Next Age of empires II expansion? After Rise of Rajas?

[dgbug3]

So what other civilizations could they do? I mean I thought they could go to North America, or the remote regions of Russia, Slavs, Switzerland would be a nice addition, the Flemish or Frisians. Perhaps call it "Rise of Mercenaries."

[Cats. Just Cats.]

I tried to edit some text changes into my older text, but it got too long (max post length reached), so I have to repost it as completely new posts, split into two parts. Coming in a few minutes.

[Cats. Just Cats.]

Continuation of my DLC proposals. Read the beginning here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/221380/discussions/0/144513670978254669/?ctp=221#c3183345000078222055

DLC "The Chieftains": America + Africa

Mississippians - Mapuche - Swahilis - Kanembu (4 new civs)


- new "neolithic" set (based on Mississippians' wooden buildings) for Mississippians, Mapuche


This DLC would manage to add North America to the game: The Mississippians were the most advanced civ from that continent, prior to the Europeans' arrival (although they were not nearly on Mayan or Incan level). The DLC will also add the Mapuche for South America, the only civ that ever managed to defend and win against the Spanish and to gain recognition as a state by the Spanish, through an official treaty. After the fake victory in the Montezuma campaign, which was in reality a total defeat because the Aztec Empire got destroyed, the Mapuche campaign can finally offer us a real victory over the European invaders. Also, the Mapuche can be the only American civ to have horses (plus Eagle Warriors), because they've developed a horse warrior culture in the 16th century.

The reasons why I didn't pick two civs from North America are mainly these: Given that the Europeans had no serious settlements on that continent before the year 1600, they will not be part of any North American campaign. (The few European settlers that we know of were purely traders and didn’t have any military weight.) Having two campaigns in a "prior to European arrival" setting would be kind of boring, though. Also, it has to be considered that Meso- and South America had ten times (!) the population of North America, so one civ for North America should be enough. Only 1% of the world’s population lived there.

On the new building set: There is a large geographical distance between the Mississippians and Mapuche, so what justifies giving them the same architectural style? The idea is to create an opposition between the relatively advanced cultures that are already in the game (Aztecs, Mayans, Incas), and the less developed, decentralized, "neolithic" cultures that are introduced with this DLC. The obvious technological difference would be expressed visually through the building set.

Neolithic cultures don’t make use of bronze or iron; they typically use only soft metals that are easy to form. It will be a stretch to give them access to siege units and forge upgrades that require advanced metallurgy, but it will be necessary for balance reasons. It can be argued that „they got the technology through contact to the Europeans“. - But I suggest that the hitpoints of the castles should reflect the weaker, partially wooden construction: For example, the price could be reduced to costing 400 stones + 250 wood, having 33% less HP and equally less garrison slots. (This castle type would be easier to spam, but on the other hand have the disadvantage to be quickly destroyed in a positional war. So overall, I think it could be balanced.)

The Swahilis are obviously the most important missing civ from Africa, as an example for the Bantu civs, to have Central/Southern Africa represented in the game. The Swahilis are interesting because of their sea trade with the Asian countries (the Muslim world, India etc.), which brought prosperity to the East African coast, as well as cultural innovations. Alternatively to the Swahilis, you could also pick another Bantu civ.

And then finally I propose to add another civ from Western Africa - there were a lot of large kingdoms in that part of Africa, and we only picked one so far, the Malians. It makes sense to pick a second one, which should be sufficiently different from the Malians. The Songhai or Ghana would probably be too close to Mali, so I suggest to go for Kanem-Bornu (Kanembu). As a scenario, look for "Idris Aluma".


Alternative model: Without North America

It's a bit controversial whether we should include North America at all, because the civs from this continent are on a lower development level than any other civs that are currently in the game. Is it a good idea to add such "neolithic civs"? Here's an alternative model, without North America:

Muisca - Mapuche - Swahilis - Kanembu (4 new civs)

- new "Andean" set (based on Incas) for Incas, Muisca, Mapuche

The Muisca were actually relatively advanced (some say, they were the fourth most advanced civ on the continent when the Europeans arrived - after Aztecs, Mayans and Incas). And what's also important, they can share an architecture set with Incas and Mapuche. The Mapuche were a neolithic civ before the Europeans came, but they adopted the new technologies quickly. So the Mapuche can either be grouped with the neolithic Mississippians or the more advanced civs.

Alternative scheme: Two DLCs instead of three

If it gets obvious that Microsoft won't greenlight so many DLCs, the second and third DLC could be combined into a single one.


DLC "The Lost Empires": Central Asia + Eastern Europe + America + Africa

Turcomans - Balts - Teotihuacans - Swahilis - plus optional fifth civ (4-5 new civs)

- new "semi-nomadic, Turkic-Mongolic" set for Mongols, Turcomans, optionally Huns
(alternatively, the Huns can get the Eastern European set, to be synchronized with Magyars)

- new "Middle Eastern Christian Orthodox" set (based on Bulgarian Empire) for Byzantines, Slavs, Georgians


Easily put, this is the "Age of Faith" DLC in a compressed form, plus Teotihuacans and Swahilis. "The Lost Empires" is chosen as a theme because all of these civs had large kingdoms that don't exist anymore. And it sounds nice for a final DLC.

