I know that people will argue with me again, but I just wanted to share how I see it. I WILL NOT describe detailed fantasies or name specific periods or personalities, because I do not believe in overloaded, dreamy fan concepts that collapse under their own weight. This will still be decided by the authors. I’m just talking about what I would like to see content about.
SLAVIC GLORY
Civilizations introduced:
Russians
units: Vityaz, Strelets, Ladia. Also Ratnik as a simple renaming of knight.
building: estate.
unique mechanics: choosing a principality in stages 2 and 3.
Ukrainians
units: Cossack, Serdyuk.
buildings: Cossack Sich (weaker and cheaper version of castle, they didn’t have castles), korchma, pigsty.
Campaigns:
Ancient Rus’
Something from the 8th-11th centuries, perhaps for different characters, as was the case with Bari or Sicily
(play as Vikings, Russians and may be Byzantines)
Later period Rus’
Something from 12-15th century, about Novgorod, because we already have Moscow in AoE 4
(play as Russians)
Ukraine Campaign
Late period, something from 1500-1650
(play as Ukrainians)
Also a number of historical battles for these nations, since they have been absent from the game for decades. Perhaps these battles should be made part of free content. In the end, they will serve as an advertisement for the purchase of DLC.
BALCANS DLC
Civilizations:
Vlachs (inserted into Dracula campaign)
Serbs and Croats (I’m not sure whether they should be implemented as two separate or as common one)
Albanians
Campaigns:
Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg
(we play as Albanians)
Serbia
Croatia
Several historical battles featuring Slovenia and Macedonia are also possible.
After the release of both of these DLC, the umbrella civilization of the Slavs should be closed, because the division will be completed.
EAST ASIA
Campaigns:
China
Japan
Korea
The problem is that the civilizations themselves have existed in the game for a long time. I don’t know what could be added in terms of paid civilizations. Perhaps it would be enough to rework the existing ones. If you have ideas on this matter, write.
AFRICA
I really enjoyed Sundiata and Judit’s stories. Unfortunately, there are only 2 truly African stories (without Europe) in the game. I would like more. But I know that in Africa there is a serious problem with the fact that little history was recorded, so the developers face certain difficulties. What kind of civilizations and stories there may be - I will leave that to those who knows better. But I like the African thematic. Do we have Africans here on forum?
NORTHERN DLC
Swedes (as a separate civ)
Danes (as a separate civ)
and I don’t know who could be the third, let’s say Norway or Finland (we play as different civs, including the above as well as Vikings and Rus)
For me personally, this would be the end of my wish list.
Edit. From the first day I understood perfectly well that this forum is abnormal, and with almost every subsequent topic I am only more convinced of this. Outright causeless aggression, direct insults, death threats - all this is considered the norm here and the moderators only support this “culture”. Participants do not hesitate to call European civilizations garbage and express open hatred of the Slavic group on racial grounds. I also understand that Russia can be hated because of wars, but I see the same attitude towards Ukraine and the Balkan countries. This is the most real racism. Among the active participants there are many outright trolls who would not last a day on a decent resource. This forum is SICK.
I think a future DLC model could work off campaigns and skins, which would support the ongoing development of additional content (more techs, UU’s, achitecture sets, new buildings etc). Devs could even host competitions for campaigns/graphics with modest prize money for winners if they really want to cheapskate.
I don’t think the game needs more civs, now Armenia & Georgia are in my last requests is done really.
Maybe Vlachs since they were an actual state and have a campaign already, could also see Serbs added in a pinch. Albanian Skanderbeg campaign could be awesome but aside from that saga its a bit reaching (still better than Croatia tho).
Macedonia is literally just Bulgaria, they only developed differently because it became part of Yugoslavia and then later development of their crazy Alexander (he was a Slav, didn’t you know?) cult.
Denmark, Sweden are too late (latest campaign ends in 1600 in remote SE Asia, latest in Europe 1500 with Portugal). Rus’ & Ukraine are already ingame as Slavs. I love Finland but in AoE2? No f way lol.
Read about Finland in the Middle Ages… it would be like including Udmurts because Slavs are ingame, or Ainu because Japan is ingame.
The fact that Finnish literature and statehood ever managed to emerge separately from Sweden/Russia is really impressive if you see where they were relative to Sweden in AoE2 timeframe.
So what? Latest European historical battle is 1571. The Danes stopped identifying themselves as Vikings in the 13th century, i.e. their civilization and campaign may exist. As for Finland - yeah, not a free civ but there could be a campaign about that territory.
And that is wrong. Just stop that. Enough words were spoken about that.
1650 is out of the timeframe, you would need to change the late game very much to fit everyone there with a sense (archers would disappear and champions too). Even going after 1550 it’s a stretch in current game (in Europe I mean). Maybe just call Ukrainians Rus or rhutenians or kievans or whatever they were called back then to make them fit a more medieval campaign.
Then you can add Muscovites or Novgorodians for other modern day Russia people (not Ukraine).
China you can find plenty of civs to split or add around it but I’m not an expert, I just know you can.
Korea maybe you could split different kingdoms, don’t know if it’s dynastic but you can find ethnic names for sure, specially because current Koreans is very late focused, let’s even say early modern.
Japan is similar but I don’t know enough to tell anything.
Norway, Swedes and Danes are super ok to split vikings (which it’s not an ethnic designer to be fair so it shouldn’t be in game, like byzantines).
What can devs tell about America if those didn’t write down their history? All our knowledge about their civilizations is very fragmentary. We know their architecture, rituals, but we cannot reproduce their historical events, they are lost. In addition, they had no horses, no metals, no mechanisms, which makes them very limited at the mechanical level and has to violate historical accuracy. It’s a miracle that we managed to get at least two campaigns about Americans.
As for the white Americans, they appeared too late for AoE 2.
And that is wrong. Just stop that. Enough words were spoken about that.
They speak Russian, the unique technames are Russian, the unique unit is at least east-Slavic (well, конник just means ‘horseman’ in Bulgarian), etc. You could just rename them without even needing to change anything.
That just leaves the Balkans as the only independent cultures of Europe not yet directly represented. But for the love of god, if they make another DLC, make another architecture set.
You are out of the timeframe man. These units you just picked from Cossacks III. Which is also a great and historicly accurate game BTW. Problem is that this game stretches from 1600-1700. AOEII ends somewhere in the 1500s or earlier.
Cossacks conquest of siberia? Unsure if there is material for a complete campaign but the hostile conditions and natives putting up resistance would be a cool concept to try out similar to vindland saga historical battle.
We do have winged hussars in game so its not that much of a stretch.
I think that is ridiculous as well. Don’t give the devs any more brilliant ideas like that. Most likely they are not that great at history. Having 15 tabs from Wikipedia open while designing both campaigns and civs.
IMO, the next focus should be Africa, but I don’t mind a DLC about the East (Central and Far East).
A rework of the Ethiopians would be awesome and some new African civilizations with strange new mechanics would add a lot of life and playability to the game.
The East has always been just China and the Mongols, it would be surprising if there were more civilizations around that area, similarly, to how the Southeast DLCs opened up so much variety in the game.