How to change friend and foe colors on DE: a guide

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How to change friend and foe colors on DE: a guide

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Post by Mr_Bramboy »

While you can choose your own colors in the accessibility settings, you can't always be the same color in quick search. Due to the fact that you are either P1 or P2 in quick search, you are assigned one of two colors. You always want to be the same color if you're like me. This can be accomplished by enabling friend and foe colors in the game options. Unfortunately, this defaults you to a set color scheme that cannot be changed in the settings. We have to mess around in the game files. Follow these steps:

If you want to avoid messing with the game files and use my color scheme, skip to the last step.

1) Navigate to the directory where your game (.exe) is installed. If you have installed the game on Steam, this can be accomplished by right-clicking on the game in your library -> properties -> local files -> browse. The path in my case is C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\AoE3DE.

2) In this directory, create a new folder and rename is to 'data'. Note: make sure you are not in the AoE3DE/Game folder because the Game folder already has a Data folder. This is the wrong location. Your data folder should be in the same folder where your .exe is located.

3) Download the attached playercolors.xml and put this file into your newly created data folder.

4) Change the following numbers at the bottom:
  1. <friendorfoeself color1="0 255 0" color2="0 255 0" color3="0 255 0" minimap="0 255 0"> </friendorfoeself>
  2. <friendorfoeally color1="255 255 0" color2="255 255 0" color3="255 255 0" minimap="255 255 0"></friendorfoeally>
  3. <friendorfoeenemy color1="255 0 0" color2="255 0 0" color3="255 0 0" minimap="255 0 0"></friendorfoeenemy>
The numbers correspond with RGB color codes. Use a website like this one to find your code: https://www.rapidtables.com/web/color/RGB_Color.html. Colors 1-3 denote the color itself, its strength, and its visibility. You can mess around with this, but I kept all codes identical. The minimap code determines the color on the minimap.

5) Once your .xml file is edited to your liking, download the AOE3 Resource Manager: https://github.com/AOE3-Modding-Council ... ce-Manager. Once installed, open up the tool and press the convert button, press the .xml button, and press the to .xmb (DE) button to convert the .xml file to a .xmb file. You should have a playercolors.xml.xmb file in your previously created data folder. Yes, the file is supposed to have two extensions.

6) That's it, you're done. Open up your game, enable friend and foe colors, and you will see your beautifully picked out colors. I personally use green for myself, yellow for allies, and red for enemies. If you want to copy this color scheme, follow steps 1 and 2 and download the playercolors.xml.xmb file here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/9gmj5wbf ... l.xmb/file (because I am not allowed to upload this file extension to the forums). Place the file into your newly created folder.

If you want to change colors, you need to edit the .xml file and repeat the conversion step. I hope this helps!
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Re: How to change friend and foe colors on DE: a guide

Post by look »

Hazza54321 wrote: ↑
08 Jun 2023, 17:11
press alf +f
yes
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Re: How to change friend and foe colors on DE: a guide

Post by callentournies »

as bram sasid the default friend/foe colors suck. dark red and blue which is hard to see hitpoints against the black bar.

thanks for this guide, ive been wanting to do this for awhile
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