nice! good luck with this. just one question, will this be playable on gameranger since GR uses a crack?

We're Actually testing it on GR now ^^.

congratulations, fantastic idea. I really like the choices civilization. The gods are formidable.

This is just awesome i think people will now buy aom only for this! Great Work.

I'm probably not going to be releasing the last few mods I was working on (http://aom.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=19,29285,,all) but if you wanted them for this project I could email them to Elva or send them on skype or something..

Only managed to finish one of the units fully (achilles) but I prepared afew in GMAX that have been rigged with bones, etc and are ready to be animated so from what I read above it seems you sort of have a grasp on how to do that

[This message has been edited by Dean88 (edited 09-22-2013 @ 12:11 PM).]

Would be awesome
Send them to WarriorMario@live.nl and I'll look at them. I'll probably will and give you some credit.

Unarchived on request.

Wowey!A new expansion!I like the idea.Nice work,keep it up,guys

[This message has been edited by Hawk13 (edited 05-03-2014 @ 04:33 AM).]

No offence but I really hope this doesn't become an 'official' expansion (saw you posted this on the steam page) I could think of a lot better civs I'd rather have..

The idea of creating different civs is a good one by default.

However: Either remove the normal civs for this mod or create the new civs according to the AoM unit system. The basic civ layout doesn't really reflect the way the normal AoM civs are built up.

If you don't follow this system and get this right the mod gameplay will suck Edit: well, it won't suck by definition. But you'll definately get design-related balance problems that will not be fixable. The new civs will either overpower other civs - sort of comparable like atlantean do in AoT, or they will be too weak against the existing civs.

[This message has been edited by darcreaver (edited 05-03-2014 @ 02:04 PM).]

I'm not sure about what system you're talking as the game's system is a bit vague. Do you mean something like that the greeks have an archer, infantry and cav civ? If thats the case then we will be following the system.

I can't think of any other system right now but I do know that the rts-sanctuary is interested and some of them want to help us with balancing. So, the balancing of the game might not be done by paid professionals but will be done by experienced players.

Just sayin'. You should settle the whole design properly first. All abilities, units, techs etc. And after that you can start balancing. If you start with an unfinished concept you'll have hell of a lot of work.

I've spend 2 years balancing/designing custom factions into original game content - it's really, really hard to do properly.

I agree with darcreaver 100%. geting something down is the most important. balance changes come later. i find when i design scenarios i get so caught up in making everything i do immediatly balanced, i never get anything else done.

Oh, and while I was reading through your post once more: I'd really appreciate a babylonian civ at some point. Maybe similar to the Persians in AoE:O, where units could take multiple roles at once, i.e. melee units that also could be used as makeshift archers and stuff like that.

That was one thing I really thought was extremely unique for that game.

I also agree with darcreaver.But just balancing the units like in the previous AOM games,for eg:the Atlanteans have a new way to create heroes,etc then it would be a great expansion.I know it is easy for me to say,but I think just making it look like it fits with the game can make it fit with the game.I think the basics are:To get a unit that counters infantry,To get a unit that counters cavalry,To get a unit that counters archers,To get a building like Migdol Stronghold,Hill Fort,etc And most importantly to get a nice hero.

All abilities, units, techs etc. And after that you can start balancing

Yeah this thread is a bit out-dated on that side of the development. Also I never said that we were balancing already but we do keep it in mind when we create something but since we have the opinions of only 2 players atm I think discussions like these will be very helpful.

So,
ATM we have certain restrictions like no cavalry and no iron upgrades (especially the later one might be a problem but we'll see)

For now this is the human unit structure:
archaic: Shaman, a somewhat strong hero that can heal units.
Classical: 1 counter cav infantry, 1 counter infantry archer(maybe just a slight one) and 1 counter archer infantry.
We've tried to cover everything as good as possible but the lack of cav units could be a problem. A thing that might cover up for this is making their mythunits somewhat tankier. Also note that their infantry will be somewhat faster than the other civs.
Heroic:1 counter archer archer(peltast like), 1 unique unit and a siege unit (dunno, ideas so far were: one man ram, arrow shield or a trebuchet like thing)
Mythic: unique hero and another siege unit or something that replaces the siege. We haven't looked at the Mythic age much.

