I really like the new DLC (Battle for Greece)

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
21

I am very much looking forward to this. I love ancient history, and it looks like a lot of work is being put into this.

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22

The most optimistic answer to this would be that the opportunity cost of BfG was far lower than usual - and lower than a comparable amount of Medieval AoE2 content - due to bringing on the R@W team, especially given that they had created some of their own assets. From the official announcement:

They mention gameplay separately, so I imagine this mostly (if not entirely) refers to quality visuals, which is usually the highest bar to clear for mods. So basically lower risk than usual due to much of this stuff having already been at least partially created for free, and high potential ROI in developing a parallel line of civs/DLCs for this if it proves popular.

I definitely would have preferred a “normal” DLC, but I think this is best understood as a convenient business decision far more than an as anniversary celebration or an appeal to OG fans.

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23

I’m mostly interested in the Naval rework.

If the DLC has finally a concept that makes Water an appealing part of the competitive gameplay it’s totally worth getting it.

The new more sophisticated civ line designs are promising. I’m also interested what the new “Oyster” ressource will be. I hope something that makes Water important to hold control over even at later stages of the game.

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24

The capture age team posted this on twitter "It’s a special day for us as we get to share the excitement behind Chronicles, our first full release as a development studio!

We’re approaching campaigns in our own unique way, and we can’t wait for you to see it all."

Theres more coming

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25

That is one positive I can think of. Plus, we might get other ancient-era civilizations like Egypt, Nubia, Babylon, and so on with that same gameplay. It does make me wonder whether that wouldn’t make RoR obsolete though.

I suspect they would add Egypt in a Bronze Age DLC rather than a Roman-themed one, unless they want the Bronze Age and Ptolemaic Egyptians to be different civilizations (which would be understandable given how Hellenized the latter were).

26

Ah I find the people who trickle feed us AOE DLCs really frustrating. Like I really really like all this stuff in this new DLC (more like a mod than an expansion) but like why couldn’t they just make the Return of Rome stuff this good rather than just giving us 3 civs in this mod? Also couldn’t we at least get SOME AOE2 content with this? Like new Architecture for Persians and Byzantines?

My only other minor gripe so far is why does that giant Xbow thing shoot rocks rather than a bolt which is what it logically should be shooting? Makes no sense!

Also why are the blacksmith techs all the same as the AOE2 ones? Plate mail? In the classical period? They didn’t even have steel.

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27

AoM’s “Return of the Trident” campaign is considered the best Age series campaign, and one of the best RTS campaigns across the whole genre. This style of campaign that Chronicles brings, if done well, has the potential to bring that same level of quality as “Return of the Trident” had for AoM. I do hope we get a new “traditional” DLC soon but i’m quite hyped for this as well ngl.

And also being able to play classical civs with AoE II’s balance style will be great as well. I hope they keep this going, and we could get some “Chronicles” style campaigns for medieval civs as well; nothing’s saying they can’t do that.

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28

AWESOME DLC!!!
Bring it in Devs!!!

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29

Thank to the devs because this is than I was hoped for Aoe DE and I was very disappointed when I see than this was just a copy of the original 1997 game without improvement. Also I enjoyed the new campaigns of Return of Rome but Return of Rome are too limited to make a good RTS, for me having a antiquity set with AoE2 mechanic is that I was wanted (for example not be able to heal unit with Macedonians because they don’t have temple was annoying).

Now I want more antiquity and medieval civs.

Could you add an option in the random map to pick up a random civ either random antiquity civ or random medieval civ. I know than you can choose any pool of civs but in the future they will be more and more civs so it’s good to add this two options.

Also it’s good to be able to play ancient vs medieval civ even unranked. In the future I suggest to create three ranked pool : medieval, antiquity and another for both antiquity and medieval civ.

30

I think that’s a reasonable take, although as far as I’m aware, few if any of the assets we can see in the video and screenshots come from the Rome at War mod. To be honest, I couldn’t be bothered to read the huge wall of text in the official announcement – just skimmed it enough to know that CaptureAge and Rome at War people were involved.

Overall, I think this DLC would make more sense if Return of Rome didn’t exist. By releasing another ancient era game mode, they’re effectively admitting that Return of Rome isn’t really fit for purpose. One could try to argue that RoR covers an earlier time period, since AoE1 is supposedly Stone Age to Iron Age – but that falls down immediately since two out of three RoR campaigns are set after the BFG campaign.

Also, I find it quite funny that the acronym for this one is BFG


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31

I would be utterly incensed by that and consider it a slap in the face.

I do not think it’s a good idea to hide time-appropriate civs in another game mode. More antiquity civs for this please, but not squirreling away actual civs that people want for the main Middle Ages set game.

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32

It seems that this DLC is done by Capture Age and Rome at War team and not by Forgotten Empires.

33

Yes. I think I’m missing something here – why is that relevant to what I said?

34

It reminded me of Doom 11

35

Exactly – but in Doom I already found it funny because of the Big Friendly Giant.

36

Sorry if I was unclear, I meant Chronicles style campaigns for pre-existing Medieval civs, or those that are already added as base-game DLC first. I agree making Medieval civs Chronicles only would be a bad look.

Also no worries for you, from what another poster in another thread said, it sounds like Chronicles will probably stay antiquity-only: “they mentioned it in the article about this dlc. Chronicle team is a seperate team and they will only work on classical age and singleplayer stuff”

37

Which is a little sad. They could add to much flavor to the vanilla game-campaigns old ways.

38

This DLC does a lot of things that I asked for:

  • Ancient setting with AoE2DE mechanics
  • Splitting up the Dock into 2 buildings
  • Wood though naval trade
  • Regional Skins
  • Making Rome At War a official content
  • Crossplay between Ancient and Medieval Civilisations

It does only have 3 civilisations an all of them are kinda far away from the AoE2 timeline so there is not that much potential to mix assets.

I’m also kinda sad and kinds happy that they did not use AoE1 skins. I really love the aesthetics of AoE1 (AoE2DE RoR) but new skins are always nice.
It would be awesome to have the RoR units be available in the editor though. No reason not to, right? Not they will certainly not look out of place next to the other ancient units.

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40

There was a full list of civs that were supposed to be in the “Chronicles” - 34 civs. There is a paradox there that there is no umbrella Celts civ because they are perfectly divided into numerous Celtic civs. On the other hand you have Goths civ alongside Germani civ - this is a big inconsistency compared to the Celtic civs and i think the Germani civ should be split into several Germanic civs
 even in this DLC they repeat the huge Teutons civ umbrella.

41

I am negative about this DLC and I don’t want this DLC even for free.

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