As a single player enthusiast myself, the 3 new campaigns being added to Return of Rome are welcome and I can’t wait to play them all! And as an enthusiast of the classic Age of Empires campaigns, this is the first time we’re going to experience fully voiced campaigns in the Ancient Ages.
However, I would still like to replay the old challenges with the new quality of life improvements that are being brought to Return of Rome, and I don’t think I’m alone in that. Unfortunately, according to the article Return of Rome: Everything You Need to Know on Steam, it looks like they won’t be included.
Campaigns in RoR could be divided into “Classic Campaigns” and “Return of Rome Campaigns”. The classic ones don’t need to be reworked or voiced: the map with the levels pinned on it and a single slide at the beginning and end of missions, with the same report written in Age I: DE, and it would be already great!
Nevertheless, some scenarios can be embellished for context, such as adding snowy terrain to the Crossing the Alps scenario in the Enemies of Rome campaign.
Hopefully these campaigns will be added at some point in the future, and both those of us who are already familiar with them and new players can experience them with the improved gameplay provided by this DLC.
And you, were you expecting to find these campaigns already included in RoR?
You are leaning far too heavy on nostalgia here. I recently played some of the campaign missions and I found them very lackluster.
The classic campaigns are bad. No voice-over or triggers. Mute characters. They would need to be heavily edited.
Classic campaigns had no triggers, so there was a severe lack of dramatic effects. 50 population was the average, that was done due to the game’s limitations since computers back then were really bad.
They could redo the scenarios but also give them more dramatic objectives. Since the scenario editor in the previous game is lackluster when compared to the new one.
I will convert the original campaigns as soon as RoR is released (I need to know the new unit IDs so that I can convert the scenarios). However, I still need some talented guys which are good with triggers and AI since I have no experience with that, but if I manage to convert all the maps, voices etc. from AoEDE, a huge part of the work will already be done.
I will use this tool and modify it a little to convert original AoE1 campaigns to RoR:
Truly, I am! The thing is, I expected the QoL updates that are coming with this RoR DLC to have already been brought over in Age I:DE, which didn’t happen.
Honestly, I think so too! What I’m expecting anxiously is that the classic campaigns are completely reworked and everything you mentioned above is implemented, but I don’t think that will be done anytime soon unfortunately. Therefore, it is better to have them included at least in their original, raw state than to have nothing at all.
Speaking of dramatic effects, when Age I: DE was announced, I wrote this thread suggesting some improvements, including an epic Carthaginian speech for the Punic Wars Campaign
Let’s hope! I believe that if this DLC is a hit, we will have more civs and campaigns in the future.
It’s great that someone already intends to do this! Thank you.
Unfortunately, I don’t have experience with this either, but I’m sure you’ll find someone here or on the Age of Empires Heaven forums with some expertise with them!
Some were mute (only text dialogues) and needed rework as there were too many scripted “live cutscenes”, some scenarios had to be remade from scratch, others added… but we’re talking about on average less work on maybe 25-30 scenarios instead of a full remake of 70-80.
Also, AOE1 campaigns followed empires (Alexander being only the last greek mission) instead of characters so it wouldn’t score high on the story level.
