How big the next Expansion Will be?

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
1

I read different comments by some streamers as AOE noob, Aussiedrongo, beasty ecc, who say that this expansion will be the greater ever seen in all AOE and this Will be the Golden age for AOE4.
Also, they said that there’s a lot to cover about this x-pack

Now, developers Just confirmed two civilizations (Japanese and byzantines) and we suppose there will be another civilization too. Also, a new campaign.

These are good adds of course but i would not Say “this Is the greatest expansion ever made for AOE saga!!”.

So what developers have cooked for us?

For me, similar words make me think to Deep changes:

  1. graphic improvements, especially for textures
    and weapons (but from what i seen from screenshots there aren’t changes);

  2. new effects and Better animations and physic for arrows and catapults projectiles;

  3. new gameplay modes, Better AI and more interactions between CPU players and you during skirmish;

  4. Better naval warfare;

  5. new zoom levels in and out

But what could be the big change for AOE 4 Is a 'world map similar to Coh3 and Total war".

Which are your toughts?

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2

No idea. The bigger the better, imo.

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3

Well, the paid expansion could include things that can be accessed after bought.
With that in mind, I think campaigns, civs, and skins are paid content.
The update is free, and everyone will get it and they may improve some key areas of the game.

4

They specifically said it’s going to be the biggest AOE4 Expansion ever.

This is extremely vague as there haven’t been any “expansions” for AOE4.

Regardless, if we are to say that any major content adding patch is seen as “expansion” ala Ottoman and Malian release.

Then it definitely has to be bigger than that.

Having 2 new Civs + Campaign is already beating that benchmark.

However, If they really want to make it grand and live up to the hype they are building.

Then it needs to be the biggest expansion of the AOE Series up to date.
Meaning bigger than the biggest expansion of AOE3, 2 or 1 even. Particularly AOE2 which still has a big playerbase and it’s biggest expansion included 5 civs + 3 campaigns.

But then there is also a matter of semantics.
What do they mean by big? It could be anything really. 2 Civs + 1 campaign is already “more content” than 5 civs + 3 campaigns from AOE2.

because the amount of work needed to put in to design Civs in AOE4 is just so much more vast, not only making them far more unique with their own set of mechanics that needs to be balanced into the game and their current featured Civs.

But also asset-designs, unique model for units and buildings.
Sound design, unique sound-track for each individual civ and not to mention voice-lines done by voice actors.

When it comes to Campaign, it needs to hold the same standard as the current campaigns in AOE4.

in other words, they need make a fully fledge Documentaries, this means filming, presenting and researching facts.

1 new campaign is already a “huge thing” in the scale of content.

But from the impressions of Streamers and people who got the Inside knowledge, it does seem to actualy live somewhat to the hype.

meaning, it’s definitely going to be big.

Perhaps 2 civs, 1 campaign and new Biome + some new maps, is seen as Big for many Pro-players, especially those who come from a place where Map and Faction selection is extremely limited.

But at the eyes of Veteran AOE players, it could be someting akin big expansions for AOE2.

In other words, even more Civ’s, 1 more or daresay 2 more.
Considering how their trying to hide their restraints.
and Considering the teasers that has been released and not to mention, the Theme of the whole Expansion pack, Sultans Ascend, and we yet to see a new “sultanate” based Civ.

I personally think were going to see 1 more new Civ at the very least. Most likely the Mamluke Sultanate.
Campaign following the fall of the Abbasid and rise of the sultanate, and especially the Mamlukes which were instrumental at filling the power vacume the Abbasids left behind in the region.
Which would all coincede with the Campaign based around Saladin.
It allows campaign involving the Byzantines, the Crusaders States and their supplementaries (HRE, French, English), The Mongols, Ottomans and even the Malians. All these states had some involvement with Saladin and his Mamluke Empire.
Which in all honesty, covers most of the current Civ rooster in the game.

So what do I think we are going to see from the Expansion?

1~4 Campaigns (Abbasid, Byzantine, Ottoman and Mamluke Sultanate if they get added).
2~4 new Civs. (Japan and Byzantine confirmed, Potential new civs: Mamluke Sultanate + Wildcard Civ (Could be anything consider they added the Japanese, could be Crusader States if they really want to make Crusader units belong to a unique Civ)
1~3 new Biomes. (Japanese Biome confirmed, Jungle and Artic biome hinted at).
4~6 new Maps.

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I think that for this DLC to be called the “biggest” in the history of the entire AoE series, it must contain at least 2 completely new civs. Despite the name of this DLC, “The Sultans Ascend” was announced by the Japanese and Byzantines, who were in no way Sultan or even unIslamic.

Aussie_Drongo’s video about the announcement of this DLC was titled “JAPANESE? BYZANTINES?! EGYPTIANS!?!?! ITS HAPPENING” which I think is a spoiler of what civs will appear in the DLC. However, I wouldn’t call the DLC with 3 civs the “biggest” in the history of the series when AoE 2 had DLC such as Forgotten Empires with as many as 5 civs! I think that in such a situation, Persians civ and optional Moroccans civ should appear in this DLC. If they want to surpass Forgotten Empires in terms of the number of civs in one DLC, they would have to add as many as 6 civs! - and it could be the Kingdom of Jerusalem !!!

