First impressions of the 3 Kingdoms DLC

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Some positives first.

The Chinese finally got the gunpowder they deserved. Fire Lancers, Rocket Carts, Lou Chuans, these make the civ more flavorful.

Then many civs gain spiffy new castles, monks, and monasteries.

That’s it.

Next come the negatives.

  1. Starting from RoR, the decision makers are running around like headless chickens.

The dev seem to be constantly overturning what they have done in the past.
Before, when they released RoR, people were asking why not release the content into AoE1DE instead.
Then, when they released Chronicles, people asked why not release the content into RoR instead.
Now, when they released 3 Kingdoms, people are asking why not release the content into Chronicles instead.
It’s like there’s no long-term plan, always trying and giving up. Then the medieval theme that AoE2 has clearly adhered to for the past 25 years has been repeatedly harmed until this time it was completely destroyed.

  1. Traditions were broken completely and without excuse.

Over the past 25 years, this game has established at least 2 good, clear and famous classic traditions:

  • The time frame is from the 4th to the 16th century, so it has appealed to people who love medieval themes for so long.
  • The definition of civilization is based on nationalities, ethnicities and homogeneous cultures that had a same historical context, rather than individual political entities such as dynasties, empires, kingdoms, chiefdoms, city-states, clans, tribes, etc.

At the beginning, people worried about the Burgundians and Sicilians, but at least we understand that they also uniquely represent the ancient Germanic Burgundians, the Low Countries, and the special Italo-Norman culture.

Later, people doubted the Romans, but we can still defend them by saying that they did exist until the 5th century and are an integral part of the beginning of the Middle Ages.

Later, people were surprised to see the introduction of Athenians, Spartans and Achaemenids who were clearly not part of the AoE2 time frame and based on the specific city-states, but we can still convince each other to tolerate them because they were spin off contents rather than part of the main game.

This time, there is no longer any excuse. They use the 3 Kingdoms contents that should be spun off as the main of the DLC, while the contents in the DLC that are truly suitable for AoE2 seem to be incidental since they have nothing to do with the 3 Kingdoms. It might be too much but frankly was my first impression, that is, the game is disrespected by their own developers.

The developers themselves opened Pandora’s box. From now on, there is no reason for people to oppose any idea that goes against the tradition. The 3 Kingdoms of Korea, the Dynasties of China, Sassanids and Safavids of Persians, the Heptarchy of Britain, samurai clans of Japan, the city-states of Italy, splits of the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdoms from the Kalmar Union (Vikings), the Dutch and United States civs, various Turkic tribes, …

  1. Rough and confusing civ designs
    Since The Mountain Royals, civ designs have revealed more gimmicks, power creep, and self-righteous diversity than respect for history.

  • Jurchens

    • It is also strange that animals do not decay. It looks like something equivalent to lasting, but feels like, when my villagers and the enemy’s are competing for the same herd of deer, I cannot cause any loss to my opponent even if I kill all the deer, and when my soldiers kill the opponent’s sheep and deer, the opponent can still collect food. This requires more details.

    • We know that the Jurchens were famous for their heavy cavalry, and relied on them to quickly rise and conquer North China. However, the lack of Knights makes it difficult for them to form a game that focuses on heavy cavalry units in the Castle Age, because melee UUs are more difficult to gather at the time than ranged UUs. What a pity. They could restore Knights and Cavaliers so the civ can later transition to heavy cavalry UU in a similar way to the Slavs; or, without restoring the Knight line, the Iron Pagoda could be moved to Stables to play the role (and meanwhile the Grenadier could be moved to Castles), somehow like the Shrivamsha Rider.

    • The Jurchens and their descendant Manchus were known for their mastery of mounted archery and archery, but the civ lacks decent cavalry archers and foot archers. The civ feels underpowered in the early, unless the Fire Lancers with +20% rof are useful enough.

    • Absolutely no idea that the UT named Fortified Bastions has any unique reference, but it gives the best defensive effect to the civ that should have but doesn’t have a strong aggressive style.

  • Khitans

    • Why is the Tangut camel there? If Tanguts gets cancelled during development, the camel can become the editor unit instead of being shoved into a civ that has nothing to do with Tanguts.

