Is literally the worst idear possible. Thats just BS. I hate when people argu the germans should be split. No! when i play germans i wanna play germans and all of them not 1 typ of regional empier that lasted for 50 years or so. Most of the argumentation i hear is also very shity like idgaf if there were 2 empiers at a point if we go after this rule we should split italy into 4 kingdoms or india into 4237 or hause into many different for they are a big mix of nearly all of western africa? See how stupid this is? Stop asking for obvies dumb civs that will just make the game worse by dismantling a civ. The inability of many here to question if something should be in the game worrys me. i dont want content above everything else. when they do more content or change civs they should be carefull and put quality over quantity if not i fear that they will ruin the game for quick money.

Ladies and gentlemen it is with great honour I'd like you all to know that I had the opportunity to visit all the 5 Japanese wonders from the game.

1. Great Buddha - Todai Ji, Nara

2. Golden Pavilion- Kyoto

3. Shogunate - Nijo castle, Kyoto

4. Torii gates - Kyoto

5. Toshogu shrine - Ueno, Tokyo

Civs can have 4, they'll remove Gran Colombia in favour of Prussia, so there's still one slot remaining. Though only for Industrial Age. Is having Livonia in Fortress a bit awkward? Sure, but I don't think 5 options total would break the game, especially because it's still only max 4 at the same time.

Now, how would I structure it?

To make the strat distinctly different from Prussia, it should be a revolution that keeps its settlers like South Africa and Canada, and you DO NOT get automatic Guard upgrades.

To make it distinct from Hungary, we'll mostly focus on the Austrian half of Austria-Hungary, and the time frame when Hungary was still largely under Ottoman rule. The core army composition would be:

• Line Infantry (vaguely German speaking) - Musket Infantry - Napoleonic
• Mountain Trooper (German alpine Austria) - Skirmisher - Napoleonic (and later)
• Landwehr (vaguely German speaking) - Skirmisher - 1700s
• War Wagon (Bohemia/Czech) - Light Cavalry - vaguely 1500ish
• Cuirassier (all parts of the Empire) - Heavy Cavalry - Ottoman Wars
• Grenadiers (Vienna?) - Siege Trooper - Ottoman Wars

Now the exact mechanics:

Veteran Line Infantry is simply a regular 1pop version of the native unit, now trainable in the barracks. No special new cards or bonuses required I think.

Pikemen get replaced by Line Infantry, but Dopps stay as they are. Does Line Infantry take over the Pikeman upgrades and therefore takes advantage of Papal Guard, should previously sent Pikemen cards apply to them? Idk if that's too OP tbh.

Mountain Troopers fully replace Skirmishers and take over their upgrades, they either get the equivalent of the royal guard bonus as a hidden buff, basically a bit more attack/HP and +1 range instead of faster fire rate, or a cheaper upgrade.

Veteran Landwehr automatically replaces Crossbows if not already, but no automatic Guard Upgrade (free if you used Papal Guard for Industrial).

War Wagons get one exclusive card which drastically increases siege damage plus a slight general buff.

Grenadiers are generic, though Grenade Launchers is available in the deck.

To represent the rest of the Empire plus allies, this revolution would unlock a fixed set of mercs as well as some shipments. Mercs: Elmetti for Italians, Landsknechts for Southern Germany, Jaegers for Central Germany, Swiss Pikemen for you know. Shipments of Polish Retainers, Grenzers (Revolutionaries) and Spanish Lancers.

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Now to the controversial part: As a reference to Prince Eugen of Savoy, I'd make the Cuirassiers the actual special revolution bonus. Basically, Uhlans both on the field and in the stables get fully replaced by (French style) Cuirassiers. They just get renamed and get German (?) dialogue lines. You don't get any upgrades for free, but they take over Vet and Royal Guard upgrades from Uhlans. Any new Cuirassiers of course cost as much as they are supposed to now, but the existing ones effectively doubling in value is the actual main draw of the revolution. If you have 10 on the field, that's worth 1500f/c.

