Age of Empires 3 Definitive Edition Mod Request for Unlocking 25 card limit in decks

[David1521]

Would anyone out there, who plays Age of Empires 3 Definitive Edition be interested in making a mod that allows for unlimited amount of cards in a deck instead of the 25 card limit currently in place?

 

I've been trying to figure out how to make it so I can combine some of my custom decks together or have more than 25 cards in the deck in AOE 3 DE, however, all the google searches that I've found that do this only work with the original AOE 3, not the Definitive Edition as I have already tried going into my saved games folder and changing the XML file, it just reverts back the save as soon as I launch the game so I've been stuck with 25 cards per deck, no matter what I try.

 

Could anyone make a mod, or tell me how to mod the game so that I can combine to have say a maximum of 70 cards per deck, or how to simply combine my decks into one in AOE 3 DE?

Thank you very much.

[gare87]

On 4/7/2021 at 7:21 PM, David1521 said:

Would anyone out there, who plays Age of Empires 3 Definitive Edition be interested in making a mod that allows for unlimited amount of cards in a deck instead of the 25 card limit currently in place?

 

I've been trying to figure out how to make it so I can combine some of my custom decks together or have more than 25 cards in the deck in AOE 3 DE, however, all the google searches that I've found that do this only work with the original AOE 3, not the Definitive Edition as I have already tried going into my saved games folder and changing the XML file, it just reverts back the save as soon as I launch the game so I've been stuck with 25 cards per deck, no matter what I try.

 

Could anyone make a mod, or tell me how to mod the game so that I can combine to have say a maximum of 70 cards per deck, or how to simply combine my decks into one in AOE 3 DE?

Thank you very much.

Yes i also need that, at least 30-35 cards per deck for all nations. But we need to find a thread directly related to AoE 3 DE on Redit, moddb, nexus, or wherever it should be located. :)

[Arosc]

Hey People,

I made an account specifically for this, because I've been searching far and wide for information about modification like the one mentioned above and I couldn't find anything myself either. That said, I taught myself a few things and tested things out myself and what you are asking is something i can share:

 

As you can see on the screenshot I posted, The Inca civlisation now has 40 out of 75 cards in their deck. 10 in each row. I'm currently trying to find a way around that as well.

 

If you are interested in playing with it yourselves then follow along: 

 

First things first, always make a back-up of the data.bar file. This is the file you have to edit that contains a lot of data for the game and is important to have an extra copy off you mess up at any point. 

The file is in most cases located at: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\AoE3DE\Game\Data.

 

Create another copy of data.bar in your place of choosing. This is the one we will be editing.

Open this data.bar with the amazing tool: Resource Manager (Google it!) to look into the file.

I always extract all files to have easy access to multiple files if I need them.

 

Now we have a folder called “Data” and have access to everything we need for this.

Using Resource Manager we can convert .XMB to XML files.

We need to convert the "homecity{civname}.xml.xmb" of your civilization of choice.

After converting the file, open "homecity{civname}.xml" with a text editor (My preference is: Notepad++).

 

All we need to do is add: “<maxcardsperdeck>{number of cards per deck you wish </maxcardsperdeck>” I usually pace it under the <level>#</level> line.

Save it.

 

Here I always delete the original .XMB file we converted to .XML so i can be completely sure the .XMB we are gonna create again is the new one and only .XMB file.

 

Now convert the .XML file we edited back to XMB (DE) using Resource Manager.

Delete the .XML file now, because we converted it back to .XMB and we don’t need it anymore.

 

Now to recreate our changed data.bar file.

Before we make ours, i would suggest deleting the one we used to extract all the .XMB files.

Then, in Resource Manager we go to “File” now and select “Create...”.

Select the Definitive Edition and navigate to the “Data” folder we have been working on.

Select Create.

 

Now you will see that Resource Manager lets you see into the data.bar you just created.

Close the tool and locate your newly made data.bar file. I should be located one folder back from where your data folder is located.

 

Now we place our data.bar file into the location of your original data.bar (C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\AoE3DE\Game\Data).

 

And voilá!

 

There is a lot you can do in the data.bar file!

I have done things like:

Trainable Spahi From Stables

Infinite Mango Groves & Cherry Orchards

Trainable Advanced Church Units After Research Of The Tech.

Zero Cost Population (1 Population For Certain Units)

 

And probably more soon.

 

Hope this at least helped some people out with it. I’m not sure these days if the mods are working so I'm not really interested at the moment in uploading them. 

