Small speculation-overview what's coming next to AoE II DE

Hello everyone!
As we all know, DLC is coming to our game “Lords of the West” introducing 2 new civilization - Burgundians and Sicilians, 3 new campaigns, 16 new achievements.

  1. New campaigns
    New briton, burgundian and sicilian campaign.
    Game files suggest that 2 of those campaigns has 5 mission and 1 campaign has 6 missions.

There is also new unknown campaign named in files “camp10” with 8 missions and one more file that suggest we will be able to play all challanges added to the game ( e. g. Mongols, Barbarossa Brawl ).

  1. Civilization rotation
    New lines in “strings” file suggest that civilization rotation is coming to AoE II DE.
    IDS_POPUP_CIV_UPGRADE_SUBHEADING "Available Civilizations Rotate Weekely."
    IDS_POPUP_CIV_UPGRADE_TIMER "Next Rotation In: \n%sdays %shrs %smin %ssec"

  2. Demo AoE II DE
    IDS_POPUP_CIV_UPGRADE_TEXT "Upgrade to the full Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition to unlock unlimited access to all Civilizations, all campaigns, all multiplayer feature, Skirmish versus AI, and more."

It suggest that new “Upgrade” DLC will be added. It means that there will be demo version of the game.
Also intresting thing that lines are named “CIV_UPGRADE”.

It also may suggest that player who don’t own new Lords of the West DLC will be restricted in multiplayer to limited civilizations in “civ rotations” to have a chance to play Burgundians and Sicilians without dlc.

++++Edit: Just found that new images of campaign signs were added. They are grayed out signs of existing campaigns. It probably means in demo will be not have acces to some ( most of them ) campaigns.

12_bari_disabled
4. More civilizations
In small review page of new DLC we can read:
“Lords of the West—the first official expansion to Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition”

The first official expansion. That’s clearly mean we will get more new DLC with more new civilizations.

5.Battle Royale Tournament/Event
New hidden profile picture it suggest new event around Battle Royale.
PR8-002

10 Likes

This looks like HD way to play DLC civs without owning the DLC. At HD there was also a civ pool which you could use if you dont have the DLC to play in rooms in the lobby with DLC.

If they introduce thinigs like this for ranked it will be terrible in my eyes, so i hope this will be only the case for the lobby and that they think of something else for Ranked games.

This looks like DE without DLC vs DE with DLC. This dont really looks like a demo to me.

“Unlock unlimited access to all civilizations”, “skirmish vs AI”
Why DE without DLC would block skirmish vs AI ?

Also just found out that they added greyed out buttons to the game. They are named “>campaignname<_disabled”. Seems like disabling campaigns for demo version.

And yes, civilization pool is clearly from HD.

2 Likes

I think it is an advertisement for the Vanilla too

New button to buy full version of AoE II DE

Meaning that DLC is not a good option?

I guess, but many asked for it

I don’t know. For me, I’m happy to see new DLC. Playing fully voiced campaigns in AoE II DE is fun for me. Just posting what I found in files.

4 Likes

Probably the civ pool can also be used in SP.
Campaigns of the DLC are locked for non DLC users.

This is the problem that we really don’t know how it will be working.

Maybe campaigns of the DLC are locked. But in game every existing campaign ( Joan d’Ark, Barbarossa, Tamarlane ) got disabled sign. I see no reason to disabling all campaigns for vanilla users.

Yeah, we dont have many info. In the end you can be right.

Maybe the game is gonna be free to play for quickplay only, with severely restricted civ pool, as a form of demo. If you want the full game, you buy it.

2 Likes

It might be it. That would make more sense why it is named in strings “civ_upgrade”.

I found something interesting:

The cam10 folder we found in the anniversary patch is actually a new campaign called “civ challanges” and seems to be similar to the “Art of War” scenarios. It consists of 8 scenarios (the following are texture reference names but still kind of meaningful):

  • KnightRush
  • CastleDrop
  • DangerousBoom (maybe Barbarossa Brawl?)
  • InfantryFlood
  • ElephantsOfWar
  • DeathByLongbow
  • GalleyRush
  • MangudaiSniping (maybe Mongol Raiders?)

Here’s the background:

I haven’t found anything new about the

While the Barbarossa Brawl replaces the Mongol Raiders scenario, don’t worry; we’re working on a home for all the scenarios and leaderboards in the future!

line from the patch notes of update 40874 but it could be related to these challenge scenarios.

4 Likes

Art of War The Extended Edition <3

5 Likes

The future of AOE2:DE has never been brighter.

6 Likes

Really cool to find out that Art of War gonna be update.
I had to find something new too 11
Here are some hidden profile avatars:
PR7-047 PR7-048 PR7-049

5 Likes

I also what to say there are unused new colours for players - pink, light yellow and white.

3 Likes

White is actually the new gaia color.

Cuman Terminator. How cool is that XD

Maybe more optional player colours or even better 12 player support. That’d be amazing. Finally Epic size would be good for something.

3 Likes