Will the devs give the option to disable AOE1 ROR content & make it optional like the UHQ graphics pack? Compared to AOE:DE it is now 1 and a half times the size (30GB compared to 20GB for AOE:DE), and some people with laptops (myself included) or old CPUs might not have the disk space. There should be, therefore, the option to enable/disable AOE1 content in order to allow users to save on much needed disk space.
Edit: I tried to make a yes/no poll, but it didn’t work?
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Every DLC can be disabled in Steam. There is no reason to expect that this would be any different.
Wait, what? That’s a thing?
Also, wouldn’t disabling the whole DLC also remove the ability to play as the Romans?
Yeah you can click on a game, go to properties, go to DLC and uncheck any DLC you own. It probably makes it so that you can’t play the civ.
You can disable the DLC, but the way they implement the AOE DLC is that all the content is included in the base game and the DLC just unlocks it, so disabling the DLC wouldn’t save any noticeable amount of space. I don’t think it’s possible to remove it entirely because it’s required to play against people who use the DLC and for content in the campaigns.
I think the 30GB disk space is not the size of the DLC.
It’s AoE2DE plus RoR plus a little space for savegames and stuff like that.
It’s required disk space not used disk space.
Steam is showing that the Return to Rome DLC is 30GB & the full game is now 43GB.
What I mean by my question is to disable only the AOE1 content & still have the Romans as an AOE2 civ (+ feature in the corresponding Alaric & Atilla AOE2 missions).
So RoR is going to be 70% of the full game?
I assume those numbers are wrong.
My AoE2DE installation is 25 GiB while AoE1DE is only 12 GiB.
And AoE1DE has 2x the sprites per unit (twice the rotation angles) and higher resolution scaling option (1x, 2x and 4x unlike AoE2DE that just has 1x and 2x) while RoR clearly reuses all the AoE2DE terrain textures.
There is no way that RoR is 30GB.
RoR will very likely not even be 10GB.
I guess that’s somewhat reassuring. I just got confused when seeing that the requirements are 43GB (full game) & 30GB (DLCs) respectively. Still, if some players aren’t going to be using AOE1 all the time, it might be a good idea to have the ability to disable it.
aoe2 DE has “43 GB available space” in the requirements, but it’s actually 10GB when downloaded.
you guys are worrying over nothing
The system requirements are if you install the HD texture pack. The game is indeed much lighter without.
Doing a proportional estimate, ROR would then weigh around 7 GB. Probably even less as it has much less content than AOE2 (17 civs vs 42, 3 campaings vs around 40, much fewer units, smaller buildings…).
I think the devs just pick a number out of thin air when they make the minium system requirements
I’m away from my main computer (that does have the HD pack) so I cannot check how heavy AOE2DE is on it.
I’m following up with the team to check whether this value is correct.
Unofficial: Personally I believe the DLC size to be a fraction of what is shown, though I’ll verify first before giving proper confirmation.
I checked yesterday on my laptop, all DLC and no HD pack : 10.38 GB used.
The DLC won’t be 30 GB. Just check the requirements on the store page of the base game:
… and compare it with the DLCs:
They just copied the requirements from the base game over to the DLCs and the game itself without the Enhanced Graphics DLC is “just” 11.36 GB. 
The assets though will probably be available in the scenario editor and so disabling it would break custom scenarios using those assets. I know some people will never play custom scenarios, but it’s easier for the devs to avoid the problem by having everyone playing the same game.