Likely marketing is laser-focused on AoM:R right now. So I don’t see a chance of anything being mentioned until it’s been out for a few weeks.
Concepts other than new offerings are able to be communicated.
If they said something like “we are committed to aoe2, there is future content in the pipeline, but non-technical staff are being temporarily re-assigned to AoM ahead of its launch, expect fewer balance changes until AOM is released, tho bug fixes will continue” how would that make them look worse.
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Not if they just told us outright that there is nothing to show at the moment, but to expect something in the near future. Transparency is always a good thing, and obfuscating the truth will always result in some kind of backlash from consumers.
This is pretty much the same as saying nothing. Players are stupid but not when it comes to bitching.
DE doesn’t even have many mods like HD.
Developers didn’t give enough support.
Steam Workshop was 10x better than Ageofempires/mods
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Communication has always been one of the main problem with this game. We rarely got any news, and when we do it’s often too little, to late, or entirely misleading. It’s really something the team should get better at.
Eh! I don’t hate the idea, but as much as I’d like more American civs I think we could pick specifically a set of civs that could/should have been included in previous dlc, with a limitation to one civ per dlc. So we could have for instance:
the Conquerors: Zapotecs OR Purepechans/Tarascans, most likely the former if they rework the first two scenarios in Montezuma to include his historical early conquests rather than fights with people who had already been subjugated by the Aztecs
the Forgotten: Tibetans OR Lombards, two civs that were considered and ultimately replaced with Indians and Italians; Alternatively, Chimu so the Pachacuti campaign would be less mirrory
tAK: Soninke, Nubians OR Swahilis, as each of them already appear in one of the dlc’s campaigns already
RotR: Siamese/Tai, no real competition, there are other interesting civs to add in the region but they’re the one missing the most
tLK: Khazars, Pechenegs OR Uzbeks
LotW: Aragonese OR Venitians
DotD: Vlachs/Romanians, possibly with an update to Dracula’s campaign
DoI: Kannadigas, Kalingas/Odias OR Afghans (the list could be longer, tbh)
RoR: Vandals OR Saxons
tMR: Khazars, Alans OR Azeris
Obviously it would only be a select few, 5 civs in one dlc would already be unprecedented for DE (though I guess they could make an effort for an anniversary), hoping for more would be unreasonable.
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I thought about adding civs from the following regions in one large DLC that would fill the gaps:
- America - the three strongest candidates to perfectly represent the cultures of Mesoamerica and the Andes: Tarascans, Chimú and Muisca.
- Southeast Asia - The Siamese are the strongest and most desirable candidate not only from their region but also from all of Asia. SEA with the addition of Siamese civ would be well represented.
- MENA - The Mamluks would be the representation of African Arabs. Saracens would receive a small rework to represent the typical Middle East.
I left out West Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Bantu peoples because I would see these three regions as separate DLCs. The West African DLC would add natural rivals for the Malians and the Horn of Africa DLC would add natural rivals for the Ethiopians. The Bantu peoples would be completely new in AoE 2, so they especially deserve their own DLC with a completely new Bantu Architecture Set.
Apart from that, there are only Europe and Asia left, where you can easily create standard DLCs.
The ugly illogically sized buildings, cartoonish terrains and monotonous tones all over are an eyesore and a turn off.
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They should make it easier to mod the unit models/building sprites. Modders could make variations of the existing assets more easily. That would enliven the modding scene.
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But the question is how will they make it easier?
I reckon if there was any planned DLC this year it would have been announced at the mobile event earlier since 3DEs DLC was…in the most awkward and underwhelming way possible mind you.
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There should be atleast one last expansion sized DLC that will include 4 civs and bunch of campaigns as final update to the game
Modders would have to learn how to use programs like Blender, which are not that hard to use. The real struggle is converting the assets into the various SLD or SLX files. The devs killed much of the modding scene by forcing multiple mods for UI and Data, limiting the upload speeds and file sizes, save chapter bug, constant custom lobby crashes, and not allowing hotkey profiles in data mods, just to name a few.
You can have hotkey profiles in data mods by the way.
The Portuguese campaign basically screams these.
Same here.
A single non-Persians iranian civ as an umbrella would fill a lot of slots in the campaigns, including the ones that happen before the fall of Rome. Another early germanic civ would also be nice considering how inconsistently they are currently being represented, even though this role is theoretically already being filled by the Goths.
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I know, but you have to remake them for each data mod. Most people hate having to redo that each time.
Massive hopium. They’re currently focus on AOM Retold doubt they’ll have something for aoe 2 these upcoming months.
Agreed, unlike the Soninke and Nubians in the other campaigns they only appear in one scenario, but it’s also the only one in this campaign actually taking place in Subsaharan Africa, which make its ties to the dlc’s theme very loose.
Well, Alans would be a good candidate to represent Eastern Iranians especially in the Early Middle Ages, although the Persian design is still heavily inspired from the Sassanians so if you want to represent pre-Islamic Persia separately from the Safavids you will need a full split.
Well, the Goths as they are are not really good at representing the Vandals (or even at representing historical Goths, tbh), so there’s that. In a sense, they work better for the Saxons, although a Saxon civ with no stone walls sounds a bit nonsensical to me.
Plus, the Swahili Coast was a massive trade hub for the Middle East, India, and China, so it’s not like it’s an isolated civ with no connections to anyone else.
The Alans could represent both Western Alans (who allied with the Vandals) as well as Eastern Alans, who formed the Kingdom of Alania. They could also represent the Sarmatians, their direct ancestor.
I think if the devs were to introduce a brand-new Caucasian architecture set, the Alans could receive this set, making it not a one-off set.
It would be interesting if there were a Saxon civ that represented pre-Norman Anglo-Saxons, which the Britons poorly represent at the moment. They would also represent mainland Saxon pirates, so they’d probably have a fairly good navy, though without any bonuses.
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And Scythians, maybe