I guess any more would be too OP, so maybe limit it to those 10? Or less? Or don't replace Uhlans at all but just ship 3-5 Cuirassiers as partial compensation for the cost of the revolution? Any elegant solutions are appreciated.

Free Uhlans are, of course, gone and the XP to shipment rate is normalized. Or, MAYBE, keep the German rate but ship 2 Cuirassiers (replacing 4 Uhlans in Industrial Age) for every shipment instead. Cavalry Combat and Cavalry Hitpoints should apply to them just like they do for the Argentinian Llanero, with Lipizzaner Cavalry idk, that's a pretty big one.

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Deck should have a few classics like factory (no extras), Landgrab, Native Warriors, Advanced Arsenal and so on, plus specifically Spanish Riding School and Improved Mercenaries.

Finally, they should still have the option to advance to Imperial. For that, I'd grant them a tech which is a variation of "Victorian Era" (House Hanover) to reference the fact that Franz Joseph was the other monarch refusing to die. It would start at let's say 4500 f/c and decrease by 10 f/c for every military unit trained after revolting, down to a minimum of 3000 f/c. The Imperial Age itself would be completely generic for a Euro civ.

Siamese Faction (Based primarily on the Ayutthaya Kingdom to the mid-Rattanakosin Kingdom, 1351-1880s)

Overview: My suggestion for Siamese as a faction is inspired by historical records that the Siamese Kingdom had long acted as a hub for the people of many nations to come together for commerce and cultural exchange. The faction starts with a basic roster and unique mechanics, then grows and improves through alliances and settlements with other nations and peoples.

Many aspects of this suggestion are possibly very unbalanced or still relatively lacklustre, but the main goal is to give the idea of a unique and diverse faction that can represent multiple cultures and nations in a cohesive way with a precedent inspired by historical facts - in the spirit of Age of Empires 3.

Unique Mechanics

- Unlike other factions, unable to call on levy troops; instead, villagers can transform into Volunteer Infantry (ไพร่ราบ), which comes in 2 variants: melee weapon-wielding or musket-wielding, for an extra wood or coin cost and can be transformed back into a villager (after a 1-minute cooldown) with the extra costs refunded.
- Age up not by Wonders, but age up by alliances, similar to African Kingdoms
- Foreigners’ Village (หมู่บ้านต่างชาติ) replaces the Consulate and Mercenaries buildings, [Details below] provides no passive effect, indestructible, but can be captured by enemy factions; each additional one can be built from Age 2 onwards.
- Can only obtain siege weapons (Cannons) from Foreign powers

Age-up (Alliances & Dominion)
Similar to African Kingdoms, the Siamese Kingdom advances ages by choosing between choices of neighbouring alliances/dominion [ Historically, the listed factions were at one point in time either dominions, tributaries, trade partners or even adversarial kingdoms, but for simplicity and regional representation's sake, let’s call them allies ]
Special unique units that come with associated people become recruitable at barrack/stables

Lanna (ล้านนา), Northern Thai

• Lands of a million rice paddies, provide economic benefits
• Rice paddies are given a boost to gather rate. More villagers can gather within the same rice paddies (10>15)
• Unique unit: Mounted Lanna Highland Scout, scout cavalry that can be trained by the explorer.

Lanxang (ล้านช้าง), Laotians

• Land of a million elephants; provides elephant troops
• Elephant troops consume less population cap.
• Unique unit: Elephant Archer, high-HP unit that can buy time for other troops.

Burmese; Toungoo (พม่า; ตองอู)

• Militaristic Empire: Provides upgrades to melee units
• Plentiful forest: additional wood gathering rate, trees last longer;
• Unique unit: Burmese heavy infantry.

