Hi there,

I'm fairly sure that it doesn't exist (because I have been looking for such a mod for years), but just in case:

=> Does anyone know whether a Unit experience leveling system mod has been developed by someone for any of the AoE I or AoE II games?

If not, I'm willing to go into this rabbit hole. I have some programming experience. I've seen that there's this Advanced Genie program that exists to assist modding but I can't see how this can be used to create a new game mechanic such as unit levelling. Here's an outline of how I would see it to work in the simplest possible version:

=> Unit kills other unit and gets a small buff in stats (such as attack, armor or HP)

To make sure, I would like to mention that only the unit that killed gets the buff, not other identical units of the player elsewhere in the map.

A long time ago, I tried to implement this with triggers but never succeeded in really narrowing it down to what I want. So I want to try to implement it as a mod.

How would you imagine this being done?

PS: I know that this idea is generally unpopular in the AoE community because many players are adamant about the balance of the game and how Unit leveling would ruin it. I don't want to put it out as an idea for the vanilla version of the game that players use for PvP. I just want to make a mod so that people like me who would enjoy it as a fun little perk against computers can enjoy getting heroes out of their standard soldiers if they survive long enough on the battlefield.

Thanks in advance,
Best regards.

Most RPG maps are working that way, you get HP and attack points for kills or time. This is already possible using the Scenario Editor in AoE II.

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your quick reply.

In my memories, this would only work for units already present at the beginning of the scenario. You would define triggers for these units, but they would not work for new units.

How would you use triggers so that unit leveling works for any unit created during the game, as well as for any player including the computers?

Best regards.

UP!

Is there any guide available on how to implement XP system either as a mod or as part of a RPG scenario?

(meaning that the trigger of if kill then improve stats would appear for each new unit and be applicable on any other unit)

I tried to look for it but could not find anything so far.

You could count the iterations (level) and re-apply them to new unit. Instead of choosing a static unit in the scenario editor, apply it to an area the unit walks through to get the upgrades. Does this make sense to you?

It's just a workaround though, I understand that this is a limitation of the scenario editor. The game is over in all RPGs, if the player's hero dies in game.

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. So this would work as:
=> set a trigger area
=> unit killed in the area
=> provide stat boost to closest unit to kill?

Is it something like that?

You must create an additional trigger that remembers the awarded attack and hp bonus (make it remember the iterations). Once the unit dies, your new unit must get the awarded bonus from that trigger in the area where you let it spawn. Please understand, that it's been more than 15 years, when I was working with the Scenario Editor last time. If I remember correctly, this should work.

You should check some of the "UR DA PREY" or the TTF Racing maps for trigger examples.

Another method would be a modified game data mod where you implement the desired units with each level's attack and hp bonus. Then you can spawn them much easier and you would not be required to deal with hundreds of triggers, which makes the map slow.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

Sorry if the question appears trivial, but I don't know where to find the "UR DA PREY" map. I found a video regarding TTF racing, I'll check this.

Regarding the second suggestion, what it would amount to would be to replace a unit with a unit of higher level?

Hi, pitching in and Chris' request.

In the code of the game there is the concept of "upgrade", this is what turns militias into men-at-arms, archers into crossbows, etc. You could create several levels of the unit in the data file and then have triggers research the technologies that upgrade them.

Now obviously this affects all units of the same type, present and future. If you want to modify a single unit based on kills, the best idea is to use triggers to increase their stats. This, I understand, is computationaly consuming for the game.

There's no way to make individual units gain experience based on their own individual kills. There's just nothing tracking whether a specific unit kills a unit vs your civilization as a whole. (unless you're making single player maps then you might be able to work something out with the trigger condition "object has target" but this does not work in multiplayer.

If you just want one hero unit to upgrade your best bet is using a mix of triggers and [You must login to view link].

You can change all of this using up effect: