Proposal for the full set of Chronicles DLCs

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Here is my full concept for the Chronicles DLC series as a whole (at least as it relates to the Europe/North Africa/Middle East region, I think an Eastern & Southern Asian Chronicles series, and perhaps even an earlier Bronze Age Chronicles series are very intriguing ideas, but they are out of scope of this discussion. I have included the first two official DLCs here as well. Other than the two already-released DLCs, all proposals use proof-of-concept names, and these are not final name proposals.

Battle for Greece

  • Achemenids
  • Athenians
  • Spartans

Alexander the Great

  • Macedonians
  • Thracians
  • Puru

Diadochi (Including the Pyrrhic War. Time Period 323 BC-281 BC)

  • Rome (Included in this DLC for the Pyrrhic War primarily, but also helps get the Rome hype started and to avoid overloading the Punic Wars DLC too heavily)
  • Seleucids
  • (Ptolemaic) Egypt
  • Italiotes (Greeks in southern Italy) (I’m open to other ideas on this, perhaps Greco-Bactrians or Epirus. Really what i’d love is a more generic “Greek” civ, because Athens and Sparta don’t really fit well for Greek umbrellas, but i’m not exactly sure that’s feasible at this point.)

Punic Wars (This would be a very large campaign, and should likely include Rome’s interventions/eventual conquest of Greece too, as they happened at the same time and were related in cause (Rome not wanting Macedon to help Carthage) Time Period 264 BC-146 BC, you could make an argument to maybe include the Jugurthine War against Numidia here, but at 111-105 BC it seems like an outlier)

  • Rome (if no Diadochi DLC)
  • Carthage
  • Iberians (non-Celtic Iberians along the eastern coast)
  • Numidians
  • Gauls (representing the Celtiberians, as well as the Gauls of modern France and Cisalpine Gaul and central European Celts)

Triumvirate period (Third Mithridatic War, Third Servile War (Spartacus), Gallic Wars, Battle of Carrhae, Caesar’s Civil War, Second Triumvirate, War of Actium; 73 BC-30 BC

  • Ptolmaic Egypt (if no Diadochi DLC)
  • Armenia
  • Parthia
  • Pontus

(If the Diadochi DLC is included, perhaps a Belgae civ, or you could introduce the Illyrians here as Octavian made a major push to conquer inland Illyria during this time)

Imperial Period (Covering Battle of Teutoburg Forest, Jewish Revolt, the Great Illyrian Revolt, Roman Conquest of Britain 43 AD-84 AD, & Trajan’s wars in Dacia & Armenia, ending at Rome’s high-water mark 117 AD)

  • Judeans
  • Illyrians (if we want to avoid Judeans)
  • Germani
  • Britons
  • Dacians

Roman Downturn (This DLC is more of an optional addition, and is the DLC I view as the least necessary of all of them, but it brings us nicely to the transition into the base-game AOE2 timeframe. It covers the Sassanids taking over Persia from the Parthians in the roughly 220 AD, various very early (200s AD) Barbarian incursions into Rome, and the rise and fall of the Palmyrene Empire. This will end either with the abdication of Diocletian in 305, or the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312 AD. So rough timeframe being 220 AD-312 AD. Perhaps simultaneously we can get a separate “traditional style” campaign for the base-game Roman civ)

  • Sassanids
  • Sarmatians
  • Goths (The first incursion of Goths into the Roman Empire was the sack of Histria in 238, right in the middle of this time frame, and given their experience on the Steppes before that and their Scandinavian origin they seem perfectly acceptable to have as their own civ as opposed to being covered by the Germani)
  • Palmyra (i’m dubious on including this as a civ, because the story is interesting but it only lasted from 260-273, Palmyra could also just be represented by Sassanids)

I initially tried to keep each DLC to only having 3 civs, and included 2 additional DLCs (Italian Wars, from the abolition of the Roman Monarchy in 502 BC to the Pyhrric War, and a Republican Era DLC for the period between the Punic Wars and the end of the 3rd Mithridatic War). I ended up opting to cut these because of the overlap of the Italian Wars proposal with the events we have already seen in Greece, and the fact that while the Republican Period DLC would tell some important stories (Jugurthine War, Cimbrian War, the Mithridatic Wars, and the Servile Wars), the two most important (and most well known) of these (the Third Mithridatic War and the Third Servile War (Spartacus’ rebellion) are generally in the Triumvirate period (the resolution of the Third Mithridatic War was the catalyst for the First Triumvirate, and Spartacus’ rebellion was a few years after that). I think the Cimbrian War in particular would be an amazing option for a later stand-alone campaign; they kinda went all over Europe and fought a bunch of different peoples along the way, and posed a major threat to Rome itself.

