Let me be the first to say...

Wow

Amazing work. Make a guide on UU. :P Thanks for this guide. It's great.

Absolutely stunning! Great job with that, you should be very happy, it looks great.

I have one question...for grenadiers it says from normal to vet they gain 11 seige. Then only 5 more from vet to guard. Is that supposed to be like that?

Absolutely fantastic guide. As an avid British player, this will help me immensely. Full marks!

Very nice guide, pretty too .

Just a couple of things;
1)How do you view them such that you can flick through the pages one by one, rather than having to open a new PDF doco all the time?

2) As Britain, you can send Scottish Highlanders via a number of ways;
a) the Church improvement card (1000 Food);
b) Mercenaries: Hire Scottish Highlanders (1000 Coin)
c) Highland Mercenary Army (2000 Coin) (which is the only one listed)
Perhaps listing the various costs in the "Cost" section, like you did with the Jagers above, might be handy .

5) Jagers; 10 Jagers only cost 1000 Coin, not 1200 .

4) Swiss Pikemen; You listed the Infantry Breastplate giving +358 HP to a unit with 325 HP. Did you really mean + (358 - 325 = 33 HP) ie, +10%, otherwise that upgrade is like an increase of like 110% .

5) Barbary Corsairs; You can ship 9 Corsairs just on their own (not as part of the Meditteraian Army) for 1000 Gold.

6) Falconet Cannons; You have the description as "Good against other infantry - here i was thinking they were Artillery . I see its just a copy & Paste from the Culverins, but its only a small change .

7) Artillery Advanced Arsenal; you said that there is an increase to the LOS and anti-ship damage, but didnt say how much - x%? y amount?

8) Bonuses; You seem to only list one bonus that each unit has (should it have any); for example, Falconets have bonuses against Infantry x3 (mentioned), Buildings x2, and Ships x4.5 - what;s the story there?

Anyway, as you can tell all of this criticism is very minor, and as such i think the effort is fantastic. Clearly and beautifully presented, it will be a good guide for most aspiring British players .

Thanks

Hey ultimate whats your ESO name?

I dont know o_O

I only play AOE3 on Lans against mates of mine, i only frequent here to try and pick up some cool british and/or ottoman stuff, and help out where i can .

Very, very, very nice. Well researched+good layout. Now if only you could do other civilizations . How did you make it though? Did you make it as an image and put it into .pdf? or... plz reply

Hello all! First off, thanks for all the positive reviews and praise of the guide, I spent a lot of time on it. As for the questions about some of the stats and figures, I was working with the knowledge bases presented here and over at gamereplays.org. If some of the information is incorrect, blame them! Just kidding. I want this to be the most accurate it can be, so I'll go back and double check the aforementioned questions. In fact, I was hoping people could help out by double checking me.

As for how it's made, the cover is a layered Photoshop .psd (with the text coming as an import from Illustrator). All the text on the pages are Illustrator made, then imported as .psd's into Photoshop and layered over the image background. Everything is flattened, turned into PDF's, then zipped for size. To the comment about viewing them as pages, unfortunately I don't have the full version of Acrobat so I can't make a multipage scrollable PDF file. The best I can do from my studio here is make a file folder of individual PDF files. I'll check those figures and questions, then post a revised version on my site today if need be.

Other guides? Hmmm...maybe. They take a lot of time, but I certainly wouldn't mind too much.

Keep the comments coming all, and thanks!

dre1919

**Update**
OK Matt, just double checked the grenadier question. Yes, it's supposed to be that way (so far as I've ever known). The reason is according to elpea's guide, greandiers do 54 pts. of base siege damage. When upgrading from standard grenadier to veteran, you gain +20% HP & Damage (according to the British upgrade guide on gamereplays.org). The percentages are always multiplied by the base score and added to the principal. So, a veteran grenadier is going to get 10.8 as a bonus to his HP and damage, making him have a siege damage of 65 (rounded up). When you upgrade from veteran to guard, they receive a 30% increase in HP and damage. That is 16.2, so as a guard grenadier they then have a base siege damage of 70 (rounded up). That's where I arrived at that conclusion, so if this is in any way incorrect, someone please jump in and let me know.

**Update #2**

Ultimate Newbie, I've just finished making the changes you pointed out. Thanks a lot for catching those! Addressing your question about the Advanced Arsenal artillery upgrades, such as the Gunner's Quadrant and Heated Shot, the information guides I've been using for my information do not have those figures listed so I truly don't know what they are. If someone does know, please tell me and I'll do an edit.

