That’s why I don’t see any problem with DLCs which will fund the AOE2:DE project long-term.
Yes, they could be more efficient but when you look also on the positive aspects of what they did so far, they rebalanced quite a lot of unviable, they added QoL stuff I wouldn’t want to miss out on anymore etc. and they’re currently removing a decade old exploit which has some unwanted side effects.
DLCs are a good sign, not a bad one.
So we were supposed to buy a broken product, which is the remake of the remake of the original game, and also pay for all the fix it needed since the beginning? This without even mentioning how every patch/DLC seems like breaking not just the balance, but the entire gameplay.
If you want more DLC for the sake of “the world isn’t just 10 civs” then this isn’t a game for you, since you have no idea how a RTS works. That’s not League of Legends, nor Europa Universalis or Civilization.
Emm, currently we have a lot of things that toke inspiration from other aoe games (Khmer bypassing building requeriments and the badass farmers, Malay fast aging up, etc…) and still ended being balanced nowdays
https://aoestats.io/stats/RM_1v1 so none uses the entire set of civs…
Who realistically does this though? lol.
For me, it’s because AoE2 is a game of endless possibilities. There are so many stories that can be told via history. I don’t see what’s wrong with exploring this aspect if there’s a hunger for this. It’s also one of the few types of games that one can introduce many factions without breaking too much because every faction more or less has the same arsenal outside their unique techs, units, and civilisation bonus. For me, that is fun and what keeps me coming back.
But as it stands, this game will never truly be bug-free or be rid of balance problems, indeed nobody can agree on how to fix the Goths, as an example. without making them worthwhile or useless because every change has either failed and been reverted or tweaked. Everyone demands their balance changes be added in but get mad when they are not included, you can’t please everyone in that regard.
Bugs will inevitably sneak in and I don’t deny they should be fixed (though I honestly haven’t experienced many aside from buildings randomly disappearing in MP but never experienced any slowdowns/FPS issues)
Microsoft is just doing what many other businesses do, they’re following the money. But they also haven’t pulled the plug on the game’s post-release support just yet which is a good thing considering that many generally abandon after a year’s release.
He was clearly referring to people who doesn’t play online, quite useless mentioning aoestats in this case.
Anyway how taking inspiration from other aoe games gives you any point in the argument? Khmer since the farmers thing have pretty much been a pain in the ■■■ until they got nerfed. They continued to do it with Burgundians and Sicilians, they got flamethrowers as many pretty much expected.
In addition to this, taking inspiration from other games isn’t quite a good thing, feels like continuously recycling the same thing while making everything unrealistic.
Just saying that you got a game with tons of QoL, a graphical update, all the content it had beforehand + 1 completely new expansion, tons of patches and events etc.
Yes, they could have fixed more bugs, but come on.
If you like perfect balance and few civs so much, Age of Empires II isn’t the game for you, Starcraft II is.
Age of Empires was Ensembles take on “What if we did a Civilization RTS” so yes, it makes sense to have a lot of civs.
Considering that all polls I’ve seen so far indicate that most people are in favour of new civs, Microsoft does nothing more than delivering.
Ensamble Studios no longer exists, so i dont care about them or what they thought, in the other hand Age of Empires 2 still does, and its mostly for the multiplayer community that have been keeping it alive by playing this game for 20 years, and we have enough civs to play it for the next 10 years.
Even Kellar, a top TG player said that AOE is in a good state of balance once adding that variety and imbalances are important 11:
Even better, so new civs just are doing the game a favour in keeping it fresh and interesting.
@Irweel : You should ask Viper if he wants to play on Voobly only in the future. Then you’ll realize how much Forgotten Empires contributed to AOE2’s phenomenal success. They’ve just continued Ensembles legacy . They’ve wanted to add all those civs.
And saying that you don’t care about Ensemble is honestly pretty disgusting considering what happened to Ensemble and what amazing game they gave us.
You should calm down a bit and stop gatekeeping the majority of the community just because you can’t handle some more new civs, just saying.
Now that you are on aoezone, and you think top players opinions are important, maybe you can also check what are the common thoughs on new civs being added to game.
There’s still Voobly, to be fair. Unless you mean a proper game in the form of an official Microsoft release, then yes, RIP. Not trying to tell you to “Just go back to Voobly hurr hurr.” But as for Voobly, it’s as popular as ever, so there’s still an option to play AoE with minimal Microsoft involvement. It’s on new balance too, except for the part of the community that shall play AoC balance forever. And curiously enough the new balance is rolling back the number of civs to The Forgotten Empires days and giving the remaining civs DE balance up to the November Anniversary patch. Which is curious because it means the Voobly community would rather play with fewer civs yet have tighter balance.
Edit: After reading the whole thread I came across this from scripter:
“The worst case scenario is that it’s somewhere in the middle and causes an awkward 3-way split in the community between 2DE, HD, and CD, while those with influence and money attempt to force the change regardless.”
And that’s exactly where the community is today post-DLC. Wow. If the word of a former developer like scripter isn’t enough to even budge a man on the question, then they’ll never budge.
The farmers weren’t the real problem, it were their freaking elephants, and that was adressed, all happy.
Anyway even if the game is more than balanced people stilll complains no matter what:
My point, imbalances always existed, all fixed, and still some people won’t be happy whith that.
And Aoezone is just about competitive play, no more (even any good balance is announced and some will cry 11), they don’t represent the 100% of the player base, even that forum is highly known about Dramas and Toxicity, go and check when they realized that female players like Odette and Debbie were invited to the BR tournament, even Debbie left the streaming of aoe2DE due of that
The maximum I could reasonably see working is 50, more would be hard. There are two other threads on that topic if you’re interest 
https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/how-many-more-civs-can-we-realistically-get/
https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/future-dlcs-and-the-argument-for-against-new-civs/
And no, I have no relatives at Ensemble but still, I got pretty attached to this game studio for the amazing games they made over the years. I’ve been playing AOE2 since 2002. Barely touched MP but still find a ton of enjoyment with the game.
I’m not against architecture or unit sets actually, it’s just that I’m also a big fan of new civs 
Kinda dissappointed that LOTW didn’t came with new architecture sets.
It was you the one that bringed out Kellars opinion, not us.
And what does that have to do with the topic of discussion?
I did that because there are top players here that come with good inputs.
That you said something like
They are going to be angry with everything announced to this game, well not all, but several ones, and thats’ the general attitude on that forums.
Hell even Nili pointed that in one of his videos: https://youtu.be/dNERxUlAJMs?t=365
Well yes, everything that its announced and doesnt fix the present issues, and instead add more, its going to be criticized.
I still dont know what the odette case does have to do with the concept that we just dont want more civs.
Thats’ an example on how far that toxicity goes here
In Lords of the West you pay for broken content and shitty development. Plus new civs with ridiculous mechanics that don’t fit with anything else in the game.
Considering it already has 37 civs, and devs want to add more, it is definitely a gae for me.
I have ben playing RTS since Dune 2, and none were built like AoE1 and 2.
You can add almost INFINITE civs to AoE1 and 2, just based on how they are built.
This is not asymmetrical enough to cause balance issues, like adding a fourth race to Starcraft would.