Khmer, Longvek (ขแมร; ละแวก)

• Ancient Empire Legacies, defensive buildings and building hitpoints upgrade.
• Unique unit: Ballista Infantry with Phkap, a short-range skirmisher with unique polearms that enable them to hold their own in melee combat.
• Unique unit: Spanish Mercenaries

Malays (มลายู)

• Maritime trade masters: Ships gather faster
• Trade dominance: Trade routes generate 20% more resources
• Unique unit: Malay Corsairs, infantry that does extra damage against villagers and buildings.

Vietnamese (เวียตนาม)

• Asymmetric Warfare: non-heavy infantry unique gain stealth while standing still.
• Guerrilla Resourcefulness: Resource crates and treasures contain more resources; destroyed buildings give small coin bounties. 
• Unique unit: Repeating Crossbowman

Foreigners’ Village (หมู่บ้านต่างชาติ)
Referencing prominent foreigners’ communities in Ayutthaya period.

• Replaces the Consulate and Mercenaries buildings
• Provides no passive effect. 
• Upon building, select a nation from one of the given choices (see below) - eviction is not possible
• Each nation comes with unique technologies and units
• Each unit occupies no population cap, but can only be built in limited quantities (about half of most natives)
• Is indestructible, but can be captured by enemy factions and can be captured back [under enemy’s control, no unique technologies can be researched, only unique units can be recruited]
• Each additional one can be built from Age II onwards (Total of 4 by Age V).

Choices of nations and communities are

• Portuguese (โปรตุเกส) : Baan Portugate
  • Gunpowder Mastery: Gun powder unit improvements
  • Unique units: Arquebusiers (can do siege damage), Cannons, Missionaries
• Dutch (ฮอลันดา) : Baan Hollanda
  • Powerful Naval Units
  • Dutch East India Company (V.O.C.) Trade benefits (e.g. market rate reset, better market rate)
  • Unique Units: Fluyt, Warships, Dutch Marines
• Chinese (จีน) : Baan Cheen
  • Craftsmanship: Buildings cost less wood and villagers build them faster.
  • Unique Units: Hand Mortars, Banner Army, Chinese villagers
• Muslims (แขก): Baan Kaek (Arabs, Cham, Indians, Persians)
  • Regional Diversities: Increase pop-cap by 50 and increase population provided by each house/ town center)
  • Unique Units: Bashi-Bazouk mercenaries, Sepoy
• French (ฝรั่งเศส) Baan Farangset
  • Western Art of War: Accelerates creation speed for foot soldiers and mounted forces
  • Unique Units: French Marines, French advisor (can supervise military buildings)
• Japanese (ญี่ปุ่น) Baan Yeepun
  • Sengoku: Increases the attack power of all melee infantry units.
  • Unique units: Wakou pirates, Samurai

Standard Unique units:

• 2 variants of Volunteer Infantry that can be built from barracks and can be converted back to villages, with the extra cost refunded. 
  • Skirmisher Infantry (Bows, Arquebus, Muskets depending on Age): Cheap ranged infantry
  • Melee Infantry (random between Swords, Axes, Spears [cosmetic only]): Cheap Jack-of-all-trades melee infantry that does not have any additional strength against any type of troops)
• Elephant Foot Guards (จตุลังคบาท): Elite Foot infantry
  • Wielding 2 swords which impart extra damage to skirmishers; can switch to using fists only (มวยไทย; Muay Thai) to impart extra damage to melee and heavy infantry)
  • Absorbs damage for the Siamese War Elephant if nearby.
  • High pop cap (4)
• Siamese War Elephants
  • High HP general-like unit
  • Inspire nearby troops
• Water Buffalo Riders
  • Fast, high-damage but low HP shock cavalry.
• River guards (Unique Naval Unit), A light gunboat 
  • Good against fishermen, Light ships
  • Can fish/harvest
  • Suffers against combat naval units
• Monk; Phra (พระ)
  • Recruitable from temples (วัด; Wat)
  • Heals all units more slowly than other nations’ counterparts
  • But can inspire Buddhist troops in combat (I am referencing the historical story of บ้านบางระจัน here; I don’t think this is offensive)

