And I say this precisely because not everything is negative.
If there was the constraint of only two civs in the DLC, I’d more respect a merged civ of Tanguts and Khitans under one banner. I do share the sentiment that Khitans having Tangut stuff feels off. When I had the expectation of two civ Chinese DLCs from the first teaser, I hoped to see Jurchens and Tanguts (I’m biased towards Tanguts as Khitans has a closer distance to existing Mongol civ. Similarly, I’m biased against Uyghurs as I felt they are acceptably represented by Tatars turkic).
But then, it turns out there are no such constraint. When it was teased there are five civs, I feel welcoming towards Khitans in addition to Jurchens and Tanguts and feel optimistic towards two wild card civs.
And now here we are, we only get two medieval civs, which has interesting enough designs. It’s acceptable to have the balance a bit off on release. We’ve been there many times.
The part that got under many people’s skin the most are the 3 kingdoms. It’s hard to describe how ridiculous this is. I’ll just say Ornlu talked about the DLC 3 Kingdoms as an April fools video.
There are many posts complain about 3 Kingdoms so I won’t repeat them all here. The general complaints are: 1) vastly off time period; 2) they are the same civ; 3) game play concerns about the heroes.
The devs clearly, wildly underestimated how much aoe2 fans value immersion experience while playing the game. It feels incredibly off playing Chinese Chu-Ko Nu against Shu, or a team game of Wu + Lithuanian vs Wei + Chinese.
In most cases in the past, people use their liberal interpretation to accept some strange designs history-wise.
e.g. Armenians good on water due to Cilician Armenia. Armenian infantry strong – well, heavy infantry can be knights too that just happen to not riding a horse (I personally still don’t love the design focus of Armenians). Teutonic knights in game is also not on a horse after all.
Meitei arambai fought the burmese being the burmese UU, where you can stretch the interpretation of Burmese in game also include other sino-tibetan groups like the Meitei in that region, so that Burmese doesn’t just capture to a specific empire, even if mainly so.
Goths having gunpowder – descendants of Goths would have used gunpowder so they get bare minimum gunpowder, considering gameplay balance.
I was worried about Romans before ROR came out. But for something that’s somewhat off the time period, the flavor of the civ was well-done – powerful but no gunpowder, infantry + ballistas, units are expensive and tech tree stagnates in later game – and it feels like you’re playing the Romans. With Goths and Huns in the game, I can sort of stretch the interpretation of Romans to the late Romans period.
Huns are also a bit of a stretch time-wise, but at least the flavor is acceptably good. You feel like you’re playing the Huns. Super lean tech tree, attack more and research less.
It’s generally better to keep what the civ represents strategically vague so that such liberal interpretation can be made. Those civs have generally a few things being off (e.g. time period, specialization, appearance). But for the 3 Kingdoms it’s the opposite. Everything is off. They are too specific and are the same civilization. It’s not possible to stretch interpretation. Having them along with Chinese in game in the current form ruins the immersion experience.
And the most mind-boggling of all to me: everything that’s given out for free to us are excellent. So it doesn’t seem like they are constrained on resources. Yet so much work went into making something that disappoints many is unfathomable. They could have even sold the DLC for higher price without the 3 Kingdom abomination and receive less complaints. This whole thing was SO CLOSE to being done right was the sad part.
With all that said, I’ll just try my best to be constructive and to suggest how to salvage this:
Short-term: Give 3 Kingdoms Chronicles treatment. No ranked. Playable along with aoe2 civs but optional by lobby settings (same as Achaemenids, Athenians and Spartans; I was never a fan of them personally playable with aoe2 civs, but I respect the option of integration for certain player base). I don’t necessarily want to completely deprive the option of playing alongside other aoe2 civs, given where things are at right now.
Long-term: Improve communication with the player community.
For those who were not happy about the upcoming DLC, I’d like to know your top reasons. For me, it’s 3 Kingdoms hands-down.
3 Kingdom civs
Khitans Tanguts merge
Lack of desired civs (e.g. Nanzhao, Tibetans etc.)
I voted 3K civs and other. I want campaigns for the 2 medieval civs and for OG Chinese.
