has +1 attack.
Heavy Cavalry Archers (Only) have +6 attack vs Cavalry.

These changes have been made to Huns because there civilization is overpowered at the start of a game and underpowered in Post-Imperial or once the game becomes established (like in DM after 5 minutes).

~ Mayans and Aztecs

Can convert units faster (+0.75) to try and counter Persian War Elephants.
These civilizations also have the Ballista unit which is extremely effective against all mounted units ONLY (including mounted allied units).

They also have the Sun Temple which has been added to provide more variety and move around unit types for better usage of hotkeys.

These changes have been made to Mayans & Aztecs because there civilizations are very unique and they need a new edge to be on par with other civilizations.

~ Japanese

Have awesome trebuchet blast radius attack, but only useful against siege weapons and buildings.
Onager have +1 Range/LOS/Seek (Onager Mechanics)

(They also have 100 HP Elite Samurai Warriors)

These changes have been made to Japanese because there civilization in the game is weak without an increase in there civilization bonus in 1v1 situations.

~ Byzantines

Monks have +3 healing rate and +0.25 Converting Rate.

(They also have the Imperial Camel)

These changes have been made to Byzantines because there civilization has no real bonus. All there units are very flat and basic, they do have the full variety of units though, but in like for like units Byzantines will never win.

~ Teutons

Light Cavalry given to Teutons
Onagers have +1 Range/LOS/Seek

~ Spanish

Spanish have +20% accuracy team bonus for cannon units.
Removed increased gold gen from trade since too much of an advantage.

~ Turks

Turks have +1.5 blast radius for Bombard Cannons.

~~~ Dark Age+ Modifications ~~~

# Starting bonus resources – 3000 Wood, 2000 Food, 1000 Gold, 500 Stone (With any game type)

# Loom affects Militia unit by giving it +1 Melee Armour. Militia is now a separate unit type and Man-At-Arms doesn't upgrade existing units but does disable the Militia button. Militia units now cost only 30 Food.

# Stone/Gold and Forage Bush have had there stock resources increased. Gold by times two (1600), Stone by two thirds (525) and Forage Bush by times ten (1250). Sheep also have been slightly increased from 100 to 150.

# Town Centres create villagers slightly faster (but not at a silly rate).

# Boat Fishing and Unusual food gathering types: Foraging, Hunting, Shepherding, Fishing have automatic increased gathering work rates with advancing through the ages.

# Fishing Boats' and Trade Cogs' speed have been re-increased by 20% (Enabled from an old disabled technology).

# With existing researches on wood chopping, farming, gold & stone mining I have added in the increased resource gathering work rate (Note: Imperial research increases give the least amount of improvement). Also note that at the moment these additions (and the boat/unusual) are “silent” in that the texts for the upgrades have not yet been altered.

# Stable and Archery Range along with Scout Cavalry and Archer are available from the dark age.

# Man-At-Arms and Spearman are researchable in the dark age.

# Palisade wall has its HP increased from 125 to 750 as it was just too feeble.

# Walls are constructed slower to make it more difficult to wall up.

# Towers now cost two thirds of the original price and are built twice as quick.

# Feudal age allows for Man-At-Arms upgrade to Long Swordsman. Two new additional upgrades are added for Scout/Light Cavalry upgrade and Infantry type upgrade.

# Monastery can be built in the feudal age along with Relic Monky's which enable self gold generation with garrisoned relics. Normal Monks are created faster since there will only be a few monastery buildings in the game.

# Castle age allows for Long Swordsman upgrade to Two-Handed Swordsman.

# Crossbow men cost -20 gold.

# Castles are constructed slower.

# Cavalier researchable in the castle age.

# Stone/Fortification Walls have more HP +50% but at a much higher stone cost (+10 ~ 15). Gates have doubled HP. (Might have made a glitch here since also increased the base stone cost)

~~~ Post-Imperial Age Modifications ~~~

# Bloodlines added to every civilization, also Imperial Camel has been increased by this amount. Mongols and Saracens no longer have Imperial Camels.

# Reintroduced Bombard Towers and removed Round Towers. Bombard Towers cost twice as much to build.

# Infantry have +20 health increase, +2 attack and +2 Ranged Defence with new Upgrade. (Close-Combat Units) (Now changed to be more varied and better balanced)

# Crossbowmen/Arbalests have reduced gold cost (-20) and +2 Attack against Pikemen.

# Skirmishers have a slight added attack bonus vs cavalry and camels but that might be too small at the moment.

# Villager gather rate upgrade additions (combined) are +0.2 for gold and stone and +0.5 for everything else (Chopping/Farming/Foraging/Etc). Boat Fishing is +0.5 achieved by reaching feudal age and 0.3 from start.