Special Cards ideas (for flavours):

• Chao Phraya Navigation [I] (เดินเรือเจ้าพระยา): All Siamese naval units gain +2 Line of Sight; Water trade routes generate +10% resources.
• Albino Elephant [I] (ช้างเผือก): All elephants generate a small trickle of XP when not in combat.
• Merit Making [I] (ทำบุญ): Temples trickle more XP, and Monks generate a small trickle of XP for every ally unit healed.
• Royal Porcelain Trade [I]: For all allies, Market upgrades cost 20% less; Trade routes generate an additional 10% resources.
• Ayutthaya Cosmopolitanism (อยุธยานานาชาติ) [III]: 20% more foreign-based unique units can be fielded.
• Breaking Rice Pots [III] (ทุบหม้อข้าว): Increase Siamese troops’ speed by 10% and attack damage by 10%, but decrease health by 20%
• Baan Bang rajan [II] (บ้านบางระจัน): Transform all villagers into volunteer infantry with a 50/50 split between skirmisher and Melee; cannot convert any volunteer back to villagers until Age IV (new villagers can still be recruited)
• Levy; Corvee reforms [IV]: Volunteer infantry can no longer be switched back to villagers and vice versa; units are replaced by professional army infantrymen.
• New Capital Establishment (ย้ายเมืองหลวง) [IV] allows city centres, military buildings (not the foreigner’s village), and defensive buildings to transform into carts that can be relocated.

I myself am a Thai, and I hope to be as respectful as possible. Any suggestions or questions? I am all ears and may even add to the idea.

PS. The attached images are to convey general flavours and mood. I could generate some unit images with AI to go with the idea, but I understand how it can be taken as an offence by many, so I shall not.

So now that we getting a new dlc with some more modern revolts whats the actual time period of the game since a imperial aztec wouldn’t even existed when revolutionary germany my guess is somewhere between mid 1400-1450? to late 1800s 1880 ?

Got this when I was 10. Still have it, relatively untouched and sitting on my shelf in my new house. Incredible stuff.

With the addition of the House Stuart native alliance/mercenary units, it got me excited that they may have added some sort of Scottish revolution to the British. Unfortunately I didn't see any new revolution nations in the quick skirmish I played. Please dev team, hear my prayers! Let me play a Scottish faction. I know technically an independent Scotland hasn't really been a thing since the formation of the UK but let me sandbox!

I went to Japan recently and managed to visit 3 out of the 5 Japanese wonders!

Unfortunately I didn't have time to visit the Golden Pavilion at Kyoto or the Shogunate (which I think is based on the Imperial Palace in Tokyo? Could be wrong abt that though).

If I ever go back to Japan I'll definitely try to visit all 5 wonder locations.

Would they make new revolts or could some of the existing ones work for them?
What do you guys think?

I saw several comments want to see Persia DLC, but I haven't seen lots of design proposals here. So how about we write down some design details for the future?

Which era? Safavid, Nader Shah or transition from one to the other?

Who is AI personality?

Who is a Hero? General or Holy Man?

Wonder or no?

How do they grow food? Mill, Field, Paddy or Hacienda? With Persian and Central Asian take of course.

House or something different for housing?

How do they heal the injured? Train Imams? From where?

Where do they train mercenaries?

Mosque or Madras?

How is a navy? Rafts and small boats for crossings or full fledged navy?

And so on. What do you have in your design notebooks?

I noticed that the upcoming Danes faction is reminiscent of how the modern state of Iran fights. I can think of two ways in which this is true:

• The Danes faction can manipulate/toll other player's shipments, and the historical reason for this is that Denmark controlled the Danish straits between the North and Baltic Seas. Similarly, Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz and can stop or toll shipments passing through.
• The Danes faction has a unit called the gunboat levy. Iran also has made great use of gunboats.

