Or perhaps you should start posting your own meme series. 11
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Now there’s an idea…
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yeah, at first glance it doesn’t make a lot of sense. TMR gave us 2 civs, no architecture sets, and 15 scenarios for $15. BFG gave us 3 civs, 2 architecture sets, 21 scenarios, and a completely overhauled campaign scenario selector menu, for the same $15.
Now I don’t think every DLC needs to add architecture sets. I don’t feel LoTW, DoTD, or DoI were lackluster because of no new sets.
I’ve got a bit of a tin foil hat theory in regards to TMR.
- From Lotw to TMR dlcs were released every 8-9 months. the exception was ROR which was a couple months late, but TMR was back on schedule.
- RoR was also the first DLC sold at the $15 price tag.
- I also recall a SOTL video shortly after RoR was released where SOTL mentioned the pick rate for Romans was quite low even tho their winrate was decent. theory being RoR didn’t sell as well, so fewer people even had the option to choose them.
- There’s also that the roadmap from 2022 that, while not promised, implied we’d get a civ split in late 2023.
- TMR not only added the (elite) qizilbash (the only scenario editor only unit to have an elite version) but also oddly enough, if you consider the mule cart a building, added two regional buildings.
- TMR is the only*** DLC to have all it’s campaigns have only 5 scenarios.
***excluding forgotten but that was was a fan-made project so I’m not going to hold it to the same standard. Also technically DoI, but not only did we get a completely re-done prithviraj 5, there were some decent updates to scenarios in the rest of the Prithviraj campaign, not to mention some meaningful updates to some Almeida and Bayinnaung scenarios. So while we only got 15 more scenarios, we did get more than 15 scenarios worth of effort across the entire game.
Nothing about any of this is conclusive, but it seems to me that RoR went long and over budget. They tried to make up for it by increasing the price. RoR under sold, and as a result, the scope of TMR was scaled back to recoup losses. I would not be surprised to learn that the original plan for TMR included a persians split, new caucusus architecture set, and a campaign scenario or two more, and the only remnants of that cut content was the qizilbash unit, the mule cart, and the fortified church.
So I don’t think it’s so much that BFG contains a ton of content, but rather TMR anomalously contained very little content, especially in the context of it’s price, subject matter, and teases.
Hopefully the next medieval DLC will have an amount of content closer to BFG than TMR.
I will also add that the Qizilbash is the only scenario editor unit with an elite upgrade. This is really weird, as you can just…do the stat changes in the editor. Or even just leave it, as it’s only a unit used by allies in some of one campaign and you will rarely click on it anyway.
It does stink of “there was another civ planned”, as it’s unlikely the War Elephant would have gone anywhere for the Persians.
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If the unit was going to be the uu its azerbaijan civi or it could be a new unit line for persians which got scrapped.
I feel like Forgotten Empires legit trying to go for giving it India DLC treatment. Actually changing UU. They changed it sometime around mid development.
That’s true. Moreover, I don’t think it is now a problem of lack of teams to do such a thing.
Maybe if you only see the game as a set of mechanics that you want to become good in.
If you play AoE2 to get immersed in the setting then you want Huns to look like Huns when you play the Attila campaign and not have them look like Germans or something.
Regional skins are on the top of my wishlist for AoE2 (after higher player limit but that’ll likely never happen).
This would eliminate a lot of the completely out of place looking units. I especially hate playing Meso civs because they just look completely wrong in so many ways.
Which is kinda strange. Almost no one wanted a Persia split. Many people were asking to split civs like the Slavs, Saracenes, Teutones or Chinese for example.
I don’t think that was ever an issue. It was more of a marketability issue.
Adding a new architecture set costs money so it has to increase sales of a DLC to be worth making it. Apparently their calculation was that the DLC would sell almost as good without a new Architecture set so they just didn’t make one.
Hardcore fans will buy the DLC anyway and casual fans likely don’t care to much about correct architecture.
At least in their logic.
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was referring to changing UU like more historically accurate. Qizilbash after all was the elite force of Safavids which current Persians is based on.
This seems a reasonable explanation. How they made an ad hoc skin for the Inca eagle for an event. But they never made an ad hoc system to give stable skins organically. Like the crusader knights for the Teutons.
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I play in AoE2 for the story of the campaigns and gameplay, I dont look too deep into the details because the game is built in an insane ammount of abstraction
Should have been a Persian steppe lancer.
Bohemians civ simply must get the Central European Architecture Set. Similar situation like Persians civ. On the other hand, Poles civ shouldn’t have the Central European Architecture Set because it wouldn’t be true. Poles civ find themselves well in the current situation. BTW, Poles civ could, together with Ruthenians civ (Slavs civ), have a Slavic Set of Architecture which would consist of dugouts buildings made of logs and thatched roofs - of course later these buildings would start to differ between these civs.
My dream is Northern European Architecture Set and Nomadic Architecture Set.
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Same.
Huns, Cumans and Mongols should have a shared architecture but unique Castles that look Roman, Central Asian and East Asian.
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Huns civ could have a Castle that looks like a military camp. The rest of the nomadic civs may feel the same way.
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If it wasn’t a wonder for the Cumans, I’d argue for that ruin of a castle.
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- Norwegians (present Vikings civ)
- Danes
- Swedes
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