I agree so much with what Ornlu said in his conclusion, its really frustrating

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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I’d like to point out that you could say that about nearly every DLC…I suppose definitionally all but one DLC.

However where Alexander differentiates itself from some other DLCs is it seems like a sincere effort to make the best DLC possible. I know sincerity is impossible to quantify, but I think it largely explains why the chronicles DLCs, despite some salient weaknesses, have been generally very well received.

If Chronicles is your cup of tea, awesome. If it’s not, it’s still hard not to appreciate all the good stuff and hard work.

Some other DLCs…abominations that will for now be left un-named…opted for alternative strategies to compensate for their weaknesses, namely marketing speak and deceit. While I find these other DLCs objectively worse than chronicles, I also find it no surprise they were met with much controversy and dissatisfaction, when they not only released subpar products, but torched the goodwill of the community ahead of those releases.

Yeah I don’t think ornlu framed his position very well, but I think what we was getting at is, if you’re MS, and you have a finite amount of resources, and you have 100% control over what does and doesn’t get made…why do you decide to do chronicles?

Let’s take the emotion out of it, let’s all pretend it’s two years ago, and you were made head of WE. you’re given a pile of money and told to get the most bang for your buck for aoe2. What makes chronicles the best value proposition from both the artistic standpoint and the business standpoint. And I think for many of the reasons ornlu outlined, it isn’t.

If like ornlu, chronicles for you is fine but not your cup of tea, chronicles is a very expensive side quest in the history of aoe2. If you really like chronicles but you don’t have a strong preference of antiquity vs medieval setting, your preferences could have been satisfied with less investment by using existing assets and already designed civs. So only if you really like chronicles AND ALSO prefer the antiquity setting over the medieval was the extra investment worth it to you…but WE tries to satisfy those people by creating a DLC to a…medieval game???

Perhaps a standalone in the vein of sid meiers pirates or alpha centauri would have been better to try capture the antiquity RTS crowd. They could even have still added all the chronicles units into the aoe2 scenario editor.

Yes, V&V and V&V2 definitely make the extra investment and dedication into chronicles more noticeable, and that shouldn’t be the fault of chronicles.

And I think that’s the fundamental take away. About three years ago WE teased RoR. Since then, they’ve released (not including the icon packs) six DLCs, and of those I can only really consider TMR as both at least decent artistically and business wise.

IDK why RoR exists and seems to have used a lot resources for something that didn’t sell well.

Chronicles while is much more ambitious and sincere and consequently laudable, falls into a similar camp of did this justify the investment.

And then there’s V&V and V&V2…of the now 26 years of aoe2 they somehow managed to release, if you agree with steam reviews, the two worst DLCS a scant 14 months apart.

I don’t fully subscribe to the argument that this is all because shannon loftis left as studio head of WE in 2022, about a month before the release of DOI. It’s reminiscent of the great man view of history and rarely are things so cleanly attributable to the actions of a single individual. But my golly, gee whiz, that timing is very coincidental to say the least.

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I agree. The triangle is backwards in my opinion. Why would you want to go close to the ship that spits fire???

And not splitting the Dock is a missed opportunity.

True. V&V is certainly the worst (if we don’t count the icon packs) and the only one I didn’t buy. But I’m not sure if 3 Kingdoms is the 2nd worst. I never touched the campaign while I directly went to play the Alexander one from start to finish in a few days.

That is a top down point of few. Microsoft/Xbox micro managing everything Worlds Edge, Forgotten Empires and Capture Age are doing.

But the reality might be the other way round. Capture Age went to Worlds Edge/Microsoft/Xbox and asked if they founds and capacity to make the content they wanted to make and their proposal was accepted.

Maybe Forgotten Empires was just less ambitious last year or they were still putting more work into AoMR and AoE4 and couldn’t focus as much on AoE2DE.

But of course I’m just making wild guesses. Your guess is as good as mine.

Because they thought it would. I think the main issue is that different people wanted different things.