I think that's it so far but I might have missed an idea or something.

Hmm well, this sounds quite reasonable. You always have to ask yourself how you possibly could create a new gameplay around a new civ that plays and feels unique. One thing that I'm not really sure of is the combination of housing maya, Aztec and Inca as "sub gods" into the meso civ. If you look at the other civs, you have the civ (eggy, norse, greece, atlantean) and then the 3 major gods that they worshipped. The sub gods then are used from a pool of 3 gods per age, of which 2 different combos are used for each major god on age advance.

If you look at your outline, you have a huge amount of different gods, that are not connected to each other (because of the different sub-civilisations).

For mesos it might be overall better to pick one out of the 3 civs and center the design around it. I might be wrong on this, but I always thought that Inca, Maya and Aztecs were vastly different in their society and combat structures.

For example you say : Okay we want an archer civ, so we pick Maya. Then you use maya, and pick 3 major gods that they worshipped. Maybe one focusing even more on archery, one for the cavalry replacement units/hit and run and one defensive with economic focus. After that you create/choose the god pool of 3 gods for classical, heroic and mythic age.

Overall, you'd end up with a more streamlined basic faction design that's easy to understand (less different gods, easier faction design), which results a better base for further work on it. It's always the thing that making things over complicated confuses new players, and makes them turn away from a game/mod.

I've seen it myself when I worked on the faction designs for soviets and Ostheer on Company of Heroes: Eastern Front. We (as developers) thought everything was easy and clear, simply because we spent hundreds of hours on the scripting and modding, so we knew everything about the factions, and because we made it ourselves, everything seemed to be logical. But the players who had to learn it found it confusing.

However, back to the post of yours: for a working civ concept you don't necessarily need cavalry units. All you need are units that can be used like cavalry:

- they should harass
- counter archers
- be fast enough to outrun normal infantry

If they fulfil those criterias they should be fine, even if their stats are weaker. You can make up for that with better build times and lower costs.

You can pick the meso civ design from AoE 2, with using units like plumed archers, eagle warriors and stuff like that (if you don't already do that). Alternatively, you could go ahead, and give all classical gods access to cavalry-like myth units. So, units that counter archers and are fast. However, if you'd do that you'd need to make sure that those Mesos can gather favor in a secure way, because else they'll get roflstomped by toxotes/chariots.

As for the Shaman: imo he's not unique. The overall idea reminds me of Eggy Priests too much. Also, it's the question whether you use the Greek hero system, or a generic hero system like Eggy/norse.

In my personal opinion the Greek Hero system doesn't fit to mesos. Greece had their popular heroes that everybody knows (heracles, odysseus, theseus etc.). Norse had much fewer, unknown heroes (like Siegfried from the Nibelungs). Same for eggy. Maybe this might also apply for Mesos, too.

And for a more specific concept on the Shaman:
How about this: instead of healing allied units he could enrage nearby allied units, or a targeted allied unit (sort of like the Einherjar), increasing movementspeed and damage. The amount of enrage could either scale by techings, or with the age (weak in archaic, stronger in classical etc).

He could also "heal" other units to become heroes. Sort of like the atty hero system, but without cost and not permanent. Pretty much you right click on a unit, the shaman starts casting his "healing" and the unit becomes a hero. As soon as the Shaman attacks something else and stops "healing", the hero bonus fades.

The disadvantage for this hero system would be that the shaman himself cannot participate in combat while buffing units, and of course it's micro intensive. Therefor you could give those "holy" soldiers greek-hero like modifiers against myth units.

I don't know if that's possible to code, though.

Also, the Shaman *could* be melee units instead of ranged and have stats comparable to hersirs. This would make them a much more unique utility+combat unit.

[This message has been edited by darcreaver (edited 05-04-2014 @ 10:54 AM).]

