Age of Wonders III Modding Support – Adding Units, Abilities & Cosmic Happenings

Posted on September 4, 2015 by SikBok in news

Hi everyone,

Good news from the modding front. Tests are going well and our mod guide has grown to a whopping 22.5k words, or 86 pages. To show you what we’ve been up to, here are some examples from our test mods. All these should become available as soon as we officially launch mod support.

Example 1: Sun Burst Cosmic Event

Let’s start with a simple Mod.  Say you don’t like the Dark Sun Cosmic event reducing the Vision range by -2.  With this simple mod we’ve changed – i.e. replaced – the Dark Sun Cosmic Event to Sun Burst which increases the vision range for all player by +2 while it is active. No more early game exploration expeditions ruined or surprise brigand attacks. Functionally this mod is a simple as tweaking a variable, but if you want do it well can you add a new icon and a bit of lore.

SunBurst_Cosmic_Happening

Example 2: Goblin Ninja Unit

Here example of a basic unit mod.  Say you are a fan of martial arts and like goblins. Time to replace the Goblin Marauder into a Ninja Goblin! We’ve attached two Draconians swords – using some scaling and offsets – added the Marial Arts, Urban Concealment, Coupe de Grace, and Projectile Avoidance abilities and … voila a new cool looking Ninja Goblin.

Goblin_Ninja

Example 3: Nekro Ghost Rider Unit & Hope Crusher Ability

Now let’s take this a bit further. For this new undead unit we actually created new abilities. Phase Charge allows the Ghost Knight to phase and move at the same time with full move points.

Necro_Ghost_Rider

And Hope Crusher, which attempts to inverts positive morale to low morale on each strike. Failing to resist applies a -500 morale penalty to any target the unit hits. The ability and unit creation systems are the same as used by the designers at Triumph. As for looks we’ve attached a Lost Soul body to a Nightmare mount, gave him the Deathbringer’s sword, and add ghostly particles, red eyes and we’ve added a new icon. Of course it’s your job as a Modder to ensure things stay balanced so people will actually use your mod.

Hope_Crusher_Ability

Example 4: Halfling Plougher Unit

We’ve taken the Halfling Farmer, placed it on the Settler”s Ox to make the Halfling Plougher. Try to dodge its ponderous charge and shudder in fear for the trod-by mad chicken throwing attack ; )>

Halfling_farmer_ox

Next to testing mods and writing guides we’ve also added some nice nifty features for all you aspiring AoW3 modders out there. More on those in future posts!

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Home › Forums › Age of Wonders III Modding Support – Adding Units, Abilities & Cosmic Happenings

This topic contains 64 replies, has 40 voices, and was last updated by  SikBok 6 years, 8 months ago.

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  • September 4, 2015 at 15:40 #226894

    SikBok
    Keymaster

    Topic for the ‘Age of Wonders III Modding Support – Adding Units, Abilities & Cosmic Happenings’ news post discussion.

    September 4, 2015 at 16:05 #226899

    Motasa
    Member

    This looks wonderful! Can’t wait to start modding. Making new abilities, new units even looks so much fun.

    I’m wondering about the animations of these new units. With really weird creations I guess those might get really odd and bizarre. But after many hundreds of hours I already skip most combat animations, let alone the idle animations, so I think I wouldn’t be bothered if there is clipping or the occasional spasm.

    September 4, 2015 at 16:07 #226901

    Thariorn
    Member

    Wow, so far the Mod Tools seem like aliteral publication of your developer tools O.O

    Any ETA yet?

    Would ove to work on sume stuff before Christmas starts 😀

    September 4, 2015 at 16:13 #226904

    johnmr531
    Member

    awesome very nice!

    September 4, 2015 at 16:23 #226907

    Eomolch
    Member

    Amazing news, this is looking more than promising, can’t stop the hype-train now …

    Also two more (obvious) observations:
    1. Confirmation that we will be able to add new abilities!
    2. It seems like ANY animal or monster can be used as a mount, not only the ones that already exist as a mount for some unit/hero. 🙂

    September 4, 2015 at 16:35 #226910

    Vastator
    Member

    Cool!
    What about 2d graphic elements? Is it possibile to modify them and using new ones?
    For example, can these new units, cosmic happenings, abilities and so on, have custom icons or are we limited to use the existing ones used for unmodded stuff?

