Speculation for a Possible Middle Eastern DLC in the Near Future

[MatM1996]

@Estevao9543

or at least made a campaign for the Ethiopian-Somali war (where Portugal had an important role), or even any notable battle between Portugal and the Berbers,

They did that in AoE 3 as Historical Battles where ironically the Portuguese don’t have a campaign (and don’t even appear in the original campaigns) (although I plan to port Almeida in AoE 3 at some point and if they include the Tupi in AoE 3, I’ll also port Arariboia)…

@Estevao9543

• It would replace the campaign of the infamous Francisco de Almeida, whose most notable victory (Diu) is a historical myth, with that of the noble Afonso Henriques, the founder of the kingdom of Portugal, or Afonso de Albuquerque, a conqueror of Asia far more successful than Almeida.

Yes, I would change it to Alfonso de Alburquerque because that was the original idea before Almeida…

@Estevao9543

The search for this African Christian ally dates back to the Crusades. Until then, Western Europeans saw black people as frightening demonic beings fighting in the service of Muslims, but later they discovered the various Nubian and Ethiopian Christian pilgrims, and their view changed. They even heard of a Nubian king (Cyriacus) who had come defeating Umayyad Egypt all the way up the Nile to liberate the Coptic patriarch and, by sheer coincidence, prophecies began to emerge among the Copts of a black king coming to aid the Crusaders from the south. These prophecies naturally mingled with the myth of Prester John and, along with the belief that Aethiopia* could divert the course of the much-needed Nile and a hadith prophesying the destruction of the Kaaba by a black man, turned the entire region into a giant time bomb. Upon Saladin’s rise to power, the idea of ​​a union between Copts, Nubians, and Crusaders posed a huge threat to his plans to overthrow the Fatimid heretics and establish his Sunni rule; it also didn’t help that the more than 5,000 black soldiers hired under Queen Rasad years earlier remained loyal to the previous dynasty.

Thus, when the Sultan’s secretary al-Mumin, who attempted to send a letter contacting the Crusaders, was discovered and killed, thousands of black infantrymen and their Armenian archer allies revolted in support of the Fatimids, causing a massive two-day civil war in the streets of Cairo — the greatest challenge in Saladin’s career. He and his brother Turan Shah had to act quickly to cut off all communication between the rebels, Nubians, and Europeans and fight the Crusaders, and, as you already know, he was very successful in this. However, the (failed) attempts at a Christian alliance between Europeans and Africans against Islam did not end there. Nubia welcomed the rebels, and later (14th century) the Abyssinian kings, after witnessing the slow and painful collapse of Nubia against the Mamluks, assumed the mantle of Ethiopia, protector of the African Church, and took advantage of their association with Prester John made by the Europeans (who had already heard of Amda-Seyon’s conquests) to get, among other things, military support against Ahmad ibn Ibrahim.

Exactly…you summarized almost 400 years there (1163-1543)…

@Mahazona

Mayans campaign and two more america civis.

Balkan dlc with dracula reworked with romanians and three more balkan civis.

China campaign with some other near by groups added due to the possible sales in that area.

Magyars slavs turks koreans japanese are hard to add with new dlcs unless its a mega campaign like the last viking dlc.

@Siegelad4112

Japanese and Koreans (also Chinese) feel like a missed opportunity with East Asia after the 3 Kingdoms mess tho Magyars and Turks are an easy choice for Balkans with their common theme of the Ottomans.

Also Celts and Byzantines still deserve their actual campaigns without tutorial and fictional Byzantine leaders.

Yes, that would be the idea…now it would be the Balkans post-DLC Middle East…and then Southern Africa or East Asia…

@smiki5five

Campaign players are supposedly a majority, one would think that a DLC with multiple campaigns isn’t an unreasonable wish ;(

@smiki5five

All civs that are being added should be released with a campaign. Saxons having only a single scenario is bad enough, and Jurchens and Khitans having none is outright nefarious.

