Friday Update: Week 24/2013, more things from Spain

'Evening everybody, and welcome to another Friday Update... For the last few weeks, a phenomenon called Pepp has been released on the Friday Updates, but order has been restored, as this one comes, as usual, from the hands of your's truly. Unsurprisingly, it is once again the Spanish that are at the heart of it.


Gameplay-wise, the Spanish are the opposite of a civ you will probably be somewhat more familiar with, the Crusaders. Whereas the Crusaders thrive on early rushes and overwhelming the enemy with early yet powerful units, the Spanish prefer to wait the enemy out, build up a real powerbase, and then strike. For this strategy to work, the Spanish need two things; powerful late-game units and a good defence, allowing them to make it to the end of the game while still mostly alive and possibly also kicking. The former has been featured before, so it should come as no surprise to hear that the Spanish gain their late-game advantage mostly through superior gunpowder units. What we haven't mentioned is how the Spanish keep themselves going in the face of enemy rushes. The most direct way in which they do this is by using their Fortines, which the Spanish have instead of Towers. Fortines are more expensive than Towers, but are also far more formidable defensive strongholds, capable of bearing quite a bit more of the enemy's grunt than a Tower could ever withstand. Like Towers, Fortines can also be upgraded to give more HP and a ballista attack.

Another way the Spanish bolster their early-game resistance is through their use of the Chapter House, which leads us neatly on to the next thing we wanted to showcase today:


In order to make this a proper Interactive Friday Update™, you can guess which Knightly Order provides the Alférez as a unit (there are massive clues in the picture), but what we can tell you is that the Alférez is mainly an inspirational unit, increasing the attack of all units in a certain radius around it. It also carries a sword, axe or mace for self-defence, though it isn't the strongest unit in the mod, and considering its valuable inspirational abilities, it's probably best to keep it out of the fray and at a safe distance instead.

Just a note: We're aware that the standard is the wrong way round, it's being fixed as we speak...


In this instance, the Quote of the Week is as much a quote as it is an official announcement made by our team leader, AOE_Fan:

AOE_Fan wrote:Well, I'm thinking the release of Patch would be in 1 or 2 weeks...

K&B salutes... Mandos, without whom we would have been unaware about the existence of two Outpost models used in AoE3's demo version, two models that we used to make the Fortin.
K&B refutes... Vladimir Putin, mainly because there's very little else to loathe at the moment, and any day is a good day to refute Putin.


peugeot407