    September 4, 2015 at 16:38 #226911

    SikBok
    Keymaster
    Motasa wrote:

    I’m wondering about the animations of these new units.

    You can link up any animation suitable for the rig – e.g. humanoid animations to any humanoid, giant animations to any giant. Although you might have some animations missing for particular abilities, in which case it’ll play a fallback animation that isn’t as pretty.

    Motasa wrote:

    Any ETA yet?

    Soon(tm)

    Motasa wrote:

    Would ove to work on sume stuff before Christmas starts 😀

    Before xmas sounds feasible : )>

    Eomolch wrote:

    It seems like ANY animal or monster can be used as a mount

    Unfortunately that’s not entirely try. Not all of them will have animations for mount+rider. The ox uses our beast rig – iirc – which is why it had animations.

    September 4, 2015 at 16:38 #226914

    SikBok
    Keymaster
    Vastator wrote:

    What about 2d graphic elements? Is it possibile to modify them and using new ones?
    For example, can these new units, cosmic happenings, abilities and so on, have custom icons or are we limited to use the existing ones?

    Adding icons should be supported, same for text and new particle effects.

    September 4, 2015 at 16:44 #226915

    notme
    Member

    Nice, but can we add new cosmic happenings/spells?

    September 4, 2015 at 17:21 #226928

    Eomolch
    Member
    SikBok wrote:
    Eomolch wrote:

    It seems like ANY animal or monster can be used as a mount

    Unfortunately that’s not entirely try. Not all of them will have animations for mount+rider. The ox uses our beast rig – iirc – which is why it had animations.

    Ah, I see, my mistake.

    I know this is a very specific question, but can you make a quick assessment if the following idea may be feasible?: What I have in mind is to give every hero the ability to mount/unmount on the strategic map. My idea is to add the “no-mount” mount into the game as the default starting “mount” of all heroes. The heroes would loose the mounted and charge traits and 8 movement points and they would have to use different animation sets than they currently use (most likely of some walking units from their corresponding race). Equipping a mount should then give back the mounted trait and more importantly change the model of the hero to the mounted version (status quo) and – and I think this is where things may get complicated – also change the animation set since the heroes will need to use the animations of mounted units again.

    September 4, 2015 at 18:22 #226935

    Jolly Joker
    Member

    Just great. Can’t wait to try a couple of ideas.

    September 4, 2015 at 19:14 #226949

    SikBok
    Keymaster
    notme wrote:

    Nice, but can we add new cosmic happenings/spells?

    I’m not 100% sure, but I believe you can.

    Eomolch wrote:

    What I have in mind is to give every hero the ability to mount/unmount on the strategic map.

    You could get close if you have some h4x0r skill, but unfortunately for this mod heroes do not share a rig with regular humanoids and heroes themselves do not have unmounted animations. Sorry.

    September 4, 2015 at 19:14 #226950

    vota dc
    Member

    Great. I forgot about the ox usable as a mount.

    September 4, 2015 at 19:56 #226960

    Outis
    Member

    Triumph is the sterling example of what a modern game design/production company should be. Actively communicates with customers, listens to feedback, and supports their game by honing their vision with that of the customers.

    p.s. Plan on bringing back the goblin wyvern rider by putting a marauder(-shield) on an obsidian wyvern.

    September 4, 2015 at 20:00 #226961

    MartyD81
    Member

    Sikbok,
    will we also be able to mod quests as to their variety in the RMG ? Quests could really use some diversity, now there are only 2 types of quests in the RMG, which get repetitive quite soon. I wonder if this is moddable at all… If not, please make quests more varied – more quest diversity is one of the few things that the game sorely needs. And bring back the unpredictable quest-giving shrines, I miss them so much! Thanks in advance.

    September 4, 2015 at 20:07 #226963

    Bob5
    Member

    This is really great. Looks like Smaug may actually be happening (normal Fire Dragon at the end of hobbit campaign isn’t really challenging after your heroes already leveled up somewhat)

    September 4, 2015 at 20:10 #226964

    Zaskow
    Member
    SikBok wrote:

    Unfortunately that’s not entirely try. Not all of them will have animations for mount+rider. The ox uses our beast rig – iirc – which is why it had animations.

    Other question: is it possible to use pure mount animal (manticore) for creation new unit WITHOUT rider?

    September 4, 2015 at 20:32 #226965

    BLOODYBATTLEBRAIN
    Member
    Outis wrote:

    p.s. Plan on bringing back the goblin wyvern rider by putting a marauder(-shield) on an obsidian wyvern.

