AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

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Serbia Atomiswave
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AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

Post by Atomiswave »

The AoE3 UnHardcode is a project started by AoE3 Modders to investigate, research and eliminate the hardcoded issues, also known as "no-nos", which are faced by many modders, like the AI amount limit, in example. This patcher will change your AoE3:TAD .exe to apply the code needed to eliminate some of those limitations.

How to use
To use it, just download it, extract all of the contents of the .zip to anywhere and drop your age3y.exe over the UHCPatcher executable. You'll be prompted about which patches you want to apply or not. Even though the Patcher will work regarless of the directory where it is, we strongly recommend extracting the files to your AoE3 main directory (usually C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Empires III for CD installations and C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\Age of Empires III\bin for Steam-based installations).

Available Patches

AI Limit: Eliminates the limit of 14 AIs (.personality files) by making the game read all of the .personality files from the AI directory defined in the .exe (which is \AI3, if your mod did not change it)
Revolution Banners: Allows new revolutions to have banners above the portrait of the revolutionary.
Note: this patch will make the game will load the banner for a Revolution from Art\ui\ingame\politicians\REV_banner_[techname], where [techname] is the name of the technology of a Revolution, without the "XPRevolution" prefix, and thus the banners for the original revolutions will not show up, since they are named in a different convention. To fix this, you need to extract them, rename them and put them in the right directories.



Changelog
v1.00:

Initial release

http://aoe3.heavengames.com/downloads/showfile.php?fileid=3776

This is truly a giant step in AOE III modding scene. If this project continues to evolve, we could soon see AOE II user patch equivalent, which would be amazing. Maybe mod authors can fix engine related bugs, which would be great.
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher v1.00

Post by tilanus »

Are you part of the team? Because I find no mention of kangcliff or danielpereira who are the makers of it.
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher v1.00

Post by iNcog »

Yeah I heard this Kangcliff guy has done a lot in this regard.

Doesn't this make cheating / hacking easier?
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Garja wrote: ↑
20 Mar 2020, 21:46
I just hope DE is not going to implement all of the EP changes. Right now it is a big clusterfuck.
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher v1.00

Post by Atomiswave »

tilanus wrote:Are you part of the team? Because I find no mention of kangcliff or danielpereira who are the makers of it.


No, I am just spreading the word.
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher v1.00

Post by tilanus »

Atomiswave wrote:No, I am just spreading the word.

Then please edit your post and give proper credit to the people who made it. ;) Otherwise people may mistake you for the maker of it.
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

Post by _H2O »

People who can do this would be worth while for ESOC dev team to work with for different reasons. This project has potential to help with exe hack detection.
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

Post by Atomiswave »

_H2O wrote:People who can do this would be worth while for ESOC dev team to work with for different reasons. This project has potential to help with exe hack detection.


Not just that, devs think its possible to optimize game engine and fix horrendous lag that happens in 3v3/4v4 games on medium and large maps. Netcode is not only problem AOE III has, engine is also very buggy and in unfinished state.
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

Post by momuuu »

Atomiswave wrote:
_H2O wrote:People who can do this would be worth while for ESOC dev team to work with for different reasons. This project has potential to help with exe hack detection.


Not just that, devs think its possible to optimize game engine and fix horrendous lag that happens in 3v3/4v4 games on medium and large maps. Netcode is not only problem AOE III has, engine is also very buggy and in unfinished state.

Do you have a way to contact them directly? Maybe you could pm that to mitoe? That'd probably be great, we're thin on development power as is.
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

Post by Atomiswave »

Jerom wrote:
Atomiswave wrote:
_H2O wrote:People who can do this would be worth while for ESOC dev team to work with for different reasons. This project has potential to help with exe hack detection.


Not just that, devs think its possible to optimize game engine and fix horrendous lag that happens in 3v3/4v4 games on medium and large maps. Netcode is not only problem AOE III has, engine is also very buggy and in unfinished state.

Do you have a way to contact them directly? Maybe you could pm that to mitoe? That'd probably be great, we're thin on development power as is.


I am trying, no luck so far.....
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

Post by momuuu »

ah okay, the help is appreciated regardless.
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

Post by iNcog »

pretty sure that musketeer wæs in contact with kangcliffe, should ask him
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/incog_aoe
Garja wrote: ↑
20 Mar 2020, 21:46
I just hope DE is not going to implement all of the EP changes. Right now it is a big clusterfuck.
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

Post by Atomiswave »

Found some additional info. If bold features get implemented we are looking at unlimited options for modders.

https://github.com/danielpereira/AoE3UnHardcoded/blob/master/Projects/TODO.md

https://github.com/danielpereira

Projects completed

AI/Civilization Limit
Revolutionary Banners
Unlimited Population
HC card limit
Patcher

Projects in progress

Farming animations

Projects not yet started

Export UI for Asian civs and Fire Pit UI for Native civs
Wonder and Tribal Council Aging Up

New Abilities
Rice Paddy hardcoding
Factory hardcoding
Selection limit

etc.
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

Post by tilanus »

Guys, kangcliff is a high-ranking member in the NE team. I also created the contact between kangcliff and daniel. You could just ask me .. :P

Daniel Pereira has a history with WoL and the FE team. Originally the AI and revolution limit were the two only things they wanted to overcome.
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

Post by Atomiswave »

tilanus wrote:Guys, kangcliff is a high-ranking member in the NE team. I also created the contact between kangcliff and daniel. You could just ask me .. :P

Daniel Pereira has a history with WoL and the FE team. Originally the AI and revolution limit were the two only things they wanted to overcome.


