As you know, ROR will feature campaigns for Sargon of Akkad, Pyrrhus of Epirus and Trajan, all of them solid choices.
However, since all the power of the AOE2 editor will be unlocked, all the tools will be there for making more. Some are obvious picks on the top of the list, like Cyrus Alexander and Caesar, but some key civs are missing to do them justice (Scythians Indians and Gauls notably), so who else would you see as a great campaign ?
I’ll start with something big, bold, and with some room for improvisation as records were conveniently erased : the Bronze Age Collapse
Around 1200 ACN, the mysterious Sea Peoples fell upon the Fertile Crescent and destroyed most of the existing empires, only Egypt managing to survive the onslaught. The rest entered a dark age for a few centuries, until a new generation of empires could arise.
In this vandalism extravaganza, you play as the Sea Peoples. Diplomacy is not an option, and resistance is futile.
Egyptians: Sethi I and Ramesses II would probably be obvious choices
Persians: Obviously Cyrus II, as you mentioned, though Ardashir I and Shapur I could also work for instance (as well as rulers of the Arsacid dynasty if Parthians aren’t made into their own faction)
Babylonians: Assuming the original campaigns aren’t remade, Hammurabi or Nebuchadnezzar II
Greeks: Probably Pericles or maybe Leonidas, but the list of possible candidates is endless
Macedonians: Philip and Alexander would obviously be the main choices, but quite a few of the diadochi could be cool too…
Romans: Aside from Caesar, we have Scipio Africanus, Gaius Marius, Augustus, Aurelian and many others. Making a full list is impossible.
Shang: I know the civ is named after a dynasty from the 2nd millenium BC, but a campaign in the Three Kingdoms period would be cool.
Carthaginians: Hannibal without a doubt (or the Barcid family in general)
A large mercenary company hired to “solve” a succession crisis in the Achaemenid Empire. Very limited resources, and having to balance getting resources through some side quests (you’re swords to hire after all) and time as you are not strong enough to face the main persian armies.
I’ll be making my own RoR campaigns for sure.
I hope we can access as much assets from both games as possible.
Would be cool to have a campaign that switches from AoE1 to AoE2 half way though.
Mixing units and buildings would be widely unbalanced as AOE1 units have much stronger stats, the legion (equivalent to the champion) has similar stats to the paladin.
There are much fewer units in AOE1 than AOE2 and unit classes are pretty much the same (at most you’d need adding a chariot class if it doesn’t already exist in AOE2), standardising the armour classes with AOE2 doesn’t seem to be a herculean task.
Nope, the armour classes are completely different.
Units never have bonus damage they instead use negative armour for that.
Unless they changed that for RoR.
Some units have attack bonuses, looking randomly at units, cataphracts have +7 vs light infantry, while indeed the composite bowman has -2 archer armour.
Such system already exists, some units already have a class armour, +16 cav armour for the elite cataphract (making it near immune to anti-cav units).
No, the Cataphract does 0 vs Infantry, just all Infantry have -7 Infantry Armour.
The Wiki just uses positive numbers because that makes more sense for players.
Cavalry does -2 and Heavy Cavalry does -1 vs. Infantry.
It’s of course possible that they changed that for RoR and used a more AoE2 like system with positive bonus damage and avoiding negative armour.
Except for buildings that should have 5x hp to get rid of that x1/5 multiplier, the formula remains the same for AOE2. We’ll need to wait and see if they did change armour classes, though given the difference in unit stats there probably won’t be any cross-compatibility anyway.
There won’t be cross play that is confirmed.
But what units will be available in the Scenario Editor.
It would be nice to have some of the AoE2 units in AoE1 (and the other way round) like the Celtic, Gothic and Hunnic unique unit.
Plot twist: it’s narrated by Tomyris, and in the last scenario you play as Massagetae and have to kill Cyrus. If I recall correctly, Herodotus says they didn’t have iron, but had plenty of bronze and gold – so you would have a strong economy, but be stuck in the Bronze Age against an Iron Age enemy.
Well since a civ has finally been added to AOE1 since 25 years, the floodgates are open, provided ROR has decent enough sales. If you want a civ that was good for light horse archers, similar to the Huns or the Mongols, the Scythians are THE top choice for the period.
I’ve also heard the story that after killing Cyrus, Tomyris had his skull made into a drinking cup, which whould start a trend. She could introduce the story by showing her drinking cup to tell the man that Cyrus was.
“he was the greatest emperor of his time, knowing when to be strong and when to be merciful, and built the greatest empire of his day. And now here he is, with his successor powerless to do anything about it”
Similar to the priest talking about his skull in Attila the Hun, except the skull was the exact opposite of a nobody’s skull.