    *smiles*

    Zaskow wrote:

    Other question: is it possible to use pure mount animal (manticore) for creation new unit WITHOUT rider?

    *smiles*

    Bob5 wrote:

    Looks like Smaug may actually be happening

    *smiles*

    September 4, 2015 at 21:18 #226971

    Backero
    Member

    Hmm what about recolor elves units, particles and city structures to create dark elves from them? Seems to be cool option for separate race, replace race or dwelling. Conversion Tigrans to Werewolfs would be cool too 😉

    September 4, 2015 at 22:11 #226982

    Dano13
    Member

    Wow – this is really good news!

    1) Now if we make a really cool secret spell, or make a new dwelling, mystic upgrades etc – will the AI be dynamic enough to use it? How does it know how to choose a new and improved unit over an old unit (if both were available)?

    2) When we load mods – is it one and only one mod at a time, or is it like Skyrim where we can mix and match at the cost of unpredictable results/stability?

    September 4, 2015 at 22:17 #226984

    Heretic13
    Member

    This looks awesome. Will we be able to add entirely new hero specializations? Like expanded or grey hairs?

    September 4, 2015 at 22:18 #226985

    Heretic13
    Member

    Grey guards and expander

    September 4, 2015 at 23:03 #226993

    vota dc
    Member

    And putting armor to a different size mount? For example knight’s armor to mammoth?

    September 5, 2015 at 07:01 #227002

    Tombles
    Keymaster
    Dano13 wrote:

    1) Now if we make a really cool secret spell, or make a new dwelling, mystic upgrades etc – will the AI be dynamic enough to use it? How does it know how to choose a new and improved unit over an old unit (if both were available)?

    The AI sort of analyzes new spells and abilities to see if they match a pattern it recognizes. For example, if you add world map spell that does damage to one stack, the AI will recognize it and be able to use it automatically, the AI won’t recognize AoE spells on the world map though, since we’ never added support for them.

    Basically, you just need to add spells/abilities that are the same “shape” as existing ones, and the AI should use them fine. The only things to avoid are mixed blessing like spells, (e.g. The unit gets +5 damage but -5 defense) Since the AI will just use the spell without understanding when the downside is a bigger deal than the upside.

    Dano13 wrote:

    2) When we load mods – is it one and only one mod at a time, or is it like Skyrim where we can mix and match at the cost of unpredictable results/stability?

    You can load multiple mods. Each mod has a priority (set in the Mod itself, not by the user). If 2 mods change the same object or file, the one with the higher priority wins. So, like Skyrim, only you can’t set the order without editing the mod.

    September 5, 2015 at 07:03 #227003

    Tombles
    Keymaster
    Heretic13 wrote:

    This looks awesome. Will we be able to add entirely new hero specializations? Like expanded or grey hairs?

    Yes.

    vota dc wrote:

    And putting armor to a different size mount? For example knight’s armor to mammoth?

    You’d need to be able to edit the model to do that, so it wouldn’t be easy to achieve.

    Backero wrote:

    Hmm what about recolor elves units, particles and city structures to create dark elves from them? Seems to be cool option for separate race, replace race or dwelling. Conversion Tigrans to Werewolfs would be cool too 😉

    We’re still looking into things like this. We’re trying to give you as much freedom as we can, so we hope so, but we can’t guarantee anything yet.

    September 5, 2015 at 08:30 #227009

    llfoso
    Member

    Will dragon mounts be possible?

    Also, will we have any control over the item forge?

    Finally, combining these two, would it be possible to add a feature to the dragon dwelling to let you produce wyverns and dragons as mounts?

    September 5, 2015 at 08:33 #227010

    Joohaan
    Member

    Archons/highmen, go!

    September 5, 2015 at 08:49 #227011

    GrassMudHorse
    Member

    Going to spend the holiday making a mech mod!

    September 5, 2015 at 08:52 #227012

    Bob5
    Member
    llfoso wrote:

    Will dragon mounts be possible?

    Yes yes, so much yes to this.

    Edit: I mean I support this idea, I don’t know if it’s possible

    September 5, 2015 at 10:28 #227032

    Djukka
    Member

    First of all, I’m really excited about the mod support!!!
    So we are able to combine every unit with another one?
    But I wonder how the Animations will work together?
    And will we be able to add new models into the library?

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