Players who pre-ordered should get access to new civs today. They always gave 1 day early access.
I few skins per unit. Somewhere between 5 (like Trade Cart) and 10 (like Monk), so maybe 8 (Like the King).
Also since all civilisations have the same architecture set in Dark Age I don’t think Milita needs regional skins other for maybe skin colours. Some Feudal Age units like Skirmisher and Archer look pretty generic too, they might not need variants either. Also some regions could share some units. Even the Skirmisher from Chronicles looks very similar to the base AoE2 one. Regional units (Cavalry Archers, Paladins and Camel Riders are regional) don’t need multiple skins.
Chronicles is generally a good comparison. Some units are instantly reconcilable but a few look a little more different. The Spearman Line has a shield in Chronicles which I think is a bad design choice because they still take the same bonus damage from all Archer units. The Knight Line uses a lance instead of a spear but I think that is still very readable. All the other units look pretty similar to their AoE2 versions in my opinion.
So we can point at some Chronicles units and say “like this please” and some others and say “not like this”.
AoE4 released with 8 civilisations that all had unique appearances for all generic units. Now with all the Variants and the addition of a lot of unique units I don’t know how many variants exist now, but certainly more then 10. The upper end of possible regional unit sets would be the number of Architecture Sets which is currently 13.
Of course from someone who is used to RTS it’s obvious that player colours are the most important thing. But for people that are not familiar with the genre, or played the few games that have a different logic (Like Total War or Dawn of War) they won’t immediately know that by looking at screenshots or trailers. Someone who is interested in history (a target audience) would certainly know that Americans didn’t use plate armour and Crossbows but they do know that the Spanish used them (which they ironically don’t in AoE2) which can lead to confusion.
Having units look different in different parts of the world has been standard in RTS for like 20 years by now, for example Empire Earth 2 in 2005 added 4 (5 with Expansion) different regional styles. People born in 2005, who have never seen an RTS release without regional skins (or full unique units) are 21 years old now. They don’t have out nostalgic view on a game that was released 27 years ago, for those people this makes the game feel outdated or unpolished.
There are a lot of cases of units like Scouts, Villagers or Monks talking not just heroes. But they try hard to use regional units and UUs to not have the wrong looking generic units there.
Why that? There has never been Advance Access for any AoE2DE DLC before. Also Steam doesn’t say anything about that. Also I don’t know if Steam even allows Advances Access just for preorder. Is it really a preorder if you but it and directly get access, isn’t that just a normally buying the game?
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What? Afaik every DLC gave 1 day early access to new civs (not the campaigns) if you preorder.
I’ve never seen them do that.
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I pre-ordered too. According to the map on the site, the launch in my region should happen at 7 PM today—if I understood it correctly…
My takes on the balance changes.
General:
Militia line changes. I like them getting more bonus vs shock infantry. imo militia could get 2 more and maa 1 more.
Eagles: training time reduction perfect compensation
LOS changes for Rams and Siege towers. Nice
Onager buff. Hell yeah! waiting for that for years!
Navy: Don’t care. Seems to be good but laeve that to the people who like water. I am not convinced by the water rework. Maybe if they finally give demos an interesting role in the counter wheel it could become interesting, but currently I see practically nothing really exciting me for water, sorry. Maybe rework did a little, but not much to make it more appealing for me.
Treadmill crane changes. Something for our DM community.
Civs getting mounted Xbows. Let’s see. They look comparably weak rn. I think they will receive a buff like increased movement speed or attack delay. But need to get my fingers on them.
Rathas production time increase, good.
Hussite Wagons and Wagenburg Tactics nerf. Solid, but I predict we will see more regarding houfnice.
Mounted XBows interesting, but I also predict they won’t make a huge impact on open maps for the civ.
Flemish Militia nerf 
Cataphract changes. A small buff. Won’t change too much imo.
Varangian Guards - I think they will be used occasionally against other camel/archer civs in the midgame. But limited. Nice touch though.
.Chinese losing HCA. Ok, follows a pattern. Not that they made much use of it anyways.
Throwing Axemen buff. Nice. Lots of people asked for that for a long time. Now let’s see if they finally are useful.
New UT Ordonnance looks interesting. However, similar to Szhlachta, it will be very limited in practical utilization. However, I like the conceptikonal idea to give one of the classic civs a new tool. They fall behind the modern civ designs over time and this is one way to address that. A good test case on “what to do with the classic civs”. And ofc a test also includes the possibility of failing.
Huns Atheism buff. Stacking could be op on certain maps (usually custom ones). Idk if this is intended.
Koreans losing gambesons. Good, cheaper fire lancers with gambesons were OP.
Magyar Huszar training time nerf. Good, they were overtuned, especially for Phosphorus.
Bolas Rider nerf. Too much imo. They are strong, but Mapuche rely on them being strong. I would like to see a compensational buff to Konas.
Temple Guard nerf. Ok.
Organ Gun nerf. Justified because of the Phosphorus.
