I fully support this idea if they remove the dumb censorship in chat first. They still after all this time have not done this or made it optional so even if this aoe1de into aoe2de gets made I would not buy it. If I can’t communicate properly with other people screw DE, FE and their management.
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I listed India as a subcontinent not a civilisation.
Maurya is also a good choice but Harappa is must have.
Maps
All AoE1DE maps should get ported to AoE2DE.
If you play the ancient civilisations in matchmaking you only get those maps.
The maps still have Artefacts and Ruins like in AoE1DE but no Relics.
Artefact
Now generates Gold like Relics (0.5 Gold/second).
The number now scales with map size like Relics.
Ruins
Now generate Gold and Stone but at half rate (0.25 Gold/second and 0.25 Stone/second).
The number also scales with map size now.
Relics
If an AoE1 civs plays on an AoE2 map it will encounter Relics instead of Artefacts and Ruins.
Priest can pick up Relics and store them in Temples where they trickle Gold.
Victory though Relics is also possible.
Alternative Balance
It would make sense to limit the AoE2 civilisations to Castle Age when making a crossover Scenario so that thee won’t be any Gunpowder units.
But then the Iron Age AoE1 civilisations would be much stronger.
Maybe it would make more sense to balance Iron Age with Castle Age instead of Imperial Age so a fully upgraded AoE2 civilisation is always stronger.
The base line Iron Age units would be balanced against the Castle Age units and the “Super Units” would be balanced against the Base Line Imperial Age units.
I’m only going to list a few example units here.
Legion
Old
- 35 Food 15 Gold
- 140 HP → 80 HP
- 13 attack
- 2/0 armour
New
- 35 Food 15 Gold
- 70 HP
- 9 attack
- 2/0 armour
The HP would be higher then both Long Swordsman and Two-Handed Swordsman (both 60 HP) but the attack would be the same as the Long Swordsman (9 attack) instead of Two-Handed Swordsman (12 attack).
The Legion is also cheaper with just 15 Gold instead of 20 Gold and 35 Food instead of 45 Food (with Supplies).
Catapract
Old
- 70 Food 80 Gold
- 240 HP → 150 HP
- 12 attack + 7 vs. Infantry
- 5/3 armour
New
- 70 Food 80 Gold
- 120 HP
- 10 attack + 5 vs. Infantry
- 5/3 armour
Now they have the HP of a Cavalier (120) and the attack of a Knight (10) but still more armour then Paladin (2/3). They also still have bonus damage against Infantry.
But they cost more then a Knight so they can be a little stronger.
Heavy Horse Archer
Old
- 50 Food 70 Gold
- 90 HP
- 8 attack
- 0/1 armour
New
- 50 Food 70 Gold
- 50 HP
- 7 attack
- 0/1 armour
Now they have the HP of the normal Cavalry Archer (50 HP) but the attack for the Heavy Cavalry Archer (7 attack). They still cost a little more +10 Gold and +10 Food (compared to Wood).
Because attack is more important then HP for this kind of unit it’s probably practically closer to the Heavy Cavalry Archer. The higher costs makes them a little less strong though.
General thoughts
As always those numbers are just my thoughts. I didn’t make a mod to test them or run any kind of simulation on them. They are not supposed to be perfect but only show what could be done to make it somewhat balanced.
This approach was made with the idea in mind that the ancient civilisations are weaker on purpose. This would be useful for scenarios where the AoE2 civilisations are supposed to be stronger or are limited to Castle Age.
For multiplayer this would also be a nice alternative to using the normal Handicap. It’s useful if there is a know skill difference between players, asymmetry team sizes or generally for Player vs. AI.
You have to remember that most AoE players are not playing competitive. Options like that would give those players more things to play with to mix things up in interesting ways.
For those who want to play competitive there is still the option to play AoE1 civilisations vs. AoE1 civilisations and AoE2 civilisations vs. AoE2 civilisations.
