Future DLC roadmap

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
80

I’d even be happy with an Ancestral Puebloan civ that has its own architecture set.

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81

I think the current situation with war over Ukraine is a bad time for splitting Slavs.

I also think it is too soon after the bloody 1990s on Balkan to make a DLC on historical wars between precursors to the current countries there.

82

It doesn’t necessarily needs to be about wars between South Slavs… I’m not really aware of any war between them in the Medieval Era, and I don’t know about the Croats, but I think the Serbs had enough on their hands with Byzantines and Ottomans.

83

I think we should stop using current and recent politics as justifications for a game that concerns the world of 500-1500 years ago.

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84

People who are too sensitive can not buy the dlc correct?

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85

Bad for business, if nothing else matters.

I think the name “Conflicts in the Balkans” will awake associations to recent history in a bad way. There is still some unrest and more bitterness in the area. I do not want to whip that up. If the conflicts in the proposed campaign are deeply unrelated to the modern conflicts, then the proposal may be OK. But I would still prefer another name for it.

The war in Ukraine is partly about their existence as a separate Slavic nation. In light of that, renaming Slavs to Russians/Ruthenians would be bad taste and stupid. Do you have any idea how heavy the information warfare is on platforms like Wikipedia? How pseudonymous editors (many presumably hired by government agencies) claim virtually every Soviet-Ukrainian author, composer, painter etc. by edits and by ganging up in the article discussions.

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86

In a very shortened and simplified account on what happened in the Balkans during the Middle Ages:

Raška, Duklja, Hum and Zeta were waring non-stop between each other for petty religious reasons mostly. What went on to become Bosnia was the center of Bogomilism, an accidental heresy of Christianism due to the relative isolation of Bosnia. Rome and Constantinople (current Istanbul) were fighting about which one had the correct flavour of Christianism. Due to fights on theological reasons, Byzantium didn’t get as much support as it could have gotten by the Catholic. There’s also internal corruption spreading inside the Byzantine Empire which didn’t help the empire in the long term.

The petty fighting as well as the fatal weakening of Byzantium during the 4th crusade prepared the terrain for the following Ottoman conquest of Byzantium and the Balkans.

I recommend reading following books for Balkan Medieval history:

Both books were written before the implosion of Yugoslavia but it is still the best account to date in English doing a synthesis on the historical literature of the different Balkan ethnicities.

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87

In short, we must look for Balkan campaigns between 900 and 1500…

88

What about the Japanese Dynasties? I think that Japan isn’t represented very well in the game. I know there is a civilisation and there are singular missions, but a real campaign or campaigns would be nice. A name could be “Shoguns of Japan” or something like that. There could be a lot of new trees (Sakura trees) and monuments and other things for map design. I think there is potential for beautiful maps in this theme.

Another thing could be “Jarls in the North” which tells the stories of the northmen / vikings a lot better than actually did.

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89

The Vikings civ division is necessary and easy to create, it would be more difficult to do it with the Japanese civ. I would like a more immersive Japan in AoE 2, but it seems that the only solution is to add an additional UU (from the scenario editor) and possible cosmetic DLCs (as of yesterday, everything is possible).

Unless at one time there were two great fractions dividing medieval Japan in half??..

90

I mean, between the Yamato and Emishi and the various civil wars, yes, Japan has been divided at several points in time… but it’s still not an easy civ to split.

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91

Civs in the game are not based on dynasties or empires, but cultural and ethnic groups. Current Japanese are fine.

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92

Yes, we have to look for Japanese campaigns between 1180 and 1600

93

The Mongol invasions of Japan would be the best campaign to do. In it you have: Mongols, Koreans, Chinese and potentially Jurchens as opponents. Everything else is just Japanese mirror-matches.

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94

I think you can have Hojo Tokimune as the main character, with maybe the first and last scenarios being the consolidation of his power and his post-invasion works that led to the downfall of his clan, with 3 or 4 scenarios in between depicting the mongol invasions themselves.

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95

The game you’re looking for is Europa Universalis. Japanese and Vikings are fine the way they are.

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96

There we go! The name escaped me!

I had ideas of making this campaign myself, but my ability to make scenarios is too limited.

But I had the idea that you have one on Iki Island, and it’s more of an A-to-B mission where you are trying to escape the island to get to Tsushima to warn them, while either evading larger Mongol detachments, or cutting through smaller ones. Then a small naval section for a bit more variety.

Then on Tsushima you can have an intro with the battle at Hakata Bay, where it’s more of an interactive cinematic and you lose your troops along with Sō Sukekuni leading the forces. Then the mission becomes you commanding the castle further in the island and surrounding buildings, using more guerilla tactics to get rid of some of the Mongol encampments (each one being a different civ; Mongols, Koreans & Jurchens). As this mission would block you from making Samurai or Cavalry Archers, to show that all of the Samurai on the island were wiped out.

Then the rest would be the Mongols actually reaching the main island of Japan the first time, and then the second attempt at it, this time with the Chinese being added into the mix as opponents.

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97

I don’t know that much about other regions so I’ll focus on East and SE Asia. I think preferably there should be 4 DLCs to cover the remaining civs of these two regions.

  1. Lords of the Eastern Steppe featuring Jurchens and Khitans. Korean campaigns could be added with this DLC.

  2. Periphery of the Sinosphere featuring Tanguts and Dians. Japanese campaigns could be added with this DLC.

I’m against adding Korean and Japanese campaigns with a DLC that focuses on SE Asia. The name Pacific Frontiers does not make any historical sense whatsoever. The civs in SE Asia weren’t part of the Sinosphere unlike Koreans and Japanese.

Chinese campaigns could be added with either one of the above 2 DLC

  1. Jewels of the Mekong featuring Chams, Mons, and Siamese, with campaigns for the new civs

  2. Tales of the Spice Kingdoms featuring Javanese, Visayans, and a reworked Malay, with campaigns for the new civs

100

Yes, I think it could be any of these three campaigns:

  1. Minamoto no Yoritomo (1180-1185) (would be the battles of the Genpei Wars before and after Kurikara)

  2. Hōjō Tokimune (1274-1281) (the Mongol invasions as you say)

  3. Oda N0bun4g4 (1560-1582) (here you could have Portuguese allies, gunpowder, and connect with Kyoto and reference Tokugawa’s campaign in AoE 3) (would be contemporaneous with the Bayinnaung campaign)…

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102

DLCs I would like to see in no particular release order:

  1. Balkan DLC
    Romanians
    Serbocroats
    +Catalans
    Byzantine rework (cheirosiphon, Varangian Guards)

  2. Asia DLC
    Tai
    Tibetans
    Jurchen
    Afghans
    Chinese rework (gunpowder units perhaps?)

  3. Africa DLC
    Benin
    Kanembu
    Congo
    Swahili

  4. Americas DLC
    Haudenosaunee (Iroquois)
    Mapuche
    Chimu
    Muisca
    Teotihuacans

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