When historians are talking about 中世 (middle ages) in Japan they’re referring to about 1000-1600. Both battles they have in AoE 2 fit perfectly. Everything before that is either considered 古代 (classical age) or people just refer to them as the specific time period, like Nara. No one would ever call the time of the Yamato kingdom “early middle ages” and “early modern age” is something people might call the Edo-period, but never the Sengoku-jidai.
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I was thinking about the “Ancient Friends”, it could be referred to new campaigns (or scenarios) with some of the original civilizations from AoK or even AoF
That could be interesting 
Isn’t it more important when something happened then who the period is called in that area.
Japan is a new civilisation compared to ancient ones so for them 1000 AD is ancient while for other places it’s not.
The Yamato campaign from AoE1 ends multiple centuries after the Hunic and Gothic campaigns form AoE2.
No.
Definitely not.
Nothing about that is “Ancient”. Ancient is not just a different word for “old”.
That’s not the same.
Are you all using translation and your language doesn’t differentiate between ancient and old?
Something that is only 2 decades is never called ancient unless you want to make it look bad like “Oh your phone is from 2015, that’s ancient!”
I don’t think they want to make jokes about “haha you still play the Teutones, what an ancient civilisation.” makes no sense.
Wanna know that which civ will be one of these" friends" in AOE2 time( Middle Ages)?
As I see it, with the term ancient they mean they are porting some kind of content of feature from historical ancient time into AoE 2. It could be just that some new civs from late antiquity are getting added to the game (very unlikely imo) or maybe they are adding some skin packs to aoe 2 (but is that really something worth putting in a roadmap?).
It could be that they are adding some game mode to AoE 2 that is inspired to the ancient world, but imo it is not that unlikely that they may be trying to create a DLC (with just a few civs) for an alternative version of AoE 2 set instead in the ancient world. Think about AoE 1 setting with AoE 2 gameplay.
More plausible than a lot of the wild-eyed ideas people are floating about porting AoE1 civs into 2.
What is AoF? Age of Franks? Age of Friends? Ancient old Friends?
This makes ~0 sense for an AoE2 DLC. This only makes sense as a mod, or as a remake of AoE1 with more functionalities from AoE2
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They mentioned Dynasties of India and Ancient friends. My inference here is that Dynasties of India was inspired by a Mod Dharma Expansion. They also mention that folks enjoyed this DLC and they are paying attention.
There have been similar efforts of porting or incorporating AoE aka Ancient content into the AoE2 via a Mod.
If both Ancient Friends and DLC comments are related… some sort of concept inspired by mod scene related to Ancient civs is likely in the roadmap.
I think below are all potential possibilities in order from Most to Least likely.
Crossover event related to AoE or AoM?
AoE skins, buildings added in scenario editor?
1-3 new civs that could be considered “ancient” example Vandals and Romans in a limited DLC. This is likely the least disruptive to the time period and easiest to add. Total content would be in line with prior DLCs too.
Port of some or all of AoE to AoE2 game or game engine. If it was added to game, I imagine it would be incorporated thoughtfuly either via a special game mode or some other partition for balance and historical realism. While this sounds amazing, I would be shocked to see them commit the necessary resource to pull this off.
Granted, we could be reading too much into this, but I guess it did spark a lot of conversation and speculation which was likely the desired affect. We are after all talking a lot about the future of AOE 2.
Sure, but the Dharma civs were at least viable additions that didn’t have to go outside the current timeframe, and people had been asking for an India split for many years. I don’t see them prioritizing ancient civs because that would be jarring, and there are a lot of more timeframe appropriate civs that have yet to be added.
Hopefully it’s something like this. Event mods and crossover events seem far too minor to announce 1+ years out, and adding ancient civs seems outside the scope and would just be a weird thing to prioritize, with lots of backlash to be expected.
Would be kind of cool, but don’t see it being prioritized.
Yes, yes, and yes. They dropped the most vague, cryptic hint possible, and people are hypothesizing all these hugely transformative changes. Nothing wrong with a little speculation, but gotta stay grounded, and not expect too much.
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If they do add more to scenario editor that would be a nice win. It also gives folks like me access to a lot of great assets that can be reused in a mod.
Yes
I have no idea why people think they will combine AoE1 into 2.
Event is most likely imo but would be cool for those old campaigns or whatever.
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While new campaigns are very plausible but it makes no sense to word it like that.
Ancient has a very different meaning then the word “old”.
I think those things are unrelated.
I think it referees to just more “normal” AoE2 DLCs. Maybe rework of some other umbrella civilisations.
Plot twist, they have nothing planned and just outsourced the idea finding process to us.
I don’t think that’s likely either. Don’t think it’s impossible though, some people are always angry when they announce new content that it’s not exactly what they wanted. And even if it’s the civilisations they wanted they were surly done wrong.
