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I'm currently working on vassals, small randomly placed settlements on the map that will auto produce their own workers to gather resources in the area as well as a small patrolling army to gaurd their own territory. The player can capture these vassals in order to have them autonomously work for them. Vassals can provide income for their owners using their workers as well as add a basic level of defense for an area with their patroling army, after they have all their workers and a defending army, they will slowly build up a small army to attack your enemies with. I find it adds some really cool and valuable points on the map to take control of. While they wont be able to defeat your enemies on their own, coordinating your attacks with theirs can add a welcome boost to your own attacks. This also makes the maps feel alot more dynamic. Edit: 02/05/2026 Added latest version of the vassals mod. -Vassal units can be selected if you want to inspect them but they ignore all commands given to them by the player. -vassals once captured project the players influence around themselves. -vassals will produce villagers to gather resources for their owner. -vassals will produce patrol armies that protect their territory. -Once a vassals patrol armies get big enough, they will instead be used by the vassal to attack your enemies. Vassals will spawn randomly, but right now they will spawn in the same specific random place on every map type for testing purposes. Vassal produces units faster than in the final version for testing purposes. Edit: 02/05/2026 Added a new version with random and much better spawning of vassals around random maps. Edit: 02/05/2026 Last edit for today, improved vassal spawning so the game will try to spawn at least one per player. Also the game will try to make sure there is pathing to at least one other player before placing a vassal in an area. Edit: 09/05/2026 - Added several types of vassals that produce their own units. - Vassals now build structures, houses provide 1 pop to their owners, the vassal will produce a barracks in order to produce their own military units. - Improved villager ai, they should no longer sometimes move back and forth and will try to get a range of resources nearby. - Villagers can now hunt nearby animals. Edit: 10/05/2026 -Vassals now produce units much slower. -Fixed a bug where vassals would stop trying to build structures if they could not find a place to place a structure on their first try. Edit: 11/05/2026 -Impoved vassal spawning to make sure they now always spawn. Vassals Mod.7z

There are several ways to make Hamippoi work. I opted to make them all 1 actor and unit. Other ways could be: Cavalry can train cheap melee footmen called "Hamippos." Either as a default feature or unlocked with a tech. A tech called "Hamippoi" which boosts cavalry. A "Hamippos" infantry unit with a strong aura benefiting cavalry. Mix and match any of the above. I went with the one unit option for this release. Next release I could try something else.

It's basically Petra, but with customization options and for game version R28. Some features from Petra_Expert have been added. Added the ability to customize the bot before starting the game. Values are not saved when exiting the game or returning to the previous menu. More detailed description of parameters: UPDATE: 0.4.4 Fixed a bug related to building structures. UPDATE: 0.4.3 Debugging disabled Changes to balance and priorities UPDATE: 0.4.2 Fixes: Fixed an issue with Hero recruitment Added the Gerousia building for Hero recruitment in Sparta Changes to priorities and queues Resource Gathering: Optimization to improve gathering speed At the start of the game, cavalry is set to gather meat, support units to gather fruit, and infantry to gather wood. For infantry, priorities are wood, metal, and stone. If there is infantry on wood and support on stone or metal, they will swap places. UPDATE: 0.4.1 Added separate high-priority recruitment options for Heroes, Elephants, Champions, and Siege Units. Cavalry: The faction will recruit all available types of cavalry (7 types are available for the Persians, including Champions) Added research technologies with bonuses for units. Game difficulty levels: Bonuses to resource gathering speed are DISABLED on all levels. The Bot’s and Player’s units will have the same gathering speed. Medium and above: Support units will retreat when enemy units approach Hard and above: Ranged units will retreat when enemy units approach Very Hard: Cavalry rush added (testing). The Bot will send groups of cavalry toward the player’s base If the bot accumulates more than 5000 wood: The number of Barracks is increased to 10. The number of Stables is increased to 10. UPDATE: 0.1.0 Added the ability to recruit support units from houses. The number of barracks has been increased to 5. The Research Manager has been slightly redesigned (instead of searching for technologies in a cycle, all technologies are stored in the cache and selected by a direct key: name or modifier by 1 step, the cache is updated when moving to the next phase or after the construction of a building is completed). Technologies from the Storehouse, Forge, Farmstead and Champions remain in place, while the rest are currently disabled. With certain settings, the bot can reach up to 200 units in 11-12 minutes of play. r28-bot.zip r28-bot_0_4_4.zip

Yes exactly. That's also what I was hinting to in my previous comment, and I was checking it and indeed : Melee eles champs : <Footprint replace=""> <Square width="4.5" depth="9.0"/> <Height>9.0</Height> </Footprint> Chariots : <Footprint replace=""> <Square width="11.0" depth="11.0"/> <Height>6.0</Height> </Footprint> Edit MB, actually Clearance wasn't used for what I though it was.

In the pull request, they are simply called "Achaemenids" because of the current 1-word nomenclature for civs in the base game. I would like to change this where applicable (specifically when using dynasties for distinction as is the case for Achaemenids), but that's a different Pull Request and requires some discussion.

The main post has been updated with the latest version of vassals. -Vassal units can be selected if you want to inspect them but they ignore all commands given to them by the player. -vassals once captured project the players influence around themselves. -vassals will produce patrol armies that protect their territory. -Once a vassals patrol armies get big enough, they will instead be used by the vassal to attack your enemies. Vassals will spawn randomly, but right now they will spawn in the same specific random place on every map type for testing purposes. The idea of vassals as a complete AI player sounds like a really interesting way to implement the feature, I really want to implement them in such a way that they become points of interest on maps. Something to fight over.

