you've shown how much is possible with the AoW3 engine. There is no other map with this much detail and action (scripts). Best map out there! And map is a huge understatement. You did an amazing work. Thanks WoodChip.

@Woodchip

I hope you will manage something.

Having an massive map is a huge undertaking and finding a broken text in a script where it leads can be time consuming. Hopefully you have a system.

In general the mod editor behaves the same way. It shuts down on to many faulty messages like broken links and double resources IDs. But the thing is that bugs triggers in a level editor oddly enough making the level editor some of the best tool to debug a created mod. But it also creates a load on the memory.

@Gladen: Thank you for checking :) Your observations match that the last file I can open does not trigger any errors (‘script error in line 5’) when loading the map. I will check if I can restore a working version of the map. This will probably take some time.

@WoodChip

I have a view of why that map cannot be opened. After creating several campaigns and mods, I have bad news

Your map(s) have extreme visuals that test the game engine. For example, a chaos rift is constantly on the abyss layer, together with a giant eldritch horror floating in the air. Chaos Rift can crash games in tactical battle. Imagine that on a layer alone on XL maps

I presume there is also a mod, and just by firing up the debug editor, I can notice abilities are broken, along with script errors. The level editor is constantly loading errors, and it takes in mod errors as well. With more errors, more memory is used, and if there are too many, it will simply stop working. If no errors are present, there are no memory issues, which became apparent to me when making campaigns

It's unfortunate that it led up to this point that the editor broke, but remember. If you potentially fix the errors inside the mod editor, you might be able to open the map in the level editor

@xist: I was actually considering whether it would be possible to split the map into one subfile per leader. The problem is, however, that even if the memory problem could be avoided in this way (which is unfortunately not even guaranteed), maintaining of so many files would be extremely time-consuming and ineffective. So unfortunately, although not without hesitation, I decided against this attempt.

@xist: To be honest, I don't know exactly what the problem is. The error occurs when saving the map files; only part of the data is saved. This bug has occurred in both the Enhanced and Reforged versions since an early phase, but could always be avoided by restarting the editor. At some point, something seems to happen that causes the bug to occur even if the map files have not been changed at all and even retroactively affects earlier versions where the bug did not occur before. The latest file I can still open and save is half a year old, before I added the events. I therefore assume that the number of scripts is crucial.

Thanks for the information.
It's a shame that this ends here, but if you lost your files...
Thanks for the 2 incredible maps.
Something I know from other games.
Would it be possible to reduce the mod scope by seperating it in submods ?
So units in mod 1 and 1 submod per map ? - or is the problem for the engine the number of mapscripts ?

I've been following the progress on the Reforged Edition since its beginning. That's heartbreaking news💔. At least we still have the Enhanced Edition - the best Age of Wonders 3 map ever made!

Shame that this is the end of the mod, but perhaps as one door closes, another opens. Best of luck with your future endeavors!

Hello everyone - unfortunately I have bad news. While I was working on the files, another memory error has occurred. Like last time, the error corrupted not only the current version, but strangely also earlier mod files. All files can still be opened and the map can still be played, but it is no longer possible to save changes.
It seems that at this point the engine is no longer able to handle the addition of further features. I have considered various solutions, but have not found any convincing ones. As a consequence, this means - unfortunately - that I have to leave the project unfinished.
I'm sad that many of the quests and features that were already planned will no longer find their way into the mod, but on the other hand I'm glad that the mod is at least fully playable and experienceable in its current state. I've had a lot of fun forging the Fate of Emrilia over the last 6 years and exchanging ideas with you. Many thanks for all the advice, hints, feedback and inspiration!

By the way: The next update is expected to be released in May and will restore and expand Life's Maw, the pale witch, the Nereus and Nereide quests and the he-who-hungers mechanics :)

@phatninja: thanks for the hint, I‘ll fix it :)

As Lissandra, it seems that when I capture the oasis of the forgotten, the elven council remains an ally but I still get the messages declaring war. After that I can't capture or declare war on windflower.

p.s. I'm attempting a dark elf playthrough, and I thought it was strange that Frya the traitor was dedicated to good, but perhaps it makes sense

@phatninja: Thanks to the latest update, you can now switch off the time limit if you want. Just listen to the fortune teller (turn 5).

