Age Of Empires Online -- Celeste Fan Project

Bulletin 8

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History of Bahram's Letters

PvE A Sneak Peek into the Treasures of the Nile Quest Pack!

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Hello there Celeste players!

There is more PvE content on the way! This time, we have more Legendary Quests coming to Rhakotis. Let's jump into more details, shall we?

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Wrest control of Egypt out of the hands of the Valley Kings, a notorious group of bandits plaguing the lands near river Nile in over 8 Legendary Quests, available to level 40 players. Be warned, though! Some of these quests are very, very difficult. The last quest, "The Valley of the Kings" is the most difficult quest ever seen in Project Celeste, so even the most experienced PvE players will have a nice, refreshing challenge awaiting them.

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  • Nebkanra, the Legendary Camel Rider: Remember General Setredet from the Summer Event? This is his cousin. Young and ambitious, he has recently joined the Valley Kings and is desperately looking for a chance to prove...

Weekly Blog #16: Onager, Ram Animations, Advisor Hall

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Hello there Celeste players! We are back with another Roman reveal blog.

As we develop the Romans, each week we will be revealing the Romans to you building by building, unit by unit, and technology by technology. We are not just showing you what the Romans will be, but showing you how we are building them, who is building them, and also why we are building them the way that we are.

This week, we are getting deeper into Roman Siege Units by revealing the Onager, which is an Age 4 catapult, and then circling back to our Battering Ram. Finally, we‘ll head back to the Capital City and show you the Advisor Hall.

Onager and Battering Ram Animations
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As we discussed in our Unit Design Blog, there are two siege units that appear in...

Weekly Blog #15: Palintonon, Palace, General Store

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Hello there Celeste players! We are back with another Roman reveal blog.

As we develop the Romans, each week we will be revealing the Romans to you building by building, unit by unit, and technology by technology. We are not just showing you what the Romans will be, but showing you how we are building them, who is building them, and also why we are building them the way that we are.

This week, we are revealing our first Age 4 unit, the Palintonon, as well as two Capital City Buildings, the Roman Palace and General Store.

Palintonon
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Every civ in AoEO has an Age 4 ranged trebuchet siege unit, so it likely goes without saying that our siege-heavy Romans would as well. Unsurprisingly, every Roman design we found included one. So from a design perspective, we slotted the Palintonon into the tech tree immediately and built the civ around...

PvP Balance Update #16

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Greeks:


Battering Ram:

  • Gold cost increased to 60, from 30.
> Balance Team's Comment: Battering Rams used to be one of the more underused units in PvP. However, after the original Balance Team reduced the cost of the Siege Workshop building alongside Rams themselves, people started using them more and more. We are now at a point where proxy Rams are quite common and people are using them very frequently. However, we feel that the return on investment in Battering Rams is a little too good compared to the counterplay needed to defend against it. This problem is more obvious in Greek and Persian Battering Rams right now, so we are starting by increasing the Gold cost on these two units.​

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Egyptians...

Weekly Blog #14: Developer Spotlight - Chaos, HappySmurf, Phillus

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Between the Summer Event, some technical obstacles, and vacation season, the 2019 summer has caught up to us. So that we can take another week to work on our units, we are presenting a Behind the Scenes look at our shadowy 3d team: @Chaos, @happysmurf, and @Phillus. These three guys are our work horses and never receive enough credit for their selfless devotion to the incalculable details of bringing our Romans to life. We can talk all we want every week about the nuanced design decisions and close calls we need to make in balancing the Romans, but the simple fact is that without our 3d team, none of that would ever matter.

To spruce things up, we have asked each of them a series of questions and also had them submit something we haven’t yet shown that they are particularly proud of...

Weekly Blog #13: Villagers, Age III TC, Pontifex 3D

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Hello there Celeste players! We are back with another Roman reveal blog.

As we develop the Romans, each week we will be revealing the Romans to you building by building, unit by unit, and technology by technology. We are not just showing you what the Romans will be, but showing you how we are building them, who is building them, and also why we are building them the way that we are.

This week, we are revealing our long-requested Roman Villagers (both male and female) as well as the 3d models for both the Age 3 TC and the Pontifex, both of which we have discussed previously.

Villagers
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Even though Villagers are predictable and uniform across the civs, they are the most important and heavily used unit in the game, so as Developers, we owe a duty to make ours fit perfectly.