Addressing the question of the multiple bonuses listing (for example, th Falconet), the same thing applies as above. I had fairly limited base knowledge to work with when this write up was done. If someone has a full, accurate listing of the multiple bonuses each unit gets vs. another unit, by all means forward them along and I'll do an edit.

Thanks so much for the attention to detail and double checking me, it only makes this a better guide! The updated version will be up on my site within the hour.

Thanks,
dre1919

**Update #3**

The revised version is now available for download.

[This message has been edited by dre1919 (edited 07-11-2006 @ 10:44 AM).]

Did you rename the guide? Because the link on your website's not working now...

That's funny...I did rename that by accident. Sorry about that everyone! Thanks for catching that bro. It's fixed now though.

dre1919

Awwwwwwwwwwesome!

Great job and an awesome community resource!

Quoted from dre1919:

tbh, i had no idea either. I just fired up the game, and threw the mercenary cards into my deck and hovered my mouse over them so i could see how much gold they cost. For the other units damage bonus, i just started a game, FFed and had a look at my falconets in fire mode. went Industrial to make sure that the damage bonuses were the same after upgrading (which they were), and then tabbed out and wrote them down...

Very nice job!

Informative and will come in handy

I'm fairly certain that some of the data, such as damage bonuses can be gleaned straight from the game's .xml files.

Also, on the gren issue, I think that the 16 extra adds to the 11 extra, unless I'm badly mistaken, so it should be 54+11+16 for the gaurd upgrade...correct me if this is incorrect. I believe that all upgrades stack for all units, rather than replacing the effects of previous upgrades. Someone who is more knowlegible of this than me please confirm or correct this.

The file for game data is:
\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Empires III\data\proto.xml

Note that you should not edit this file, unless you know what you are doing, as you risk inability to play on ESO, from what I understand. This is the data file that the game uses, so changing it actually changes the in-game stats of a unit. You can open the file in notepad and search for the name of a unit to find its stats. The unit's stats are opened with a line such as:
<Unit id ='238' name ='Falconet'>
and closed with: </Unit>

For example the damage bonus data of a falconet:
<DamageBonus type ='AbstractInfantry'>3.000000</DamageBonus>
<DamageBonus type ='Building'>2.000000</DamageBonus>
<DamageBonus type ='Ship'>3.000000</DamageBonus>

Btw, nice job on those files.

Edit:
I confirmed it myself in game:
Grens:
base seige: 54, vet: 64, gaurd: 81
also, this is true for HP. gaurd gren HP is 300.

This can be done very quickly using a DM city and start in a late age with fast game speed.

[This message has been edited by vbscript2 (edited 07-12-2006 @ 02:21 AM).]

The AA upgrades for the Artillery LOS is +6, and the anti Ship attack is +50%...

not bad for such cheap upgrades .

correct stats here:
http://www.rbinkley.com/aoe3/units.asp

Edit: All Brit non-merc units stats now at above site.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for your effort. I might be making use of those pdfs, as I'm starting to play with the Brits some now.

Also, if anyone would like other civs on my site, just ask. I might have time to put them up. E-mail me at any address at rbinkley.com . aoe3@ would be good.

[This message has been edited by vbscript2 (edited 07-12-2006 @ 04:24 AM).]

This guide is great, It will be realy helpful.

Just a couple of quik points, could you perhaps add a bit that show the population space per 1?.

also some of the Units does not say what they are Good against, Most people will know, but would be good for Noobs.
(most are Mercs which are good against most units, but what is it best at countering)

I mainly play Brits, so this guide will help me so much.

Couple points. It says plus 1 to grendaries on hand cavalry (like hussar?) I thought grens were horrible against hand cavalry.

And secondly, it says all these formations for lbow for example. I have advanced formations on, but havent axeactly noticed these ones. Do you just have to have advanced formations on to access these?

Thanks for your help, and great work on the guide

REALLY COOL!!!

But...

Something that looks that pretty should have the typos removed.

page2.pdf

Musketeers

Attack Bonuses: Damage x 3 vs Calvary

Not picking on you at all. Just saying that something that looks that good should BE that good. Know what I'm saying?

The Finnish Hackapells section page5.pdf has the same issue.

Mamelukes too.

I didn't see any more..but there may have been.

All that said, it's VERY good. Since I just switched to playing as the Brits, it's going to be quite helpful.

