Interesting you put Purepechas with the “North American” one and not the “Meso” one. I’d rather see Taino/Caribs in the North American one, and Purepechas replacing either Kiches or Chontals in the Meso one personally.
I do like the idea of Chichemecas though. I’m still not sold on Iroqouis/Hauds though, I Think i’d rather see a larger umbrella of Algonquins personally.
In order to avoid the Devs creating some Pueblo-Mississipian Frankenstein architecture, I’d like them not to add everything NorthAm in a single DLC. (Caribs could go wherever though, they can use the SouthAm arch set.)
DLC 1: Moundbuilder architecture
Predominantly wooden stuff for the Mississippian culture area and Eastern Woodlands. Civs could be:
DLC2: Southwest architecture
Initially simple structures like Navajo hogans evolving into adobe Pueblo architecture. Civs could be:
I strongly agree with this, a mix with the two architectural set will be horrendous.
And for late 2026 I predict a Chronicles DLC about Rome (with Carthaginian)
Only viable civ for aoe2 there are the Haudenousanuee as they are some records of them in the AOE 2 timeframe,
But Lakota? Lit they only have records from like 17th century onwards.
IMO, the Iroquois / Haudenosaunee would be a perfect new civilization for Victors & Vanquished.
They don’t need to be tied to a specific regional DLC and they’re highly requested by fans.
If the developers want to boost sales and redeem Victors & Vanquished, adding a highly requested civilization like the Iroquois / Haudenosaunee for free would be the most effective move, also adding Hiawatha as campaign.
it doesn’t matter if dlc is split, if they want to reuse the architecture they will and it is very likely, they are using incan architecture for all of south america
I’m not feeling great about Tupi building with stone either tbh.
I would pre-order this today if they announced it for December 2026.
I predict either they are done, or it they will go back to Europe (Holy Roman Empire). i.e. play it safe
Tupi can have their own “Tropical American” architecture along with Tainos/Caribbeans.
Just saying…
Not sure they’d risk splitting Teutons so soon after the Three Kingdoms controversy (though imho Saxons or Suebians deserve civ spots more than ancient Han kingdoms). In case of Europe only, I think that a northern DLC with campaigns for Vikings and Slavs is most likely, people love Norse stuff and Scandinavia seems to have a decently sized gaming community. (Germany has it too I guess, but my point about the controversy still stands.)
Not a split. The Teutonic state was only part of the HRE. so it seems weird to me to have to teutons represent that whole area.
The State of the Teutonic Order (German: Staat des Deutschen Ordens, pronounced [ˈʃtaːt dɛs ˌdɔʏtʃn̩ ˈʔɔʁdn̩s] ⓘ)[a] was a theocratic state located along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea in northern Europe
There is always option for Slavs split which is safer.
Honestly though, I wouldn’t be surprised if the developers just walk away to a new project. all they see is negative feedback. Imagine if at your job for all the work you did, you got the same negative feedback? it’d be pretty de-motivating.
That’s just one of the meanings. Teutons is also a name of one of the ancient Germanic tribes, and is sometimes seen as a synonym to “Germans” overall.
AoE2 does really good financially and has a sizable playerbase. If the devs became bored with it, Microsoft would just assign another dev team to run the game. (Or force the current team to continue by threatening them with layoffs 
)
Probably Chronicles, or the described Saracens split by a dev.
If it’s Chronicles i hope we get Scythians or Chinese.
Forgot about the Saracen split possibility they mentioned. Perhaps we’ll get Andalusians/Moors?
Chronicles are probably going to tackle Rome first (like the mod they are inspired by).
Maybe some graphics and audio content not related to or tied to civs or campaigns
Where was this mentioned?
the Teutons are just a really bad name. The “Teutons” civ in aoe2 is meant to represent the peoples speaking west germanic languages. there was no people in the middle ages called “Teutons”. Teutonic was used as an adjective to refer to a vareity of “German” or “Germanic” things, eg the Regnum Teutonicum.
sounds like the best case scenario imo.
No, I want at least a dozen more civs.