Villagers are one of four Common Units, which are hardwired into the game...

Weekly Blog #12: Liburnian, Templum, Pontifex

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Hello there Celeste players! We are back with another Roman reveal blog.

As we develop the Romans, each week we will be revealing the Romans to you building by building, unit by unit, and technology by technology. We are not just showing you what the Romans will be, but showing you how we are building them, who is building them, and also why we are building them the way that we are.

This week we are revealing the Liburnian and Templum. We will also be discussing the Pontifex, but will show you his model in a later post once it is ready.

Liburnian
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As we had to make cuts to the Roman navy in order to select to include the Liburnian, we want to explain our decision by first establishing a few unspoken navy design rules that are evident by reviewing the navies of the existing six civs:

First, in addition to every civ having an Age 1 Fishing Ship and an...

Bahram's Brief Bulletin #7

Summer Event 2019 Details!

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Hello there Celeste players! The Summer Event is finally here.

Once you update your game, go to your Empire Store in your Capital City and find all the new quests for the event.

You can find every detail regarding what's new in the event in the attached graphics! We hope that you all have lots of fun playing with friends during the event. :)

So let's break down the details of the event in a question-based list:

1. How do I access the special event content?

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2. What are the new contents available in the event?
  • New mini-game style Quests and a very difficult Legendary Quest, with awesome rewards.
  • New PvP Quests with HUGE rewards.
  • All-new Gear, Vanity Gear and Capital City decoration: The Summer Vanity Set and The Temple of Apophis Capital City building, entirely new and exclusive...

Round 1, brackets and player information

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Hey everyone,

Thanks to all the 24 players that have signed up! As promised, the 16 best pvp players have been selected and the top 8 have been seeded, all based on past tournament performance and current standing on the ladder. The result of that is the following (updated version is available in the posts below).

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This makes for the following first round and Highgarden bracket.

The Lowgarden bracket will be finalized once all the first round matches have been played.

You have until Friday August 16th 19:00 CEST to play a best of 3 against your opponent. There have been channels made in the pvp discord for each of your matches. Please indicate there your map and civ vetos, and schedule your matches. If you can find a streamer to stream your first match, that would be nice (try tagging the streamer role before your match starts). This...

Weekly Blog #11: Spearman, Battering Ram, Siege Workshop

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Hello there Celeste players! We are back with another Roman reveal blog.

As we develop the Romans, each week we will be revealing the Romans to you building by building, unit by unit, and technology by technology. We are not just showing you what the Romans will be, but showing you how we are building them, who is building them, and also why we are building them the way that we are.

This week, we will be finally revealing the Spearman as well as both the Siege Workshop and Battering Ram. It’s very fitting that we are revealing both the Spearman and the Battering Ram at the same time. As it turns out, they have an awful lot in common.

Spearman
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We have been discussing the Spearman for weeks now, so it is wonderful to finally present him. Though he is not coded as a Common Unit (such as the Villager, Caravan, Fishing Boat, and Merchant Transport Ship), every civ has one, and he...

[Tournament finished]Gerda's Gauntlet - a 2-day tournament

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Greetings Celeste players!

Introducing Gerda's Gauntlet! It has been a while, but the time has finally come for a new tournament. Once again, we will see 16 of Project Celeste's top PvP players battle it out for some sweet rewards. As always, you will be able to follow the entire event live on the official twitch channel, but this time around it will all take place in a single weekend. Everything will go down two weeks from now, on the 17th and 18th of August. If you are available that weekend, signing is possible for everyone, by replying to this thread!

Recently, some players have coined the idea of a tournament for lower level players. In implementing this idea, I decided to have a first round where the 16 players all play versus a single opponent. The 8 winners advance to what I will term the Highgarden, whereas the 8 losers will advance to the Lowgarden. These are essentially...

Celeste Map Pack #2

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Hello there Celeste players!

I'm very happy to bring you another set of Five entirely new PvP and Skirmish Hall maps, made by me and @RecoN! More details below:

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These maps have been added to the Skirmish Hall and the PvP Arena in your Capital City.

Sidenote: If any of you are knowledgeable in RMS map making, please contact us for your submissions. Well made maps will be reviewed and added to the game!

