This is in response to the official Return of Rome campaign vote, which annnounces that the Ascent of Egypt and The First Punic War campaigns will be ported to it, and asks visitors to vote for 2 additional campaigns: https://www.ageofempires.com/news/original_campaigns_coming_ror/
Since there’s no “Write-in” option, I will do it in this post. The following are my opinions:
Change the Macedonians to use the Greek architecture set, so that Rise of Rome can have a proper Greek-style campagin (rather than 2+1 Roman-style campaigns);
A vote for Voices of Babylon, because Holy Man is one of AoE’s signature level, and the DE version features some interesting rewrites to the story;
A vote for Yamato, Empire of the Rising Sun, because it was the only East Asian campaign, the original “final” and most challenging campaign with many memorable levels, and the DE version has a complete story rewrite and extensive level rework.
This post is motivated by the fact that Return of Rome does not currently have a campaign for every architecture set. The 3 new campaigns are 2 in Roman style, 1 in Mesopotamia; the 2 predetermined classic ports are Egyptian and Roman.
When there are only 2 openings, this leaves only one choice to achieve coverage of all 5 sets: to vote for Glory of Greece and Yamato.
However, Voices of Babylon is also arguably more representative of AoE1 than Glory of Greece. This, in addition to that the Greek set has always been more appropriate to the Macedonians, is why the above suggestions are made.
If my suggestion is taken, Return of Rome will have the following campaign coverage:
3 new campaigns in Roman, Mesopotamian and Greek styles;
1 classic Egyptian tutorial campaign;
1 classic short Roman campaign;
2 classic long campaigns in Mesopotamian and East Asian styles.
Personally, I would prefer porting all 4 base AoE1 campaigns from 1997 plus Enemies of Rome, but this apparently is beyond the scope of the project.
I think there would be much more material for an East Asian campaign with the Chang, it could cover the rise and fall of the Qin dynasty or the Three Kingdoms for example.
As for a Mesopotamian campaign, first we already have Sargon, but Cyrus ranks at the very top.
Anyway I voted for Caesar as it’s the only one (besides the First Punic War) to follow a character instead of an empire. Though the Gauls would be very needed to make it right.
The first mission of the Babylon is just legendary and I would love to see it polished in RoR. The other missions need some polish. A lot of moving Artefacts around.
The Japanese still don’t have their own campaign in AoE2, this would be their first.
It also has some really interesting ideas like monks that can’t move or the mission where you have to send tributes constantly.
Both campaigns could really benefit from some triggers instead of the usage of Gaia units.
I didn’t vote for any of the Roman campaigns because we already have one in RoR.
The Hatti campaign is very short but nice.
The Greek campaign is nice too but you only got 2 votes.
I voted for Babylon (which is probably the most popular campaign due to holy man) and Caesar. Hope the extra campaigns boost the sales, so maybe we get even more campaigns.
Well maps which had scarce gold and you had to trade with different system like Glory of Greece second mission will be definitely different since you can even by pass it with market buy and sell.
It is a bit odd they’ll be only adding 3 (plus tutorial), but kudos for listening to the community and putting in work into the dlc.
Knowing Ascent of Egypt and The First Punic War campaigns are going to be in:
(First Punic War being a personal fav due to playing the demo so much before buying the game!)
I would argue in favor of the Rise of Rome campaign, covers the Second Punic war, so an obvious continuity with the First Punic War, plus a mission about Pyrrhus who just got his own campaign to add to the connections.
The second is tough… Glory of Greece was memorable for me and it got a reference in the new Trajan campaign, Yamato was also memorable and is the only Asian campaign (this one actually reaches AoE2 timeline at 740AD…), then like the op mentioned Voices of Babylon has one of the most iconic aoe1 scenarios… Ultimately I would go with the Yamato, but I would be happy with any choice really.
If you care about having different architecture sets the op choices are good.
Also I support changing the Macedonians to the Greek architecture set.
It’s a tough one for me. I enjoyed all the campaigns. Ultimately I’d be pretty happy with any of them, but I would really like to get Enemies of Rome. Let’s follow Hannibal Barca’s journey over the Alps with Elephants once again!
I voted for Enemies of Rome for civ variety and for Glory of Greece, becausd this game is based on classical antiquity by god’s sake! I wouldn’t mind Yamato though.
Personally I hope we won’t get the Yamato campaign soon since it’s one of the worst designed campaigns ever, especially with levels like Mountain Temple which are painful to beat…BUT if they redesign it to a much more playable and actually enjoyable campaign then I would accept it.