Also what do you mean with prioritize?
You mean they should wait another n DLCs before doing it? Or you mean you are afraid that they will completely stop adding Medieval Civilisations?
The team surprised us multiple times by adding things no one expected, especially the AoE3DE devs. They’ve been crazy.
AoE3DE has more then twice as many civilisations as AoE2DE if you count all of them.
It would be nice if they’d just add all AoE1DE units to AoE2DE for the editor and let us go wild. This way we can make cool maps without having to use mods.
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This makes ~0 sense for an AoE2 DLC. This only makes sense as a mod, or as a remake of AoE1 with more functionalities from AoE2
which would be a AoE 2 DLC, since it’s based on the exact same game engine…
I mean The Forgotten DLC
Honestly, that’s far from the worst idea, and it works for some novelists.
I mean that it would be weird for them to add civs currently outside the timeline (or on the fringes at best with something like Vandals or Alans) before they’ve added an easy dozen or so civs that fit the timeline and that people are asking for.
I don’t really see how what happens in AoE3, a wildly different game, relates to Age2. The “surprises” of AoE2 have been things like adding more Euro civs than were expected (Burg, Sicilians), or some of the balance changes, not drastically extending the timeline and turning the game into Empire Earth.
Right, just like how if they wanted to make more Star Wars factions, it would make sense for them to be in an AoE2 DLC, since SWGB is based on the exact same game engine…
Ah. I know it wasn’t your first hypothesis, I just don’t see how this fits on any level. Not ancient, no need to “invite”, since FE devs formed the base of the DE team, and none of the FE civs are begging for a split nearly as much as Indians were.
Previously they had said that they wanted to add a separate section for Challenge Scenarios (Mongol Raiders, Barbarossa Brawl, etc). They will add that section including previous scenarios and they will also add a new scenario featuring Ancient Civ from AOE I.
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You have to keep in mind that this forum or reddit doesn’t represent the majority of the playerbase.
I don’t know what the majority of the players think but I don’t think there are many civilisations left to be added that would interest many people.
Yes there are many civilisations with small dedicated fan bases of people that want them to be added but how many of the average AoE2 players care?
I can see why many of the core AoE2 fans would get “angry” when they start adding features that are too “different”. People even hate things like regional skins because they are afraid that the can’t recognise a pikeman anymore when it wears different clothes.
I can’t tell if the average player out there would celebrate an ancient expansion of the game of if the average player would be confused of hate it.
Both are AoE games and both are partially made by the same developer. They don’t exist in a vacuum.
Many people play both games.
You can also clearly see that they inspire each other. Both AoE2 and AoE3 got charge attacks for cavalry recently, both likely because they helped out with AoE4.
AoE2 got less crazy new things compared to AoE3. We have a unique unit that turned into a regional unit (Elephant Archer) or a unit that can change from melee to ranged (Ratha).
Those two things are different things.
Adding ancient civs would make it an Empire Earth.
Adding more ages to all existing civs would. No one expects the Byzantines to get 4 additional Ages added to them because they are no AoE1 Rome too.
In some way they actually did expend the time line in the last DLC.
The history section of the Bengalis unique unit the Ratha says that it went into decline around 300 BC (yes BC not AD) and completely disappeared by 800 AD.
We can’t just rule out everything they haven’t done yet because there is always a first time.
AoE1 is the prequel of AoE2. It takes part in the same world just earlier.
SWGB is a Si-Fi game in a fantasy universe and completely unrelated to AoE2 besides the fast that it shares the engine.
AoE2 even already has a few small AoE1 things in the game like a few editor units or the fact that monks do wololo now.
I could see something like that.
Using AoE1 assets to make fun gamemodes.
Battle Royal already features Roman units but they aren’t from AoE1 though.
I could see them make something similar but actually use AoE1 assets.
Assuming “ancient friends” means AoE1 because AoEO seems unlikely and what else is actually ancient and not just “old”.
I’m pretty sure you could do a lot of civs in the medieval era that will interest people. Caucasus, Africa, Asia, maybe America, I imagine they would all be popular choices.
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Armenians are ancient civilization.
Romans (mix of late ancient Roman Empire & Papal State) and Armenians - “Ancient” DLC?
Not saying there are no good choices left but there are diminishing returns.
Also something “different” can attract people to the game that aren’t playing it already.
If AoE4 didn’t exist I’d totally be in for an Medieval Expansion of AoE3DE too. I’d still be nice but it would be to much to have 3 Medieval AoEs at the same time.
Not sure how the first one would work. Doesn’t seem that logical to combine them. Papal State training Legionaries?
The Armenians will like come with the Georgians.
Cysion is going to Gamescon. Can we get aoe2 news?
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