That only makes sense to me if when they greenlit dlc 5 they thought they’d have the cash flow to get them to this fall and something didn’t pan out.
Maybe the sales for the animated icon packs and or TMR was disappointing.
They realized they needed to release something soon to keep money coming in the doors and that’s where we get V&V.
I already have some evidence and a theory about this.
Basically law changes around video games in China, first being announced, but then only being implemented this year. It would make sense if the team spotted the law announced, and began to plan for a Chinese themed DLC, happy in the knowledge that this relaxation would make it easier to be greenlit by Microsoft.
But either the law wouldn’t come in on time, or this DLC was planned to be far larger (due to either the sheer volume of content planned for the region, given how barren it is ingame, or because they were planning more content for this DLC after the criticism of Mountain Royals raising the price, but including as much as LotW/DotD). So they had to postpone it until later.
Or hell, perhaps they didn’t know about this change until later, and decided “lets add the Tibetans”. But creating a new civ and testing it takes time, pushing the date back.
Potentially. Perhaps V&V was thought of much earlier as a rough concept, and would be used as a “stop-gap” whenever they planned something more time-consuming.
Mountain Royals having lower sales I don’t know. It was priced higher for no extra content, and that likely put people off. But it’s still a typical civ-focused DLC.
Tibetan
This is one of the ethnic groups I have most wanted to see added since I was a student.
It was also one of the options that the seniors of Ensemble Studios considered at that time.
One of the civilizations also included in the plan in forgotten empires
The degree of discussion about this civilization in the country and region I am in
At the same time, it will inevitably put everyone in an embarrassing moment
Because there are many people in the community I manage who don’t want China to split.
People often give up when discussing this nation.
Thank you for giving me greater hope and confidence in the official inclusion of Tibetan civilization.
Songtsen Gampo is definitely one of the representatives of this nation
No problem! Granted there is no guarantee, but this is probably the best (and most likely) chance we have of seeing them.
Oh I am 100% sure that a Tibetan campaign would be based on him.
Although, when I looked through the many rulers of Tibet, Mé Aktsom jumped out as the most interesting. His initial scramble to get onto the throne (well, his followers, as he was a child at the time), then his various wars with a wide variety of neighboring powers, conflicts with the Umayyads, and then the Battle of Talas as a big potential climax would suit an AoE2 campaign well. Wide variety of opponents, and lots of battles.
Finally a new DLC? 20 characters
Yes. But the only thing we know for sure is that it exists, and it’s being updated very frequently now that Age of Mythology Retold is out. Everything else is speculation, no matter how probable.
Likely the beta testers have now been freed up, and the reports are coming in, which the devs are working on.
I just had a look at the original version of Filthydelphia’s Temujin level, as it was brought up that the Xi Xia and Jin are in it and it might hold clues.
And as it turns out, there are some things to note.
The notes about the Xi Xia in the original mentioned that they were once Tibetan nomads, and have now settled. This line of text has been changed to no longer mention the Tibetans (I will get to my thoughts at the end).
Meanwhile the Jin have overall had their passage trimmed, to say that they conquered settled peoples rather than conquering the Chinese specifically. Now, this is true, as the Jurchens defeated the Khitans to take northern China, not just the Chinese.
But, that’s not all. The Tatars have had their text changed as well, to go from calling the Xi Xia and Jin Chinese kingdoms, to calling them settled peoples. Even the hints section has all mentions of the Xi Xia and Jin being Chinese scrubbed, and replaced with “settled peoples”.
Now, what does this mean? Initially, it looked like the devs were avoiding mentioning China being conquered, but then I saw the Tatar changes (keep in mind, not all text was changed. The Naiman, Merkids and Khamag for example have had none). So every change here was clearly for a purpose, and not to just smooth out sentences that perhaps didn’t flow as well.
It seems that specific mention of China and Tibet was altered respectively. But the big one is that calling the Xi Xia and Jin Chinese was removed. I’m not saying this is a smoking gun…but this is very interesting. I feel much more confident that a Chinese DLC is coming, and that the Tanguts and Jurchens will be part of it, and possibly the Tibetans and Khitans as well.
Let’s get onto the monk in the room, the Xi Xia change in mentioning Tibet. This I feel can go three different ways.
1 - My theory about the devs holding back a China-set DLC until after the Spring was correct, and they were being cautious.
2 - Tibetans are being added, and so are the Tanguts. So mentions of them as the same were removed.
3 - Tanguts are being added, but Tibetans are thought to be a hot topic, and are being avoided wholesale.
Good find!
It’s worth mentioning that calling the ancestors of Xi Xia “Tibetan nomads” was a bit inaccurate. Tanguts and Tibetans were more like cousins, #### descending from Qiang people.
Edit: Wait, now “b.o.t.h” is a censored word? I think whoever is managing those forums should get rid of this bot and hire more human moderators because this is getting ridiculous…
Yeah I did find this to be a big simplification and inaccurate. Although when has AoE2 cared about some “small” inaccuracies? Especially in a random hint section.
Perhaps a smoking fire lance.
Good catch though. Assuming there aren’t comparable changes to other scenarios/campaigns that are less connected to the Sinosphere, this rises to the level of (relatively) strong evidence.
Changes in the Alaric campaign text are what tipped some of us off to the centurion’s aura buff before that info was available anywhere else.
That’s the bit I want to check next…but it’s late and I need sleep. Plus those levels are insanely large. But checking the hints/scouts section should be enough.
What makes it so weird is how only the Sino-sphere context stuff was changed. Literally nothing else in the sections about the Mongol-aligned players.
iirc, wasn’t that a hidden string file? So it wasn’t publicly visible anyway.
It would be neat if the presumably reworked Chinese received a unique Tulou building, which I erroneously gave to the Khitans in my concept.
Very very interesting. What about Genghis Khan campaign? Any text change on the 3rd mission?
None that I can find.
And no changes to missions 1 or 2 either.
They did defeat the chinese, though.
No Khitans then?
20 characters
I really wish to see the Tibetans… It’s the sino sphere empire I want the most…
Ok then, didn’t defeat ONLY the Chinese.
Point being, the Khitans are being clarified as a separate civ here.
I don’t think any of Genghis Khan’s levels remaining the same rules anything out.
Likely they want to keep this quiet, and were also working on this DLC alongside V&V. So V&V were likely prepared for this change since it was easier to do so, and Genghis Khan will be altered on release of the DLC, like every other level is when new civs are added.
I believe that while we are talking
The authorities are also watching us
It’s not easy for us to get obvious clues right away