Edit: Cleaned up the post BIG time and gave a manual. It was late over here.

[gare87]

13 hours ago, Arosc said:

Hey People,

I made an account specifically for this, because I've been searching far and wide for information about modification like the one mentioned above and I couldn't find anything myself either. That said, I taught myself a few things and tested things out myself and what you are asking is something i can share:

 

As you can see on the screenshot I posted, The Inca civlisation now has 40 out of 75 cards in their deck. 10 in each row. I'm currently trying to find a way around that as well.

 

If you are interested in playing with it yourselves then follow along: 

 

First things first, always make a back-up of the data.bar file. This is the file you have to edit that contains a lot of data for the game and is important to have an extra copy off you mess up at any point. 

The file is in most cases located at: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\AoE3DE\Game\Data.

 

Create another copy of data.bar in your place of choosing. This is the one we will be editing.

Open this data.bar with the amazing tool: Resource Manager (Google it!) to look into the file.

I always extract all files to have easy access to multiple files if I need them.

 

Now we have a folder called “Data” and have access to everything we need for this.

Using Resource Manager we can convert .XMB to XML files.

We need to convert the "homecity{civname}.xml.xmb" of your civilization of choice.

After converting the file, open "homecity{civname}.xml" with a text editor (My preference is: Notepad++).

 

All we need to do is add: “<maxcardsperdeck>{number of cards per deck you wish </maxcardsperdeck>” I usually pace it under the <level>#</level> line.

Save it.

 

Here I always delete the original .XMB file we converted to .XML so i can be completely sure the .XMB we are gonna create again is the new one and only .XMB file.

 

Now convert the .XML file we edited back to XMB (DE) using Resource Manager.

Delete the .XML file now, because we converted it back to .XMB and we don’t need it anymore.

 

Now to recreate our changed data.bar file.

Before we make ours, i would suggest deleting the one we used to extract all the .XMB files.

Then, in Resource Manager we go to “File” now and select “Create...”.

Select the Definitive Edition and navigate to the “Data” folder we have been working on.

Select Create.

 

Now you will see that Resource Manager lets you see into the data.bar you just created.

Close the tool and locate your newly made data.bar file. I should be located one folder back from where your data folder is located.

 

Now we place our data.bar file into the location of your original data.bar (C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\AoE3DE\Game\Data).

 

And voilá!

 

There is a lot you can do in the data.bar file!

I have done things like:

Trainable Spahi From Stables

Infinite Mango Groves & Cherry Orchards

Trainable Advanced Church Units After Research Of The Tech.

Zero Cost Population (1 Population For Certain Units)

 

And probably more soon.

 

Hope this at least helped some people out with it. I’m not sure these days if the mods are working so I'm not really interested at the moment in uploading them. 

Edit: Cleaned up the post BIG time and gave a manual. It was late over here.

Thank you for your effort, so, basic principle is the same as in previous one just they locked files in different file now. I think cards with 35-40 per deck is enough and reduced pop cost for mercenaries, with optional that settlers cost no pop. If you can modify those features and upload it to moddb or nexus, that would be useful. Thank you again, will try this.

Edited April 16, 2021 by gare87

[gare87]

@Arosc i modified cards per deck, but nothing changed in the game, dont know what is wrong, i did everything as instructed, edited bar file, and then recreated it at location where original file was, and it is also showing my modification, but it does not showing more cards when i go in deck builder !? Any help!? I also had same problem in regular AoE3> https://postimg.cc/RqBBjK27

Also, can you confirm where is 'populationcount' for settlers for all nations ??(i did not test that yet, main focus for me is to modify cards per deck) I only found 'protoy' file, but dont know if settlers there include all settlers or just settlers for specific nations. In Age 3 regular there were 3 proto files, one for original and 2 for DLCs with additional letter X and Y. I found for Age3 DE just protoy file. Thank you.

[Arosc]

23 hours ago, gare87 said:

Thank you for your effort, so, basic principle is the same as in previous one just they locked files in different file now. I think cards with 35-40 per deck is enough and reduced pop cost for mercenaries, with optional that settlers cost no pop. If you can modify those features and upload it to moddb or nexus, that would be useful. Thank you again, will try this.

Hey @gare87,

 

No worries, I'm just sharing the information i gathered so far.

 

The basic principle is still the same, indeed. Instead of loose files, they are collected in data.bar. Thanks to Resource Manager, we can unpack them and convert them from .XMB to .XML. And .XML are is the file extension onces we can easily edit.

 

I agree that it's enough for me personaly as well, but modification are all about options. I would just like the option to fill out the deck completly like we used to be able to do in the original AOE 3 with the expansions.

 

It's pretty easy to make adjustments to population costs. I'll make a little manual for it next week, I think.

Like I said; "I’m not sure these days if the mods are working so I'm not really interested at the moment in uploading them." 
Besides, this way I hopefully give more people some insight on how it works and how to make adjustments and changes themselves.

 

20 hours ago, gare87 said:

@Arosc i modified cards per deck, but nothing changed in the game, dont know what is wrong, i did everything as instructed, edited bar file, and then recreated it at location where original file was, and it is also showing my modification, but it does not showing more cards when i go in deck builder !? Any help!? I also had same problem in regular AoE3> https://postimg.cc/RqBBjK27

Also, can you confirm where is 'populationcount' for settlers for all nations ??(i did not test that yet, main focus for me is to modify cards per deck) I only found 'protoy' file, but dont know if settlers there include all settlers or just settlers for specific nations. In Age 3 regular there were 3 proto files, one for original and 2 for DLCs with additional letter X and Y. I found for Age3 DE just protoy file. Thank you.

 

Strange?

 

I did the same for the swedes to test it for you and got the expected result of it's functioning fine. (As you can see on the screenshot)

 

Maybe a dumb question, but did you place the data.bar you recreated with your adjustments back into the game data folder? (C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\AoE3DE\Game\Data)It's the only thing I can't see on the image you uploaded and everything else seems to look correct.

 

As for the original AOE 3. No idea if this works. I never applied this specific "modification" to it.

 

Settler population cost is in protoy.xml.xmb. Any changes made to 'Settler' will be aplied to all civilisations that have 'Settlers'.

This does mean that units like; Pilgrim, Citizen, Coureur des Bois, Villager, Cree Coureur des Bois, etc. also have to be adjusted seperatly as well if you want your changes to apply all around the board.

 

The three proto files of AOE III with both expansions are exactly that. 

If you play Asian Dynasties with both expansions active, the only proto file that is used by the game is the protoy, as far as I know atleast.

AOE III DE only has and uses the proto file. It basically should be proto z.xml.xmb.

 

 

 

 

 

[gare87]

@Arosc of course i did man, i mean, first i opened data.bar to check if modifications are there, and they are, then i also put XMB files that i modified in Data folder just to see will it work that way, but nope, it still does not show deck increase. I also reinstalled the game, for everything to be clean and replaced data.bar file, but still it does not work, though no cost population works, gonna test if settler population cost did not break AI. But i would like to fix this deck modification primarily. What version is your game, maybe thats the problem!? As for last resort, i would use your data.bar instead of mine to see will it work. Thank you.   

[Arosc]

I'm just asking! I'm trying to help here, eh?

 

I'm on V. 100.12.23511.0 at the moment, but it worked before the latest update (United States) as well for me. 

 

As for the Population cost:

Remember that the Ottomans and Russians have unique features when it comes to training settlers.

Adjusting the population cost for settlers at 0 will break both these Civilisations.

[gare87]

2 minutes ago, Arosc said:

I'm just asking! I'm trying to help here, eh?

 

I'm on V. 100.12.23511.0 at the moment, but it worked before the latest update (United States) as well for me. 

 

As for the Population cost:

Remember that the Ottomans and Russians have unique features when it comes to training settlers.

Adjusting the population cost for settlers at 0 will break both these Civilisations.

Im at 100.12.20322, did not update it because they tend to brake some things with updates, i gonna update when they fix disappearing cards from deck for campaign. Will you send to me yours data.bar, or should i send mine to you so that you could check will it work !?

[Arosc]

2 minutes ago, gare87 said:

Im at 100.12.20322, did not update it because they tend to brake some things with updates, i gonna update when they fix disappearing cards from deck for campaign. Will you send to me yours data.bar, or should i send mine to you so that you could check will it work !?

You could send me your data.bar first. I'll check to see if i can fix the problem.

 

[gare87]

Cool, here it is, check it and then replace yours to see, i changed all decks for all civs. Thank you again.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/8dwxb08qu7bzwdb/data.rar/file

[Arosc]

Your data.bar works fine for me. With 35 cards instantly.

This left me to conclude it's simply not in your version of the game (anymore).

Seeing that this line is originally made in the old Age of Empires III, it's kind of strange..

The homecityspcact3.xml has this in their file as well at 44.