I think there's a hard turn limit of 120 now for some reason. I never reached it myself, as I mostly just fight the other leaders instead of explore.

Awww did you put in a turn limit for Ogrus? I get a mysterious message and lose every time at turn 120. Still, I had a literal blast. The mood mechanic was awesome and I enjoyed exploring the underground for mines to worship the golden gods at.

P.S. This was likely unintentional: at one point the managorger hero joined me in a recruit hero join offer event. I suddenly got a lvl 30 hero for like 300 gold xD

I LOVE YOU

Hello everyone, the new update is online, hopefully even more stable than before :)

@Woodchip

No problem. In general, to be dependent on mods made in the golden era when mod editor were released and mods were news, it soon declined and stopped being updated leaving alot of things to desire on the steam workshop. Racial Heritage was made in 2015 and last updated 2017 altough impactful, its also a considered abandoned and very unoptimized for this kind of map to be honest. The problem that I believe happens is usally when a.i gets it hands on the Airship and randomly drop units in water making the map crash which is problably not desirable considering the massive style of content on a map. Its best to leave out stuff from the steam workshop graveyard :)

@Gladen: Thanks for the hint about the racial heritage mod and the crashes due to the airships. The racial heritage mod is not essential, only for the variant of the enhanced map version. I can remove it with the next update

@xist10

As the author of several big mod projects its true that bigger mods put a load on maps. Shadow realm expansion has a minor role on this map and thats everything impacting the Shadow Realm layer. What Shadow Realm expansion does for this map is that it fixes alot of broken stuff in decodence map content like removing broken doublets of shrines, haunted inn, aswell as adding custom tactical map terrain to the shadow realm. Also fixing bridge connection on autumn and tundra terrain. Buildings like mithril mine, ravens keep, sword of ashen rose gets fixed with a custom city upgrade which was not the case.

However, at current state it's better to wait for new update since Im working on updating the content which includes decodence map content

Racial Heritage Mod is actually a mod that has one buggy unit, mainly the airship. At present it crashes the game upon saves since the mod is heavily outdated. I'm surprised that it's included in the map creation

Generally, WoodChipps needs he know which Map makes problems - and which Player.
I had sometimes huge problems with Zariss on the Reforged Map, but I could play Elizabeth without problems.
And I had no problems on the other scenario and less crashes on the "old" map.
As such the questions:
Which map do you tried to play ? Reforged, Whispers in the Void, Enhanced Edition or Enhanced Edition with Racial Heritage ?
Which player do you play in one of the Emrilia maps ?

And then the question to deteminate, if this is a specific problem or more a general problem.
Do the game crashes when you try to save in a random map, a vanilla scenario or a campaign ?
Do the game crashes when you try to save on another map of this mod ?
Do the game crashes when you try to save on the same map with another player ?

okay, I'm not the mod author but I have a bit exprience in bugfixing.
Good Bugfixing needs more informations.
Here the general informations about you game:
Which other mods do you have ?
A full mod list is extensive, as such generally the question, what "big" Mods do you have ? I'm resonable sure, that either the PBEM Balancemod oder the Shadowland campaign creates a few problems.
And I read somewhere here, that the game becomes instabil with more than 30 mods.
And to be sure: Do you have Decodence and Racial Heritage active ?

Yes i, using other mods
i tried only one map
it say Meandor's name be praised! The game just crashed

@meghrajnair: Sorry to hear that -that sounds both weird and frustrating :(
Are you using other mods? Do the crashes occur in every of the four maps or a specific one? Is there anything suspicious in the log in debug mode?

Hi my game is crashing very first time i save. Let me know if I can sent the dump file

Hello together :) The new update for the reforged version is now online. My test sessions were stable without repeated crashes, so I hope that the mod will run well for everyone. As previously announced, 30 new events have been added to the game with the new update. I have also fixed various bugs and added 14 new endings, revised the balancing and added some new heroes and units. I hope you have as much fun with the update as I had with the modding. If anything doesn't work as expected, or proves to be frustrating, please feel free to write in the corresponding discussion thread.

