As a SP-exclusive player, I am having a ton of fun with Chronicles and feel like it’s a great way to extend (and keep making money off) the game.
So, how about a Chronicles-type DLC with a completely fictional setting? Assuming, of course, that the gameplay is still the same, about the same amount of “magic” as before, and non-gameplay altering monsters.
Here are pros and cons, as I see them.
Pros:
A potential for much stronger narrative.
If the setting is completely new, the player would know how it all ends beforehand.
New units and architecture and freedom to design it without having to adhere to history.
More freedom to experiment with mechanics, without having to worry about either realism or ranked matches.
Cons:
The game’s core identity so far is about “history”, so shifting away from that could be seen by a lot of people as too much of change.
It depends on what kind of fantasy we’re talking about… medieval like LotR, WH Fantasy, GoT or WC3? or science fiction like SWGB, WH40K, SC2 or Fallout?
The mechanics to make something like this work are already in the game. You can have vampires, that heal from attacking living units, trolls that that take down gates with huge logs or throw rocks an towers, spiders that tie units down with a web, wizards that heal, boost stats and/or attack with fireball, krakens that attack ships an point-blank etc.
You can observe this in reviews of 3K.
Yes. That’s why I suggest “Chronicles”-type thing.
Thats because its shoved up the original game breaking emmersion.
None of these would be possibly unless copyrights can be managed.Some already have games for them.
This can be easily done with stories like robin hood king arthur dracula and so on.Generic mythological creatures such as dragons giants vampires wearwolf zombies skeletons trolls will add some varation to the editor too,we did have a dragon in HD.
Nice to see someone has seen my vampire and wearwolf idea
First, units should make you tell instinctively how they work and what they counter. Like how archers countering (almost every) infantry feels very natural and you could instinctively realize it even without playing AoE2.
Like, there is a Vampire Lord unit in HoMM3. What do vampires do? They suck blood, so they must heal themselves by attacking (which they obviously do). But if the target has no flesh or blood, then vampires can’t suck blood; so, Vampire Lords must be weak against these types of units (which they are).
You can also feel that they must be fast and melee to not break the immersion.
Also, unit arts should neither be cartoonishly exaggerated nor bland and soulless. They have to give a unique but also grounded feeling. AoE4 never clicked for me for this reason; they all just felt bland and soulless.
Other HoMM series had similar issues, making units more and more exaggerated. The 1999 version is the only one that feels correct (the unupgraded unit is just a skeleton with a sword). So yeah, I look for groundedness even in fantasy games, and I am not a fan of exaggerations.
There is Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds. However adding SWGB as a DLC for AoE2 DE is a bizarre idea.
GoT and LotR can fit AoE2. I would like to see. There can be interesting combos. Spartans, Dothraki, Mordor and Mapuches in the same map. However I think it isn’t possible because of copyright issues. There was Tales of Middle Earth mode and it was banned.
I would have been 1000% okay with the 3K if it was a separate game mode and singleplayer exclusive.
I wouldn’t mind a fantasy/fictional campaign at all, tho I would like it more if it was historical fiction/mythology like the Three Kingdoms, King Arthur or even something like the Odyssey rather than something like Lord of the Rings. I wouldn’t dislike the latter tho, I would just prefer the former.
It’s not like the current Chronicles doesn’t add some mythological stuff already, hell, even base AoE2 campaigns do sometimes.
Edit after reading the other comments:
I guess Age of Mythology already covers this… You guys are right, tho it’s not like there can’t be some overlap, we do have pretty much the same Francis Drake scenario in AoE2 and AoE3 after all, and the gameplay in 2 and Mythology is vastly different.
I’m finally getting into Star Wars after years of ignoring the franchise, so I also wouldn’t mind a chronicles style tab for a Galactic Battlegrounds remaster, that is a great idea to bring people to the game, tho I would make it so you also can buy it separately from AoE2, with an option to bundle them together with a discount for both.
I think it is, but it’s easier said than done, also you risk having the project shut down by Disney, it’s one thing to mod Galactic Battlegrounds itself (like Expanding Fronts did) and another one completely to port it to a different game
They’re not strictly the same setting or event, but they do have “similar” gameplay… AoE 2’s is the 1572-1573 expedition, and AoE 3’s is the 1586 expedition… AoE 2 includes the entire Caribbean, Central America, and northern South America, while AoE 3 only includes the Caribbean and the Yucatan Peninsula…
I guess some key elements like power, shielding and stealth and air AI units can’t be ported. With DE we have now a similar autoshielding feature, but is not 100% similar. By Expanding Fronts team words:
“AoE2 does not have some of the needed mechanics that SWGB has. AoE2 lacks the unit classes that SWGB uses, so all units would be able to attack all other units as there’s no distinction between surface units and air units, and there’d be no stealth, no power, no shields, and… no Jedi - the Armenian Warrior Monk unit being the closest thing to Jedi, can only fight, pick up relics, and heal (not convert).”
Would be great if AoE2 devs could add the modding features needed to port the game.
They could throw in some genericised fantasy creatures for the Scenario Editor that would supposedly not take that much effort to make, such as:
Dragon derived from the decorative RoR one.
Skeleton models already exist in non-animated form.
There is a sea monster model, too.
Zombies would be humans wearing weathered/damaged clothing (certain skeletons introduced with the Alexander DLC have that) and walking like zombies do.
For the science-fiction department, the Nuke Trooper and Zug 209 can be imported from RoR (but give back the unique sounds to the latter, please). And there was an event mod featuring a trooper with a lightsaber or something.
Addtionally, in the original AoE, there was a hidden (and hardly functional) Space Ship. For that and the Dragon, it would be beneficial if flying units were only affected by ranged attacks.
Otherwise, I’d rather like to see the effort spent on historical architecture, people (including regional skins) and campaigns for civs that are waiting for a full-fledged one since decades. The fantasy ones above are examples for giving scenario designers and modders something to play around with that is mostly derived from existing assets.
Regarding using creatures from AoMR, I have the feeling that Bang engine models cannot be easily adapted for Genie engine use. Otherwise, they could have used more appropriate models for the Polar Bear and Rhea (the latter looks like a small female Ostrich in its current form to me).
Who knows, before the Warrior Priest, it was also not possible for a unit to both attack and heal, but now it is.
Age of Mythology is not medieval fantasy, so it’s not quite the same thing. Heroes of Annihilated Empires is a better example. It’s not bad, but they tried to make WC3 and AoE2/Cossacks hybrid and it didn’t quite pan out.
How, you add not much but destroy what is already there.
It won’t affect anything, if it’s a separate mode, like Battle for Greece.
Yes, but it’s a different graphics engine. I think he want an Age of Mythology but in 2D, like Chronicles…
Yes, a fantasy/fictional setting civs and campaigns for more creative variety. It’s also one way to keep making DLCs when the devs run out of real world polities.
I would feel horrible. That’s not what Age of Empires 2 is about and its already a horrible thing that the 3 kingdom DLC have literal magic on it.
The only way I can accept is making a ‘grounded version’ of a fantasy story, like a Historical campaign of King Arthur, where all fantasy elements are turned into realistic forms.
All fantasy stories should go to Age of Mythology.