I completely agree with darcreaver.Well said!Anyway,that God idea seems to be excellent.I was also thinking about that.You should take Mayans with 3 major gods,Aztecs with 3 major gods and Incas with 3 major gods along with 3 gods for each respective age for each Mesos.About the hero idea,I think they should get heroes like the Norse.They should get a particular unit that can be created many times.But each should have different heroes.Like for the Aztecs,their shamans should be warrior priests that has bonus against MUs.I know,it is like eggy's priests,but they should be much,much morepowerful in battle.Because they should be Mythologically/Historically accurate .And for the others, different ones according to their History.

I completely agree with darcreaver.Well said!Anyway,that God idea seems to be excellent.I was also thinking about that.You should take Mayans with 3 major gods,Aztecs with 3 major gods and Incas with 3 major gods along with 3 gods for each respective age for each Mesos.

If you take it this way you would make the Natives not an add-on but a whole total conversion. You could go ahead, and create 3 meso civs that replace the current normal greek/norse/eggy factions. you could then individually design the civs to be unique in their own regards.

However, this would require MASSIVE amounts of work, as you'd need to create own gameplay options for each civ and you'd need to create everything related to each of the 3 new civs. From teching, to gods, to powers and so on.

What I actually meant was to remove 2 from the 3 meso civs and focus on the "coolest/most unique" meso civ instead of merging all three into one.

That means if the modder decides he wants maya he'd remove everything related to Inca and Aztecs in the civ design. If he decides to use Inca, he'd remove maya/aztec stuff. If he wants aztecs he removes maya/inca stuff.

About the hero idea,I think they should get heroes like the Norse.They should get a particular unit that can be created many times.But each should have different heroes.Like for the Aztecs,their shamans should be warrior priests that has bonus against MUs.I know,it is like eggy's priests,but they should be much,much morepowerful in battle.Because they should be Mythologically/Historically accurate .And for the others, different ones according to their History.

Yes, I had something similar in my mind. However, just making them melee heroes with bonus against myth units it's pretty much the same as the norse hersir system, so it's not unique, and nothing nobody has seen before.

That's why I thought of the "hero promotion" ability for the Shamans that can convert other units into heroes until the he stops enchanting them.

[This message has been edited by darcreaver (edited 05-04-2014 @ 11:39 AM).]

I get your point about combining the Mayas, Incas and Aztecs into one culture because if I choose one of them (Would have been the Incas) I would have made a lot of people upset and they would ask why I did not make the Aztecs or Mayas and say things like Incas suck etc while others would love it :P Now I know that there aren't many people that really know about the mythology of these tribes but they have some overlapping gods.

Now I see that I made some mistakes in the minorgod area that might have made you think that the overlapping took place between archaic and classical but thats not the case. I will change it now and tell you what the overlapping gods will be.

Quilla - Ix-Chel (Chak and Ix-Chel were swapped for some reason)
Mamacocha - Chalchiuhtlicue (Chalchiuhtlicue and Tlaloc same thing)
Chak - Tlaloc
Tonatiuh - Vacub Caquix - Inti (Tonatiuh and Xipe Totec also swapped)

Now we will remain with 12 different minorgods hope this clarifies some stuff. I will update this on the main thread later as I do not have the time for it now.

About the cav-like infantry atm that's what we're doing you need to know that crens do not affect them so that makes them even stronger.

So far there aren't that many mythunits considered as final units. There will be a were-jaguar unit (shapeshifter) and a serpent (amphibious if we get it done) for the moon and sea gods. So one could be seen as a cav mythunit.

Shamans yeah we have some ideas like a sacrifice special attack but the close combat shaman is something we must consider too. They are limited to 3 btw and there is another type of hero but that's still in the idea phase. Oh and the mythic age unique hero.

Favor generation is something I would like to discuss but I don't have the time atm.

My personal opinion on this matter:

F*CK THE HATERS!

