Time periods
16th century: 5
17th century: 0
18th century: 1
19th century: 6
Comment: A big U shape. The reason may be that the scenarios still heavily focus on (North) America and Africa, and 16th century had a lot of exploration and early colonization attempts while 19th century had revolutions.
Many major events in the 17th and 18th century were wars in Europe, so these time periods can be enriched if there are plans for European contents later. There are important battles in the colonies as well, like the Seven Years War and US revolution, but they already had several scenarios including the campaigns.
There are also major events in Asia in those time periods, but Asian civs already had campaigns.
BTW, War of 1812 is the only event with two scenarios.
Regions
Asia: 1
Africa: 6
North America: 5
South America: 0
Comment: Almost exclusively related to DLC themes (Africa and North America), and limited to the colonial events.
Specifically, there were also series of important conflicts in India and East Asia, which had no representation.
Playable civs (total appearance/number of civs)
Campaign versions of later DLC civs also counted as that civ. Morocco counted as a pseudo-civ. Algiers counted as half-Ottoman half-Morocco. Canada counted as half-Britain half-America.
European: 5/10 (9+0.5*2)
Asian: 0/3
African: 3.5/3.5
North American (US and Mexico): 3.5/2.5
Native American: 0/4
Comment: Again, heavy bias on DLC themes. Asian and Native American civs have no historical battles probably because they already have campaigns, But these campaigns are still half-fictional and more focused. There are still several other interesting events to be explored.
Specifically, Dutch is the only legacy civ that never had an appearance even in the campaigns; Germans, Ottomans, Spanish and Aztecs appeared but not as protagonists (John Black not counted); and Swedes and Incas as DE new civs do not have any scenario either.
Conclusion
- South America needs some attention.
- Some civs had almost no appearance at all.
- Asian and Native American civs, despite having their own campaigns (which were half-fictional), could have more historical contents.
- Most missing parts are due to the fact that European and not-colonialism-related Asian events are fully neglected.
- The “colonial theme” is still prominent, which I think is unnecessary. You already had a full Japanese campaign that had nothing to do with colonialism. At least for the historical battles there is no need to stick to that theme. I was expecting DE to offer a broader scope, but it is now biased towards that one or two specific themes even more heavily.
Unimportant rants...
I personally do not like design holes.
For example, when Battlefield 1 was first released, it’s okay if there were no Russians because there was no Russian map at first. But I cannot stand the fact that there are French maps but no French as a faction.
Same here. Okay if European and Middle Eastern scenarios are missing as they are not covered in the game yet. But you already have East Asia, India and South America, and when you introduce the new concept of “historical battles”, I cannot see why these are under-represented. This does not conflict with the campaign. AOE2 had civs appearing multiple times in both campaigns and standalone battles.
Fine if they take time to implement but I hope they are at least planned for the future.