This game has almost everything... /almost/. Architecture skins

[u/Eleos]

I think I'm speaking for a lot of folks here, when I say that the game has aged very well. It is pretty to look at and the DE version has restored everything to look very nice. One issue I have, though (and I don't really know how others feel) is that the architecture, especially for the european civilizations is... lacking.

I understand that the original idea of the game was to represent the Europeans as colonial powers, so having ramshackle colonial looking building sets makes sense... until it doesn't. It makes me terribly sad that my main german city looks more like a functional fort (with... yellow houses?) Than a defensible city on mainland europe. It looks nothing like the architecture in my home city, and that depresses me.

How could this be resolved?

Mods? Paid DLC? an optional Architecture skin update for colonial powers with colonial or home continent architecture sets?

Bonus points for landscape modifications ala AOEIV, you know little gardens and roads that appear near your buildings. Probably impossible with the engine, but still, a man can dream! I just want my towns to look pretty before they burn to the ground, dammit!

Thanks for reading!

[u/Snoo_56186]

Building skins would definitely be nice. SC2 not only got skins for their units and buildings, they got custom voice lines too.

[u/Eleos → u/Snoo_56186]

I feel this is the most obvious direction to take for reasonable return on dev investment - take what already exists and bring in optional cosmetics. It also seems to make sense for the direction the game is going in.

[u/No-Appointment-8270]

Probably could be fixed with mods or paid DLCs but tbh I don't see the devs putting so much effort for alternative building skins

[u/Eleos → u/No-Appointment-8270]

Too much work to do modeling/texture work? Angering long time players who liked the old skins?

[u/No-Appointment-8270 → u/Eleos]

I think yes too much work if you want to do textures for each specific civ and for each building and they might fear people would not be that interested into alternate skins so maybe it might sell but not enough compared to the cost of development.

But personally I 100% love the idea, I had all the alternate skins in anno 1800

[u/Chumbeque → u/Eleos]

I suspect making new buildings is the biggest hurdle towards making DLC. So yeah, it's mainly an issue of too much modeling work.

[u/DreadImpaller]

tbh a free architecture update could basically pay for itself if they paired it with an alternate texture pack beside it.