I was finishing the campaign of Alexander the Great, it was really well done.
However, I didnt enjoy it as much as I did enjoy the Aoe2 campaigns. I thought a while about that, and it became more clear to me:
It is most fun to play campaigns that are yes history, but also have some kind of relation to you. Meaning, I loved to especially play the european campaigns, where I have some kind of relation to most of the historical figures such as Jean D’arce or Barbarossa, or I guess indian people will have with their figures.
All the names and places I encounter in Alexander are fine, but so far that it is less related and then yes, less fun for me.
So I would ask the developers to really include more of the “recent” times and “origin” AoE2 compatible characters. Give us campaigns with Martin Luther, Columbus, Arthus, Charlemagne, the Anglos and Lüthens, Erasmus von Rotterdamm, Wilhelm Oranien, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and so many more.
What would he do, other than nail the 95 Theses, go into hiding in Wartburg Castle, write scathing and vulgar remarks about other Christians, condemn the Jews, and get executed as a heretic?
Martin Luther wasn’t a military leader, his campaign would just be going to the nearby monastery, cause it 1 point of damage by nailing some paper on the door, then having quite a lot of religious trials about what was written on it. You could turn it into a joke : nail the 95 theses, then sit back on a lounge chair, grab a cocktail and some popcorn and watch the entire HRE burn as a result. The wars caused by the reformation would have a lot of material, however the issue is it’s AOE3’s territory, AOE2 ends around 1500 in Europe because Europe has a military revolution (medieval tactics replaced by pike and shot, star forts…).
Colombus too wouldn’t have much to do, a campaign about Cortez or Pizzaro would have much more meat on the bone. You could make both but Pizzaro would feel so much like a remake of Cortez (he used the exact same strategy that his cousin used against the Aztecs) that it would feel like terrible lazy writing
How about a Rise of the Spanish Empire campaign ? Mission 1 : fall of Granada. Mission 2 : Columbus discovers the New World and settles in the Caribbean. Mission 3 and 4 : Cortez. Mission 5 and 6 : Pizzaro.
But indeed “big” civs would need more campaigns about them.
‘We’ being Europeans I guess. This seems like more of an individual preference sort of thing. Personally I like antiquity, regional or temporal relation are not a draw for me.
Some would argue that the game already has a lot of European focus, most of the factions and campaign focus on that already. Rumours are south America will finally get some attention next, maybe they will return to Europe someday, it is pretty popular.
And for campaigns, the only part of the muslim conquests that we have is the sideshow in Spain, not the main Rashidun fight against the Persians and Byzantines. While it’s one of the biggest game changers of the entire Middle Ages.
you could do a lot there. He was captured and brought to the castle, thats one mission. Another one is the defeat of the uproar of the farmers - yes, not very virtuos, but there are other missions like that (like Alexander has to kill all fleeing villagers from a city). Then the Schmalkaldisch war, and there are more protestant wars in 15xx, like the war of the Württemberg Baron against Habsburg. There would be more than enough wars for a proper Martin Luther campaign.
You can enjoy a campaign without having any connection to a civ. Realistically the civs I’m linked to are the Franks Burgundians Teutons and Romans (not the Celts who are insular Celts, while the Gauls were quickly assimilated into the Gallo-Romans so they count as Romans, themselves assimilated into the Franks if we count in AOE2 civs), maybe a tiny bit of Vikings Goths and Huns but the list is short. I want a Chinese campaign about the An Lushan Rebellion.
That’s kind of a strange way to look at history. You don’t inherit historical figures through your DNA. Barbarossa or Luther didn’t raise your ancestors, and none of us are shaped by some mystical “gene memory.” History isn’t about “our people” in that personal sense, it’s about what humans did, not what our bloodline did.
If anything, the fun part of campaigns like Alexander or any non-European one is stepping outside that bubble and seeing the world through another culture’s lens. That’s the point of a global history game, not a family scrapbook.
I can see three obvious problems with this approach to choosing campaign protagonists:
The AoE2 playerbase seems to be pretty international, so it’s unclear whose culture’s history the devs should prioritise.
Within any given cultural group, different members of that group will feel a relation or attachment to different historical figures.
Some players don’t care about, or even actively don’t want, to play campaigns related to their culture’s history.
I suppose your answer is that you want the devs to prioritise your culture’s history. Which is fine, you’re obviously entitled to ask for that – but the way you’ve phrased it (particularly the sentence I quoted), it seems like you imagine the entire playerbase to be made up of Germanic Protestants.
That’s not really how genes work, since inheritance is essentially random and your number of ancestors increases exponentially for every generation you go back. Sure, some of your genes might have come from Charlemagne, but any affinity you feel for him will be purely cultural.
For me it’s Britons, Celts, Vikings, and arguably Goths (since they have an Anglo-Saxon unique unit). Meanwhile my favourite official campaigns are Attila the Hun, Kotyan Khan, and Le Loi. I’m not bothered about Edward Longshanks – it’s fine, I suppose, but the fact that he and I are both English doesn’t increase my enjoyment of it.
Campaigns are, above else, meant to be fun, as you said.
However, if we go by whats fun, civ variety and diversity of scenarios whobfit the game should be the priority. 90% of your ideas would be repetitive RPG scenarios with little action or fighting the same civ over and over with civs we already played as many maby times before
And personally, beyond gameplay reasons, I think getting to know the history of as maby diverse cultures as posible is way more fun than overfocusing in a few ones.
As for Jeanne d’Arc, the campaign is quite bland, though it has the excuse of being the first one made in AOE2 and the first one players were supposed to play after the tutorial so it has excuses, no one would expect it to reach the level of Jadwiga (meanwhile the only part of me that’s Polish are the pierogi I ate 2 years ago). If I had to rank all campaigns objectively it wouldn’t be in the upper half.
