Real Time Strategy > PC > Age of Empires III > Editing

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Last Updated : July 11th, 2006

Here is a listing of other things you can do to "cheat" or edit to change gameplay settings. MAKE SURE YOU KEEP BACKUPS BEFORE EDITING. All of these have been written by me, but I did get my ideas from various sites.

Alter Resource Crates

Open proto.xml in the data folder in the main game directory with a text editor. Make sure the file is not set to read only in properties. Search for "CrateOf". You will find CrateofFood, CrateofCoin, CrateofWood, CrateofFoodLarge, CrafteofCoinLarge, and CrateofWoodLarge. All of these entries will have a tag named "InitialResourceCount". Change the value of this to whatever value you want the crates to hold. Make sure you keep the decimal places.

Editing your Single Player Home City

Go into your "My Documents\My Games\Age of Empires 3\Savegame" directory and open sp_<yourcityname>_homecity.xml in a text editor. Right at the top you should see some tags for city name, xp, level, etc. You may edit these to any values you want. Which cards you have are also handled in this file, although editing them might be a little trickier. I will explain what each of the tags mean to my knowlege. Email me more information on the unknown ones if you know.

<defaultdirectoryid> - Don't edit this one. Unknown.
<defaultfilename> - Thise one controls which civilization file you are using for this city.
<civ> - This one controls the name of your civilization, changing this will not change your civilization type, only the name.
<hctype> - Don't edit this one. Unknown.
<name> - Your home city's name.
<heroname> - Your hero's name.
<herodogname> - Your hero dog's name.
<shipname> - Your main ship's name.
<hcid> - Don't edit this one. Unknown.
<level> - Your level.
<xp> - How much xp you actually have.
<skillpoints> - How many skillpoints you have left. You can set a big value in here to get lots of points to buy cards/customizations.
<xppercentage> - Something to do with how fast you gain xp? Unknown.
<numpropunlocksearned> - Don't edit this one. Unknown.

Like I said you can indeed edit which cards your city has. If you scroll down to the <activetech_name> tag you will see a list of all available cards. If you take one of these full tags, for example: <tech dbid ="2267">HCShipSettlerWagons1</tech>, edit to look like: <card dbid ="2267">HCShipSettlerWagons1</card> and place it inbetween in the above <cards> </cards> you will get this card. Although the normal restrictions of how many cards you can have still apply, so only the first 11 will be shown ingame.

Access Hidden Units in Editor

Currently there is no way to use some of the secret/hidden units through normal means in the editor. You can still access them through other means however. Place a unit down, then select the "Replace Unit" command under "Objects". In the menu you will be able to select the following hidden/secret characters:

Fluffy
Flying Purple Tapir
Learicorn
George Crushington
Lazerbear
Monster Truck

Then click replace unit.

Invincible Units

Open proto.xml in the data folder in the main game directory with a text editor. Scroll down or try and search for a specific unit name you want to be invincible. Go in to that unit's <Flag> section, and add both:

<Flag>DoNotDieAtZeroHitpoints</Flag>
<Flag>Invulnerable</Flag>

This unit will now be invicinble, and will not die at 0 health points if you manage to hurt him in some way.