I’d like that, but I also wouldn’t hold my breath, as the devs don’t seem interested in making new architecture sets at all.
3 Likes
Yeah, IDK why anyone expected more than this. DE devs almost never exceed (my) expectations as far as new content/assets, so 2 civs reusing old architecture was what I’ve long assumed we’d get. New monasteries and wonders look good though. I like the idea of the extra tall towers, although something about them looks a little off or unfinished.
I don’t think this is a great idea; at least, armor ignoring/destroying archer units are almost universally criticized on fan-made civ concepts.
And don’t really care for this type of gimmick,
But this seems cool. Seems kind of random to be added to Caucausian civs, as opposed to East Asian or even American, but people have been asking for this type of unit for a long time.
Good to have some info on this though, better than overanalyzing some random social media post. Half expecting this thread to be closed though, unless the actual release date is tomorrow or something.
2 Likes
This is something that has been long anticipated, though not what I wanna see the most.
Still waiting for an expansion featuring East or SE Asian civs, if not African or American civs.
10 Likes
I wouldn’t. It’s not like Return of Rome being leaked through a Castle image that some random insider posted on Reddit; this time, the actual page was up early and people got the images. That’s on MS, not any particular insider.
Yeah, real-life Svan towers, which is what they’re called, look nearly identical, except that they’re typically attached to houses. My Georgians concept has a team bonus where towers give extra population. Considering that’s the team bonus of the Hittites in RoR, I expect that something similar will be present for the official Georgians.
They look fine to me, though I’ll have to take a closer look.
2 Likes
Awesome.
20 Nice words.
1 Like
Yeah, probably not. Can’t meaningfully be stopped anyway. Just from my point of view RoR wasn’t that interesting despite the massive hype, buildup, and attempted secrecy, whereas this DLC looks more interesting overall, hence more “leakworthy,” and more worth trying to stop leaks to the extent that MS cares about that sort of thing. Again, unless the release date is imminent.
It might just look weird on that background - for example, the roof tiles are too similar in color to the terrain, and their pattern too similar to the road for my tastes. The ones against the mountains look better, but still seem to lack a bit of depth somehow, IDK. Something about them just gives off fan-made mod vibes. Decent looking, but slightly uncanny.
What I want to say is:
Heck why they just cannot come up with better DLC names than “somewhere lords” and “someone rises”.
10 Likes
I think this is the castle that the Georgian Castle is based on:
I rather liked Ananuri Fortress, but this one is definitely more “Castle-like.”
1 Like
What are you talking about?
Next DLC title confirmed: Rise of the Forgotten Lords of Somewhere. And fortunately we’ll never run out of such names as the forum has been brainstorming them:
5 Likes
My Caucasus expansion idea was called Pride of the Caucasus.
I have to admit that’s a lot cooler than this.
2 Likes
This is simply too hard a requirement on design. You cannot design with the goal of uniting strategy across elos. Plus the Persian bonus of faster working TC already makes it tricky for new players anyway.
1 Like
I’m still happy for a new foot archer UU in 7 years 
This can be hard to balance for sure. But maybe lower attack rate / accuracy can make it work?
2 Likes
My original Melanesian (Fijian) unique unit was a blowgunner that ignored pierce armor (except for that of siege), but in exchange, it had very short range and a low attack, something like 3. I ended up replacing it, but it wasn’t a bad idea as a concept; it just wasn’t uniquely Fijian.
2 Likes
Blowguns were used by many different peoples in Insular SE Asia, particularly the Malay tribes.
I suggest that the Sumpit or Sumpitan blowgunner could be a regional unit for Malays, Javanese, Moluccans, Visayans, and other potential civs in this region.
1 Like
Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is showing how an armor-ignoring archer could be balanced.
In isolation theirs is a fine title, but I find the emphasis on Khans/Lords/Dukes/Rajas/Royals to be a bit excessive. Although to be fair the game’s original title is called “Age of Kings” and those are at least thematically similar.
Something like that, sure, probably lower base HP as well. Problem is that an archer that’s a good counter to high PA units has no obvious counter besides siege unless you really make it’s base stats terrible. It can be made to work of course, but I would have tried other things for a new archer UU before this.
Also Mesoamerica and northern parts of South America.
1 Like
Instead of making it an armor-piercing unit I think it’s better to make it having a poison effect on targeted units similar to the Jungle Bowman in AoE 3. The darts of the Sumpitan blowguns are often poisoned.
1 Like