Chimus would fit better than Tupis for The Last Chieftains

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Despite my excitement about seeing the Mapuche in the game—not only because I’m from Chile—their inclusion feels somewhat strange due to the lack of a clearly defined “Mapuche Empire.” At the same time, it was a long-requested addition and, more importantly, it opens the door to other tribal-focused civilizations.

However, for The Last Chieftains, I would have preferred to see another empire-like civilization alongside the Mapuche and the Muisca, especially in the context of the necessary Inca rework.

In that sense, the Tupis would be an excellent choice for a tribal-focused DLC, one centered on non-imperial civilizations such as the Iroquois and Maori. The Mapuche are more than justified due to their historical conflicts with the Incas and their role in the broader South American context of the Spanish conquest, something they share not only with the Incas but also with the Muisca. The Tupis faced a similar struggle against Portuguese colonizers, yet their social structure, warfare style, and regional identity fit perfectly with a DLC that emphasizes decentralized, tribal gameplay rather than classic medieval empires.

This approach would require new unique architecture sets, but with Chronicles already expanding the game’s visual identity, this feels like the perfect opportunity to go further—introducing Iroquois Longhouses, Maori Oceanic, and Tupi Jungle architecture sets.

On the other hand, the Chimú would fit perfectly in The Last Chieftains for several reasons:

  • They are already teased in the Incan campaign, making their inclusion feel natural and long-awaited.

  • As a South American civilization, they synergize extremely well with the Muisca, Mapuche, and the reworked Incas, especially now that the Slinger is a regional unit.

  • Their historic coastal location makes them an ideal match for the new naval upgrades and mechanics introduced in the upcoming patch.

From a gameplay perspective, the Chimú could stand out as a naval- and siege-oriented South American civilization. Their unique unit could be the Maceman, inspired by its Age of Empires III counterpart. Since the Tupis already feature two unique units, the Chimú could instead lean into:

  • A strong anti-cavalry infantry unit (such as a specialized spearman), and/or

  • A unique naval unit, reinforcing their coastal identity and differentiating them further from other Andean civilizations.

Overall, this split allows each civilization to shine in the DLC where they thematically and mechanically belong, rather than forcing them into a single, one-size-fits-all expansion.

Hopefully, the Chimú could be added in a future American-focused DLC, perhaps alongside Central American civilizations such as the Purépecha, Zapotecs, or Mixtecs.

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Would be nice. Hopefully this DLC fares well and we’ll get the civs you suggest as well.

I honestly don’t mind Tupis, and I hope they have their own voice line. One thing I like is that Tupi opens up the path like you said for civs like Maori and Haudenosaunee, so in this sense, it’s an excellent addition.

If they would have added Chimu, a civ I also really want to see, I think the likeliness to get Maori would be lower. Though the AOE franchise so far has never officially covered Oceanian civs, even though it’s a region with in my opinion a lot of potential.

I just hope they continue with those types of DLC (3 new uncovered civs from new regions in the expanded time frame of AOE2 + new voice lines + interesting new civ boni, building, units + unique voice lines).I don’t know if you have seen those, but /u/Asleep-Emotion9161 posted some really cool Andean DLC concepts and graphics on the AOE2 Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/1q5y10q/proposal_last_new_american_sub_region_andes/

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As good as Chimu are from a civcrafting and originality perspective (I think “water Aztecs” could be a good way to sum them up), there are two problems you have to consider:

  1. The Chimu language is extinct and there is just a nonprofit trying to revive it now. So trying to find someone to say the lines would be problematic. Not that they have not run into that problem before and just used the lines of other civ, but when that happens people also bitch and moan. (In fact, the Muisca language is also extinct, so I wonder how they have dealt with that)

  2. Chimu history is barely recorded, because neither them nor the peoples they interacted with had writing, and the Spanish only ever wrote about them almost a century after the conquest. There are like, only six Chimu rulers recorded, not even half of a typical AI player list. And while you could in theory make a Chimu campaign using their rich archaeology as a base, it would be like 70% fiction, and repeat the last scenarios of the Pachacuti campaign just from a different player’s eyes. Which people would hate, just like people hate the Three Kingdoms campaigns. And you would either have to win against history or win and then offhandedly say that they lost in the closing cinematic. Which people would also hate.

