Dear Age of Empires team and community, the addition of the Hebrews as a civilization in Return of Rome would bring essential historical depth to the game. While the Palmyrene Empire existed for only about a decade, the Hebrews were a prominent and influential civilization for millennia. Their absence from the game feels like a significant historical oversight, given their impact on the Middle East from approximately 2700 BC to 63 AD.
Suggested civilization bonuses:
Infantry units regenerate health slowly – Reflecting the endurance and perseverance of historical Hebrew warriors.
Economic and religious buildings generate passive gold – Inspired by their long-standing trade networks and religious influence.
Villagers construct buildings faster – Representing their ability to rebuild rapidly after conflicts.
Bonus damage against cavalry – Based on their tactics against mounted invaders.
Tech tree overview: The Hebrews would focus on strong infantry and archers while having limited cavalry options. Their navy would be functional but not dominant, emphasizing their land-based strength.
Given the Hebrews’ extensive history and impact, their inclusion would enhance the authenticity and strategic diversity of Return of Rome. I hope the community and developers consider this addition seriously. Let me know your thoughts!
I’d add them alongside the Sea Peoples, the most notables of them being the Philistines.
A totally non-controversial DLC
Yes there are quite a lot of civs that I’d add in RoR. On the top of my list, naturally unbiased and unrelated to the fact I’m French, are the Gauls.
I have nothing against the suggestion, but didn’t they abandon the ROR mode these days? They haven’t even brought the original campaigns they promised before. So, I wouldn’t expect them to add new civilizations to the mode. Otherwise, your suggestion makes sense. Except for adding Khazars into AoE2, who were not Hebrew but Turkic, we don’t have any Jewish/Hebrew civilizations in the game. Could’ve been nice.
Given the fact that the Jews didn’t form a coherent territorial entity between Hadrian and 1948 and were minorities in other realms (among the Saracens Berbers Spanish Franks Teutons Poles Slavs…), with the Khazars having barely any relations with them (the reason why they picked judaism is to pick some religion without being influenced by Rome Constantinople or Baghdad, they picked it nearly randomly and might equally have embraced zoroastianism or buddhism…), mean I hardly would see them as a civ in AOE2. While in AOE1 they’d fully have their place.
But there is a lot of work to overhaul RoR. On top of the missing campaigns, giving civs unique wonders, UUs and UTs notably, plus voice lines.
Oh yes, a DLC including some of the most influential peoples from Bronze Age to Iron Age would be awesome. I can already imagine maybe unique units being incorporated and assimilated officially in Return of Rome too (I think it is not a “sin” to have them in RoR by any means; after all, the game mode itself is a mixture between AOE1 and AOE2 with features and functionalities from both, and RoR is literally INSIDE the definitive edition of Age 2, so why not adding them to give new life to Return of Rome and also include the remaining most iconic civilizations from the historical periods covered by Age 1?
Definitely… It is way more urgent to add the remaining 6 campaigns first, then release new additional content with civilization-bound stuff like you just said. Israelites and other relevant peoples were oversighted during Age 1 development after The rise of Rome expansion was released.
That depends on who you ask, but I think Return of Rome could actually be made standalone, if only AOE2DE owners (Microsoft) would want that, and they probably don’t, due to business “strategies”.
Mostly yes, since that way people wouldn’t have to forcibly install or get AOE2DE in order to use RoR or have dilemmas as to buy or not additional expansions.
It all depends on whether they want to keep investing in RoR or abandonned it.
I still think it’s all downstream from the mistake of making AOE4 medieval instead of in antiquity (which would have allowed AOE1 to rest for good), this overextended the whole series…
It doesn’t mean it cannot be added. There was no UTs in CD AOK, the imperial age one was added in The Conquerors and the castle age in The Forgotten.
