Suggestions for campaign DLCs

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Suggestions for campaign DLCs

I would pay for campaign-only DLCs to fill up some of the gaps in the current roster with more excellent material.

Currently, the Japanese, Chinese, Persians, Turks, Vikings, Koreans, Mayans and Magyars don’t have full-length campaigns.

For reasons I set out in greater detail below, I believe that the Byzantines and Slavs don’t have real campaigns of their own either.

Those civilisations that aren’t represented in a full-length campaign all have at least one standalone scenario under Historical Battles. See the list here:

Japanese (Kyoto, Kurikara)

Chinese (Lake Poyang)

Persians (Bukhara)

Turks (Bapheus)

Vikings (Vinlandsaga, York)

Koreans (Noryang Point)

Mayans (Dos Pilas)

Magyars (Honfoglalás)

However, that doesn’t mean that those civilisations can’t or shouldn’t get full-length campaigns of their own. The Britons only had Agincourt, until their representation was much improved by the Edward Longshanks campaign added with Lords of the West. Meanwhile, the Franks have both Tours and Hastings although they already have the Joan of Arc campaign to their name.

Why the Byzantines and Slavs need campaigns

The Bari campaign is good, but it’s a poor representation of the Byzantine story, set on the margins of the imperial world. There are great tales to be told about Basil II the Bulgar Slayer, who fought a wide variety of foes, including (you guessed it) the Bulgarians and the Egyptians (Saracens) and led the Byzantines at the zenith of their medieval power. A Basil campaign would also give the opportunity to feature possible new civilisations, such as the Khazars or the Georgians. Other fantastic candidates for a real Byzantine campaign include Alexios or Manuel Komnenos, or of course Justinian and Belisarius.

As for the Slavs, they currently have the Dracula campaign. But actually, they share the honour with the Turks and Magyars, and Vlad Dracula wasn’t even a Slav! We need a dedicated Slav campaign, focusing on the civilisation’s new East-Slavic-by-elimination character. The protagonist could be Alexander Nevsky, or lesser known people like Sviatoslav the Brave or Igor of Kiev, who besieged Constantinople and under whose watch the Rus raided Saracen coasts on the Caspian Sea.

Japanese

The main challenge of identifying a good possible Japanese campaign is the ostensible lack of martial interplay between the Japanese and overseas civilisations, with some notable exceptions. That didn’t stop Yodit or Sundjata from being made, but those aren’t the most popular campaigns. That said, the Mongol invasions of Japan probably aren’t large enough in scope to warrant a whole campaign. Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s career and invasions of Korea and Manchuria would overlap with the scenarios Noryang Point and Kyoto, but I still think Toyotomi Hideyoshi could be a good option.

I hope we can have fun making suggestions for the remaining civilisations in this thread.

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While Im not a fan of Bari, its done. Represent other civs first before going back to represented civs

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I mean sure, but there is always room for more campaigns, and unlike with adding civilisations, there are no multiplayer balance considerations that necessitate a brake on their implementation.

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Mōko Shūrai is the best for Japan,Sengoku period were very wonderful but all Japanese,so boring!Toyotomi Hideyoshi start an invasion called Bunroku keichō no yaku but he failed like a Dai haiboku,it was not an honor campaign.So that Kamakura is the best choice.

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Why isn’t it big enough? Japanese are one of the few peoples fight off the Mongols.

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To be fair the weather did most of the work. Having one “Divine Wind” battle could work but I don’t think there would be enough material for a full campaign.

I rather think that a late-Sengoku campaign, including the invasion of Korea so that it has several civs (not like the Pachacuti campaign), would be the best choice.

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As for the Byzantines, I think the best choice would be Heraclius.

  • The campaign would overall be more defensive than Basil II or Justinian so it would better fit the Byzantines.
  • Most of the campaign is focused on one single enemy (the Persians, everything else revolving around them : the usurper Phocas, Slavs and Avars besieging the city…), allowing great character development until finally defeating Khosrau II at Nineveh in the penultimate scenario.
  • There is the mandatory defensive siege of Constantinople, although we’re one century too early for greek fire we can still have a glorious naval barbecue ingame.
  • The last scenario would cover the early Muslim conquests, a massive gamechanger barely covered in AOE2 (Tariq’s campaign is just an offshoot of the main conquests), while fully having to use Byzantine defences to slow them down.
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Korean invasion will be just Japanese and Korean.Mongol army had Mongols Korean sailors and Chinese troops so more variety.

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Very nice suggestions. Both Heraclius and Basil II is the ideal campaign for the Byzantines, which need another campaign. I would also like to see a proper Chinese campaign…

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Chinese armies (who helped Korea) could also include some Mongols to represent armies levied from nomadic-influenced northern provinces (Manchuria, inner Mongolia).