If only having 3 civs per DLC is a hard and fast requirement, it makes it rather difficult as the Punic Wars ended up being fought along pretty much all of the European and African Mediterranean coastline with the exception of Egypt, and a lot of Rome’s enemies have to be introduced right away as they are involved right away. I comprimized to move the Illyrians later because in a pinch they can be represented by Thracians, but many other of these civs don’t have a good pre-existing analogue to represent them, and require new civs. This consequently makes the later DLCs harder to make new civs for, because many of Rome’s enemies are introduced on the front end.

Overall this has been a fun exercise, and i’ve learned some new things I didn’t know about Roman history (such as that Cimbrian War, I honestly even considered proposing a Cimbrians civ at one point in this but I feel that they fit better under the Germani umbrella). Again, this is not necessarily a prediction of what I think the devs will do (though I would love it if they did) but moreso what I think the ideal set of DLCs would look like. I’d love to hear your thoughts on if you think i’m missing something, or if there is any disagreement anywhere with this.

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Using the same settings I’d make…

Diadochi: Seleucids, Ptolemies, Mauryas (the most powerful post-Alexander empires)

Punic Wars: Romans (Republic), Carthaginians, Iberians

Triumvirate: Gauls, Pontics, Germani

Pax Romana: Romans (Empire), Parthians, Dacians

Crisis of Third Century: Sasanians, Tervingi (Goths), and I’m not too sold on Palmyrans. Everyone likes to hype them up but to me they were just a short-lived rebellion against Rome. But I guess it fits this exact setting, so…

This is all assuming 3 civs per DLC. Other civs that appear can be covered by other umbrellas. For example, Illyrians as Thracians (as happens in the Alexander campaign). Punic War Gauls as Iberians (the closest thing we have at that point), Britons as Gauls, Armenians as Achaemenids, Numidians as Carthaginians.

If it were up to me I’d add a lot more civs but that’s unrealistic.

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East Asian civs can still be added. For example, the 3K currently in the AoE2 base game should be moved to the Chronicles because the 3K are from antiquity and not the medieval era.

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If you don’t want Palmyrans you could add Syrians (representing Osroene and many other semi independent small kingdoms between Persia and Rome) or even more broadly Arabs covering all the tribes of the peninsula. But for chronicles logic Palmyrans are ok too.

Just to not add Goths again you could have Alemans: these two were the most important among Germans in the 3rd century (I’d place Heruli as the third since they built a fleet on the black sea and sacked Athens in 267). Goths killed Decius at abrittus, it was the first time an emperor was killed in battle (shortly after Valerian was captured by the Sassanids and the empire disintegrated), but they were defeated later by Claudius.

However Alemans invaded Italy, managed to defeat Aurelian once, though he could stop them in extremis before they reached Rome. The Aurelian walls were built in this occasion and the Agri Decumates were abandoned by Romans to Alemans. They’re a pretty good candidate if you want an alternative to Goths (leaving them and the Heruli represented by your previously introduced Germans).

Sarmatians are ok but no Scythians before them? You could just add one of the two actually and call them Scythians to cover both (plus early Alans).

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That’s a good shout, could cover Palmyra and others too.

I thought about the Alamanni, but it seems like they could still fit under the Germani umbrella, whereas Goths kinda don’t. And I get we already have a Goths civ in the base game, but the design of base game civs is different than Chronicles civs so I thought it was ok (same kinda goes for Sassanids since the base game Persians are largely sassanids, just with some Safavid gunpower thrown in)

Sarmatians actually covers Alans, in my research Alans were considered Samartian-adjacent. And from what I research the Scythians height was during the period of Greek dominance which we have already largely passed. Scythians didn’t really interact with Rome aside from individuals who joined other Barbarian armies invading Rome. the Sarmatians had greatly eclipsed the Scythians by the later Empire

For sure East and South Asians can be added. I was just focusing on the current Greco-Roman story arc for now. If Chronicles proves popular enough i’d love to see an Asian story arc started once the Greco-Roman one is finished. Though I would say that 3k shouldn’t be involved with it since 3k (as we see in the campaigns) isn’t even real but is based off a novelization of it; i’d rather keep it siloed off from anything else (if the dumpster isn’t an option lol)

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I would like to see Meroitic Kushites added to a future Chronicles DLC, perhaps alongside Ptolemaic Egypt. We know the Romans fought the Kushites at least once a few years after taking over Egypt, and the idea of Cleopatra and Amanirenas teaming up against Rome is an alternate-history scenario I’ve found appealing for a couple of years now.

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I’d rather have Syrians than Palmyrans, HOWEVER, I’m not closed to the idea, because they were in Rise of Rome back in the 20th century, and even appeared in some scenarios

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Or go back in time with Assyrians, Egyptians and Babylonians and rest of the AoE1 roster

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I would eventually love to see that, but I think that needs to be a whole seperate storyline from the current Greco-Roman Classical line they’re working on now. After that i’d love to see them do the early antiquity civs as a seperate DLC/campaign storyline.