  • Some wanted AoE1 just with less bugs and better performance
  • Some wanted AoE1 with gates, garrison and formations
  • Some wanted AoE1 with unique units and technologies (and all of the above)
  • Some wanted AoE1 with new units, buildings (like a Castle) and technologies/upgrades (and all of the above)
  • Some essentially wanted Chronicles

So Chronicles is maybe the result of RoR failing. They realised that many people didn’t like AoE1 because of the game mechanics but because of the setting. And well of course nostalgia.

I think RoR explains the existence of Chronicles. Hiring a new team for it also means that they can fully focus on the main game content and don’t have to cut of parts of Forgotten Empires to make new RoR content.

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Excuse for what? I’m not making an excuse for anything. I found the narration in Battle for Greece less engaging and interesting than the narration in most previous campaigns, and I’m explaining why I think that is.

No idea what you’re on about. Many of them (including the Chronicles narrator) talk about themselves in the first person. Obviously they talk about other characters in the third person, although in some campaigns (at least Jadwiga, Gaja Madah) the narrator is the title character. But what I’m saying is nothing to do with first/third person.

I did eventually.

I’m not arguing about the quality of the DLC, I’m talking about its content. You said it has “a big campaign” when it doesn’t.

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I’d reverse the order, but I think this is a case where south park can be quite instructive.

v&v-vs-V&V2
v&v-vs-V&V21366×768 140 KB

But still someone had to approve it. If a subordinate comes and presents and idea that would make the business less money by spending more money, just because it’s not my idea doesn’t mean I have to greenlight it. the origination idea is orthogonal to it’s value proposition and ultimately it’s approval. Approving a bad idea cause it wasn’t yours isn’t somehow good management.

Sure, I suppose you can THINK anything. I can think a santa claus vs polar bears aoe2 dlc would sell like hotcakes. I guess what I’m getting at is WHY did they think that? Aoe1 DE died relatively fast after release. I don’t think a few graphical updates, UUs, and gates were what was holding aoe1 back.

I can see the reasoning there. aoe1 had it only had x, which is what we’ll do with chronicles, would have been successful, so by doing x with chronicles that’ll be successful.

I think however the reasons something works are finite and the reasons something could not work are functionally infinite, so trying to reason that way I think is wrong way to go.

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I’d reverse the order 100%. V&V is shit but who cares, you can just skip it. 3K on the other hand, constantly reminds you the existence of this abomination if you play ladder.

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Play ladder? Playing anything where you have to select a civ reminds you of it. Playing Campaigns and seeing that dumb tag reminds you of it.

Only way I avoided the former is by turning on “all” and the Chronicles civs shove the horrible things off the screen.

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I’ve uninstalled deception edition and re-installed HD to avoid the 3K “forces”.

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At least you can mod those away

Deceptive Edition! (actually sounds cool 11)

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Recently. Wasn’t aware of any until a week ago.

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This is excellent. I’m using this now.

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Then the prices or the comments made by Forgotten Empires should reflect it. And if they have lost so much ambition they arent able to release a good enough product then they should look for a replacement

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I’m the kind of person who thinks you can add 200 civs without changing the identity of the game as long as you do it with sense. Some civs are gonna look pretty similar but I mean wasn’t that the case in reality? I can’t think of valid examples right now but let’s say if Gokturks end up being a little similar to Khitans or another steppe civ is that such big of a deal? Don’t get me wrong, I think the more unique the better but for example they’re trying too hard with the 3k. Maybe it’s not a sin to make something simple like Berbers (well maybe not that simple) again from time to time? That way you can still add dozens of civ.

That no one’s gonna argue with. Chronicles looks very meticulous and passionate.

That I don’t like as well, in fact I didn’t think bfg was that great in terms of writing but a bit better than some average aoe2 campaigns. I’ve only seen Alexander through Ornlu review but it seems better, still again not having a narrator is bad. Dialogues and characters seem on point though (however I’ve yet to play it).

I think it can be good if it’s an actual narration, you realise it’s too long only if it’s not interesting. I’m also impatient to play but sometimes you need to set the tone before.

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Chronicles seems to repay the investment so it is a good use of money.

It might not have massive sales but it seems to have reliable sales.