[This message has been edited by RascalJones (edited 07-12-2006 @ 09:45 AM).]

Agreed Rascal. Hey I never said I could spell, I just make things look pretty! Naw, thanks to you and to everyone else for their pointers. Like I said before, I wanted to get this out and get feedback to make it as nice as it can be. Edits will follow until it's completely right.

Thanks for the missing AA figures Ultimate.

OK...I'm confused now. In checking in with vbscript2's stats on his site, they show my method of multipliying the level bonus against the base figure and making that the new figure as correct. For example:

Standard Musketeer has 150 HP. When going to Veteran he gets a 20% upgrade in HP & Damage. 20% x 150 = 30, so therefore our Musketeer has 180 HP. The next level, Redcoat, grants a 40% increase. Based upon the same formula, that means he has 210 HP. The Last level, Imperial, is supposedly a 50% increase in HP & Damage, which would give him 225. Are these uprgrade percentages incorrect then? As I said before, I'm working off the upgrade template from gamereplays.org.

vbscript2, are all the stats on your site taken straight from the game files? If so, then they are gospel. Also, another thing I thought I had correct and am not sure now is card upgrades. The percentages they grant are multiplied by the base figure of the unit, not the level it's at when you send the card shipment correct? vb, please lend me your thoughts on this so I can do the necissary edits.

Thanks everyone!
dre1919

[This message has been edited by dre1919 (edited 07-12-2006 @ 10:38 AM).]

The upgrades are cumulative.

It works like this:
Veteran (.20): base * (1 + .20)
Guard (.30 on top of veteran): base * (1 + (.20 + .30))
Royal Guard (.10 on top of guard): base * (1 + (.20 + .30 + .10))
Imperial (.50 on top of guard/RG): base * (1 + (.20 + .30 [+ .10] + .50))

All my stats were taken from in game. I started a DM in the imp age and checked unit stats after each upgrade, as I mentioned could be done in my post, so the stats should be correct, barring type-o's. I got the multipliers for damage bonuses in my above post from the game file.

You seem to be misunderstanding the formula for the unit upgrades. You are correct that the percent is multiplied by the base, but it is NOT added to the base. It is added to the stats for the next lowest upgrade.

stats of guard = (0.3 (or .4) * base stats) + vet stats
stats of imp = (0.5 * base stats) + guard stats

base musk = 150 HP
vet musk = 150 + (.2 * 150) = 180
guard musk = 180 + (.4 * 180) = 240
imp musk = 240 + (.5 * 180) = 330

I guess for now just go by what the game says in the unit's stats section, as I assume these to be the live numbers that the game is currently using... would be strange not to program it that way.

Correction: apparently there is a difference between DM and RM. In RM, the imp redcoat IS 330 HP, as my equations suggested. Will change in stats on my server.

The stats on my server are slightly off atm, b/c I used DM and it's different, apparently. I will try to get them all corrected ASAP. Many have already been changed, but it looks like I'm gonna have to redo the whole thing in an RM game. I don't have time, atm, but I'll try to get them all changed today. However, my equations do hold for RM. That much I have determined. DM and RM accounts for the differences in what my equations and my server show atm. The equations are correct for RM. The server may show either RM or DM atm, as it's in the process or being changed.

Thanks and sorry about that,
vbscript2

[This message has been edited by vbscript2 (edited 07-12-2006 @ 12:50 PM).]

Thanks a lot MNBob and vbscript2 for clearing up how this equation is supposed to work. In essence, the upgraded amount it stacked upon the current level of the unit and not the base level of the unit. I will go back and adjust my figures accordingly across the board. So far, here is what I will be revising for the updated version.

1. Few minor typos. Not sure how spell checker missed those.
2. All HP & Damage levels for units, per level of upgrade.
3. Listing of what the particular unit counters.
4. The missing AA info regarding the LOS and ship damage rates.

Anything else I seem to be missing? This guide will be top notch once these changes are made, and thanks to everyone's help.

dre1919

Quote:

Wrong. Guard musketeer is 225 HP, but you're going on readcoat stats. Since a redcoat is a royal guard unit, it gains 10% on top of 40%, so Redcoats are 240, normal guard musketeers are 225 HP.

Quote:

Nope.

Imperial musket is 225 + (.5 * 150)=300, not 330. Remember, since Redcoats gain an extra 10%, they add the 10% on.

Your formula doesn't work except for British redcoats, for every other civ it won't work.