How the game is growing, exactly? Yearly DLCs, a mix between old civs reworks + new civs.
Spin-off modes like Chronicles and console launch as well.
Do you think DE would survive without DLCs and legacy content updates?
Influencers and streamers by themselfs are not enough to keep the interest of the community and the players.
From a mostly a campaign player perspective, I always thought there can not be enough civ so long there are regions where you don’t have the correct civs to tell their stories. And designs to make them interesting.
Since 3 Kingdoms i chanced my opinion, if “civs” like that are added to the main game than I have rather no new civs at all.
If they where a spin-off like Chronicles, then there was no problem. I probably had cheered for it.
About AoE II pre HD, every summer I reinstalled the game from my CD because there where always new mods or updated mods on AoE Heaven.
That kept the game fresh and novel to return to, I especial liked the total conversion mods like the Lord of the Rings mod or Age of Chivalry: Hegemony.
DLC have taken over the role of keeping the game fresh and novel.
So long there is a way that prevent the game from becoming stale, then people will keep returning to the game.
Yes, the DLCs aren’t bad, as long as they maintain a certain level of consistency and quality… VaV and 3K are where this falls short…
the game was growing before DE came around, because it was a good game with a welcoming community, content creators, frequent tournaments, etc. You can see this from the constant influx of players. in HD’s lifetime the average players went from ~5k to ~15k (so about tripled the player number)
the game is still growing, albeit at a slower rate (when DE came out the player count was about 20-25k, now it’s 30k). why? I don’t understand. the game gets worse with every update.
yes. Lots of games survive without DLC and content updates. Aoe2 was growing for years without content updates.
including mods, community tournaments, etc they evidently are. HD was growing before any DLC was even announced (April 2013 - November 2015), that’s why they started adding new DLC.
Papal States are… states, not a culture.
Italians can represent Papal States well enough, with good monks, tech advantages and mercenaries (Condottieri).
Add Swiss and we’ll be able to play scenarios with monks defended by Swiss guards.
The limit of ranked civs should be the number of real medieval civilizations, although it’s hard to set a specific number.
But the possibilities are endless with alternative modes like Chronicles and Return of Rome.
With partnerships there could also be alternative modes for Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Dune and maybe more.
What?? It became the default way of playing the game.
Aoc zone posts would suggeset otherwise.
Yeah, I feel like the Italians already have a lot going for them by representing the Italian trade republics, and since the Papal states were based in Rome, the Romans are a good candidate to be reworked to include elements of the Papal states which played a major role in Medieval Europe (I also think they don’t fit the time frame like the 3K and this rework will make them more relevant).
I second this
I would exchange a lot of Euro Civs for more African, North American, Asian, Oceania and Middle East Civs
What do you mean exchange? They won’t do that if you mean current ones.
If they want to exchange then obviously 3 Kingdoms is the most logical choice out of all civs.
If it’s one of those split requests then absolutely no. That belongs to AoE4 as AoE2DE doesn’t need any of this nonsense.
Of course you speak by yourself. A lot of people request this content the same way people requested the content of the newest DLC
Wrong, most people request African content more than a nonsensical Saracen split.
Just because it’s a non-Euro civ split unlike the endless Italians/Teutons requests doesn’t mean that they should split Saracens which is a fine civ already… or even Japanese clans split.
You’re really clueless if you come here as a tourist to this forums and start making random comments where most old polls from @Temudhun where Africa were at the top and still are (America is the 2nd most popular), not everyone cares that much about the silly civ splits that are being thrown endlessly here out of nowhere.
Already 2 threads about Africa rather than the obtuse split requests that nobody really wants as they’re scrapping the bottom of the barrel when there’s enough material that isn’t just splitting Saracens/Japanese/Celts etc
Prove your point then 
Saracens is only a umbrella term said by Europeans for inhabitants encountered in Sacred Lands in the Crusades
Same like Franks is given to Europeans
There was a lot of entities, realms and empires that belong not only to Sarancens Location but all Middle East. Really think Saracens are the only one Middle East Civ? hahaha 
You said only this because you do not like the split not because the majority would like not
The issues seems to be that MP people feel overwhelmed with having to constantly remember all 53 for the matches, while SP crowd (including me) only need to keep in mind whatever civs they currently have in the mission.
So, again, the compromising solution would be to have some sort of rigid “tournament” set of civs, units, skins etc for competitive play, while going full blown creative for the SP content. AGE4 seems to be doing that, but I haven’t played it, so I’ll use Starcraft 2 as an example instead. As you remember, that game have a very specific and (presumable) balanced and fine-tuned set of units for MP, while the campaign allow you to choose from a whole lot more units, most of which are SP-exclusive.
Chronicles seems to do a bit of that, but why stop there? Make campaign-exclusive civs, make this campaign exlusive units etc. Like, for example, there is no need to split the Celts when you can just put “Irish Long Swordsmen” (or whatever) for missions set in Ireland.
Telling about Replier’s Source
How many civilizations did the world have during the so-called “Middle Ages”?
Why are some civilizations considered more “entitled” than others?
After all, it’s just a game…
I would be ok with a Saracen split as long as: