Could you expand on this? Does this new use of Unreal Engine have anything to do with AoE2? If so, in what way?
All the recent updates across the Age of Empires games don’t seem to fit the pattern we’ve seen before, especially with no official announcement. It’s all very unusual.
Weird times… or exciting times? Maybe both.
I have no detail, just heard that in a video dating 6 month. But as an Unreal dev myself I would say that no, doing a remake of the Genie engine in UE is wasted time and money. UE4+ engines are 3D engines, not 2D engines.
But for an entirely new game, it’s a good engine choice, with the reach of platform it can run on, the built-in tools, and all other things possible with it.
I’ve attempted to do some RTS myself on UE, and at that time, well, UE4 wasn’t that good for RTS game if you don’t have professionnal knowing exactly how the engine works etc. I worked alone so that’s also probably why I was struggling that much, but as they seems to be hiring some UE professionnally trained people, it means basically that they know they need people with deep knowledge of the engine, its possibilities, its handling, that could not be replaced by developpers they already got in the team. It’s not just hiring some new programmers, it’s specifically UnrealEngine workers. It can range from coding, animation system building (not the animation itself, but the files for them to apply correctly), material painters, AI bot behavior system, etc.
And as mentionned, UE currently allwos you to publish on nearly every existing platform, so what better engine to multi-platform release a new content ?
It could be anything in the Age of Empire saga using cross-platform pattern, so we’ll have to wait for official reveals to know where those UE-specialist hired are currently working on.
The Unreal Engine need for a developer at forgotten empires does not need to be for age of empires at all.
On the website you can see that FE also worked on anno 117 and Stellaris. Therefore it could be for any game.
Agreed, it could be a lot of things. May also not be a game at all but a Tool like CaptureAge for other games.
But still, it could be a new AoE game too, we’ll know in late august probably.
Again many updates on the main app steamdb during the last 24 hours, no DLC app update yet.
Regional Archer replacement? I could see regional Xbows and Arbalests but an Archer is as generic as possible imho
I don’t get the joke xD.
But it’s fun to realize archer is the only gold-land unit common to every civs… The militia line was too before LC, but now, only archers don’t have any regional replacement.
However, how would you make a regional archer replacement in the first time ? I mean the Bow is something so deeply rooted into human warfare all arround, like javelin and spear (not pikes).
Just picture it one second, Bow and Javelin were probably in the first weapons every invented by the human, with maces, axes and knifes.
The sling can’t be considered as a replacement for a bow, as it’s more acting like a gun on the way the projectile behave, a small bullet, rotating on itself without lenght changes no matter its orientation.
What I’d do would more be, regional replacement for the Crossbow / arbalester rather than the entire line. And in the end, we already got that in the game but it’s more for Unique Units specialized for civs instead of a regional bow variation.
Speaking of that I’m realized we don’t have the very famous big crossbow that required cranks to be reloaded. The current Crossbow is the regular one, while the Arbalest have the “Stirrup Crossbow” one, Gastraphetes use the antiquity versions, Chu-Ko-Nu use the Repeat asian design, Scorpions use the siege variant, Palintonon use the torsion design…
But the Pully Crossbow design is not there, they could do a damn interesting Unique Unit with insane armor piercing power and extremly slow reload time.
I’d love to see some “handgun” units too, it’s basically the cannon-stick earliest portable cannons in european medieval warfare. You had to put the spear on your shoulder to aim it like a Bazooka basically, very different from an arquebus. (I’d love to see some 15th-16th century arquebus too, and pikeman from that era too, and foot knights using polearms, and flamberg zweihanders, and yeah I think you got the point I like late medeival-early renaissance style things too !)
Still only the main app getting updates, regularly, within the last 24 hours. They’re working a lot on the app, that’s pretty cool.
Anyone got information about a PUP / July patch thing ?
So is Militia. Champi starting from MAA would make balancing way easier. But devs said, “Nope”.
Archer will disappear from new civs tech tree.
Monk. But at least they have different skins.
Edit: Literally the 1st reply on my reddit post was the unit icon of Petard. And someone pointed out Trade Cart too.
I have this fella in my work-in-progress doc:
Midfa Gunner: precursor to the Hand Cannoneer available in the Castle Age.
Champions?
So could other units. I can imagine different regional upgrades for the Archer line, but the base Archer is just… Dunno, can’t reinvent the wheel. Just swap the clothes and skin color if needed.
I could see an African poison archer line which takes the Curare and does that on steroids at the cost of lacking direct damage power of its own
While the poison is stronger unfortunately each archer shot will only reapply its own poison but enough of them can shoot a scout shoot another and another and they will die eventually
Let’s say based on upgrade it does 10/25/40 damage over 30 seconds doubling against elephants and spearmen per archer who’s landed a shot and because it needs to be counterable skirmshers are immune
Nah ! Flamberge is a big sword with waving blade, and the Zweihangers had stupid hats ! Champions are foot knights 
I forgot Petard and Trade Carts. Later has different skins.
They’ll no doubt be disappointed that Norway didn’t make it to the World Cup final.
Next DLC would be Chronicles i think it will be announced this summer. DLC AppID 4374720 is very likely Chronicles 3, because its nine separate language depots match the depot structure used by the previous Chronicles expansions.
THEY DIDN’T??? NOOOOOOOOO!!!
Just kidding. I don’t care.
You’re totally correct it’s Chronicle 3 app, that’s how I deducted myself that it was a chronicle type dlc app, probably related to the animated cutscene structure.
But it’s probably not gonna be the next one to drop. As in, they will probably announce the next vanilla dlc and chronicle 3 in the same announcement, but Chronicles 3 is probably gonna be added for this winter.
They recently worked a lot on another app, and this Chronicle 3 had no real update for a long time, so either the’yre ready for it, either they paused its dev to focus on the next to come. I honnestly think the pausing to consolidate the next vanilla one is more plausible due to how you update things during a dev process. I can’t really explain it but as I dev myself, it’s how I’d do the thing to avoid causing errors, redundancy, and game breaking changes, by just putting the “after the next” code in the base client but as “empty data” so the structure is there, and you can reverse work on it. Kinda complexe and not interesting info but it’s more likely that Chronicle 3 is going to be for end of Q4 while the next to come would be for Q3.
Of course, nothing force them to follow their previous release pattern with chronicles as last content of the year to drop, but having this kind of regularity in the releases helps the customers to know that they have to keep money for the thing coming in winter. For a solo-focused dlc type, it’s a good marketing plan, in my opinion. (even if I’m waiting it and I’d love to have it earlier, but not if it means lesser content quality)
Still no update on dlcs apps, only main app updates for the past 24 hours. That could hint the work on side effects over dlcs is completed and now they can focus on the core elements, such as specific civ mechanics, regoional unit, triggers, pathfinding (don’t laught), etc. Or it could hint about deep working on some bugs what so ever. Actually as I dev myself I see those update “patterning” a very optimized working process, and it shows how they care about their content quality in retro-active way. (as in, not letting previous dlcs in them ist due to addition of a new localization / mechanics, etc, it’s really a game dev observation here, not any opinion on if what they do is good or bad for the game itself)
Your reasoning is interesting, but I’m not convinced that the recent update activity proves a vanilla DLC will come first. SteamDB only shows public changes, not the actual internal development progress, so a less active app could still be further along or worked on through private branches.
The strongest evidence we currently have is that AppID 4374720 uses the same nine-language depot structure as the previous Chronicles DLCs, while the release pattern so far has been Chronicles → vanilla → Chronicles → vanilla. Because of that, I still think Chronicles 3 is the most likely next DLC to be announced and released.
A simultaneous announcement of both DLCs is possible, but I don’t see enough evidence yet to conclude that the vanilla DLC will definitely come first.
It’s more showing the reach of their current work.
The vanilla dlc next hint is from the Last Chieftain patchnote. The Viking type garrison flag, hinting a scandinavian architecture set to come, as the work on the flag is already done, while Chronicles garrion flags are still using the old system so far, and none was shown. That plus the AoE4 viking themed dlc etc.
There is also the simple fact that releasing a Chronicle spin-off before the end-year period allows them to not break the game balance if civs are unbalanced. While a vanilla dlc, if they made unbalance picks, during the end-year transition the game will be unbalanced for the ranked matches, and that’s kinda bad for online community.
The impact of mistakes from a Chronicles DLC is way way way way lighter and for that a way better choice for last-dlc of the year. (it’s all about up-time maintaining, if you work in the I.T. you totally see what I mean)
I agree that the unused raven flag makes a Scandinavian vanilla DLC quite plausible. However, I still don’t think it proves that it will be released before Chronicles 3.
The official patch notes only say that the new garrison flags are connected to architecture sets. The idea that the unused raven flag belongs to a future Scandinavian set is a reasonable community interpretation, but it does not tell us when that content will be released. It could simply be groundwork added many months in advance.
The AoE4 Vikings expansion is also interesting, but AoE4 and AoE2 have separate content plans, so I wouldn’t use that as strong evidence for the AoE2 release order.
Your balance argument makes sense as a possible development and marketing strategy, but it is still an inference rather than an actual hint. They could release and balance a vanilla DLC at any point, while an unused graphical asset does not necessarily mean that DLC is closer to release.
So I agree that a Scandinavian vanilla DLC is probably being prepared. I’m just not convinced that it must come before Chronicles 3. At the moment, Chronicles 3 is still the DLC for which we have the clearest identifiable app structure, while the supposed Scandinavian DLC is mainly based on one unused flag.
Prior chronicles dlcs have come out in the autumn, while recently main line dlcs have been a early spring time release. I would surprised if they deviate from that routine. Three dlcs in one year seems implausible to me.
Also the amount of new architecture sets is also a lot of work. There has been two new ones in each chronicles plus the Scandinavian one.
