Road map for 2024 AoE 2?

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Any more details you can share?

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there’s a new steam db app, and based on when files were added, It was greenlit before V&V was greenlit, and there’s a new achievement only titled “achievement_319”. That’s pretty much where the facts end.

Leading theory about the achievement name that it references the new total of achievements will be 319, which means 44 new achievements, which for comparison, is over twice as many achievements as DoI added.

Additionally comparing to previous dlcs, it seems like this DLC is taking longer than other dlcs to make, which hints at it being larger. Also if there’s ever going to be a time to release a big dlc, the 25th aok anniversary (september 30th) / 5th de anniversary (november 14th), would be the time to do it.

If this is a “regular” dlc but just with more content, then that’s about 8 campaigns worth of achievements, tho leading theory is 6 which I’ll get back to in a moment.

There is some evidence hinting at a sino-sphere expansion. ccp relaxing their rules, chinese text files being added, a suspicious campaign folder in the campaigns folder. each folder has a bit of a prefix to it’s name. for example forgotten campaign folders art titled fcam_1, fcam_2, etc. There is a ccam_1. currently it just contains a copy of V&V stuff, which maybe the “c” just means “copy”. for best practices reasons, I don’t think that makes sense, but I guess you can easily just not follow best practices. also there is no copy of any other campaign which is weird. so alternatively the “c” might stand for “china” which would be congruent with the naming convention of some of the files (the naming is understandable tho not consistent, sometimes playing off the region, sometimes the dlc name, V&V starts with “ph” for “philthydelphia”). they may have placed V&V files in ccam_1 to be less conspicuous. IDK, it’s weird. some somewhat notable text changes to the temujin scenario that alter the description for the tanguts and jurchen.

also DE DLCs have added one campaign from an older civ. If you need to get to 6-8 campaigns, where is a region that has more than one civ that doesn’t have a campaign.

well china, korea, and japan don’t have campaigns, so that’s an obvious starting place. V&V added some japan scenarios (which by the way, one of those japan scenarios was quite similar to another philthydelphia scenario except it was about china, so additional reason to believe this new dlc might be about china, cause why else make a brand new scenario when the vast majority of v&V scenarios were recylced anyways), so it’s theorized china and korea will get campaigns plus 4 new civs. 4 is theorized since quite a few expansions have had 4 new civs and it’s just hard enough to believe we’ll actually get 4 new civs, let alone 5 or more.

so 4 sinosphere civs, with china and korea getting campaigns.

tibetans, jurchens, and khitans seem like no-brainers. 4th civ is less clear.

so lots of circumstantial stuff pointing to china. nothing individually I think is particularly persuasive, tho it becomes far more persuasive imo when considered collectively.

but to be clear, all we KNOW is that a DLC is coming. It’ll almost certainly be big, but we can’t know for 100% sure. everything else is just theory.

Check on the “New surprise DLC on 25th anniversary?” topic for more info. it’s a VERY long topic now, but I’ve done my best to summarize.

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It’s Tanguts for no4. They have popped up three times in AoE2 levels now, and part of the name-changes in Temujin refers to them. So that makes it Tanguts, Jurchens, Khitans and Tibetans.

Otherwise perfect summery.

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I’d say they’re the leading contender for no 4, but I wouldn’t go so far to say they’re a no-brainer like the other 3

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I don’t think so. They pop up so often in the campaigns now, and they were specifically clarified to not be Tibetans or Chinese in Temujin. I’d say they are as likely as Jurchens at this point.

I know some people want Nanzhao, but I don’t think they are nearly as likely.

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I think it might be possible that they name the tibetan civ qiangs, and tanguts are lumped in, and then add nanzhao.

alternatively if there’s some focus on korea, maybe sillans or baekjyans could be added.

Let me put it this way. I’m about 99% confident on tibetans, 95% on jurchens, 90%+ on khitans, but only about 80% on tanguts.

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I keep hearing about the former, but they don’t seen to be as relevant.

That’s still pretty high. Also do take into account they have popped up a lot in AoE2 already. Hilariously more than the Jurchens.

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Both jurchen jin and tangut xi xia are in “into China” and V&V’s temujin. Am I missing other instances?

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Khitans are in 3 scenarios (Genghis Khan 1 and 2 and Seljuk). Funnily Tibetans, the most anticipated civ here, is completely absent.

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I know Burgundians and Sicilians set a contradicting precedent, but considering the general vibe of the game and the expansions, I think we should be conservative with the civ ideas. Tibetans, Jurchens, Khitans and Tanguts are already big names and I don’t necessarily think they’re all going to be added. Expecting anything more specific is already dreaming too much.

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If you ask me Jurchens, Khitans and Tanguts are the most obvious choices because they were all “official” (i.e. widely recognized) holders of the Mandate of Heaven at some point. Tibetans also just because of how long they’ve been planned and how much people seem to expect them.

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Imaging if they rework China?
That will bring a big storm from the vanilla players (the devs changed the Chinese start and was a huge topic back then)
Or imaging if they remove the War Wagon from Koreans? Because “is not historical accurate” and replace it with the Hwatcha.
I really am hoping for an African civ but 6 new campaigns sound awesome if you ask me. We’ll see.

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Honestly as far as “poetic licenses” in the game go I think the war wagon is pretty valid as a representation of the hwatcha.

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For some reason, Tanguts are in “Into China” twice.

I don’t think they will. They already experimented with this, and players asked for them to be put back to how they were.

Plus they were very conservative with the Persian changes as well.

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The scorpion UT and Demo ship +50 HP civ bonus can be revised imho.

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i meant Age of Mythology