I’m pretty sure we have 
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I’d also be happy to buy an American and Indian expansion.
From the Indian subcontinent of the Middle Ages, at least 3 playable civilizations could come out, plus it must be taken into consideration that there is currently only one civilization with a unique type of architecture (Indians).
On the other hand, I consider a priority to “fix” some details in AoE 2 DE, such as creating a unique architecture for South America; the Inca, Chimú and Chachapoyas architecture could be used as a reference (since they are the best architectural exponents in South America).
There are also some historical inconsistencies in the campaigns, such as that of the Cid, which the Spanish used “Conquistadors” armed with arquebuses in the 11th century. Personally, I consider that the Kingdom of Castile could be separated from the Kingdom of Aragon as different civilizations.
There is still a lot to do in the civilizations present in AoE 2.
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Projections on players in game compared to on multiplayer servers I have viewed show that a large block of the player base is in singleplayer, they are either playing campaigns, custom scenarios or skirmishes, I think a lot of them are purchasing the game to play the campaign content and if they added additional official campaigns for existing civilizations it would sell(probably not as much as including new civs because the multiplayer base wouldn’t be as motivated to buy it) - I think they should continue the approach they used with this DLC and try to fit in a few campaigns for existing civs that do not have them like they did for the Britons until the existing ones all have their own, can come with new content additions but I think 30-40% of the people that bought LoTW picked it up just for the singleplayer content it offers - You don’t see these people on the forums as much as multiplayer centered users but they definitely exist in large numbers and would be as likely to buy a set of 2 civs and 4 campaigns as a set of 4 civs and no campaigns
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Yes, Czechs are west Slavs. I thought you mean Bohemians are already contained in Teutons and if so than I do not understand why Bohemians are displayed as Slavs in Barbarossa campaign while in Genghis Khan campaign they are Teutons. In general, however, Bohemians (or people of kingdom of Bohemia) were not only Slavs, there was a very large group of generally rich Germans. So the kingdom was very rich culturally, it was a different time than now. The idea of nation or national state was not yet born.
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True…the Huns did not have a university, but you could make the argument that the Hunnic
University is one of captured Roman scholars.
And actually, the Vikings, Goths and Cumans did establish centers of learning. Maybe not “universities” persay, as the best universities were located in Western Europe, the Middle East or East Asia during the medieval ages.
The Vikings certainly began a plethora of learning after they Christianized and began building massive wooden churches and cathedrals throughout Norway and Dennmark.
The Goths for their part, absorbed much of Roman culture and literature (that is one of the reasons why so much knowledge of the Romans are known today!) Another demonstration of the Goths having learned skills, was their foundation of the “Gothic architecture” which adores much of European cathedral and castle architecture.
And the Cumans did become “civilized” after they moved into the Crimea, and established, along with the Tartar Crimeans, the Crimean Khanate. It was a little kingdom that was reasonable civilized throughout its existence.
Not the Ancient Goths, but the descendants of the Goths certainly did: the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Italians and the Crimean Goths. All those 4 groups were descended from the “Ancient Goths”, and they all used crossbows and gunpowder weapons.
Even though now we actually have the Spanish, Portuguese, and Italians as their own civs…the Goths as they were created for Age of Kings, nonetheless have trace elements of being related to those 3 groups, and that is why the Goths civ are allowed to make Hand Cannoneers and Bombard Cannons.
It is the same reason why the Huns get the Paladin upgrade, even though the Huns never did operate heavy cavalry (much less heavy cavalry with full plate armor!): the Huns, when they came in the Conquerors expansion, somewhat represented the Magyars and other Balkan peoples.
I fail to see why you referring to a Map that was clearly made as a joke, and not really based on actual history is meant to make your argument better than mine?
While it is true that only the Byzantines were the true operators of the Fire Ship/Galleys, and that all the other civs should not have them if we are to be historically accurate…demolition ships would be reasonable for ALL civs to have.
Firstly: demo ships represent the actual “fire ships”, which were ships that you deliberately lit on fire and then have it sail on its own into enemy ships in the hopes of destroying said enemy ships or disturbing their formation. Sabatoge is no stranger to ANY civilization that waged war, on land or by sea.
Secondly, if we are looking to the demo ships being explosive gunpowder ships, it is most certain that most civ would have used gunpowder once they came into contact with the chemicals formula. All southeast and east Asian civs were introduced to gunpowder, so were the Middle Eastern civs, the north African civs, and all Europeans. And the Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas certainly felt the brunt of gunpowder in action when the Spanish and Portuguese brought it to them.
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There’s a survey in reddit about the new civs’ design with two options: “I like the new civs’ design” and “I don’t like the new civs’ design. Major rework needed”. Even when in these forums and in reddit it seems that 80% of the community dislike the design decision taken with burgundians and sicilians, the survey is toe to toe. I believe that most of those “I like the new civs” are single-player players who see flemish rev and serjeants building donjons and say “oh how cool is that” with no deeper analysis of game design and why they like the game in the first place.