Totally my fault because I asked for it on the forums. Joking, but it is true to some degree. A lot of people, me included, asked for it and they gave us what we asked for.

And I have to admit that I was somewhat wrong about it.

After the RoR release many people essentially said they want something like Chronicles while at the same time Rome at War was becoming a popular mod.

I play the game in different ways so the 3 Kingdoms are just 3 more civs in the list for me since I don’t play ranked. For me those are just 3 civs that I can use in scenarios where I need some other Chinese adjacent factions like Dai, Yuan, Xianbei or just pre gunpowder China. Just gotta disable the Heroes.

When the first Chronicles released I was hoping to get the 3 Kingdoms as a setting for Chronicles in the future, but well I didn’t get it the way I wanted.

Wu/Wei/Shu? You mean the 3 custom civilisation slots?

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I agree partially with Ornlu. Compared to the most recent DLCS by FE which were V&V and 3K, Chronicles is obviously much better. It has better voice acting, better characters, betteer music and even custom soundtrack for campaign missions, more assets and building skins (we haven’t gotten those in normal DLCs since DE came out) better historical authenticity and research, more campaign content, more unique campaign maps and very entertaining missions.

As a campaign only player I can’t complain, technically this DLC isn’t much different from the “normal” ones in my eyes, cause I still get 3 civs + campaigns in a DLC, I don’t really care if I can’t play them in ranked because I don’t do multiplayer. And I really like them because the campaigns are great.

But I can agree that it’s a bit weird that so much effort, passion, budget and quality are going to what is a sort of “side show” instead of the “main show” of the game. A sub-game within a game gets more love than the main game itself, I don’t mind because it’s good content, but it is a bit bizarre. Imagine if they did something like this for larger medieval conflicts, like the Reconquista or something. Other than that I can’t be too negative about these DLCs

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more civs necessarily dilutes the identity of civs. Back in the day you could say that Britons were The Archer Civ, now they are just one of many archer civs, not even the best one anymore. Same for Franks and The Cavalry Civ.

More civs means these civs lose their niche and identity. Eventually it will just be a continuous spectrum of civs, where it will be hard to distinguish similar civs. I think at 50 civs we already have too many

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Yeah, basically that’s what I tried to explain. I’m sad because the main game is being neglected, both quality and quantity wise. The Chronicles dlc were offering so much content, you can see the tremendous passion and love they put into it.

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If you pay attention to game industry news, you’d have heard of this story (please read the full article, it’s short). @Tyranno13

It’s not a silver bullet that will unravel all your questions. For one thing, the new 30% profit margin (more accurately, operating margin) requirement for Xbox divisions became mandatory in Fall 2023, later than RoR.

However, it probably can explain several things, like the DLCs released after it, including the icon pack experiment - they took little time to make, and were released in Dec 2023, within the same FY quarter as the arrival of the new mandate.

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Thats so gross

Even from a business perspective they are just shrinking the market presence

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Well, not quite in quantity, still got 5 civs ( 3 of them controversial I know), Elite UU skins and exclusive castles for all civs, plus we will get the new water balance in the near future. As for quality, thats where the discussion is.

I have said it before, I don’t mind having the 3k on the regular civ pool, I actually like the design of Shu and Wu, Wei not so much, and in all my games, unranked and quick play, with those civs I have seen Heroes be used like 4 times at most. For me the dissapointment was the campaigns, none of the scenarios in 3K are really that memorable, and most are just build and destroy. The only ones that I distincly remember were Liu Bei 4, with the “escaping the big army” mechanic, (which is obviously inspired by the “Journey Through the Andes” scenario in AoE III) and the Battle of the Red Cliffs but just because that has to be played 3 times :V. The characters in the campaiigns are not memorable and the narration is subpar to, not only to both Chronicles Grand Campaigns, but to previous base game campaigns as well. And yeah, it was a terrible choice to have all 3 final scenarios being the same; if they wanted to have all 3 campaigns end with the same event, they should have done it like the Battle of Grunwald present in both Jadwiga 6 and Jan Zizka 2, the same battle but radically differently designed.

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The curious thing about this sentence is that it’s exactly like that in the real world, or in this case, in history.

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