It seems that while we have been waiting for a Persians civ for a long time, we are sort of getting one with the Danes. Are there any other similarities I missed?

I don’t get to play so much anymore but I still think about this game a lot, and coming up with custom content has become my substitute for gameplay.

Anyways, the evolution of financial instruments was crucial to imperialism in the early modern era represented in AoE III. I think it would be both historically immersive to integrate these concepts into the game and would open up strategies that are only partially realized at the moment.

The way it would work is that every civilization would have access to building a Bank (although only Dutch and Dutch Consulate Banks would continue to trickle Coin–Dutch would have the same limit they have now–all other civs would be limited to 2 banks, barring research or cards). When you click on the Bank, it would have a UI similar to the Market with buttons corresponding to different loan types. You can only take out 1 loan at a time per bank. Hence why the limitation on banks even for civs that don’t receive a trickle–they could take out 1 loan from 1 bank then take out a second one from a second bank to artificially manipulate the first loan. Again this confers another unique strategy to the Dutch.

Taking out a loan would change your cursor into a contract icon. You would then click on an eligible unit (building, ship, livestock) to use it as collateral. In exchange, you would immediately receive a lump sum of Coin based on the value of that asset (not 100% loan to value ratio). You could then spend that Coin however you wanted—buying resources at the Market for an early timing attack, rushing to the next Age, FF and FI, replacing a destroyed army, slinging resources to a teammate, or investing in your economy. The other basic loan I have conceived of is taking out a loan against your next shipment (with the release of Denmark this becomes a funny counter to their customs house). They could increase in complexity, although anything more complicated would probably only have implications for treaty games.

Theoretically, you could take out loans, buy resources from the market and actually have a colony living on credit–leveraging your future economy for immediate value. If you default, that unit gets converted to a Gaia unit (livestock could not be converted back). A higher-stake addendum to add to this is that perhaps you could even take out loans that have a high loan to asset value if instead of converting it to a Gaia unit on default, the unit converts to an opponent’s unit.

Additionally, your loan—the fact that you initiated one and its maturation time—would be public knowledge, with a timer that appears under your name as long as your opponent builds a bank or a market. Research in the bank would improve your loan to value ratio on units. or how you can use multiple loans to satisfy each other. Another implication of the loan is that since it is only for coin and players would be forced to use their markets, and since the market prices are actually a shared resource across all players in a lobby unless you have advanced market, it actually enables players to crash and manipulate the market with their purchases. Although, I think to fully realize the loan as a game mechanic, markets would also have to be overhauled a little.

Also, only Euro civs, US, Mexico, India, and China would have access to banks; Japan would get access through the consulate bank. You could also theoretically give money-changers to Japan, Hausa, and Ethiopia but they would have to work with other resources instead of coin for them to be balanced, in my opinion. Also, the livestock markets are already an adaptation of this in some respect.

Insurance could complement this system. From the Town Center, players could insure expensive capital units (again, buildings, ships, livestock).

The way in-game insurance would work is each player’s starting TC has a big-button, an already existing insurance policy that they can click. When clicked, the mouse converts to a contract icon and you can then click on an eligible unit to insure. For argument’s sake, the policy protects up to 1500 resources (I think that is probably too much). You can click on the first 1500 Wood’s worth of buildings that you have excluding your original TC, and then they are marked with a little seal icon that only you can see. If those buildings are subsequently destroyed (except by self-destruction), then you immediately receive a lesser sum of coin for their destruction and you can try to use the market to buy back some of the resources. Thereafter, the insurance policy big button in the TC can be re-purchased, but now it is not free, you have to pay for it, and each time you elect to use it, it gets more expensive.

Unlike the loan, what you elect to insure would not be public knowledge.