:)

Hello, just saying hi. Keep carry on dude

@Velut: I'm very happy to hear that you already liked the original version, which now seems very raw and unfinished to me. In fact, I've been working on the mod continuously since 2019. There are still many things to be done, but with each update, new problems and new solutions arise, and with these, new possibilities present themselves, so I've never been bored. Until then, I hope you enjoy the great AoW IV :)

I remember playing original version of the map a few years back, I really liked that leaders had very distinct playstyle (different from original game too), gave me strong Endless legend vibes. I didn't expect to see that the map still gets updates, but it's great to see that the map is still growing. I admire your deduction and passion, WoodChip, and will definitely try all the new stuff when I get back to AoW3 after AoW4.

Looking forward to the update, as always! Hardest part for me is not defaulting to Elizabeth to see all the new stuff (I still need to finish a full game with the other leaders).

Just in case anyone is wondering: the new update of the Reforged version will be released in February. The release was previously postponed several times due to my struggles with feature creep. It will contain 30 new dynamic events and mechanics and several new endings :)

Another wonderful new update. I glanced at some of the new stuff in-game and am excited to get some proper playthroughs in!
-- Hopefully I'll be able to get to complete Arshack and Bariclar sometime soon.

Hello everyone - with the current update (which is online now) I was able to complete "Phase 1" of the reforged version. This means, all essential core mechanics of the mod are redesigned and ready to be explored :)

Hello again :) The next update is online. All core gameplay mechanics for Lissandra are now included in the reforged version. There were also a lot of bugs to fix. The current version should be stable. As always, more details can be found in the change notes and in the discussion thread.

That's great. Ogrus was one of my favourite play throughs already before your new update.

The Ogrus update, eh? I need to find time to revisit Emrilia again, been occupied with other things as of late.
-- As always, thanks for all the hard work you do!

Hello everyone. The new update is now online. This time its title is "Treasures and Taxes" and it contains, among other things, the complete core gameplay of Ogrus. Found treasures now permanently increase Ogrus' morale. However, this also means that any treasure found before him will limit Ogrus' options. Worse still, every intervention by the board of directors lowers the miners' morale, so it's a race against time. Or is there perhaps a way to get rid of the Council? With the new update, the core gameplay of 5/8 leaders is now finalised. Next on my list are Lissanda and Arshack.

:)

Happy 4/20 to me!!! Now I know what I'm doing this weekend.

so you suggest we should have a look at what these goblins are up to? haha
wish you a nice weekened!

Hello players :)
I was just about to tell you about the new update to the Reforged version when I was distracted by a terrible stench. I hope these fumes from Gryx's lab are not toxic. As always, you can find all the new or restored content in the changelog.

@jaersavo: The AI should begin to clear the treasure sides later (at least in my testplays). Sire has begun to write a guide for the reforged version in the discussion section. The roadmap for the reforged version can be found in the change notes. All already restored and upcoming features are listed there :)

oooh, that's great. After months not opening my steam I started two days ago your wispers in the void scenario. Till now I have the feeling that ai leave their starting area and afterwards lack the units to clear their sides. But I just played 5 turns.
Looking forward to your reforged version. Where exactly can we find a description?

Hello everyone. Bariclar woke up today with a terrible headache. It seems like he had a little nightmare. Let's just hope that there is nothing more serious behind it.
Apart from that: A new update is online :) In the "change notes"-section you will also find an overview of the complete roadmap for the Reforged version.

Nice!
Honestly I have never finished it cause at around turn 30 I just feel too strong. Also I'm probably missing a lot of the story. Never solved the ravenholm riddle or met what is sleeping in the very south underground while I have conquered like half the map with 5 different leaders each.

Hello players :) another update of the reforged version is now online.
For further balancing, I would be very grateful for any feedback on how long it takes to beat the map. (No speedrun, "normal" playthrough)

@berknoyan: The map has been balanced with the "Emperor" difficulty level in mind. At lower AI levels, AI players could easily be defeated by independents.

for mid level players who played all campaigns except shadow realm (undead, last one) which ai level is best? knight, lord, king or emperor. thanks