Finished with the hellenic civ's, next its time to achaemenid's: Opening the thread to receive advice and recommendations.

yes, I think that's the one I have some of these functionalities are really useful for a fast and clean uv-mapping

I believe I can pull up what kind of temperate the random map is somewhere although I haven't tried yet. Having different unique vassal civs for different map types I believe is totally doable, and would be an awesome way to show off smaller civs/tribes in those regions. Technically anything can be edited even the match setup UI, but with the scale of the mod, in order to keep it compatible with other mods, having unique vassals spawn per map temperate type automatically would be the way I would go around doing it. Also just a quick update on the internal version, I have added true random placement of vassals on maps now, avoiding water and clearing trees on their spawn areas.

The next thing I will probably work on will be placement, making vassals spawn within random places around the map based on the number of players. I can fix the resource thing after they are placed by placing some extra resources around them if they don't already exist. It's going to be harder to detect where important strategic areas are in each map though. One thing I really want to do, Is make sure the base AI in the game can also use them so they are compatible for single player. I'm not sure if the enemy AI will capture neutral/enemy buildings on their own, if so, then they are already compatible, however if they do not, the other option I'm thinking of is having the vassal town centres switch sides to their attackers at low life instead of being destroyed. Edit: AI do seem to convert vassals and use them!

@Atrik I think the displacement (?) is just to big, maybe even bigger than elephant heroes. I frequently have chariots go around enemy settlements instead of straight through, because some shrub or something is blocking their path.

FYI Pull Request #8881 (Persians to Achaemenids) got merged 11 hours ago (5268cb62a6).

UPDATE: 0.4.1 Changes to difficulty levels, etc. A detailed description has been added in Post 1. This update includes new features and settings.

Beautiful! You're doing a lot better with UV mapping. Just try to minimize texture stretching and maintain texels

Thats pretty cool!

All right. Here's a release candidate. I've added the Hamippoi. theban-greeks.pyromod

I think these are better than the previous sets. Getting better and better. May I suggest a custom tile decal for the Tachara? Like, a "Persian tile" motif.

But we already said that the game is already doing this, with the Han and the Maurya for example, and the Maurya didn’t even last 150 years. I don’t think it’s about being hyper-accurate (the game is far from that :P), but calling the Achaemenids “Persians” is a charged simplification. I think eventually any other inconsistencies will be sorted out, if possible (I have my doubts with the name “Germans” for example, I agree more with authors not preferring this term). The first AoE cemented my interest in ancient history. High school history was shamefully boring, that's why I try to push for accuracy whenever I can, and many really look for this and nitpick on games (and movies) having errors. It's not just that educating and motivating is important and commended, but about being careful not to introduce or repeat misconceptions, which with some things it’s hard to do because one has to fill the voids with something, and it's a game after all, even books can be biased.

It is the not really the name of the civ the topic, but the nomenclature used to name the files. For the in-game name, Achaemenid Persians or Persians (Achaemenids) could be used.

Definitely not, I think that was the print definition, I'll change the image.

Minoans and Mycenaeans already had initial artwork created at least 5 years ago in the mod, but the author ( @LordGood )didn't continue development. I took that artwork and continued it, but many buildings were created from scratch. The Hittites only had banners and icons, so it's something completely new, as is the artwork. Please access my branch and play, I really need tests.

Given the “darter” mention, I searched, and in another part of History of the Peloponnesian War, Tuchydides writes: “Athenian and allied; a large number of darters, Hellenic and barbarian, and slingers and archers and everything else upon a corresponding scale”, which reminds me that this and most games don’t take darters into account :p Regarding your proposal, it makes sense, and there’s another instance I can find to support it: Diodorus Siculus, writing about the Battle of Mantinea (of 362 BC) says “the Thebans had three times as many slingers and javelin-throwers sent them from the regions about Thessaly”, and the Malian Gulf would be the region “about Thessaly” (at the time, it would be considered part of Thessaly a couple of centuries later) closer to the battle. He also writes that “Epameinondas, without resting the entire night, covered the distance at top speed and at daybreak attacked Sparta”, which could maybe justify a speed bonus. I leave you with his epic account of the death of Epaminondas: As for the Lacedemonians, when they saw that Epameinondas in the fury of battle was pressing forward too eagerly, they charged him in a body. As missiles flew thick and fast about him, he dodged some, others he fended off, still others he pulled from his body and used to ward off his attackers. But while struggling heroically for the victory, he received a mortal wound in the chest. As the spear broke and the iron point was left in his body, he fell of a sudden, his strength sapped by the wound. About his body a rivalry ensued in which many were slain on both sides, but at last with difficulty by their superiority in bodily strength, the Thebans wore the Lacedemonians out. (...) Epameinondas, however, was carried back to camp still living, and the physicians were summoned, but when they declared that undoubtedly as soon as the spear-point should be drawn from his chest, death would ensue, with supreme courage he met his end. For first summoning his armour-bearer he asked him if he had saved his shield. On his replying yes and placing it before his eyes, he again asked, which side was victorious. At the boy's answer that the Boeotians were victorious, he said, “It is time to die,” and directed them to withdraw the spear point. His friends press cried out in protest, and one of them said: “You die childless, Epameinondas,” and burst into tears. To this he replied, “No, by Zeus, on the contrary I leave behind two daughters, Leuctra and Mantineia, my victories.” Then when the spear point was withdrawn, without any commotion he breathed his last.

said the Macedonian officer after Gaugamela

I propose to "localize/specify" slingers as Malian Slingers. Historical reference: https://www.hi.uni-stuttgart.de/wgt/ww-one/Start/Bleed_White/Technology_and_Science/ww1_ger_08_03_02.html