Traditional DLC always managed to give a campaign to an original civ, why not this time?
I miss so much Mountain Royals times.
It probably still could be. If you know stuff you can’t just go out there and pretend you are just guessing. With that logic he could have “guessed” every single change.
Also creators usually don’t get access that long before they are allowed to talk about it.
It’s a streak of disappointment after disappointments from the same company, they keep hyping something that turns up to be nothingburger ever since 2024 start. I like AoEII because of its RTS roots with mass fighting, but if they are going more toward mix of RPG mission and hero unit, I better just play Warcraft 3
If I ever want to buy this DLC, it probably only for accessing the 3 Kingdom Castle and Wonder sprites when I want to make sandbox map in scenario editor.
Oh yeah right, forgot about the lack of campaigns. I always looked forward to those in a DLC. It’s a shame.
Right, this is possible acting. However, people’s reaction to this couldn’t be more evident. Even Ornlu ostensibly acted and said something like “I hope I’m wrong” towards the end of the video. Maybe he had partial info at that time.
You know, as I said in OP, the part that doesn’t make sense to me is that they seem to have the resources to do it right.
They could’ve charged more and the fans would still be way happier if it was done right. The cosmetic changes are all given free of charge. Some even suggest they would pay to get the cosmetic change. Just see how strongly people would like central asian skin for Persians and non-orthodox churches or central european skins for Bohemians. Many players like that.
Seems like some decision-level issue behind the scenes.
For me, problem is now that I’m not sure whether I would get the DLC even if it’s for free. I couldn’t fathom shoving 3 Kingdoms (wouldn’t call them civs) to the base game without the option to opt out.
They are one step away from making this a brilliant DLC (or two brilliant DLCs), they have a perfect model to follow already, they spent efforts on those contents, and they just showed attention to what the community wants like the cosmetic updates.
Then they chose the hard way that ruins it all. LMAO.
I voted for the 3 kingdoms option and the lack of desired civs option.
Since the khitan-tangut fiasco is a consequence of ditching tanguts as a new civ.
Also, tibetans and bai were a must.
There are only two possibilities. Option 1:
Three Kingdoms was originally Chronicles. Microsoft sees that the last Chronicles sold 50% worse than V&V despite being rated twice as high. They say: “make those core so we can meet sales goals and continue to fund tournaments and the game.” Then, WE/FE knows the fans will be unhappy so they slap together the other two civs, and one of them is a hideous amalgamation of like 3 of China’s neighbors.
Option 2:
Microsoft pushed it all from start to finish. Cysion fell in line and outright lied in an interview.
Regardless, it’s just embarrassing to have an Imperial Age hero unit that died in 200AD fighting units from 1000+ years in the future. It’s a fantasy game now, they might as well add dragons, well endowed elves, and dwarves.
I still wonder if there is proper sale data for it. All I saw was it simply didnt got marketed much by M$/FE/E-Sports team since it wasnt directed by Cysion primarily. But it considered the best by the community overall.
Review count is all we can go by, and estimated review to purchase ratios. Even if some people rage/complain reviewed V&V, its pretty obvious Chronicles sold a lot less.
Don’t forget that many people bought V&V to leave a (negative) review ans then get a refund. It seems more reasonnable to compare to others DLC. Then, BFG sold better (832) than Lords of the West (682), but less than ROR (1724).
We cant really say a decision from that. Chronicles from what I know got better reviews but not sure about the sales. Sales are a different topic itself.
Still sad how hyped we were about ROR. If only it was like Chronicles. We legit thought R@W being officialized for once. But became a huge disappointment. Is there anywhere which tracks sale data?
So Chronicles positive reviews are selection bias then.
I mean I wasn’t very excited about it to be honest. Not the content for me (I feel like I elaborated my feeling towards anachronistic a lot already), but I thought they did something right with the glowing reviews. I got it but didn’t jump onto it right away.
Last time I jumped onto getting the DLC was Mountain Royals. LOTW had me a bit skeptical at first. Dukes and India I bought right away in a heartbeat. Romans and V&V I waited till discount.