Yes, that also applies to AoE 3…

@Skadidesu

I think the development of AoMR was the main reason. They moved a lot of people there. AoE3DE received 0 patches in the same time period.

Yes, the development of AoM Retold consumed a lot of resources and almost cost us the Baltic DLC (it did, in fact) for AoE 3…

@CouguarLoup7693

I agree 16 scenarios was the bare minimum to tell an Alexander campaign with all the major battles, one city building (so many Alexandria he build !) the young prince, the mighty conqueror and the decaying emperor. For the two remaining it’s only one fort he remaining two new civilizations maybe if they stay at 21 scenarios like in Battle for Greece instead of 18 Puru and thracian can have more than one scenario each.

Yes, I think there should have been 7 scenarios for Alexander, 7 for the Thracians, and 7 for the Puru…

[Crossil]

@Skadidesu

I don’t agree here. I think every civ having at least one full campaign is a nice to have. But completely being limited to just one campaign per civ just for fairness reasons is stupid. It should be pretty obvious that some civs just have more stories to tell then other and also some civs are just more popular and more interesting.

Other civs’ campaigns do that. Alaric and Attila both show the history of Rome, for example. Or the Byzantines appearing in a metric number of campaigns and individual scenarios. Or the English having Richard the Lionheart in multiple scenarios, being part of the Joan of Arc and Great Dukes campaign, having the various precursor Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in Harald’s campaign, in York, etc.

You’re pretending like history can only be explored with the protagonist. I think other civs’ campaigns can serve to showcase history of other civs as well. Giving everyone a campaign is both a narrative addition and a gameplay one. I value new campaigns for civs with existing campaigns less because the gameplay element is (most likely) satisfied for them.

But even besides this, I don’t see how Macedonians and Vikings were served better by having their one campaign spanning over a dozen scenarios somehow showcase their long history better than having one campaign for Alexander and Harald, and then a different campaign for some other character.

@Skadidesu

China has more history then probably half of the other civs combined, ironically it doesn’t have it’s own campaign yet, if we don’t count the 3 Kingdoms.

And who’s fault is that?

At least Ming dynasty features prominently in Le Loi.

@Skadidesu

I wonder how much that is for budget reasons and how much that is because of play testing showing that people rarely finish campaigns.

Budget reasons. And what you’re describing is Total War campaigns, which drag on precisely the way that Alexander dragged on.

But funnily enough, the completion rate isn’t that different from other campaigns. It actually follows the release order more or less, with Alexander being on par with El Dorado (the lowest completion rate of Last Chieftains) and BfG being on par with Sun clan campaign (the lowest 3K completion rate). And consider that for Alexander and BfG you need to complete all of their scenarios to complete them, which is at the lowest point on par with the other two DLCs. So it’s actually even at the worst.

@Skadidesu

Though I don’t play on high difficulty on my first run.

Same. I play standard for leisure and refuse to run legendary on principle. I eventually run stuff on hard when I feel like it.

@Skadidesu

Maybe the campaign is more painful to play if you directly play on the higher difficulties (it was 5 difficulties unlike most AoE2 campaigns) when you keep having to retry some mission many times or have to reload saved a lot.

No, it’s that I’m playing one civ for 16 scenarios. The most memorable ones are quite literally the Thracian and Puru scenarios for me because they break the monotony.

@CouguarLoup7693

I agree 16 scenarios was the bare minimum to tell an Alexander campaign with all the major battles

Half of them weren’t major battles. And all of the ones in India could’ve been done from the perspective of Poros.

Even switching it up to 10 for Macedonians and 4 for other two civs would’ve been alright.

@CouguarLoup7693

the young prince, the mighty conqueror and the decaying emperor

The young prince doesn’t include any major battles.

The decaying emperor is literally the short period after he gives up on India until his death, not necessarily something we needed three extra scenarios for.

