Developers made the most reasonable choice with Poland and Denmark:
What is the biggest player base - Europe (SteamDB shows that much more players run a game during Europe’s afternoon)
What continent is the most profitable - Europe (base game price is 2,5x higher in Poland than in Brasil just to give an example).
What civs are the most popular in game - European ones (data provided by devs in official channel)
What was the best selling DLC - KoTM with European civs (can’t find a source for that but I believe this info was provided by one of the devs)
What civs are highly requested in every pool - Poland & Denmark
And yet still people are complaining about devs choice…
They picked a civs which most likely give them the biggest profit and makes community happy at the same time.
Want other civs? Then support a game and buy this DLC. If DLC sells well, it is likely we will get more civs later on and this time they won’t be European for sure.
Players next door are mad because the devs want to sell them some very low budget DLC for a ridiculous price in a game that never lacked the budget.
While here in the real long-time low-budget no-care regime people are tearing each others’ hair over the only thing they get after two years of nothing, for two months. And our one-and-only-great-map-maker and one-and-only-great-mod-maker were the most enthusiastic in joining the fight.
What a sight.
Sometimes I feel we deserve this treatment.
Absolutely true. It ridiculous and embarrassing that the community is here dog piling the devs and eating each other alive over minor squabbles. The devs made the best business decision for AOE3 which, if it does well, will result in continued support for this game. If your responses to this DLC are this salty, despite these being the most requested civs in the community, then we really don’t deserve any more dlc.
Personally, I like DLC from anywhere, but my fear with repeating the European theme is that the DLC comes with little or no content apart from the 2 civilizations. If it is the latter, it would be a simple DLC, and I would not consider it an expansion.
I find this idea of “we must buy the DLC to support the devs and maybe get something else next time!” extremely patronizing. Like that clearly is not what happened last time… we just got a second European DLC. And again, if we look at players next door the only thing they got from “supporting the devs” was a supremely overpriced DLC.
It’s not even that I dislike Knights of the Mediterranean, the amount of content it brought to the game was amazing, European maps, Historical Maps and whatnot. But there’s a decent chance this might be the last DLC so of course one feels disappointed it’s just… Europe again.
I wouldn’t even stay here and complaint so much if people weren’t just making up arguments to justify why that’s actually cool and amazing. It’s so bizarre to me, you have no need to rebate me with such absurd arguments as “the Baltics are underrepresented” or “Europe is just more important watcha gonna do about it” ¯_(ツ)_/¯
dropping some serious truth. I am under no obligation to spend my hard earned money on mediocre game content. I bought KotM exclusively for the maps, which are excellent. I would love a Campaign DLC, but if our neighbours are any indication of what that would look like, I don’t feel optimistic.
In AOE2’s case they have the budget and manpower to make something twice a year and yet they still decide to sell a near zero effort cash grab.
Here we have literally nothing for two years. Not even many recognitions from the management. I guess the “something or nothing” argument holds better here.
And efforts that you don’t like is not the same as zero effort. We need to see the actual DLC to decide whether it is worth the price, and decide whether to buy it. Both US and KoTM sounded like mostly reused stuff with minimal efforts but they turned out to have a lot of contents. Even Malta has several new models and KoTM added a bunch of new mercs and natives somewhat making up for the relatively lower effort on Malta.
At least I don’t think a two-civ DLC could turn out to be 95% free content plus one guy narrating everything.
And don’t forget AOE2 got Indian split that people wanted, Georgia and Armenia that people wanted, EASTERN EUROPE that people wanted before they went downhill. Here we have not even finished half of the wishlist yet.
If it’s content that you don’t care about you’re free to skip them. I don’t know what is the purpose of accusing people for wanting them. Maybe for somebody unifying this small forum with <20 active people so that they will not want what they are not allowed to is the top top priority.
I just wanna point out but the DLC prices for AOE3 has so far been extremely cheap. we pay just 5 euros for very complicated factions that in some cases take months to learn. We pay the same per civ as they do in AOE2 and on top of that we got 9 minor civs that where on the level of your average AOE2 civ with KOTM. IDK to me i cant see how someone could possibly seriously argue the value of the DLC.
