The epilogue clearly says the next chronicles dlc, if there is any, will be about Alexander the great. So I’m assuming (i hope) one of the new civs will represent the various kingdoms of the Indus valley.
If we can make elephants, I wish they would be not only reskined (like the paladin->imperial cavalry), but also rebalanced to show better the strength (and the price) of elephants during antiquity.
In aoe2, an Asian elephant is only 25% more expensive than a knight, and only 60% more food. The mighty Persian war elephant is not even twice as expensive as a knight. From what I’ve found online, a horse eats around 10kg of food, while an elephant eats around 200kg a day.
It’s fine for aoe2 balance, especially since elephants are already very snowbally. But since chronicles civs are not intended for ranked, I think it would be cool if their elephant were more expensive, a bit like in aoe4 (but not with the extra pop cost please). Something like 400 food 200 gold, or even more food. With stronger stats of course. I don’t think it would be op, at least compared to other things in chronicles.
For context: at the battle of the hydaspes, Indians had something like one elephant for every ten cavaliers and every 100 infantry. At the battle of Ipsus it was even less.
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Making the elephant very strong could be counterbalanced by making it take several pops slots, but it would also need being balanced vs monks as having one converted would be especially punishing.
Another idea would be having the base elephant melee-only while it can garrison some archers on his howdah, then allowing ranged fire. Making it more expensive for it to reach its true power.
Sadly AOE doesn’t have mechanism for the elephant to run amok, which is a big liability in real life. Making them often underwhelming the minute they lose their calm and trample their own lines (expertly used by Tamerlane, and by the time the British and French were in India the widespread use of guns made elephants barely worth noticing in the battle reports)
It’s not perfect logic, but for me converting elephant units is sort of them running amok.
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Close but to really do that, it would need having them be converted to a third-party AI player hostile to everyone, mostly focusing on units (ignoring buildings if units are within sight) then after some random time being reverted to its original owner, with that conversion triggered randomly when there are enough stimuli around it (shots from some weapons, flaming camels…)
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Cavalry is inherently more pop-efficient than infantry, but it also needs more villagers on food, so overall I things it’s well balanced.
You could give elephants a second life, like konniks, so when all their hp/moral is depleted they turn into a gaia unit (with less hp probably)
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Keyword “If”
I don’t think Chronicles will ever expand beyond Greece much.
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Elephants are just around the corner in any case.
Unless adding less famous city-states (maybe give the Theban unique unit, the Sacred Band, an attack bonus when attacking an unit from behind, if you know you know 
), the obvious move would be doing the next one about Alexander who faced elephants in India and possibly the Diadoches (Seleucids and Lagids notably) who fielded some.
After that, Rome and Carthage, though north african elephants were smaller.
Elephants running amok wasn’t all the time, so overall maybe there should be an invisible bar filling with nearby damage (and lowering with time) representing the elephant’s mental state. If the bar is full, he goes amok until the bar is empty.
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Speaking of Chronicles and elephants, the PS5 trailer includes a brief scene featuring Immortals and War Elephants. Might not be intended to hint at anything, just to look cool.
That would be disappointing. I’d love to see ancient South Asian, North African, and Western/Central European (“barbarian”) architecture. Maybe there will even be an ancient East Asian set for the Han plus appropriate voice lines, would also be more fitting for the 3K. And ancient Roman architecture, of course.
Remember the creators of that DLC are Romanophilic. You can expect them to create another Roman civ next. Their mod contained 2 different Roman civs for Empire and Republic respectively.
Don’t expect them to return to China again anytime soon. Neither get your hopes high for Africa and India. You are staging yourself a disappointment.
For me Greeks and Romans feel identical whatever others may say. Chronicles is most likely to limit itself to this area only.
With the amount of players screaming for a proper medieval chinese DLC it would be a very set bet. But indeed, not in Chronicles.
East asian civs were already added in AOE1 for a cashgrab reason while the devs first wanted to focus on the eastern Med + fertile crescent…
I mean, during Alexander’s conquests the “greek”/Macedonian area reaches the Indus.
It’s not like you need that many civs to represent this period: Macedonians, Persians you already have them, perhaps indians, Egyptians or whatever steppe people you want to include.
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Egypt was part of the persian empire and saw Alexander as a liberator so you won’t need to fight them.
So Macedonians, Indians and Scythians.
Egypt would be relevant later as the Lagids (alongside the Seleucids)
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Civs in Chronicles are based on specific states/dynasties. I’m not sure how they’ll handle that, but I guess there’ll be a civ called Macedonians representing Alexander’s kingdom/empire, and then separate civs for the successor states/dynasties.
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Macedonia for Alexander then the successor Antigonid kingdom that was crushed at Cynocephalae (still called Macedonia and using the same core lands). The Seleucids and Lagids as different civs, in no small part because they used a different unit roster relying to a large degree on local troops (to clarify : NOT Bronze Age units for Egypt as they are portrayed in Rome TW…), possibly Epirus too, which could have a double-edged bonus of stronger units but harder to replenish, to make your victories more… pyrrhic (drumroll)
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Easiest way to check is to look at the original mod. The only Alexander successor state added was the Seleucids (oh hey, elephants).
There were also a myriad of South Asian civs added as well. So getting at least one in isn’t off the table.
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Carthage and Epirus also used elephants, from North Africa. Smaller than indian elephants though.
Sure. I just don’t think we should be expecting them in the next installment.
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Yes it would be the second or third depending on their plans. First Alexander then it depends on what they do with the Diadochi.
In any case that’s quite a few likely civs that have elephants.
My bet is:
Alexander and his Foes DLC:
- Add Macedonians, Seleucids, Mauryans
- First third focuses on Alexander verses the Achaemenids on various fronts, his battles in India Afghanistan and Pakistan. Next third is the Diadochi Wars with a focus on the Seleucids. Finishing with the last third on the Mauryans, their wars with the Seleucids and their push to conquer India.
Rise of Rome (again)
- Add Roman Republic, Carthaginians and an unknown third
- Focus on early Rome and it stabalising itself. Along with playing as Hannibal for the Carthaginians.
Struggle for Rome
- Add Imperial Rome, Egyptians and either Gauls or Britons
- Focus on Julius Caesar for the first part, then switch to Antony & Cleopatra for the Egyptians.
It becomes harder to predict as you go, as some players are important, but not sure how to add them into part of the story. It’s really hard to exclude an Indian civ when adding Alexander, or else you basically cut out the last third of his story.
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