How about releasing new civs as standalone items?

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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DLC sales are going to settle. But there can be a lot more potential sales if one simple tweak is implemented: releasing Jurchens and Khitans standalone, $5 or maybe $4 each.

Considering how out of place they look in the DLC’s 3K theme, I don’t see any problem doing this. (Of course buying the DLC can still gift you those, to make it consistent between new / old buyers, I won’t mind.)

In ~100 ranked games I played in the past 2 weeks I saw new civs appearing <5% of the times. This was not imagineable in previous DLC launches. I’m sure there are a significant amount of players interested in Jurchens and Khitans only, like me. I even made a pasture mod despite not having the DLC, but I will never buy 3K.

If the production team is serious about seeking feedback, this approach might be the most practical to solve part of the issue.

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Well, then the positive review percentage will be vastly different.

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Alternatively, release these 2 civs again in a future medieval chinese DLC (along a couple ones like the Tibetans). Only one of the 2 required to play as them. Possibly with a discount for players who already own 3K as they already have some of the content.

This way these civs won’t be locked behind that DLC

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I asked for standalone Romans civ as soon as RoR came out. I’m sure it will be sold well.

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Other people suggested the same before, seems like the best solution.

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Something like USA and Mexico in AoE3? I’ll take it if it also comes with that civ campaign. $5 for Jurchen and another $5 for Khitan, both with their own campaign. I can see myself buy that kind of DLC than this $20 3K DLC with Khitan and Jurchen as bonus.

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This is my preferred solution, especially if it includes Tanguts being split off from Khitans. For me the main problem is that Jurchens and Khitans feel tacked on to the DLC, and haven’t got the attention I’d want them to get (i.e. no campaigns, overfilled design for Khitans).

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True, it would also fix that issue.

Jurchens, Khitans, Tanguts & Tibetans with a campaign each, + a Chinese campaign (give me the An Lushan rebellion and write that as a dark comedy), done here’s a slam dunk DLC that will also please the Chinese audience that was the target of the 3K DLC.

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If Three Kingdoms has brought in lots of new Chinese players, then it would probably a good follow up. (Not that I want to suggest that Chinese players only care about Chinese history – but it seems FE/WE probably think they do.)

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It’s also the most demanded DLC by their old fanbase. They don’t need to guess where the money is, we scream it’s there.

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Yes! I thought the same but forgot to mention. They can do both: Having standalone civs, but a future East Asian DLC will also include them as add-ons.

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Unlikely. They KNOW a classic-style chinese DLC will sell very well, they have no interest in offering parts of it separately.

CA does now split Legendary Lords DLCs for TWW3 but it’s only after they came very close from sinking (notably burning 100 million dollars into a failed avorted multiplayer shooter and having several big other failures…), while some DLCs had some outright broken parts. They were in a much more desperate situation than AOE2 is. Also, once you unlock a legendary lord you get his full content in the campaign, there is no split between having the civ and having campaigns for it.

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I’d be fine with every future civ being sold like this. One new civ every 3-6 months. $10 or $20 to play (that’s what I paid for Romans). No campaigns, multiplayer only.

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exactly. Why offer two $7 dlcs so people can pick and choose what they want, when people will buy one $15 dlc to get what they want, even if it comes with stuff they don’t want or care for.

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The pricing remains consumer-friendly (one thing no one complains about for the 3K DLC is the price, as opposed to older ones for which they tried to push it) and usually when they split a DLC, it includes a discount on the rest to encourage buying the full package. I don’t fear that in practice. Players will still judge the price based on the full package.

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Yes this is a very lightweight way to push out new content. But price should be $5 at most. It used to be 2 civs + 3 campaigns for $10.

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Romans a good civilization locked behind a not very good DLC

Month ago I suggested to do this with the Romans because this is the more problematic civilization because she is locked in a DLC who interest not many people, 15$ for just one (good) civilization it’s too much if you are not interested with the Return of Rome content (and RoR will never gain new content with the release of Chronicles).

Personally I bought Return of Rome for the Romans first and for the AoE1 content second (the gameplay of RoR is enjoyable very below that of AoE2, Chronicles was that I expected for AoE1 DE). I enjoyed more playing against the Romans (instead of Byzantines and Italians before RoR) in Attila and Alaric campaigns that all the campaigns of RoR mode.

It’s possible to rerelease the Romans in a standalone DLC with only the Romans civilization and a roman campaign for 5$ but I think it’s better to give access to the romans if you buy a future DLC themed in migration period era (Barbarian invasions DLC).

You can play the Romans with two manner

1 You have Return of Rome you can play the Romans

2 Barbarian invasions DLC.
You can play the Romans + a roman campaign + Alans, Vandals, Saxons, Suebi + 4 campaigns for the 4 new civs.

I term of development adding the Romans in a new DLC cost nothing more and this will increase the sae rate of this DLC. With the Aegidius campaign of the workshop this is the bet thing to do (very good campaign, need only translation, also exist in Coop mode), V&V put a precedent of workshop content became official content.

3 Adding a romans AoE2 campaign in Return of Rome : the worst thing

It’s possible to add a romans campaign in Return of like like the Xie An (383) scenario of V&V. But this will be a very bad thing because it’s still a 15$ DLC with very low content for AoE2 mode. This will be a 15$ for just one civilization and just one campaign for those who are not interested at all in the RoR content.

Jurchens and Khitans unlocked in a future DLC : yes

There is precedent of civilizations were released without a campaign but with campaign in DLC. Lithuanians gain a campaign in Dawn of the dukes. Incas in definitive edition. Britons in Lords of the west.

Jurchens campaign is obvious, fighting the khitan Liao dynasty of found the Jin dynasty.

Khitan campaign may be the foundation of the Liao dynasty or the story Kara khitan kingdom who relate the tales when the honorless khitans stole the castle and the UU of the Tanguts.

1 A chinese (medieval this time) DLC with : Unlock Jurchens and Khitans. Khitan campaign, Jurchen campaign. New chinese civilizations (medieval this time : tibetan, tanguts, bai). New campagin for each new civilization. new voiceline for the all civilizations (Jurchans and khitan incluided). Split the khitanguts between the Khitans and the Tanguts

With a bundle for those who already own the 3 kingdoms 3 DLC.

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DLC sales for the past week (2nd since launch):

  • Not top 100 globally
  • Not top 100 in China, base game still is, at 94th (down 58)
  • Not top 100 in Hong Kong, base game at 58th (down 40)
  • 39th in Taiwan (down 31). It made to Taiwanese top 100 six times, lol
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While as a consumer I would happily welcome the “unbundling” of content, It costs them more money to release 5 civs as 5 seperate dlcs than it does to release 5 civs as 1 dlc.

Theres also the balance of people who bought the higher costed DLC for some of it’s content vs those who would not buy it at its listed price marketing that they’ll always have in mind. If 1 person buys a 20$ dlc despite the fact they only want the romans, if the romans were separated out for say 5$, thats 15$ you lost from that purchase, you need at least 3 players who would not have bought the DLC at all to make up the difference in that case.

Between those two factors, individual civ costs would likely have to go up. I’d expect minimum 8$, likely 10$ a civ.

a risk assesment question I’m sure their marketing team thinks on constantly.

(for clarity, I am not condoning the practice of bundling “lesser” content to boost profits, it’s extremely anti consumer. I’m simply explaining why companies do it)

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Curious why? I think it would straightforward in terms of engineering.

I understand. This suggestion is based on the assumption that the majority of cash grab is already done at this point. Going forward they can make the most from the rest of the community.