Yes, it’s a similar one…
It could be because of the historical period too… AoE 1 is the only classic AoE that is set in Antiquity (AoM is a mythological spin-off and AoEO is an MMO)… not to mention all the mods that Rise of Rome has had in the last 27 years… 
Compared to aoe2 it was very less.
Could be but I don’t understand why, the Vietnamese people was still in south China for much of the relevant time of AOE1, and I don’t see why they would be especially interested in civs from the Fertile Crescent relative to the West that has the Greeks and Romans as a solid anchor point + other civs notably relevant in the Bible (and still overwhelmingly went to the medieval AOE2). AOE2 would feel more relevant for Vietnam before even adding the Vietnamese.
True but you only need one mod to fully overhaul the vanilla game. For M2TW for example hard to go back to vanilla after trying Stainless Steel which is a considerably improved default grand campaign.
Good to see the mod maker picked a period-appropriate title!
not worse than a “medieval” big budget movie that was named Ironclad (yes, like the 19th century ships)