What is different about the two? Do they speak different languages or follow different cultures?
Well, yeah, Aragonese is its own separate language as much as Portuguese, although there are not many remaining speakers nowaday and common folks in the Kingdom of Aragon spoke Catalan which is even more different from Castilian. However, I think language differences are not as important as political, military and historical differences, and in those regards the Kingdom of Castille and the Kingdom of Aragon are clearly different entities.
In that case venice should be top contender even though its under Italians.
Well, I think a Mediterranean themed dlc with Venetians and Aragonese would be a good idea… But as I said, not right now.
I admit I don’t know too much about the Aragonese. What are the special achievements they had done? How different would their tech tree and bonus be from the Spanish and the Portuguese?
As far as I learned, the introducing of the Portuguese bases on their activities on the Africa and Asia.
If they hadn’t tried to head to the Far East for the spices, now they probably are covered by the Spanish and the Spanish would be used to represent the whole Christian Iberian nations, no mention the Aragonese.
On the other hand, Venetians is an ole issue. Their tech tree may be quite similar to the Italians. Good at commercial trading, Awesome navy, army basing on archer and gunpowder units, useful cavaliers (Elmeti) and Hussars (Stradiots), etc. I would even like the Croats more than the Venetians in the potential Mediterranean themed dlc. Even if the Croats and Serbs both are the South Slavs and perhaps are represented by 1 common civ.
Anyway a DLC including the Vlach and that South Slavic common civ may earn my support, after filling the blank of the Asia. Although the Swiss is also a good choice but I think the dev introducing the Sicilians in Lords of the West implies they do not support the Swiss actually.
Aragonese were focused on navy, since they expanded across the mediterranean, conquering the Balearic islands, El Cid’s Valencia, and later the Aragonese dynasty replaced the Angevins in Sicily and Southern Italy. By the time Isabella and Ferdinand united Spain, Aragon controlled the Western half of the Mediterranean. That’s why Spain was involved in the Italian Wars in the 16th century.
Castille had no navy to speak of until they took Seville from the Moors.
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So I consider that the current Spanish civ makes sense to represent both Castile and Aragon indeed.
So that the current Spanish civ has the full dock and a navy bonus.
On the other hand, Castile provides the paladins to the Spanish civ.
Well, even if I prefer the free elite cannon galleon upgrade over the faster cannonballs honestly.
I guess theres some people that dont get sarcasm
I just hope they buff underdog civs and melee path finding before doing anything else. Regional skin for units would be awesome as well
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I will prefer to nerf the OP civs first.
I think Spanish and Burmese need a buff before nerfing Aztecs or Chinese
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Why not both?
Nerfing civs almost always makes them more generic (removing or reducing their civ bonuses) while buffing weak civs often makes them more unique. There is a serious risk of every civ playing the same if balance is achieved just by nerfs.
I realize these are very general statements, and exceptions do exist. For example the recent Viking nerf to remove Thumb Ring did result in them being more unique to play, since they are encouraged to make infantry in castle age instead of crossbows like so many other civs (I personally don’t like this change since it makes Vikings Imperial Age options extremely limited, but technically it does make them less generic).
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Then whats the point of buffing weaker civs if the OP ones will stay as is, dominating the same settings, whats the point of buffing Magyars if Franks do a stronger Knight rush?, or Vietnamese/Italians if Britons/Mayans still reign over TGs? As long as those civs keep the unfair advantages there’s no point on buffing civs, because the OP ones will always be picked 100% of the time.
Is time to do more nerfs than buffs let’s face it.
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I’d say keep the S tier untouched. Franks and Mayans are strong, but IMO not overpowered or unfair. I’m not impressed with Britons, I played a game with them after playing Ethiopians and the slow firing rate of Britons is a very clear weakness.
Vietnamese seem to be doing well in the hands of pros, but I wouldn’t mind seeing a small buff there to balance them for the majority of players. It wouldn’t take much for Magyars to be equal to Franks, free blacksmith attack upgrades is at least as strong as free farm techs. Maybe they could use a buff to the Scout discount to be equal to Franks’ berry bonus in the early game (20% like Berbers or even 25% since it’s only one unit type?).
Overall balance is pretty good these days, just a few more tweaks needed. My preference would be to add new things to the underdogs until they can compete with the strong civs.
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Franks are fine in 1v1 but broken in TGs, Mayans… pros consider the civ just too strong.
Britons are more balanced than the first two but the extra range is quite oppressive in TGs, basically outranging everything.
Oh, you’re talking team games, I meant mostly 1v1 balance. I agree there are some balance issues in TG’s. This seems almost inevitable, if civs are balanced in 1v1 with limited resources then something will certainly go wrong when they are given infinite gold.
Maybe the necessary nerf is to market trading, bringing team game balance closer to that of 1v1. It would give civs with good trash units a chance to shine (where trash is generally avoided in the current TG meta) and could make relic wars more interesting (these seem to be ignored often since long term gold income is easy).
Edit: To be clear I’m not really recommending nerfing market trading. I suspect many players care more about the fun of endlessly spamming gold power units than they do about perfect civ balance in TG’s. I mean it more as a hypothetical solution if TG balance was a major priority.
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Something new about the advertised Roadmap for AOE 2 DE?
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No, nothing new that I know of.
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AOEIV is getting a roadmap next week. AOE2:DE still nothing. No news. What’s going on devs? 
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