Another thing is that some DLCs in the history of the AoE series added significant improvements or additional features to the game, e.g. The WarChiefs DLC for AoE 3.

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I think these two biomes would be better suited to completely different DLCs:

  • Jungle for the American DLC
  • Arctic for the Northern European DLC
7

I think we need to be careful with what we expect from this expansion. I’m sure that it’s going to be huge as some of the streamers keep mentioning but it’s healthy to have a logical expectation for what’s to come to not end up disappointed.

I believe it’s reasonable to expect the following:

  • One new campaign focusing on the sultan theme
  • Two or three new civilizations (two confirmed currently)
  • 1-3 new biomes
  • 2-4 new maps
  • 1-2 new modes
8

That is what I think is the minimum amount of content, but before that, I wanna see the price of the DLC

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I’d expect it to be around 10-15 euros depending on the size of the expansion.

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I think $12.99 is the perfect price for the DLC
The game is already $39.99

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Yes probably will be around that price, but it depends what they do with it. If they have new graphics and animations on top of everything else I can see the price go up more to justify the costs.

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12

Well, according to “Age of Noob” the expansion will be gigantic and will give us more to think about. Considering that apparently he really knows everything that will come out in the expansion, but as a good loyal fan of the company he respects the agreement not to reveal anything, we are only left with the greatest possible speculation.

Since nothing else can be done at the moment, I will try to finish the challenges of the “World Gaia Appreciation” event, which apparently sometimes get bugged. I won 2 prizes one day and they didn’t want to accept the 3rd prize for playing on the Pantano map. On the 2nd day they accepted it for playing in the swamp, and I already have the alligator icon.

On the other hand, since the expansion issue is already done, I will consider taking into account how the new civs are made for my future concepts. Now we know that things like roads, or wall-type structures like the aqueduct are valid for the gameplay, as well as having 2 or 3 types of monks (like the Japanese), possibly this influences taking more liberties when making concepts of new civs.

I’m already planning my own concept of Nordics, or Vikings, but by the Castle Age they became Danes, Norwegians and Swedes. Because they practically have the same origin and few unique technologies by themselves, at least for me I think it would be better for the 3 civs to come as one, and that with Landmarks they are separated into 3. That and finishing my model for the sultanate of Morocco and Al-Andalus.

Curiously, someone already made one of Al-andalus, congratulations (AL-ÁNDALUS CIV CONCEPT).

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Isn’t The Forgotten the biggest expansion of the entire saga? (5 civs and 7 campaigns)…

Yes, that’s true… for pro players a gigantic expansion may seem like a normal expansion for veteran players (2 civs and an one campaign)…

Yes, I agree, it will surely be an Abbasid campaign in the Crusades showing the rise of the Ayyubid sultanate with Saladin defeating the Crusaders in the third crusade or an Abbasid campaign in the Crusades in general (1095-1291)…

For me it’s going to be Abbasid (Crusades and Rise of the Ayyubid Sultanate), Ottoman (Rum Sultanate and Ottoman Empire) (from Manzikert to Mohács), Delhi (rise and fall of the Delhi Sultanate and rise of the Mughal Empire) and maybe Japanese ( from the Gempei wars to the siege of Osaka) (although an insider told me that there would be no Japanese campaign)…

For me, it’s Japan, Byzantium and Jerusalem/Crusader States… the Ayyubid Sultanate may be a campaign civ based on that of the Abbasids…

They seem like very few maps to me, they would have to be between 10 and 15 maps, like in the last dlc of AoE 3…

Yes, it seems very strange to me as a dlc name…

Yes I agree…

Let’s hope so, with a good expansion, the game can “revive” and rebound in popularity again…TAR and KotM improved 3 DE in a brutal way… they seem like new games within the same game…

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Conquerors expansion is the biggest it added new generic units new regional units 5 civis historical battles campaigns and balance changes.

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Let’s hope they add an additional generic and regional unit for most civs.
That will really spice up things.

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On price, I’m not sure why people are expecting an expansion to be priced any lower than $20 USD.

Expansions used to cost this (or more) back in the day, nevermind nowadays.

Of course, the amount of content is what’ll really matter, but I worry people are setting unrealistic expectations when they want it for $15 USD or less regardless.

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Unfortunately I don’t think we will get those. I think you should make another 10 new threads complaining about the game looking bad.
AoE2 and AoE3 let us zoom out very far but somehow the AoE4 team really doesn’t want us to, do they all only play on the Steamdeck?

That’s something we are waiting for that was promised.
They recently removed almost all civilisation differences from naval warfare, it’s time to make this interesting again.

But tbh. naval warfare was always bad in AoE 1-3 and even AoM.

Those are all semi likely thing.
Not sure what you mean with AI interactions. Sending them command like “attack here” or “send me gold”?

Gamemodes are something that they have already slowly started adding (like Nomad) so I can see them keep doing that.

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If they say biggest i expect at least 6 new civ,if its biggest only for aoe4 i expect 3 civ

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Yes, these are implementations that could make the skirmish more interesting.

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They said the biggest expansion in the AOE saga

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