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I hope Oceania civs get added someday. They seem more likely than ever at this point. We could have the Melanesians (representing Fiji, Vanuatu, the Tu’i Pulotu Empire, and the Kingdom of Kaimana in New Guinea), the Micronesians (representing the Yapese Empire, the Saudeleur Dynasty of Pohnpei, Kosrae, and Kiribati), and the Polynesians (representing the Tu’i Tonga Empire, the Tu’i Manua Empire, Hawaii, and Easter Island), collectively covering a large amount of the earth’s surface, comparable almost in size to Europe. They would share a new architecture set (which now is a possibility, yay!). A fourth civ, the Filipinos, could be added to round things out, providing battles against the Malay and the Spanish within the campaign.

Speaking of campaigns, the Polynesians and Micronesians would each get one, but it’s difficult to find any subject matter for a campaign for the Melanesians. To make up for it, they would have several scenarios in an anthology campaign focused around individual islands. One scenario, Kaimana, would have a secondary objective of escorting Gajah Mada when he comes to visit.

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Similar to the Puru civilization?

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I don’t think it had to be either one or the other, but I sympathize with OP and agree that the lack of a Chimú civ is a massive missed opportunity, especially since they went with an Andean theme for architecture and regional units. That said, I think it’s incredibly unlikely that they’ll ever be added – their best opportunity by far was sandwiching them in here to benefit from the broad demographic appeal and name recognition of the chosen civs. No one forced the devs to paint themselves into a corner to where they couldn’t have reasonably included the Chimú here even if it meant exercising some foresight and restraint with previous DLCs, and one in particular.

Most (if not all) complaints I’ve seen about lack of proper voicelines are in the context of languages that are documented well enough that they could be added with a reasonable effort. Generally no one is up in arms about the Huns not speaking Hunnic, nor would they be about the Chimú not speaking Quingnam, as opposed to Gothic or Jurchen/Manchu for their respective civs. If you wanted to have the Chimú speak something other than Quechua, you could go with Muchik, which at least fits their specific region and was a secondary language in parts of the empire.

The number of AI player names is probably the least significant of all possible limitations, but even there you could pad the list with Chimú adjacent leaders - the Lord of Sipán, the Lady of Cao, Fempellec, or even post-Inca conquest regional Chimú rulers - Chumun-Caur, Guaman-Chumu, Ancocuyuch, and Caja-Cimcim. As far as campaigns, there’s much more to work with for the Chimú than say Muiscas, which is probably why they’ve straight up said that it will be heavily based in folklore (and probably part of why they emphasize picking sides as a way to get more mileage out of limited run time). You’d have to fill in some blanks for early Chimú scenarios, but the broad strokes are reasonably well established (foundation, stages of expansion, and early encounters with the Inca including beating them at Paramonga, which is a plausible campaign endpoint. OTOH I’m not insistent that every civ have a full campaign, and honestly a few historical scenarios plus giving an improved finale to the Inca campaign might be enough.

This is very similar to what will have to happen in both the Muisca and the Tupí campaigns. The only “traditional” campaign in the sense of an enduring victory on the civilizational level would go to the Mapuches. The Muisca campaign is about conflicts between different Muisca chiefdoms that end when the Spanish show up and conquer everyone (unless they go for a fictional alternate ending). The Tupí campaign will feature Tupí intertribal warfare (along with French and Portuguese) to gain a local victory, but to the detriment of the coastal Tupís as a whole, segueing into mass assimilation by the Portuguese and/or succumbing to disease or enslavement over the next few decades. Nothing wrong with either of these as campaigns, but IMO they don’t stand out much as being superior to a Chimú campaign from the standpoint of historically appropriate happy endings. In fact descendants of the Chimú royal line persisted past the Inca conquest as local rulers and played roles in the Inca civil war, and sided with the Spanish in the conquest of the Inca (Caja-Cimcim), so in the latter case you could do something like the Tupí campaign by ending on a (fleeting) high note with the Chimú chief reminiscing on former glory, but able to extract some revenge upon an enemy and preserve some of their waning autonomy a little longer. The meat of the Chimú campaign would of course be the foundation, expansion, and conflicts with the Inca.

tl;dr the only reason that matters for why Chimú will not be in this DLC is that the devs didn’t feel like adding them.