Losing Redemption is a big hit. But they were one of the most versatile civs with a really strong eco bonus out there. For me this is an interesting test case on “implementing a weakness to the modern civ designs” in response on them outshining the older civs (which have those weaknesses by design). So the opposite direction on what is done to Franks. Both tested at once. well played.
War Chariot. I am a bit critical here. Imo they should receive a food cost increase but gold cost reduction. A small HP buff. They were too strong in those castle age all-ins but too weak later on. This could be adjusted with just a tweak as described. Just nerfing them isn’t a solution imo.
Conq nerf. Similar. I would like the elite one to get some form of buff actually.
Missionary nerf. Imo a bit overtuned.
Teutons changes. Whatever. They won’t use mounted xbows anyways.
Blackwood archer nerf. Another one, but I think the main issue with the civ is still their eco including the payback.
Vietnamese. Wow. CA and Fire Lancers getting nerfed. Didn’t expect that. That’s almost a rework of the civ. I am not even against it, cause the stuff was broken. However I can see some people don’t liking it because… yes exactly that. The Rattan buffs are imo not enough of a compensation. But I would like to see more Rattans, so it’s a like overall from me.
Vikings losing Gambesons. Also an interesting tweak. However I think overall that will be a buff. Cause midgame Varangians will be another tool for them even without Gambesons. They will stay one of the best Arabia civs.
Xianbei nerf. Another one, again. Imo half of that would have been enough. It’s not the only thing Wei have going for them. But a very interesting one. I would have liked when Xianbei would somehow just lose more to regular CA. But that might be a bit too specific to implement practically. The times of “better Huns” is now probably over.
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Since when have the current devs cared about “a lot of people crying”?
Sure, I’m not really interested in trying to wrap my head around AoE3. The idea that a Japanese musketeer is so different from a European musketeer in so many arbitrary ways seems to me both overly complicated and problematic to me. (Although it’s by no means the most problematic thing in AoE3, considering Native Americans have forest magic instead of logging tools.)
AoE2HD felt like a fan mod to me (obviously The Forgotten actually was one), then the original release of DE seemed to smooth that aspect of it out for the most part. But now AOE2DE feels like a fan mod again with its haphazardly chosen civilisations and its arbitrary application of out-of-place mechanics. (Not that “feels like a fan mod” is my real issue with all that.)
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I’ve pre-ordered to save money but I don’t have early access. I think it’s only for insiders / media creators like Ornlu.
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That’s why EE2 and EE3 went for more differentiated architectures and units… EE3 is basically a strange mix between RoN and WC3…
Yes, that’s right…the Civ variants use many assets from their base Civ…
Yes, it’s almost half and half (10 base Civs and 12 civs variants)…with the new DLC there will be 12 base Civs…
Sure, like my brother and cousin, who were born in 2004-2005 (then I have my other brothers, but they were born in the 2010s and 2022 and they already play Minecraft or Fortnite) (I haven’t tried to get them to play the Age of Empires series yet)… I got my brother to play AoE 3 and while he liked it quite a bit, he didn’t turn his nose up at AoE 2 either… the same thing happens to me, even though I was born in the mid-90s, I play AoE 2 but I have a special fondness for AoE 3…
Yes, it’s simply a matter of perspective… besides, the developers simply take things from mods to implement them in the games (the AoE 2 DLCs starting with The Forgotten onwards simply draw from the Age of Hegemony mod, and the European AoE 3 DLCs draw from the Napoleonic Era mod and a little from Wars of Liberty)…
Yes, AoE2DE DLCs went through a phase of drawing from mods: LotW and DotD from Age of Chivalry: Hegemony, DoI from the Dharma mod (I think that was its name), Return of Rome from the Rome Returns mod, Khitans and Tanguts from 3K from Mandate of Heaven, I think – plus V&V literally recycling mod content, and Chronicles being a pro version of the Rome at War mod. I don’t think TLC or TVS are derived from mods, though – but I’d be interested to be corrected on that if they are.
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Ornlu the Wolf - Age of Empires 2 has early access and played showing the first 3 campaign missions.
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Question to history experts, any idea why Harald can be played as Danes or Saxons? From my little knowledge he was Norwegians which is now represented by Vikings and served as Varangians in Byzantines emperor. So only 2 civs instead of all 4.
maybe some form of retaliation?
If they don’t add norwegians, they add the main figure of the campaigns from them being playable with all the other civs in the game?
IDK, just a guess.
The Varangian Guard was composed of Scandinavians, Rus’, and Saxons; I feel that playing as the Danes should reflect this diversity, yet in most of the game’s levels, the units remain the standard Vikings and Varangians. Also, why didn’t they include the Varangian Guard for the Slavs?
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Maybe/probably saxon campaigns will changed perspectiv to Harold Godwinson
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Guess he will be harold the saxon and harold the viking for some bizarre reason.
hide the pain harold hardrada?
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Will the patch going along the DLC release at the same time?
Almost definitely. (Interesting; I guess this is why “20 characters” is written at the end of short posts).
So he will be fighting against himself? That will be a hilarious twist.
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