Ok. Now I get it. I thought you listed it as a civ but turns out you listed it as a region rather than a civ. You probably could’ve made the labels ‘India’ and ‘Europe’ have something special in their words to make them distinct from the civ names. Now I do agree that Harappan is a must to have because that happens to be the Indus Valley Civilization. Now when it comes to unit conversions, I do hope the Crossbowman would be converted into the Improved Bowman with the Archer being converted into the Bowman.
If AoE1 would be imported to AoE2 I would keep them as separate game mod, so AoE1 civs cant fight against AoE2 civs. Then there is no need for massive unit rebalance and to make AoE1 units so much similar to Aoe2 units.
I said it should be a separate gamemode.
I just want the option to have crossplay even if it’s not balanced because not everyone is a pro gamer that needs perfect balance.
It would be a massive lost opportunity if all of AoE1 is added to AoE2DE but it is kept completely separate.
2 Likes
not sure if you guys seen this, this is the closest thing to porting AOE1 to AOE2 ROMAE AD BELLUM - (RAW:E) Rome at War Expansion Concept
We talked about that in a different thread already, you can’t remember.
I’ve seen that mod and it looks awesome.
But it’s something very different.
are the aoe1 civs missing or whats different? or different as in mechanics etc
iirc aoe2 engine builds off of aoe1 but with some obvious improvement so shouldnt be that much different
The mod doesn’t try to recreate anything from AoE1, the mod just uses some AoE1 sprites.
The mod starts in the Iron Age while AoE1 ends in Iron Age. The mod is only late Antiquity and it tries to make AoE2 like gameplay that includes still having castles for example.
It’s more like trying to fill the gap between AoE1 and AoE2.
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@Skadidesu you could consider implementing some of this on your own via a Mod. Happy to collaborate and share assets/knowledge too if it makes this more attainable. You have the outline and vision.
It’s not possible to add additional civilisations to AoE2DE, right?
Because unless that’s possible my idea can’t work.
Plus some other details like the Storage Pit can’t work.
I don’t believe so. Mods primarly replace or substitute existing civs and their strings/names and graphics. You can add new graphics but I often run into limitations as I need to repurpose a string, unit icon, or even menu realestate to build/train. Others may have had more success with adding strings. I know there is a method to add icons but have not done it myself. I don’t believe I have seen a way to add civs yet.
With that said, you can do a lot with mods even with those limitations, and they are fairly quick to enable disable. As you likely know, a DAT mod can be toggled on off in game. UI usually require a restart of game for full affect, but it’s not a huge quality of life issue.
With as many civs as there are now in the game, you do have a lot of canvas to work with. My challenge is asset creation at the moment. The DE graphics are crisp and building destruction animations are tedious to produce. Units are more manageable (can produce 1-2 a month from concept to production).
Oh there are even more limitations then I though.
The core idea of my proposal is to have all of AoE2DE and all of AoE1DE available at the same time in the same match. Not just being able to switch outside of the match.
So what I want is inherently impossible with mods.
It does not sound like a bad idea, but it would require too much work, leaving us without expansions for months; that’s why I prefer that they improve the 1 DE just …
Of course, the pathfinding of AoE 1 is disastrous, so instead I prefer to play AoE Online…
And I would add to it trading resources in the market…
Well that is impossible too, even with an expansion. Matches are up to 8 players. There are far more civs available to work with than 8. I think its a reasonable limitation that still affords the player a lot of options.
The alternative is to sit here waiting for someone to build something they never will. My mod is something I wanted the devs to make since 2003. Nearly 20 years later, after many titles, expansions, and DLC’s I am still waiting;)
You may get lucky and the Devs could see this along with content that others have asked for, and release some version of it… I am hoping they do. The DE releases were awesome to see come to fruition, including Medi Architecture, Roman buildings like Arch of Constantine, Amphitheater, Colosseum, and Legionary. However, again ALL that was created by Modders before the Devs took on the task.
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Now by the way, it’s not just units that would be converted and technologies too as well. For example, the Chemistry technology can most certainly become it’s AoE1 counterpart, Alchemy and the technologies, Redemption and Atonement can both be combined into one technology to become the Monotheism technology.
It doesn’t sound like a bad idea, they might even bring Bruce Shelley back…
And let them say it…