Hopefully they at least added some Chimú and Andean editor units for modders and to spice up the Inca campaign – the new unique units can add gameplay variety but aren’t otherwise a close fit for enemies fought in the Inca campaign (especially the 2 Mapuche cavalry UUs, obviously).

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Very good. Except for its looks, Ibiparema Warrior is what I imagined a Chimu UU to be (i.e. an AoE3 Inca Maceman).

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Camaquen is a term for a holy Chimu warrior possessed by 2 souls. It could be something interesting and its a name that doesnt have warrior tacked on at the end like so many units dont need!

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Honestly, its pretty shocking that Chimús aren’t included. They’re the second most important South American civ in a the game’s timeframe imo.

The lack of campaign is not really an arguement because they have potential to have a great campaign. They started a territorial expansion before the Inca invasion and the Chimú-Inca war is definitely worth more than one scenario in Pachacuti. Actually there were some battles with stalemate and Chimú victories. I could imagine the first 2 missions being the territorial expension, 3rd-4th missions about some Chimú-Inca battles and the 5th one being the conquest of Chan Chan and the fall of Chimú Empire.

Overall, I’m still happy with the new civs because I would’ve added them, but after Chimús and Aymaras.

I want to see them, Purépecha, Mixtecs and Mississippians and the Native American region would be very well represented with 10 civs.

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Honestly the more I see the architecture the more I agree

Not because Im against the Tupis on principle, but the Tupis would fit better with the civilizations around the Caribbean, hopefully using an architecture representing the Taino or the Tupi themselves

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What about “Tropical American”?

Shared by Tupi and Carib/Taino.

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Yeah

Altho I think we will nwed a north american architecture at some point so maybe the Taino qill get that

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Yes, I always said that the Tupi and the Mapuche weren’t civilizations that fit well in either the period or the gameplay of AoE 2 (they fit better in AoE 3)…you had other civilizations that did, like the Muisca, the Chimú, the Wari, the Purépecha, the Tlaxcalans, the Puebloans, the Mississippians, etc., etc., etc…

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Yes but what we can do. Tupis and Mapuches will be part of AoE2.

What we can expect is when other tropical civs like the Carib or Taino could have a Tropical American architecture and using that for Tupis.

About the others, absolutely! A DLC with Chimus, Tiwanakus, Zapotecs, Purepechas and Tlaxcaltecs could be dope! The other NA tribal ones like Sioux or Iroquis could have their own DLC, with tepees and longhouses.

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Yes, I agree… also, if they decide to resume development of AoE 3 (something’s brewing on the AoE 3 Steam app), I’d like them to make a TLC DLC for 3 as well…

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The Last Chieftains would have Mapuches, Muiscas and Chimus and the Inca rework.

A tribal DLC would have Tupis/Taino, Carib, Iroquis and Sioux for good.

And another american DLC would be focused on mesoamerican with Zapotecs, Tlaxcaltecs, Purepechas and maybe Tiwanakus/Aymara.

Wari would be another choice but I don’t know.

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Yes, I agree…you have plenty to draw from…

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Agreed, it’s a shame that they didn’t include the Chimu in this DLC.

They could be introduced in a future Andean DLC that includes the Chimu, the Wari, and maybe the Tiwanaku.

Another possibility is that they could be introduced in a future cross-regional DLC that includes the maritime powers of each continent, together with the Venetians, the Swahili, and the Chams.

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Ah, perhaps alongside the inevitable Naval Rework 2 (they’ll realize the first one doesn’t work quite quickly)