# Imperial Camel upgrade for most camel civilizations. +25 HP, +1 Melee Armour.

# Trebuchet now has HP increase from 150 to 300

---


~~~ Quick-Start Guide ~~~

If you haven't done so already I recommend setting up your hotkeys. I also recommend enabling the hints menu found in-game in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen just above the mini-map (click the scroll/paper and it should display Extended Help On/On) (you might have to enable the buttons which should be achieved through clicking the cog).

Note: That if you start with Michi then you can't cut until the Imperial Age and it is more likely you will manually cut through the wood first (So you don't need to bother with military units at all).

Note: This is a “basic” setup meaning that you should substitute depending on which strategy you want to go with. For example rushing you would want to build Stables with Scout Cavalry, or as a build-up rush you would want to build quick a few archery ranges to build archers. To get through the palisade wall before the opponent has any chance to get to the feudal age and stone wall.

Tap the goto Town Centre hotkey as the game starts and select Loom to research it.

Grab all three villagers and build a few houses. Start away from them and build houses towards the villagers so they don't have to move far.

Click the Town Centre and fill up the queue with villagers. Assign the Town Centre rally point to the houses.

Scout around for your forage bush and sheep with the scout unit.

Grab a villager and build two stables and four barracks around your TC. Assign the Town Centre rally point to the first Stable and once that is built to the barracks on the opposite side.

Routinely start checking for idle villagers with your goto next idle villager hotkey. If your on a map such as Black Forest then walling up with palisade would be a good option.

Once the first stable is up and for the next stable queue creation of scout cavalry and click the rally on the enemies base and try and kill as many villagers as you can with your scouts.

Build Militia and start massing around your own area (stay in the open space with Militia). Build a second batch of houses with a few villagers.

Assign the Town Centre to the forage bush. Build a mill with the first and second person that comes out of the Town Centre.

For each forage bush there should be 4 villagers, and you should set the rally point to the other forage bush until you have assigned them to all the bushes. Keep remembering to fill up the villager queue and build more houses as necessary.

You should have found at least the 4 sheep near your starting location (and hopefully more) and have sent them to your Town Centre. Assign the Town Centre rally point to herd the sheep underneath or very close to your Town Centre. Again assign 4 villagers to each sheep.

Hopefully you will have your palisade wall up by now and no more need to be building military units. You should have also fount your two closest boar as well.

With the shepherding villagers select one or two of them and build two lumber camps at two different locations. Send a villager to lure the boar by attacking it twice with the bow and returning to your Town Centre and attacking with it with about half your shepherds.

At this stage you should be quite established.

Assign the Town Centre rally point to the trees nearest either lumbercamp and assign 4 villagers to each tree as you have been doing by changing the rally point every so often.

Also build a mining camp at the gold mine/and maybe at the stone mine as well and start mining with about 4 to 16 villagers.

Now build some archery ranges and make some Archers and perhaps upgrade the Militia to the Man-At-Arm's type. Then this will allow you to create a group or two of archers and man-at-arms to hold the choke points on the map else-wise build more barracks ready to mass Militia if needed.

From the lumberjacks/wood choppers once you have enough wood you should be constantly building mills and farms to ever increase the amount of food you have.

Once you reach a population of about 100 you should click to go up into the feudal age. Note: you don't want to be fighting an opponent already in the feudal age and you don't want to go up too early either.

Once you get to feudal then you should click on your lumbercamp, mining camp and mill and make the necessary upgrades.

You should build monasteries and Relic Monky's and store relics within them. You will need lots of area for these and take a note that these buildings are quite weak so if your on an open map you will want to palisade wall these up.

Build 2 blacksmiths and a market and research stuff. Also researches will be available at the barracks and stable.

Build stone walls if necessary. Make note though that even a mass of units CAN break through these (Think Archers).

Progressively make your way to the castle age. Once you get there then you will have siege at your disposal. Remember to build a university and I recommend researching Siege Engineers.
1 User(s) are viewing this mod (in the past 30 minutes)
0 members, 1 guests

Information
Type:
Changes Game Play
Game Name:
Downloads:
140
Created By:
David H. Cooper (aka fobbix)
Version:
1.7
Allowed in Rated Games:
Yes
Download Size:
2.33 MB
Uploaded By:
Website: