Work-in-Progress Spotlight
July 1st, 2011 by Leif Ericson

Age of Voivods

By fr steve

Heavengames has a great tradition of covering “Age” games. Age of Empires, Age of Kings, Age of Mythology, Age of Empires III, Age of Empires Online, Age of Wonders (whatever that game is); we proudly cover them all. Even Age of Chivalry’s official home page is hosted here. So, when another Age game (er…modpack) comes along, it makes complete sense that it should grab our attention.

For this month’s Work in Progress Spotlight, I bring you Age of Voivods by fr steve, and it’s not just the mod’s title that grabbed our attention. No, that was just a happenstance coincidence that I used to covertly grab your attention. This modpack has been in the works for over two years with numerous data, graphics, interface, and gameplay changes, and it is now close to being finished. The mod is unique in that it focuses on mostly Eastern and Northern European civilizations, such as the Russians, Polish, Wallachians, Teutonic Knights, Hungarians, and the Byzantines. Additionally, all civilizations except the Ottomans can construct Commanderies, which unlock new technologies and annexations. These annexations unlock new technologies according to the civilization being played. Only one annexation can be researched every game. To top it all off, the modpack comes with a powerful custom AI and new historical campaigns.

As this project has proceeded behind the scenes for the most part, I was quite glad to have an in-depth discussion with fr steve. Here are some snippets I wanted to share with you all:

First off, the question that everyone will ask: What is a voivod, and why did you choose to name your mod after it?

fr steve: A voivod is generally a Hungarian leader of a Hungarian province, since medieval Hungary was far bigger than the current one (Slovakia, Romania, part of Serbia and Ukraine…). Because Hungary was one of the biggest country I used, and because it included more than Hungarian culture, I decided to use this word for my mod. But actually, I thought about it in first because it was a word exclusively reserved to Eastern Europe. For example, today, Polish administrative areas are called Voivodships. Obviously, I could have chosen a better title, as Age of Hussars but as we say in my country, the first idea is always the best. So I kept this title.

A full-conversion modpack takes a tremendous amount of effort to make. You’ve been working on the mod for well over a year. What motivated you to make such a mod?

fr steve: Verily, I worked on it over two years, and it’s not finished yet. I discovered Age of Kings Heaven by chance, and art of modding with. And I discovered Age of Chivalry Hegemony, which is truly a terrific mod. Thus, I discovered that it was possible to change Age of Empires II if I used the necessary tools. I downloaded and tried AOK Mod Pack Studio, Advanced Genie Data Editor and used (and use again) Dragon Unpacker to extract files from .drs files, a software that I found to extract Age of Empires III files, because I modded in first AOEIII for myself and I wanted to mod AOEII too. In first, I was thinking about this with great frustration: too much files, softwares too hard to use and understand (even if I’m not afraid by English at all, I always prefer reading French, faster and easier for me), lack of quality to draw .bmps and of courage to change so many frames. But eventually, I managed to wonder that people already did this, so I could too. Also, I really wanted to make a mod about Eastern Europe with some Scandinavian civs, a big mod that would be totally finished after releasing. And it started. Today, I’m proud to see all the work I did: near all buildings are finished, not so many units to do too, and many people are helping me on through my thread. But those days, I am a bit bored by the repetitive process of designing and I’m losing spirit for remaining units to do. So I sometimes switch with other games and come back several days later on AOV. A Total Conversion mod is a huge work, trust me. Really think twice before beginning one. And crazy as I am, I already planned to do after AOV a mod about Northern Europe. I already have got the ideas, only work is waiting for. And it’ll be long…

As a Frenchman, it would seem logical to make a modpack about Western Europe instead. Why did you choose to focus on Eastern Europe instead? What difference does this make in the gameplay?

fr steve: Age of Chivalry Hegemony already focused on Western Europe, and also, even if Middle Ages are by far my favorite time, I always have been more interested by countries from which no one never say anything. On TV, you always see information about United States, United Kingdom, France, Spain, China… It’s really boring! And other countries? I wanted to kill misconceptions about Eastern Europe (poor countries but not as Africa, more farmers than factories…), and to show that it was a really mosaic of cultures. And about gameplay, Eastern Europe isn’t known as Western to be very knightly. Eastern European knew the unique facts to mix knights (even less powerful than to the West) and light troops, auxiliaries above all (Cumans, Skirmishers, Mounted archers…). So in AOV, units aren’t overpowered as they can be in AOCH with upgrades. I tried to focus on civs’ particularisms, so that player chooses a civ because he likes the way to play this civ.

Apart from a small change in location, what sets your modpack apart from Age of Chivalry?

fr steve: Age of Chivalry is very hard to play because of the too great changes: early attacks, mercenaries, policy decisions… It’s innovative but player must keep some landmarks or it may be ailing. In AOCH, I think that civs are (for some only) too much close: every civ trains armies of spearmen, javelineers and light cav. and there’s no great difference about culture and unit’s training for some (buildings’ architecture isn’t really tidy and a unique unit may be used by several civs). Age of Voivods remains closer to Conquerors, while adding changes to AI, gameplay… Obviously, AOV is different from AOCH by its historical purpose: Eastern and East-Northern Europe for AOV while AOC occures in Western and Central Europe. Thus, civs, languages, units and buildings’ architecture aren’t the same. However, AOV also has many shared things with AOC: knightly units, name of some units and other (javelineers, knight, man-at-arms, florins, centuries, etc.), florins to progress through the ages, and many other things. But about changes, there’re a lot: AI is closer to Conquerors’ while it is now more intelligent in harder difficulty levels and train units with more strategy. Player can build a new building in last age, the commandery, to improve knights or on the contrary improve non-knightly units. Civilizations and unique units had more particularism, which make that many civs are very different from others, religion is taken into account etc. Also, AOCH has the problem to train so much units that florins become problematic at the end of a game. With AOV, not only you can gather silver on mines, but you can also ransom to gather florins by killing enemy troops, and this as many times as you wish. Finally, I also tried to make more changes about landscape: ravens, varangian bandits, tundra, willows… I’m sure people may find many similarities between my mod and Kor’s, but I’m sure that they won’t say there’re quite the same. Our mods remain different.

Some forummers may remember you ask the guy that’s asking for voices for his mod. Why is it so important in your opinion for voices to be locally and historically accurate?

fr steve: A mod cannot be totally historically accurate, but it cannot too be close to historic accuracy without taking into account languages for the civs it implies. Thus, if I’m unable to find medieval Czech for Bohemians, I’ll try at least to find modern Czech, the closest and most accessible language about it. I cannot bear to play again Wallachians speaking Irish Gaelic (because they replace the Celts), and I don’t want to release my mod with them speaking Latin. I agree too with Kor that it’s better to hear voices from native people than to do it yourself, even if you know how to pronunce the language, but while no one shows itself to do voices or unfortunately doesn’t have a microphone, I try using text to speech softwares(only if free) to be closer, but all TTS aren’t qualitative, hence the fact I prefer too native people to do this job. And how would the player react if he played Lithuanians speaking Mongol? For me, it’d be disapointing, so I try my best to find speakers. So please, people who read this, if you have a microphone and are able to speak one of the 12 languages I need, please visit my thread and tell me you want to help me. Thank you!

Looking forward to its release? Here are examples of the great new graphics, and to showcase them we’re going to share four of them.