Merry Christmas To All Readers!
What an amazing year for our community; and there's so much to look forward to.
I’d like to wish all of my subscribers and supporters a very Merry Christmas and a happy holiday season. It’s been a truly great year for the Age Of Legends and our community of 33,000 players and more than 330 Essential Guide readers.
The Age Of Legends mod series and the Essential Guide are made possible thanks to the generous support of my paid subscribers. If you want to treat yourself to a Christmas present, and keep the mod going, an annual Essential Guide subscription costs just $45 - for the whole year! And here is the whole back catalogue you’ll get access to…
Premium Development Updates For Paid Subscribers
I’ve posted 18 Development Diaries so far, covering a huge variety of topics, from the small details of upcoming releases, to big picture overviews of the whole mod. Here are some of the highlights you might have missed.
New Features…
Age Of Legends already includes some innovative features, be it the Invasion mechanic triggering the Vong War decades earlier, at the players’ discretion, or the Dynamic Galaxy Mechanic, with civilian ships darting away from space battles, as pirates and raiders threaten unexpected results.
But lots of new stuff is coming.
One of the most popular posts all year was on Imperial Leadership Succession. When the mod finishes its development you will be able to pick from a very wide pool of Imperial leaders, including some obscure characters like Admiral Betl Oxtroe and the Palpatine relative she tried to install as child empress. Read more about that here.
More imminently, v1.33 will be completely overhauling galactic-level gameplay, with stations you can sell and upgrade, totally reworked tooltips, and, perhaps most importantly, a really impressive AI.
You can read about the AI - and it’s rapid conquest of Coruscant - here.
I’m also adding a new projectile type, the Mag Pulse, which temporarily disables the weapon systems on capital ships. This will introduce a wholly new tactical element to space battles, and advantages to outnumbered guerrilla-style forces (though this warhead won’t appear too frequently). This post also includes an overview of some exciting new Mon Calamari capital ships.
The face of Galactic Conquests will change as we approach v2.0, with an emphasis on trade routes, hyperspace lanes and the new possibility of expeditionary warfare, which I described back in February.
… And New Content
That’s to say nothing of the huge amount of new content you have to look forward to.
Like the massively expanded and completely rebuilt New Republic space roster.
The unique space station upgrade tree that will become available to the Chiss in the next release.
Factions Galore
And finally, there is the recent comprehensive guide to ALL playable factions coming to the mod, from the relatively obscure factions like the Outer Rim Alliance, to fan favourites like X1’s Empire from the Battlefront hand-held games, or the far future of the Star Wars timeline with the Empire-in-Exile and Galactic Alliance Remnant. Here they all are:
The Crime Lords: five playable Hutt factions, Black Sun, and the Invid pirate gang!
The very exciting news that Rise of Caedus is to be rebranded as Age Of Legends: Legacy, and will include more than a century of material.
The 13 Imperial warlords either released already or planned for inclusion.
The minor powers attempting to expand in their own regions: can Corellia become the dominant Core World? Can the Bakurans conquer the Ssi-ruuvi Imperium?
Short Stories
The Essential Guide also contains the occasional short story set in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. This year readers enjoyed this Dark Empire-era short about the Azzameen family from X-wing Alliance, their only depiction post-Endor.
I also published this gritty war story about love amid the ruins of the Outer Rim planet Phaeda, held by a battered Imperial Remnant garrison against constant Yuuzhan Vong assault. Check that out if you missed it first time.
And I began my own Prequel-era Infinities-style project, which will be published occasionally - this is the ‘Universe Undone’ series. You can find Issue #1: Murder In The Senate here.
I’m gathering the short stories in one place, in this compendium volume for easy access.
One-Off Content
I’ve also published some one-off content, like this review of a fantastic Old Republic/KOTOR era mod for the original Battlefront 2. I’d encourage everyone to grab that!
And I published a guide that I hope has been really useful, even to more experienced players, a beginner’s guide to playing Age Of Legends.
It’s been so busy I can’t believe it’s only been 6 months since I released v1.33: The Ground War, adding atmospheric combat to land battles, new environmental skins, and a host of new units and new unit TYPES, like Operatives and Special Forces. (Plus some new space unit skins.)
So…. to get access to all of that, subscribe today. None of this would have been possible unless, to be blunt, it was sustainable financially. And the support of my paid subscribers has helped make it so.
I have a lot of life events coming up this year, and I really want to continue this project. And I’ve been really humbled by the appreciation this community has shown so far. So, thank you again, and Merry Christmas. I’ll be back with a New Year post on some of the very exciting things you can look forward to in 2024. 🎉
- @Story_Continues