Let us know in the comments what you think of the new maps. If you have any specific map requests from previous Age games, mention it and we will see if it's possible to remake it in AoEO!

Thanks, and game on.

Project Celeste Development Team

Weekly Blog #10: Forum, Cretan Bowman, Armory

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Hello there Celeste players! We are back with another Roman reveal blog.

As we develop the Romans, each week we will be revealing the Romans to you building by building, unit by unit, and technology by technology. We are not just showing you what the Romans will be, but showing you how we are building them, who is building them, and also why we are building them the way that we are.

At this point, we have revealed 13 of the 18 Roman Buildings. Of the remaining 5 Buildings, we are revealing two more today – the Forum and the Armory. Accordingly, we will be transitioning our discussion from Roman Buildings to their contents: Roman Units and Technologies. Along those lines, we are revealing a new Unit, the Cretan Bowman, as well as a few new Technologies.

Forum
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As discussed in our...

Design Blog #2: Unit Design Theory

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Before we could build even one Roman building or unit, we had to decide what buildings and units they had. Previously, we discussed how we approached designing the 18 Roman buildings. HERE. Now that we are beginning to reveal more and more Roman units each week, we want to provide you with some context for their design, as well.

Just like with buildings, we started our unit design by first analyzing what everyone could agree on: the designs of the Original 6 Civs. In the game files, every unit is categorized as either a Common Unit, a Military Unit, a Unique Unit, or a Scout. This can be pretty dense reading, so please buckle up.

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Common Units: Just like Common Buildings, every civilization in AoEO shares the same Common Units. There are four Common Units: Villagers, Caravans, Fishing Boats, and Merchant Transport Ships. Though these units can...

Weekly Blog #9: Centurion 3D, Age II Walls, Merchant Transport

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Hello there Celeste players! We are back with another Roman reveal blog.

As we develop the Romans, each week we will be revealing the Romans to you building by building, unit by unit, and technology by technology. We are not just showing you what the Romans will be, but showing you how we are building them, who is building them, and also why we are building them the way that we are. This week, we will be revealing the Age 2 Wall and Merchant Transport, as well as showing the model for the Centurion, which we discussed in detail last week.

Age II Walls
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As discussed in more detail in our Building Design Blog, the Wall is one of the 13 Common...

Weekly Blog #8: Fortress, Praetorium, Centurion

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Hello there Celeste players! We are back with another Roman reveal blog.

As we develop the Romans, each week we will be revealing the Romans to you building by building, unit by unit, and technology by technology. We are not just showing you what the Romans will be, but showing you how we are building them, who is building them, and also why we are building them the way that we are.

This week, after about two months of buildup, we are extremely excited to finally reveal the Praetorium, which is a Roman Unique Building and defines this civ's unique playstyle, alongside the Fortress. We will also be briefly introducing the Centurion, one of the Officers trained at the Praetorium.

Praetorium
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As we’ve discussed previously, Roman military Buildings are categorized based on the military rank and historical origin of their units and not by what category of...

Weekly Blog #7: Dock, Fishing Boat, Roman Wood

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Hello there Celeste players! We are back with another Roman reveal blog.

As we develop the Romans, each week we will be revealing the Romans to you building by building, unit by unit, and technology by technology. We are not just showing you what the Romans will be, but showing you how we are building them, who is building them, and also why we are building them the way that we are.

This week, we will be revealing the Dock and Fishing Boat, as well as an update to Roman Wood colors as part of the civilization's visual identity.

Dock and Fishing Boat
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As discussed in more detail in our Building Design Blog, the Dock is one of the 13 Common Buildings that every Age of Empires Online civilization shares...

Map Design Vignette Challenge Winners

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Hey everyone,

We've received a surprising amount of submissions for the Map Design Vignette Challenge! There were some really impressive designs made by you guys, as you will soon see.

Before we reveal the winners, let's have a look at some of the highlights of the entries:

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Now for the top 3 (or 4, rather! The number 3 spots were so equally nice we couldn't just go with one so both entries will receive the 3rd place prize.)

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PrefSilver
showing his impressive Celtic Village.

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KardaKAX with a beautiful Persian market street, glowing with the hustle and bustle of daily life.

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CmK with an absolutely stunning Bandit camp. He had 3 very nice entries but this was the best one out of the three by far.

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i3ackero with an incredibly beautiful Jungle village, showing us that...​