All while having to face the full might of the Korean navy to resupply your troops. Some interesting gameplay mechanics could be implemented to force you to invest a lot in the navy, lest your ground forces risk to collapse

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I would also like to see another pack of 9-10 new historical battles scenarios. Mostly to resemlble the greatest battles of the period, especially involving civs which don’t have one yet (like Ethiopians, Malians, Saracens, Teutons, Slavs [so much content here, maybe 2 battles needed], Byzantines, Italians and the new civs of India)

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As a general rule, battles should be for historical events that either would be overstretched if made into a full campaign, or that would work better as a giant sandbox (York).

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@DukeOfLorraine

Chinese armies (who helped Korea) could also include some Mongols to represent armies levied from nomadic-influenced northern provinces (Manchuria, inner Mongolia).

Totally agree with this.

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This is a great campaign suggestion, not only for the reasons you gave but also because it counters some of the late medieval bias in the recent campaign releases.

The narrative arc, from Byzantium teetering on the verge of subjugation to Heraclius’ glorious march to Nineveh, is pretty amazing.

The final scenario could have good Kotyan Khan vibes. The Byzantines could have to hold on to at least one of a number of key locations including Jerusalem, Alexandria and Antioch by the elapse of a timer. You’d have huge hordes of Saracen Champions, Hussars and Heavy Camel Riders scouring the empire, and you’d watch helplessly as your fellow empire-builders, the Persians, as well as your allies, the Ghassanids, are ground to dust. It would be a serious macro-management challenge.

A Toyotomi Hideyoshi campaign has endless opportunities. In broad strokes, here is a possible outline:
Scenario 1 (set before Kyoto 1582) - illustrates Hideyoshi’s rise to prominence in Nobunaga’s service, covering, for example, the Siege of Inabayama Castle or the Battle of Nagashino.
Scenario 2 (set after Kyoto 1582) - Hideyoshi fights against rivals such as Shibata Katsuie in an early battle, before having to unite Japan under his rule, subjugating the Shimazu in Kyushu, the Chosokabe in Shikoku and the Hojo in the Kanto Region. Here you could offset some of the monotony inherent to a map full of Japanese factions with differing troop compositions, with Shimazu fielding Elite Samurai, Chosokabe being a predominantly naval power (?) and the Hojo sitting in a huge fortress full of siege weapons.
Scenarios 3-5 deal with the Japanese invasions of Korea, involving the challenges that @DukeOfLorraine mentioned. These would include protecting sea supply lines bringing resources against the formidable Korean navy, crushing uprisings of Korean partisans behind the frontlines and eventually facing a huge Chinese intervention. The last scenario might involve rescuing the stranded Japanese troops from the Korean peninsula and struggling against Yi Sun-Shin’s mighty Turtle Ships attempting to cut off Konishi Yukinaga’s retreat.

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Kamakura will be better,Hideyoshi did not go to Korea Land.Genpei War and Jokyu no ran will be perfect.

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Since we’re on the subject of campaigns. Previously I made a few suggestions of Vlach\Romanian campaigns:

  1. With Micahel the Brave, right at the end of AoE2’s timeline.

Michael the Brave briefly united much of the future Romania under his rule. He routed the Turks at Călugăreni (where 10.000 Wallachians defated 100.000 Ottomans) and Giurgiu. In total he had 12 major battles. 9 wins, 3 loss and 1 assassination. Was outnumbered in all of his battles.

  1. Stephen the Great, Dracula’s cousin and in many was his polar opposite.

Dracula was very cruel, Stephen was a very religious person. But they were cousins and allies. And Stephen was more succesful than Dracula. He ruled for 47 years and had a total of 48 battles out of which he won 46. He defeated: Ottomans, Hungarians, Poles, Tattars and Wallachians. His only 2 defeats came at the hand of the Ottomans as you may have guessed it, in totally outnumbered battles.

  1. Bassarab & Bogdan, a story about how the first Romanian states came to be independent from Hungary. You play 3 missions as Bassarab and 3 missions as Bogdan. Unlike the other 2 possible campaigns, I have also made a script for the intro and outros of missions. Where a native Moldavian named Grigore Ureche narrates the “origin of his people” to Władysław IV in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Grigore Ureche was Moldavian chronicler who wrote on Moldavian history and spent time in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The intro narration could begin in 1633 at the start of the Polish-Ottoman War of 1633-1634. Knowing he will have to face the Wallachian and Moldavain troops who are loyal to the Ottomans, one of his advisors, Grigore Ureche, who is of Moldavian origin, starts telling him about the story of his people, how they became a free people.

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