Well AOE2 is the cashcow of this franchise, so they will milk this game till the last drop. The gaming industry is a business afterall and not a charity.
Not that I approve what they did with V&V, it’s more a case of quantity and numbers (profit).
Exactly. If you are really a fan of this game and I believe we all are - you can spend a few dollars to buy a DLC just to show support, even if you are not interested much in Poland or Denmark.
I pre-ordered African DLC in the first possible day despite I don’t care about Hausa or Ethiopia being in the game at all. And it paid off, a few DLCs later I will get Poland which I always wanted the most
And I can assure you - I will buy future DLCs too because I care about the game.
Yes, no more, no less… we buy the dlcs, the devs see that they make profits and it is a virtuous circle… besides, what are we complaining about if in 2021 we had 4 non-European civs (2 post-colonial and 2 African)? …now we have 4 European civs in 2 years (Italy, Malta, Poland and Denmark) and next year we will have another 4 non-European civs (possibly 2 post-colonial: Brazil and Argentina and 2 Asian: Persia and Oman or Burma and Siam)…
The most likely thing is that it will bring the missing European maps plus 8-9 historical maps… it could even bring 6 historical battles, but I find it unlikely…
Yes, that is, we have to support, but also be critical if they do things wrong, let’s not allow ourselves to be extorted, because it is our pockets that pay the price…
I don’t think it will be the last DLC, next year the original game turns 20, so we will have more content… but we will receive slower content if AoM Retold does well, which we all want, because up to the demand, they will need to hire more devs and we will enter a virtuous circle…
Yes, besides it takes time and money… if we have a dlc of 19 historical battles like VaV, we would have to be grateful…
Yes, also the idea for the VaV dlc was Ramsey, although we must also remember that they are developing AoM Retold and that consumes resources and time too… when Retold comes out they will have to maintain 3 games and 2 engines at the same time …
Exactly, you have to consider quality-price of the dlcs…they will not have campaigns, but they bring a lot of content and deep civs with many mechanics…
That’s the attitude…what does it matter which civ comes? The important thing is that new civs come and that’s the only thing we should care about. We complain that they don’t release dlcs and when they release dlcs we complain that they are civs that we don’t like without having tried them first…
There are very few missing maps (if any) for Europe, so the DLC of Poles and Danes may also add maps for Oceania.
On those maps, the native peoples of Oceania, including the Maori, are naturally very likely to be the new minor civs.
Additionally, I would recommend units with Australian characteristics as outlaw units on those maps, which would reflect the convicts who were exiled to Australia.
Such like Convict Rebel (musketeer-like), Eureka Miner (light infantry throwing explosives), Bushranger (dragoon-like) and B1ack b i r d e r (ship).
With these we can present the history of Australia and Oceania in the game simply.
Well, let’s consider that the last dlc of AoE 2 before the DE was Rise of the Rajas in 2016, however the last dlc of AoE 3 before the dlc was The Asian Dynasties almost 10 years before, in 2007… it is noticeable that the people wanted new AoE 3 dlcs and it was the only thing the game was missing…more love…this Baltic Dlc is going to be the first with AoE 3 DE for free, so we’ll see how it goes…if when they come out the players reach 15k in the game, it would be amazing…
I mean I find the steep downhill of AOE2 DLC quality funny.
I hope this is the result of “lack of ideas” or “AOE2 being too saturated”, other than an overall business direction for the franchise.
AOE3 DLCs have kept up with their quality, and the game is far from saturated, so hopefully they don’t mess up this one.
Don’t forget Greenland which belongs to Denmark. You could probably fit at least 3 maps on Greenland (including “Greenland - Survival” in the far north as an official Survival Map with no resources and lots of snow and maybe gentle hills and icy rocks).
Only good options for factions from Europe after Poland & Denmark release in the autumn are Zaporozhian Cossacks , Crimean Khanate and in my opinion Germans split to Austria and Prussia. Future is mainly for other continents :
America - Brazil , Argentina , Uruguay , Paraguay , Mayans ( as full civ , non revolution only)
