Now you’re talking! World’s Edge… make it so!
But not that DLC. I wanted a Neanderthal age for AoE2 even before I knew about Filthydelphia’s The Last Neanderthal campaign. I actually don’t think I played that yet.
Like a 5th age… an age before the Dark Age. But an entire DLC instead could be cool, focusing on wayyyy back timelines… probably under Chronicles
To achieve this, I want more ages to go through, going from Neanderthals where you have to invent fire and the wheel, and survive weather events (cave shelters) and more at the mercy of animal predators, and go up thru AoE2’s timeframe. This all means more technologies to research, more tech paths to take (some paths should be forks in the road so you can’t research the other fork), and so on. Maybe more econ focus in some parts of the game, too
NEW AGES
A fifth age before the Dark Age… like Stone Age, perhaps. And/or some in-between “sub-ages” between the existing ages.
For a Stone Age, I’d love getting plopped into the game world with nothing and having to slowly find resources and research stuff to get past the opening parts of the game, where you’re much more at the mercy of the the elements and wildlife. (A lot more at the mercy than either AoE1 or AoE2.)
Learn techs such as fire just to survive, the wheel, stone tools, arrowheads, etc. Would be cool to see your Neanderthals make their first fire and have to forage for food in different ways than we’re used to.
Putting caves on the maps and having to find a cave to live in would be necessary in this age. A cave would be your civ’s home during this age. Or maybe for certain maps or world regions, just natural terrain or vegetation cover could suffice.
Upon advancing to the Dark Age, the terrain would evolve where the caves and natural ‘homes’ get closed off in a believable way (e.g., boulders, grassy dirt, fallen trees, or plantlife cover entrances) and they can now build houses.