Been reading some of the suggestions here. Lots of them are quite good but a few seem to want to push things too far, to the point the game would be fundamentally different and not a Defiitive Edition of an already established game. Fixes and additional content based on an existing formula seem reasonable. Redesigning existing features or slapping new ones on top would make things confusing for development.
Anyways, here is my (kinda lengthy) contribution
Campaign
- Disable Saloons from Blood/Ice/Steel campaigns
- Implement unused dialog still present in game files
- Enable AI sending shipments
- Fix Tech tree inconsistencies such as the War Huts in Fire/Shadow campaigns
- Some AI players being assigned the wrong civ during missions and cutscenes (like Ottomans appearing as British in Breakout)
- Hotkeys for Hero abilities
- Greater color variationss between players, depending on faction (Blue vs Red/Orange is too repetitive), like in AoE2.
- Other inconsistencies like the Aztecs in China’s TAD campaign
General
- A single .exe for the whole game
- Soundtrack variation with different cultures (only Classical European music becomes dull after a while)
- UI variation based on civ being played (dependending if it’s from Vanilla, TWC and TAD)
- Improve fluidity of Attack Move
- More variation in animations, such as the melee units’ death animation
- More historically accurate unit name/designs (like giving Yumi Archers actual asymmetrical Yumi bows)
- Greater freedom regarding deck size
- Fix the jagged Fog of War edges (more modern software/hardware seems to have caused this issue but I’m not knowledgeable on this)
- Cavalry using walk animation (as seen when Tashunke Prowlers go stealthy) when they have to slow down to the pace of infantry
- AI using previously unused features (naval transport, upgrading defenses, using priests, etc)
- More accessible hotkeys (e.g. ship disembark tooltip doesn’t show its hotkey, same for building repair button)
Restoring Cut Content
- Original Andes map (with the Inca city in the middle and surrounding Huari strongholds, as stated in the map’s pre-release description)
- Italian and Swedish civs
- The Incan civ originally intended for TWC expansion
- Maps set in Europe
Stuff that could be a nice bonus, if time/resources allow
- Phillip Black Campaign
- 16th Century Musketeer model
- Cosmetic changes for upgraded Native units
- African maps (with African natives)
- Custom flags (or variants for each civ)
- Rotatable Buildings