Ok, but now i see list got bigger. So, are they planning to help ep team?
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

Post by tilanus »

Well, their patch is for everyone. Whether they have an interest in the EP, I do not know. Both are undoubtedly interested in improving AoE3. :)
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

Post by Atomiswave »

tilanus wrote:Well, their patch is for everyone. Whether they have an interest in the EP, I do not know. Both are undoubtedly interested in improving AoE3. :)


Great, so you can freely implement unihardcode into ep. For now it isn't really worth it, but in future if they improve optimization, fix cannon stance bug, explorer bug and many other small annoyances it would be quite useful to integrate it. Only question remains is unihardcode compatible with eso, because it directly modifies exe?
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

Post by iNcog »

What this sounds like is that they managed to get into a big part of the source code, which would allow for some interesting, game-changing modifications.

I really think that you should ask these guys if they want to participate in a sort of global project, which would be the baseline for all modified versions of AoE3:
- NE
- WoL
- ESOC Patch
- Treaty Patch

But that's just a far-off dream. Wish I could actually code something more than just html and css and maps, lol
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/incog_aoe
Garja wrote: ↑
20 Mar 2020, 21:46
I just hope DE is not going to implement all of the EP changes. Right now it is a big clusterfuck.
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

Post by _H2O »

The real potential of this is to know how the game source code is laid out. Not for modding but for cheat detection, easier patch switching, and adding reverse compatability for EP replays.

The ESOC patch launcher can be a hub for any mod / patch we want to include with it.

For our uses though we really are not limited on balance changes we can do by the engine
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

Post by iNcog »

Would it be possible to implement server connection instead of P2P with this?

That sounds unlikely, but I'm curious enough to ask
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/incog_aoe
Garja wrote: ↑
20 Mar 2020, 21:46
I just hope DE is not going to implement all of the EP changes. Right now it is a big clusterfuck.
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

Post by EAGLEMUT »

iNcog wrote:Would it be possible to implement server connection instead of P2P with this?

That sounds unlikely, but I'm curious enough to ask


Even if it would, which is quite possible.. I guess you'd still need to basically rewrite the game's network code to work in such a different way, which I imagine is no small task. At the same time, well, you'd obviously need the server. Writing the required server-side logic is another project of its own, not to mention costs of getting and maintaining such a server.

All in all, this would be by no means an easy task.
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

Post by Atomiswave »

EAGLEMUT wrote:
iNcog wrote:Would it be possible to implement server connection instead of P2P with this?

That sounds unlikely, but I'm curious enough to ask


Even if it would, which is quite possible.. I guess you'd still need to basically rewrite the game's network code to work in such a different way, which I imagine is no small task. At the same time, well, you'd obviously need the server. Writing the required server-side logic is another project of its own, not to mention costs of getting and maintaining such a server.

All in all, this would be by no means an easy task.


I would call it borderline impossible without Microsoft intervention. Even if that happens, good results aren't guaranteed. Hidden Path and Skylabs diletants tried something similar with AOE II HD, AOM EE, and RON with Microsoft blessing. Aside from amateurish expansions, transition to steam servers is abysmal! Lag and desyncs are even worse than in original cd versions of games. Problem is not fixed as this day, and probably won't be. Now days, Its better to play aforementioned games on Voobly, than steam.

Bottom line, I hope they won't touch AOE III, because they are gonna ruin it for good, mark my words.
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

Post by iNcog »

EAGLEMUT wrote:
iNcog wrote:Would it be possible to implement server connection instead of P2P with this?

That sounds unlikely, but I'm curious enough to ask


Even if it would, which is quite possible.. I guess you'd still need to basically rewrite the game's network code to work in such a different way, which I imagine is no small task. At the same time, well, you'd obviously need the server. Writing the required server-side logic is another project of its own, not to mention costs of getting and maintaining such a server.

All in all, this would be by no means an easy task.


Yeah basically sounds possible but not really worth it.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/incog_aoe
Garja wrote: ↑
20 Mar 2020, 21:46
I just hope DE is not going to implement all of the EP changes. Right now it is a big clusterfuck.
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

Post by Atomiswave »

We can track project progress here.

https://github.com/danielpereira/AoE3UnHardcoded
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

Post by yohomes »

Anyway you can make it so that you can change the strings for the facts that come up in the ESO top right?

Every time you log in they are reloaded.
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Re: AoE3 Unhardcode Patcher by danielpereira & kangcliff

Post by Atomiswave »

The project has been updated to 1.3. I hope we will see bigger and more important changes in the future.

Changelog

v1.3:
Three new properties have been added for the UHC configuration file: AsianCivs, BigButtonCivs and NotBigButtonBlds. More information about them can be found at the "UHC Configuration File" document, which is included with the patch.

Fixed the bug that would allow all buildings to have proper Market behaviour, if there was no valid cfg files or no valid entries in the MarketUnits property.

v1.2:
The bug that would cause the game to fail to load UHC.dll in some systems has been fixed.

v1.1:
The patches Unlimited Population, Ignore Registry Path and Deck Card Limit have been added.
A bug was fixed in the AI Limit patch.
Support for the UHC configuration file has been added.

v1.0:
Initial release

http://aoe3.heavengames.com/downloads/showfile.php?fileid=3776

https://github.com/danielpereira/AoE3UnHardcoded

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