    • The overall design feels weird and has power creep, especially they gain many effects to spearmen and skirmishers as if they were a defensive civ like Byzantines. As a nomadic empire, they had adopt some atypical tactics, such as the frontal charge formation by heavy cavalry. However, they do not get any heavy cavalry units, and more surprisingly lack Bloodlines. They seem to have to rely seriously on Heavy Cavaly Archers at first, even though later on the strange UT effect may make Steppe Lancers perform decently, or even overpowerfuly.

    • Farms are replaced. Even though they were nomadic people, their empire had farmers, from Han immigrants and Khitans who adopted settled life. The Pasture does seem to be suitable for nomads, but Huns, Cumans, Mongols, and potential Gokturks should need it more than Khitans.

    • What the hack is “Liao Dao”? Its special capability seems also a complete gimmick. As far as I know, the Liao dynasty’s dao (single-edged sword) had nothing special to made it a UU. If people really want a Chinese soldier unit that uses dao, why not just have a Dao Swordsman replace the Two-handed Swordsman for Chinese, Jurchens (god they don’t even have Longsword) and Khitans? Then we can find a UU that makes more sense for them, like a cataphract archer using a bow or crossbow.

  • 3 Kingdoms
    I don’t want to explain my thoughts one by one. They were not supposed to be in the basic game at all. Just some of them.

    • Joan of Arc in Franks games? Genghis Khan in Mongol games? Heroes are weird when it is not a campaign, unless all civs have such a design (but it will obviously encounter even stronger opposition from the community).

    • The name Tiger Cavalry refers to their fighting ability, which is as fierce and brave as tigers. The soldiers had not been in tiger skins…

    • War Chariot is a strange choice for Shu. Sure, rapid-fire crossbows fit Shu well, but chariots are better suited to the plains of the north than the mountainous Shu territories. In the latest Dynasty Warriors game, the faction that owns the chariots is Yuan Shao in the north. If a siege UU is needed for Shu, the flamethrowing Juggernaut makes sense.

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This is definitely the most controversial DLC of Age of Empires 2. We Chinese players are also very surprised and disappointed.

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I won’t pay for this DLC, and I don’t even want the development team to incorporate it into the game itself for free in the future.

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I guess their horrible communication eventually goes both ways. They are as tone-deaf as we are ignorant of what they are doing.

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I believe the dev definitely knew that players, especially those from China, are looking forward to the foreign peoples during the Tang and Song dynasties: Jurchens, Khitans, Tanguts, Tibetans, Bai (I personally used to call this potential civ Nuosu), Gokturks, Sogdians.

Even if the civ names based on existing ethnic groups were changed to ended kingdoms, such as Dali for Bai, or put under an umbrella, such as Qiangs for Tanguts and Tibetans, in order to avoid censorship, I believe even players from China would be able to accept it.

Obviously everyone knows how to make this DLC achieve good sales and reviews. Why? Why? Why?

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The problems of their communication should not be something consumers need to bear.
We lost a AoE3 DLC with a good theme, and now we’re getting a AoE2 DLC with such a unsuitable theme.
I was even wondering this morning why this DLC is not the cancelled one. Of course I know the two games shouldn’t be a competition…

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Ahhh I’m baffled by this release and just annoyed. They really need to just stop adding mechanisms that further divide new civs from old ones in terms of gameplay and abilities of units to the point where it feels like you are playing a completely different game when you are picking these different civs.

Look at all the new shiny things the new civs get when none of the old civs get anything similar.

  • Hero units
  • Units that change attack type depending on what they are targetting
  • Aura effects (at least a few civs are getting these now)
  • Units with charge mechanism
  • Units that change their attack type after one attack
  • Units that change their sprite completely after being attacked
  • Units that switch between attack types at the press of a button
  • Civs where villagers can garrison in houses

Now I actually really like some of these effects. But I want them to apply to more than just a handful of civs and be properly integrated into the game as a whole. When the game first came out 30 years ago or whatever it was, we just accepted that the tech at the time didn’t allow for all these complex mechanism. Now the devs have figured out how to put things like charge attack and weapon swapping into the game. And these things create a lot more depth in the game for sure. But we don’t get any of it for any of the old civs!