The inclusion of the United States made this available again, seeing that their Homecity XMB has this line by default on 20. (Noticed that while doing some further tests)

 

Your data.bar is fine. It's the game version you run it on.

[gare87]

39 minutes ago, Arosc said:

Your data.bar works fine for me. With 35 cards instantly.

This left me to conclude it's simply not in your version of the game (anymore).

Seeing that this line is originally made in the old Age of Empires III, it's kind of strange..

The homecityspcact3.xml has this in their file as well at 44.

The inclusion of the United States made this available again, seeing that their Homecity XMB has this line by default on 20. (Noticed that while doing some further tests)

 

Your data.bar is fine. It's the game version you run it on.

lol, thank you  at least i confirmed that it should work xD will update it to see if it gonna work then  

[edgesky]

@Arosc Thank you  so much for the detailed tutorial on how to modify the bar file. I am now able to edit the card deck size. I got one question though, how did you manage to enable the spahi trainable from the stable? did you make a new card or did you add a new command line to one of the existing card? If so where can I add this new line?

[Toonamove]

On 4/17/2021 at 1:58 PM, gare87 said:

Cool, here it is, check it and then replace yours to see, i changed all decks for all civs. Thank you again.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/8dwxb08qu7bzwdb/data.rar/file

Hi there, I tried the data.bar on AoE Definitive Edition and have some problems, like errors on campaign loading and some units like the Japanese infantry/cannons don't hit anymore any structures. Also I tried to mod myself the files but can't works... so maybe someone's can share a working AoE Definitive Edition dat.bar? Also there's a way to change the 10 cards limits to put inside the decks and make units can move more faster?

 

I do like to have some new maps into the game as the ma0s inside are a little "puny", there's some cool and bigger or better gigantic maps around?

 

Thanks on advance.

[Iwe_Widi16]

On 4/17/2021 at 6:03 PM, Arosc said:

Hey @gare87,

 

No worries, I'm just sharing the information i gathered so far.

 

The basic principle is still the same, indeed. Instead of loose files, they are collected in data.bar. Thanks to Resource Manager, we can unpack them and convert them from .XMB to .XML. And .XML are is the file extension onces we can easily edit.

 

I agree that it's enough for me personaly as well, but modification are all about options. I would just like the option to fill out the deck completly like we used to be able to do in the original AOE 3 with the expansions.

 

It's pretty easy to make adjustments to population costs. I'll make a little manual for it next week, I think.

Like I said; "I’m not sure these days if the mods are working so I'm not really interested at the moment in uploading them." 
Besides, this way I hopefully give more people some insight on how it works and how to make adjustments and changes themselves.

 

 

Strange?

 

I did the same for the swedes to test it for you and got the expected result of it's functioning fine. (As you can see on the screenshot)

 

Maybe a dumb question, but did you place the data.bar you recreated with your adjustments back into the game data folder? (C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\AoE3DE\Game\Data)It's the only thing I can't see on the image you uploaded and everything else seems to look correct.

 

As for the original AOE 3. No idea if this works. I never applied this specific "modification" to it.

 

Settler population cost is in protoy.xml.xmb. Any changes made to 'Settler' will be aplied to all civilisations that have 'Settlers'.

This does mean that units like; Pilgrim, Citizen, Coureur des Bois, Villager, Cree Coureur des Bois, etc. also have to be adjusted seperatly as well if you want your changes to apply all around the board.

 

The three proto files of AOE III with both expansions are exactly that. 

If you play Asian Dynasties with both expansions active, the only proto file that is used by the game is the protoy, as far as I know atleast.

AOE III DE only has and uses the proto file. It basically should be proto z.xml.xmb.

 

 

 

 

 

Hi, i've tried to do just what you wrote here. I modded proto, techtree and hometown xml and but when I placing back my Data.bar that i created it just got error says "xml parsing error in fonts3 xml no fonts will be loaded"....? I've also found this error when I extract the Data.bar without add any mod xml files back to it (just extracted only Data.bar in the folder data) and tried to placing back to AoE 3 DE Game folder and also got the same issue. Is it the extracting option resulted bad Data.bar repacked or is it something else or maybe i just missing something? Thanks

[Leobute]

Hi all.

Please help.

I have exported the XMB file into XML.

Modified the file.

Converted back into XMB

Now HOW do i put BACK my modified file ?

Before creating the new data.bar i suppose must add my new modified file. HOW ???????????

Thx to all and happy new year