Age of Empires III: Wars of Liberty

***Age of Empires III: Wars of Liberty*** or **WoL** is a free, fan-made modification to the game *Age of Empires III* developed by the War of the Triple Alliance Team. The PC version was released worldwide on September 9, 2015, while the Mac version was released July 16, 2016.

*Wars of Liberty* portrays the world in the long 19th century, between approximately 1789 and 1914 CE. There are over forty civilizations to play within the mod. *Wars of Liberty* has made several additions to the base game, including multiple new groups of civilizations known as Cultures; new gameplay systems including Religion, Immigrants, and Espionage, among others; and new Maps and Natives. The mod receives regular updates, generally introducing new civilizations and balance or bug fixes to existing civilizations.

*Wars of Liberty* has over 400,000 downloads as of April of 2018. As well as receiving favorable reviews, the mod has been featured by a number of gaming publishers, including IGN, ModDB, Tecmundo, and GameStar. It is currently the highest-ranked Age of Empires mod on ModDB.

## History

### Announcement

The ***War of the Triple Alliance*** mod, or **WotTA,** was announced by Age of Empires III Heaven forum member Lord Tahattus on July 20, 2006. The original idea was to add the Brazilians - where Tahattus was from - to the real-time strategy game *Rise of Nations*. Because of the game's difficulty to mod, Tahattus decided instead to work with the soon-to-be released expansion to *Age of Empires III*, *The Warchiefs*, intending to work on top of the *Napoleonic Era* mod, developed by Alexastor. He soon decided instead to develop his own mod and to add the rival civilizations of the Argentines and Paraguayans, basing the mod around the War of the Triple Alliance, and finally adding the Tupi as a new Native civilization.

### Alpha

On April 6, 2007, an Alpha including partial versions of the Argentines, Paraguayans, and Tupi was released. Included in the release was new music, loading and splash images, flags, and other UI elements. The Alpha was uploaded to file-hosting site RapidShare in a RAR file.

The Latin American civilizations, now with the addition of the Colombians, would form a new Culture, a system Tahattus based off of the shared features between the previously released European and Native civilizations. Immigrants were added as a feature for the newly formed culture.

### Beta

One day before *The Asian Dynasties* expansion was released, a public Beta for the mod was released on October 22, 2007 and hosted in a RAR file on the site of Heavengames user Elpea. The file's password was "ireadtheinstructions". Because of the lack of forwards-compatibility, the mod began losing its fanbase. In order to increase interest in the mod, Tahattus announced two new European civilizations: the Italians and Belgians, and three civilizations forming a new African culture: the Mamelukes, Bantu, and Abyssinians, in November of 2007. However, because of the increased workload from the new civilizations and the decreasing fanbase, Tahattus decided to cease work on the mod.

DayoftheNinja, the only team member on the mod, received the incomplete files from Tahattus and began the work of converting the Beta to *The Asian Dynasties*. Tahattus returned to the team in mid-2009 and made a new forum for the community to discuss the mod. A few months later, the mod's first version for Mac was released on November 29, 2009. On July 13, 2010, the Beta was updated to *The Asian Dynasties*, with a new link on 4shared.

### Gamma

Work began moving quickly after the release of Beta for TAD to complete the unfinished additions announced in the previous years. The Mexicans were added to the Latin American culture, and future mod leader Hoop Thrower joined the team as an intern, tasked with creating the mod's first Asian civilization: the Koreans. When development of a mod called *Age of Empires III: Revolutions* was cancelled, some of the features were donated to WotTA in order to create a new North American culture, featuring the Americans and Canadians. This culture was worked on by another future leader of the mod, Takatmo Yereoc, along with the Inca and Mapuche, who joined the Tupi as part of a new South American Native culture. These civilizations were released as part of the Gamma along with numerous Maps, Natives, and Gameplay changes on September 9, 2011. For the first time, the mod used an executable installer rather than a RAR archive. The following year, the team released a tool known as "The Throne Room" on January 15, 2012 to allow players to select custom AI and music setups in the mod.