Why not just give charge attacks to all cavalry?
Why not just give the ability to change attack types to all units when they switch from attacking buildings to attacking units so that we don’t have this silly animation of swordsmen hacking at stone walls with their swords?
Why not give some of the American civs some more regional units (specially siege and Navy) now that other civs are getting a similar treatment and the inclusion of “fantasy units” for the American civs is one of the most glaringly jarring things about the current civs.

Currently if I choose to play as Britons or Franks I am essentially still playing the same game that was release in 1999 but if I choose any of these new civs its like I am playing a completely new game with new mechanics. This really messes with the aesthetic cohesion of the game! How do the devs not care about things like this??? I am slightly hopeful that after at least giving unique castles to every civ we might be on the right track to universalising some of these new features but somehoe I am not too optimisitc that this will go far enough.

Also can we not introduce RPG elements into an old school RTS game? Units “gaining experience” (jag warrior) is a really weird mechanism in AOE2. And once again, it just makes no sense that only once civ would get something like this.

Overall I am also really dissapointed at the choice of civs. It seems like this whole thing is massively geared towards appealing to a chinese fan-base while actually doing a disservice to civ representation from Asia in general. We now have 4 civs in the game that represent China and still no Tibetans! Not to get too tin-foil-hat about it but its hard not to draw the conclusion that microsoft is just towing the CCP line.

And the whole stretching of the timeline thing is just annoying as well. I could swallow the inclusion of the Romans on the basis that a lot of the current civs interacted with the Romans and we even have some campaigns in game where we have Roman factions. But we really didn’t need the 3 kingdoms. We would have been better off fleshing out other parts of Asia and including other civs that were contemporaries to the Mongols. As it has been said, this would have been a great addition to the Chronicles spinoff but not the main game.

At this point we really need to stop with adding new civs, and start giving some of the old civs some love by adding more regional units and skins and giving more new-fun mechanics to the old civs.

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I am willing to bet, since OG Chinese already have Chu Ko Nu so Shu can’t have it, (that’s already insane in many ways)

So they’re just combining 2 Kong Ming/Zhuge Liang’s most famous invention/improvement - Chu Ko Nu & Munui Chariots (a wooden cart that used for logistics, we don’t really know how it’s look like due to lack of records)

Then boom, a war chariots that straight out of the Hobbit movie. (?)

Oh, also make a UT to make every Shu archer into Chu Ko Nu. Still want that Chu Ko Nu for Shu (???)

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They should have been clear about their plans so the hype wouldn’t rise so high then fall so flat. Seeing a lot of negative posts on both Reddit and here. I might buy the dlc when it’s 75 percent off.

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And they even managed to screw ROR by not porting all the campaigns. They often do half baked things since 2023.

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What really bothers me is how they are making the game less homogenous.

Like now that we have the farm replacement, why not distribute it to the Mongols/Huns etc? Clear, maybe it still needs to be balanced, and the skin is too invasive and will have to be modded, but it would have been enough to add a line in the launch release, specifying that there is a roadmap. But instead no, the new civilizations, indeed the 3 kingdoms, get such a stack of mechanics that it is really too much.

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Remember what happened in 2022?

A Heartfelt Thanks from Shannon - Age of Empires - World’s Edge Studio

ROR was the first DLC released after her retirement without her involvement in development (The India split was out when she retired, but it was only a couple months after, so it was heavily influenced by her tenure as director)

The studio leadership changed and the entire series started nosediving.

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What could go wrong to let the executive producer from the most uninspiring Age game ever to step in as The Boss, right?

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Exactly, and what makes it even harder to swallow is that some of the mechanisms are so universal in nature that it makes it comical that only some civs get it and others don’t. Like I still don’t understand how only 1 civ has figured out their villagers can hide in houses. Why is this just not a universal ability for all civs is beyond me. It just feels silly.