I don’t mean to be disrespectful with the single-player community, but imho they lack the multiplayer experience to know what is good and bad design. Their games, both skirmish and campaings, are most of the time played like SimCity followed by Total War. For them everything that is “cool” is good design.
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My main point is that this game is historical fantasy e.g. that’s why I’m mentioning Texas, the Magyar Armada and Gothic Hand cannoneers. Sure, it’s wrong that Aztecs have a lot of things they didn’t but that’s basically the case for any civ in this game e.g. Goths or the Steppe people I mentioned. Hell, even Galleons don’t make sense at all for most civs, considering it’s based on the Caravel design, which was a Spanish thing first and foremost. You’d have War Cogs to be historically accurate for European civs, Dhaus for the Middle East and Junks for the Far East.
This has already discussed this thoroughly within the forum itself but all expansion additions so far tried to break with the game mechanics with no cav/supplies civs, Castle Age UTs, team units, unique buildings, earlier technologies, military units being able to build etc. This didn’t just start lately.
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But I didn’t say anything like “I don’t like it because it’s different”. Y strongly believe these UTs are poorly designed, for AoE2 and for any RTS.
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They’re not very much my taste, but after trying them out a bit, I think they have their place in the game. If they could avoid them in the future, I’d be really happy though.
I also think that many players must play the campaigns in AoE 2 DE, however, analyzing the statistics of Steam it is a really low percentage of players that achieve the achievements by completing the campaigns.
It is difficult to understand, although perhaps the simplest explanation is that many of the players complete the campaigns using cheats.
You also have tons of campaigns.
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No argument here. You are absolutely right. AoE2 is not purely historical.
I personally dislike that the Huns get access to Paladin, for instance. They should get Steppe Lancer and Elite Step Lancer instead of Knight/Cavalier/Paladin if they were to be more “historically accurate”. But so many players who play Huns would be furious if such a change were made.
The Meso-American civs have never been documented to use siege equipment like the ram or catapult (mangolel/onager), scorpion or the trebuchet. Though I said above that one can "assume a what-if scenario of the Europeans being mercenaries for the Meso-Americans or teaching them their technology, etc., historical fact says otherwise.
But…if this game were to be purely historically accurate, then it would be a more rigid, more awkward-playing videogame that would NOT be very balanced and would NOT be attractive for players to play.
So some concessions had to be made, by the devs.
My major concern is that the devs do not step too far outside the bounds of historical fact, such as adding a Stone Age tribe civ in a medieval game filled with steel and gunpowder wielding empires! (Meso-American obsidian-weapon civs get a pass due to their magnificent culture centers and city building, as well as scientific and military achievements)
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There are no Stone Age tribes, and no one is asking for peoples who never achieved any imperial status, or defeated actual empires.
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It reminded me of the game “American Conquest”, although initially I liked it, I stopped playing it because there were many “realistic” factors to take into account, also when making a mechanic too realistic or detailed, the existence of Bugs is common, that is why many games despite being “extremely realistic” do not have the interest of the general public because it is too complicated to be fun. In my opinion a game should have a balance between “realistic” and “fun” (and that also includes games with a magical nature like Warcraft).
The great advantage of a historical game is that they already have a well-established foundation (everyone knows the Byzantines, Britons, Incas, Japanese, etc.) and they do not have the need to create an interesting “lore” to make a story credible ( as is the case with games like Starcraft) and I think that if they want to forcibly add a civilization to a game that is not from its historical context (like for example the Huns in AoE 2) then the game has the risk of losing credibility and going from being considered a “historical game” to a “cartoon game”, for example, in Empire Earth 2 ( That it was the best RTS game of its time) an element that I did not like is that the USA civilization was present in the Bronze Age, that error is also made by the game Rise of Nations and perhaps that lack of historical realism is what prevented both games (which I loved in their time) from not achieving the status of “Legend” of historical games like AoE 2 (I know there are other factors as well, but this is a factor to take into consideration)
Another factor that I also consider important is that people seem to like the “realism of violence”, for example, AoE Online and Empire Earth 3 were widely criticized for their cartoon look, while the AoE 2 Enhanced Blood mod is one of the most popular. EDIT: Enhanced Blood is the most popular AoE 2 mod.
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The musi in that game was glorious, it is just Cossacks 1 in the Americas, however.
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I know, but I never played Cossacks
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Play Cossacks 3, it is GLORIOUS!
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Emu civ! 
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Not Medieval, though.
Also, I do not want a war criminal civ, like the Emus.
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That’s why we need regional skins. A heavy armed Sarmatian type heavy cavalry unit skin for Hunnic/Cuman Paladins…
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