### Wars of Liberty

The main focus of the following release, "Delta," was planned to be the African nations and the Scramble for Africa. As a result, the mod's original name no longer fit its purpose, and users were asked to suggest new ideas. Long-time fan ometecpatzin ended up suggesting the winning name: *Wars of Liberty*. Since Tahattus's original idea in 2007, the Africans had changed significantly. With a focus on nonstandard, complex gameplay, and a new cohort of civilizations including the Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Zulu, the redesigned culture became a central task.

The absorption of another mod, *The Fight of Nations*, proved a great boon to the team in the addition not only of new civilizations but also a number of new team members. To develop the new Balkan culture, consisting of the Bulgarians, Greeks, Romanians, and Serbians, Christos and Daniel Pereira joined the team. In addition to this culture, further European civilizations were planned including the Danes and Habsburgs. To round out the North American culture, now renamed to Anglophones, *Knights & Barbarians* team leader peugeot407 assisted in adding the Australians. Hoop Thrower, now a skilled developer, suggested and added the Chileans as an addition to the Latin American culture. Exactly four years after the release of Gamma, *Wars of Liberty* version 1.0 was released to the public on September 9, 2015, now hosted on the mod's site.

Since the release of Delta, numerous civilizations continue to be added in rolling releases. As of July 2020, those include: the Peruvians (in the 1.08 patch), Italians and Maltese (in the 1.09 patch), Haitians (in the 1.0.10 patch), Belgians and Koreans (in the 1.0.11 patch), Danish and Swedish (in the 1.0.12 patch), and Maori (in the 1.0.13 patch), starting a new culture: thePolynesians.

After the release of the 1.013 patch in July of 2020, the mod now offered 43 playable civilizations representing 8 different cultures, with more content slated on the development schedule. A new culture, the Middle-Easteners, is confirmed to be in development, featuring new civilizations including the Persians, the Omanies, the Afghans, and the Uzbeks. Later in July of 2020, the 1.0.14 patch was announced to celebrate the mod's 14th anniversary, the YouTube trailer for this update announced that it will include a rework for the Latin Americans and the Immigrants system, plus new civilizations including the long awaited Triple Alliance member, the Uruguayans. Additional reworks are planned for future updates, including reworks for some of the culture groups and other gameplay elements.

## References

1. ↑ http://gr.ign.com/age-of-empires-giz/33520/feature/age-of-empires-iii-wars-of-liberty-mod
2. ↑ https://www.moddb.com/features/this-week-in-mods-april-13-2018
3. ↑ https://www.voxel.com.br/noticias/brasileiro-cria-mod-guerra-paraguai-40-nacoes-age-of-empires-3\_825239.htm
4. ↑ https://www.gamestar.de/artikel/wars-of-liberty-ein-vorbild-fuer-age-4,3324783.html
5. ↑ https://www.moddb.com/groups/2017-mod-of-the-year-awards/features/players-choice-mod-of-the-year-2017
6. ↑ http://aoe3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=st&fn=14&tn=30588&st=0#post0
7. ↑ http://aoe3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=st&fn=14&tn=30588&st=495#post496
8. ↑ http://aoe3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=st&fn=14&tn=30588&st=840#post841
9. ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20100203174116/http://lordtahattus.110mb.com/
10. ↑ https://twitter.com/warof3alliance/status/4445318943
11. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20120919083525/http://wotta.com.br/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=784
12. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20130217223801/http://wotta.com.br/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1117&start=0
13. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20160713151725/http://wotta.com.br/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4014
14. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPj9-Unfp8s Wars of Liberty Anniversary Patch WORLD PREMIERE TRAILER

## External Links

Updates on the mod can be found on this websites and social media accounts:

1. Facebook
2. Twitter
3. ModDB
4. Aoe3Wol.com, the official Website and forum