Modding Articles

A Guide to Modders Aiming to Rebalance Water Warfare

As we all well know, the current water warfare model in AoE2 is completely and utterly broken. I've seen several discussions come up about it in the G&SD forum as well as the Modding forum, so I figured I'd just write up an article once and for all that we can use for future reference.

Adding New Icons with Turtle Pack

This guide will go over how to add SLPs to the interfac.drs file to add new icons. Note that most mods do not keep the unit icons in the interfac.drs file but commonly move it to the gamedata_x1_p1.drs to reduce the file size of the mod.

Adding Units and Researches to the In-Game Tech Tree

For quite some time, ingame Tech trees were believed to be an uneditable, hardcoded part of the game. While they do have several hardcoded behaviors, adding units and researches is a fairly straightforward process, though completely different then adding them to the game itself.

Adding User Interface For New Civilizations

If like me you have always wanted to add THAT civilization you felt was missing from the game, you may have tried to do so thaks to the UserPatch following <a href="/university/modding/adding-new-civilizations-using-userpatch/">this guide</a>, but you will then realize that when trying ingame, the civilization lacks the User Interface. In this article we will look at how to add new UI.

AI Leader Names

A small but nice feature of AoK is a random selection names for AI players. While other games might always have the Japanese AI be Tokugawa, AoK can have Hojou Soun, Saito Dousan, Oda Nobunaga, Gamou Ujisato, Date Masamune, Mouri Motonari, Uesugi Kenshin, Takeda Shingen, Sanada Yukimura, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Nitta Yoshisada, Tairano Kiyomori, Ashikaga Takauji, Imagawa Yoshimoto, Kusunoki Masashige, Hosokawa Katsumoto, Minamotono Yoritomo, Fujiwarano Michinaga, or Minamotono Yoshitsune.

An Introduction to Creating Units with AGE 2

Many of us have, at one point or another, been designing a scenario and wished for "that one unit that they should have made!"? Well, now you can make it yourself! Using the Advanced Genie Editor (or AGE), you can change units, copy them, and even make completely new units. This guide will take you through the steps of making your first unit with AGE.

Changing a Civilization’s Building Set

Especially with the release of new DLC, there is some dissatisfaction with the architecture of a few civilizations. Particularly common are wishes that the Vietnamese used Chinese buildings and that the Spanish and/or Byzantines shared the Italian architecture. Fortunately, they can be changed quite easily with just a bit of data editing.

Clean, simple way to add Strings in Language.dll files

This guide will outline a clean and simple way to add strings in Language.dll files.

Converting AoE II Campaigns to Other Modpacks

If you are here you probably want to know how to convert a campaign from either vanilla AoK or The Conquerors. The method is fairly straight forward.

Creating a Limited Building or Unit

Salut everyone! In this article, I will teach you a thing that might be useful for your mods: how to make a building or unit that is limited? This can be useful if you wish to prevent a civilization from building too many of your new building(s), or if you wish to completely change the gameplay by limiting the number of barracks, stables, castles, TCs, etc. or for a unit, if you wish to not create too many of a specific unit. There are tons of things you can do with this! The question is how. The answer is here!

Extracting SLPs from .aks or .akx Files

Did you notice that the good and oldest modpacks are in aks or akx formats? These files are for MPS (ModPack Studio). MPS is only for Windows XP, the old and unsupported Windows. So here I will teach you how to extract slps from aks or akx.

How to Add Building Sets

How to Train Units in Groups

Being able to train units in groups has been something that players of AoK have been wanting for quite a while. For most of the game's existence, no one has known how, but with BF_Tanks' research into annex units, it is now possible. This guide will teach you how to train any unit in a group of 4, as well as give pointers on other variations of this method.

Make Your Units and Buildings Buildable

Many of us have had a brilliant idea for a unit or building to add to the game. So, we find out how to use AGE and figure out how to make the unit and the building, only to figure out that the icon to train or build it is missing. Why oh why is this happening? In this article, I will show you how to fix this frustrating problem.

Modding Buildings with 3D Models Easily and for Free

Recently I've become involved in modding again after a brief absence from the scene. I used to mod my buildings like most everyone did, with cut and paste AoK graphics or imports from other games. And while those graphics can look great, there are 3 major drawbacks...

New UI for Mods

Every mod has to have a properly designed UI for each civilization. It's not very accurate that the new civilization of the -for example- Zulus to have an User Interface from the Japanese or the Goths.

Photoshop Tutorial

Welcome to the Photoshop tutorial. Here I'll talk about the basic tools that you'll need in order to change Age of Empires II graphics. In this tutorial I will mainly focus on aoe buildings and copy and paste methods but the methods used here can also be applied to units.

Photoshop Tutorial: Drawing Walls By Hand

Copy & pasting mostly relies on copying or cloning. But apart from those two techniques you can also use a third technique which is drawing by hand. This one requires a bit more attention but allows you to create new parts and even fix mismatching cloning parts.

Resource Generating Buildings

One of the major introductions of the African Kingdoms expansion is the Feitoria, a buildings that generates resources over time. This new ability was introduced only in the HD edition of the game but it is possible to mimic this ability fairly well in the CD version.

The Complete Gate and Town Center Modding Reference

A little tinkering with a genie editor reveals that AoK is filled with duplicate buildings. There are four barracks, one for each age; two siege workshops, one for each age where you can build them. However, there are twenty town centers and no less than thirty-two units all unhelpfully called 'Gate', making the modding of gates and Town Centers a difficult proposition. This article explains the purposes, relations, and naming conventions of these units and their even more numerous graphic IDs. Armed with this knowledge, you can add new graphic sets more easily, and even create new sets of gates!

The interfac.drs Reference

World’s longest Poser tutorial for AoK modders

Alright, I've been promising this for a while, but here at last is a tutorial on how to make unit graphics for your AoK mods in Poser.