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Or, what is now the justification for not giving the Steppe Lancers to the Huns? Huh?
It is really ridiculous the lack of a roadmap

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I didn’t expect them to be perfect at historical accuracy, but it’s funny that they presented three powers that existed simultaneously under the same dynasty (Han Empire) as their own independent civilizations.
As a Korean player, what I hope is that they fix the weird Wonder design. They’ll just type ‘Hwangnyongsa 9-story pagoda(황룡사 9층 목탑)’ into Google, they’ll get a ton of pictures.

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China still there, and chariot chukonu? Aizz it is accurate? chariot have most choice better than chukonu on there.

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I see three ways this could work: either the animals don’t rot after being killed by a vil, or they don’t rot while being collected by a vil, or an aura effect. The second one still allows laming strats, and is what I’d personally bet on (I think it’s an easier implementation than the first). An aura effect would be something along the lines of “animal carcasses within 1 tile of a Jurchen vil don’t rot”), and would be pretty similar in effect to the second possibility.

Looking in advanced genie editor, it looks like this bonus works by setting a new resource (resource 292) value to 1, which doesn’t explain anything. Though I suppose the resource could be changed to allow investigating without actually having access to the Jurchens.

Having a heavy cavalry UU is at least a reference to their use of heavy cavalry, and having it instead of the knight-line makes it a fairly unique heavy cavalry civ - the next closest comparison would be the Bengalis with their Rathas. The mounted archer point would be a good argument for adding Parthian tactics or thumb ring (though the civ might need something to weaken them elsewhere) - assuming its accurate (I’m no historian). I think the civ will have a solid scout rush, and their gunpowder/siege options should be fairly good in castle age. Their late game should be top-tier (FU siege workshop with multiple bonuses to it, FU hussars with extra attack speed, strong defenses, and grenadiers to provide a strong backline)

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Pretty different. Ratha is basically used as a ranged UU, that’s why you can see players go Fast Castle and training it like Mangudai, War Wagon and Conquistador. Also, the Bengalis in history were not famous for heavily armoured cavalry.

The heavy cavalry UU in Castles is hard to be gathered before the economy can afford to spam it. When there is no Knight or any equivalent in Stables, then they won’t be able to have a Castle Age game with mainly heavy cavalry that is supposed to reflect their historical warfare. Heavy cavalry should be their first identity — even before the siege and gunpowder units.

The bonus of fast attacking would benefit well at scout rush, but in the Castle Age that won’t be reliable. The fast attacking for cavalry archer is only making up to the lack of Thumb Ring but still no accuracy. The only economy bonus is weak, while the Siege Engineers costs 500 food and 150 wood which is still high in the Castle Age. Thar’s why I guessed they might rely on Fire Lancers and Steppe Lancers until they can well afford Castles and Iron Pagoda.

It would make sense to move the Iron Pagoda to Stables. It can ignore melee attack, just like the Shrivamsha rider can ignore ranged attack. After that, it could cost a bit higher in food, and the Grenadier can be moved to Castles and have Elite upgrade in the Imperial Age.

After they get a better Castle Age game with the above, I guess I’d like to remove the bonus that allow Siege Engineers available in the Castle Age. Then, as for their fully upgraded siege workshop with multiple bonuses, maybe removing Bombard Cannon could be a decent nerf.

I just don’t get the unique reference of the Fortified Bastions, and also I think they have already a superior defense so maybe I’d like to change it too. The new one could be a military improvement for cavalry archers, like +2/+2 armor or regeneration, and be named to like Meng’an Mouke (their military system), so that they could have an aggressive cavalry archer game without Parthian Tactics.

To be honest, the Jurchen civ is relatively the fine one. The Khitan civ is more weird, gimmicky and inaccurate with some power creep.

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I didn’t see it being mentionned yet, but the traction trebuchet seems very strong. I don’t know about it’s damage, I expect it to be similar to bbc, but it is also better than bombard in every ways, cheaper than bombard, has 2 more range, and doesn’t even need chemistry (however it can still be converted).
So they lack standard trebs, but if I had free artillery as turks in imp why would I ever need trebs?
Also, the elephant in the room: 3k are so special that they need they own trebuchet to be well represented, but somehow meso civs or vikings still use standard european siege?

The camel thingy looks more balanced to me. Seeing the tech tree I expected the new trebs to be a bbc alternative.