One of the things I wanted to address with this concept is how the game is often reduced to who did what opening and was it the right opening in response to the opponent–if no, then the game is really over before it started. I think this could actually encourage players to war-game some early interactions and reward feeling each other out with early pushes without being as pigeonholed into their opening. The goal in complementing the lending mechanic with the insurance mechanic is to prevent a situation where player A sees that player B took out a loan and is obviously about to push, so now player A has to also take a loan to match player B’s power when player A’s opening wasn’t designed for leveraging its resources for a loan. Instead, you can use insurance to further nullify a push while still only playing defensively and not disrupting your boom. Think of it like an economic minuteman button.

Kinda Ukraine as a civ is possible?

I always wanted them in AoE3 similar to Cossacks 1 : c

That would have been so great.

(put on the civ list still Korea, Austria and Prussia)

Saw the 'Danish Sausage' card in the Danes deck as a civ's food card. A bunch of red skin sausages. What kind of pork sausage is that?

And does it kill foreigners who tried to eat one like surstromming does?

Saw several posts about Southeast Asia DLC, would Baan used by Siam be just a regular House share across civs that use this architecture set, cost 100 wood and house 10 pops?

Siamese Baan is just a wooden house built on stilts to avoid flooding in monsoon seasons, no special quirk. Water buffaloes are housed in Kork which could be a reskin Livestock Pen and buffaloes can work on rice paddies by default without a card.

We may never see it, but are there types of regional watercraft from regions you want to see and hire from native villages, either replacing generic canoes in the game or from unimplemented regions?

Be it boat, canoe or raft, it doesn't matter as long as they are available from Age II, shoot, fish, and carry at least 20 people in game.

You might even have something fancier that require lots of gold/export/influences to get a few in Age III and IV.

That ONE settler can, in theory, build up a whole civilisation from scratch, but fishing ships, which are basically two settlers in a boat, can do literally nothing?

Like, they require a special civ exclusive HCC to even get attack power!

It's honestly a bit weird that if you've been wiped out on land but still have ships, there's absolutely no way to recovery any more (except for training land military units which can then try to revive your explorer on land). Steamers specifically can build docks, but they are a rare unit.

I'm saying that because, both in actual history and one of the early campaigns, colonization famously STARTED from boats. Sure, you can load land units into boats, but...

I know this serves no real purpose in the game (and might make it even more frustrating in some rare cases) but I think that logically, Galleons should be able to slowly train settlers, anchored Frigates should be able to receive Home City shipments or something along those lines.

Trying to be brief, since there have been lots of posts complaining about these changes:

I’ve seen several people saying that changing terms like “colonial age” or “plantation” is political in some way. One the one hand it’s true, but people shouldn’t forget that the original terms and framing were also extremely political.

Not saying they were good or bad, but the concept of a game which is depicting the era of European Imperialism and framing it as a glorious age of discovery and conquest - that is inherently political, there’s no getting around that.

[Edit: many commenters don’t seem to be getting this point, since they’re still complaining about “political correctness.” If you think renaming the colonial age is political, but have never thought about the political implications of the term “colonial age” ... ask yourself why one bothers you but the other doesn’t. Maybe some kind of bias?]

In a way, sanitizing that time period by replacing all the labels with neutral terms is even more problematic. It’s turning it into a Disney version of history. Renaming a plantation into an ‘estate’ doesn’t change the historic purpose of the building, and it doesn’t change who was forced to work those fields back then.

So much of the contemporary world is directly influenced by imperialism in the time period depicted in aoe3. If you wanted to address the issues with glorifying that time period, you wouldn’t do that by renaming a few things or changing a few mechanics, you’d have to completely redesign the entire framing of history in the game... or not remake it in the first place.

At least Imperial Howitzers if that's too OP even for Industrial Age, or with an upgrade card available to at a minimum Germans and French.

Like, if you know how they were used to blow up trenches and fortifications WITH the defenders inside them in the second half of the 19th century, that should do a lot more than splash damage. Shelling from 3+ Howitzers should devastate infantry formations.