And, honestly, what you describe is Harald’s current campaign.

@Velk413

Because one is Chronicles content and the other is base game content…they’re kinda two seperate games bundled into one.

Why exactly would that change anything? The main issue is that two civilizations in Chronicles were stripped of a campaign just to feed it to Alexander. That is true in Chronicles or AoE2.

I don’t see how this is different and them being different game modes doesn’t really change that.

[Skadidesu]

@Crossil

You’re pretending like history can only be explored with the protagonist.

nope. I personally also think that it’s quiet limiting of AoE2 to always only tell the story of one person in every campaign. AoE1 often had campaigns span over a way bigger time period since they didn’t all need a protagonist.

@Crossil

Giving everyone a campaign is both a narrative addition and a gameplay one. I value new campaigns for civs with existing campaigns less because the gameplay element is (most likely) satisfied for them.

I generally agree with that. But I also think having some campaigns being different opens up new possibilities too.

As I said I haven’t finished the recent campaigns yet but I already feel like they kinda just wanted to copy Alexanders campaigns. Chronicles kinda feels like the driving factor of AoE2 development in some way now.

[smiki5five]

@Skadidesu

I wonder how much that is for budget reasons and how much that is because of play testing showing that people rarely finish campaigns. Generally the issue with games is that 100% of players see the beginning but only some players see the end.

Even if that’s the case, campaign players are still the majority of the playerbase. Cutting costs on campaigns isn’t proper.

[Skadidesu]

Length doesn’t equal quality or cost. It is easier to make a bad 10 mission campaign then a good 5 mission campaign. I think the budget and effort that went into the campaigns have increased over time even if the number of missions has decreased. The results are debatable though.

[smiki5five]

Eh, I thought it was obvious that when I’m asking for more campaigns, I’m asking for good campaigns, not bad ones

[Skadidesu]

Of course.

I really think they should try doing a campaign only DLC again where they actually make the effort to make new campaigns and then also add new heroes and other scenario editor exclusive content. Maybe even combined with a smaller civ rework when that is planned anyway.

[MatM1996]

@smiki5five

Even if that’s the case, campaign players are still the majority of the playerbase. Cutting costs on campaigns isn’t proper.

Yes, otherwise you’ll end up like AoE 3 where they don’t include a single campaign… we should be grateful that we still have campaigns in AoE 2…

[Aldaron]

If they divide the Saracens my proposals would be:

• Fatimids or Mamluks (Saracen) [Egypt]
• Abbasids [Middle East]
• Moors/Maghrebies [North Africa]
• Andalusis [Iberia]

Moors should be a mix between Berbers and Saracens and Andalusis between Iberians and Saracens. Not sure how to make Abbasids more unique.

[smiki5five]

Civilizations in AoE2 are usually named after people groups, dynastic names like Fatimids or Abbasids fit AoE4 better.

Fatimids and Mamluks ruled over Egypt, so the civ can simply be named Egyptians (they weren’t ethnic Egyptians, but it was fairly common for countries to be ruled by rulers of different ethnicities). The Abbasids ruled over Iraq, so their civ can be called Iraqis or Mashriqis.

As for how the civ representing the Abbasids should play like, it ought to have great heavy cavalry (ideally with access to the Savar) and siege. You can take a look at my version:

Saracen split

[Aldaron]

Mashriqi would be my choosing, which would fit perfectly with Maghrebi but the later is rather well known in English, while the former… but it would be my preferred name indeed.

[smiki5five]

I think people are wary of names such as “Iraqis” or “Syrians” because of the common misconception that every country in the Middle East was made-up by the imperialists after the breakup of the colonial powers, but the countries bearing these names didn’t invent them (nor were they invented by Brits/French/Ottomans/Yankees), these names already existed for these regions before Prophet Muhammad was even born.

Also, I hope that modern conflicts won’t prevent the Devs from implementing Kurds and Yemenis.