You'll always have people that'll be pissed off by some unit/hero/idea not included at some point. But the point is:

You simply CANNOT put everything into a civ for a game. You need to collect ideas, and combine them in a way that it results in a solid, fun game experience.
The game isn't fun because a certain god or unit is in the game. It's fun because the mechanics behind the civ is fun. If it's refreshing and unique while not being too unbalanced, people will play and enjoy it.

That's why AoM uses greek, norse and Eggy. They all have a very different flavor and play out very differently. So, you have players playing greek, others playing eggy, and even others playing norse. Because players like different things. Some like having a large army quickly. Others like to play defensively, and even others like to just piss off their enemies with sneak attacks while building up themselves.

If you add Meso you need to make sure that you create something different from those already existing factions. So people have another option for their game style to play with. it's better to have 1 working, unique new civ, that really brings something new to the game than having 4 semi-interesting civs that have nothing new to offer. Just as an example:

If you just mix some aspects from norse with eggy, you won't really attract new players. Because those who like the eggy mechanics play eggy, and the others play norse. also, by mixing mechanics you make the civ more confusing overall, and people will ask "where is the UNIQUE cool thing about the mesos? like god power shielding monuments, or heroes summoning myth units in combat" and stuff like that. Or you get to hear stuff like: "oh yeah, they're nice and all. This god X looks cool but I don't play them because I like greek/eggy/norse more."

If you make it confusing and hard to get through the basics of the civ, people will not play it. If the mechanics are lame/not fun, people will also not play it in the long run.

The guys on the side of the haters/fetishists that want unit X or ability Y will fade away in relatively short time anyways. They bother more with graphics/fancy stuff than with gameplay. Unless for very, very specific reasons they're really not worth the effort to be considered in the game design process.

If you try to satisfy everyone you'll fail anyways, because you can't fit 10.000 things into a single faction, and even if you manage to do so, it'll still be awkward in the end.

Edit: In the end, if you've done well and have finished "your" meso civ, the guys who wanted the Aztec/maya civ will still play your inca civ, because it's so unique and different from the Norse, eggy, greek and atlanteans and much more fun, or at least as much fun as playing one of those classical civs.

[This message has been edited by darcreaver (edited 05-04-2014 @ 12:37 PM).]

Aww please please continue this awesome project! I love AOM, and this new races look AWESOME. I do not mind what others say or think I love this so far. I been a fangirl of AOM since I was 9, but of course, its hard to keep playing the same game for very long time ha ha, so your mod will make the game even better!

Keep the good job! Never give up!

True about the haters, but I think it is too late for such a big change right now since I already announced it as the way it is now but we'll see how it turns out, there is a huge interest in an expansion so I think there will be more than enough feedback from the community whether they like certain things.

Now another thing about that is I'm getting told two things now, keep it similar and add new things or it will be boring so I guess I'll have to find a balance between that.

If you add Meso you need to make sure that you create something different from those already existing factions.

So far we have a different way of gathering favor, slightly altered villager idea of the norse but it is supported by certain minorgod technologies. Extra relic boost (think AoE2) Units casting godpowers, two completely new Mythunits with both their unique thing. Human sacrifice, new human soldiers and Human sacrifice. I think thats quite a lot of new things but then again, not everything is final and everything needs to be balanced and we can only do that with the help of others.

Hmm yea. That's only my own opinion, and opinions may differ. From what I've experienced while modding for Company of Heroes and Warcraft III, I noticed that the rule "if you analyze the gameplay and adjust your mod factions to the core gameplay" you'll receive better results than watering up the concept and trying to fit something into the game that differs in it's core design philosophy.

That's why I meant that you should first go ahead, analyze the existing factions and afterwards focus on creating your own on a base that it offers a different gameplay to the original civs.

For example noone needs a 3rd greek-like faction in this game (atty and greek are pretty similar in several areas).

But I'm really eager to see how this evolves. Also, if you need help feel free to ask.

[This message has been edited by darcreaver (edited 05-05-2014 @ 05:59 PM).]

Does this project still on?
Looks really nice.