I've already presented arguments for why the Tatars and the Wends can be considered already covered and are not a necessity to add to the game (see in the chapter of the "Age of Faith" DLC). The Georgians are not an absolute must either, because they had just a middle-sized kingdom. They can't compare to the population or political weight of the Polish-Lithuanian union, which will be represented by the Balts in their campaign.

Therefore, the Tatars, Wends and Georgians can be considered optional. If the DLC can have five civs, one of these civs could be chosen to be added as the fifth; another alternative - if you want to round Africa nicely - would be to add the Kanembu.

Let's get to America: The Teotihuacans are chosen because they can re-use the existing architecture set; I feel that every other addition to America, aside from the Teotihuacans, would require the introduction of a new set. Teotihuacan was a multi-ethnic city and by far the largest city in America at its time; you can call it the "pre-Aztec" superpower of the early Middle Ages. The colossal buildings still stand today and they're even overshadowing the Mayan and Aztecian architectures. The people of Teotihuacan never died out, but they left the city around the 7th century and survived as minor regional groups until the Europeans came.

About the architecture: The Byzantines should get a new architecture together with the Slavs. The Georgians will also use this new set, if they are included in the DLC. I think it's time that I give you more details on this building set, to convince you that such a set is necessary. Generally speaking, the new set will be optimal for the Southern Slavs (if the style is based on the Bulgarian Empire) and fairly okay for the Eastern Slavs, but not very fitting for the Western Slavs. However, that is a problem you'll always have with such a large umbrella as the "Slavs". The new architecture will be pretty good for the Byzantines, and surely much better than leaving them grouped with Turks, Persians and such; and it will also be better for Russia than the brownish Hungarian buildings.

In other words, it will be a big improvement for both Byzantines and Slavs, compared to what they had before. I want you to keep the following point in mind: The majority of the Slavs are from the Southern and Eastern group, so they should be the ones who decide which architecture the whole umbrella gets. The brownish buildings are totally inappropriate for them! If you feel that the Western Slavs should get their own representation (using the brownish Hungarian buildings), then add the Wends. That's part of the reason why I've conceptualized the Wends as a seperate civ.


Extended model: Adding a third architecture set?

I know that two new architecture sets are already a lot (the "semi-nomadic" and the "Christian Orthodox" one). However, you could delay the "Christian Orthodox" set and give it to the fans with a later patch, so that another set could be included with the release of the DLC instead: A new set for America, either the "neolithic" or the "Andean" variant; for more details on these sets, see the "Chieftains" DLC. This would allow you to add Mississippians (or Muisca) and Mapuche, leading to the following setup:

Turcomans - Balts - Mississippians/Muisca - Mapuche - Swahilis - plus optional sixth civ
(5-6 new civs)

- released with the "semi-nomadic" and an American set ("neolithic" or "Andean"); the "Christian Orthodox" set is added as a third set with a later patch

This is my personal favorite version of the "Lost Empires" DLC, because it allows to add North America (Mississippians) and have a civ with both Eagles and horses (Mapuche). - And maybe, because this is the last DLC, you could even stretch it to six civs.

Finally, let me point out a possible future benefit of adding a second architecture set for America: If you're going to introduce regional unit sets in the Definitive Edition - meaning that the regular units like men-at-arms, knights etc. will get different skins depending on the world region - then the American group will be the smallest by far, with only 3-4 civs using them. Adding a second American building set would help a lot to give this world region more weight and expand it to 5 civs, making it appear less tiny compared to Europe or the Middle East. (Note: Africa can probably use the same unit models as the Middle East, except that I would darken the skin colors for the sub-Saharan civs.)


==> The scheme with 3 DLCs would lead to a total of ~45 civs, while the scheme with 2 DLCs will lead to ~40 civs.


Max. post length reached. Read the next post for the continuation.

[Cats. Just Cats.]

Architectural changes for original civs

Mongols and Byzantines - from AoK:

I've proposed to change the appearances of two AoK civs, namely the Mongols and Byzantines. Here's my reasoning: The Mongols and Byzantines have always been the least fitting members of their architectural groups, and they would really benefit from an upgrade to a more suitable set. The "Chinese" style is only appropriate for the "Into China" mission of the Mongols' campaign, but it looks bad in every other setting; especially when the Mongols fight in Eastern Europe. The Byzantines have long been criticized for looking too "Islamic" and having a mosque.

The main issue is, though, that the introduction of Turcomans, Tatars and Georgians makes it necessary to update the Mongols and Byzantines. It would be completely counter-intuitive not to give Mongols, Turcomans and Tatars the same building set. The Mongols would feel strangely isolated if they kept the old set. And the same is true for Byzantines and Georgians. Side note: For the few people who dislike the changes, you can provide the option "Use new architectures for the original civs", which can be unchecked. But I'm fairly sure that almost nobody will do that, if the quality of the new sets is good. People have been asking for an upgraded Byzantine set for ages (pun intended).


Spanish and Huns - from AoC:

In "The Conquerors", we got the Spanish, who were our first Southern European civ, and the Huns, who were our first Eastern European civ. However, because there were no dedicated architecture sets for Southern and Eastern Europe at this time, these civs were just given the old sets. Later, when the appropriate architecture sets were introduced (in "The Forgotten"), the Spanish and the Huns weren’t switched. It's time to do that now.

- Spain clearly belongs in the Southern European group, and the situation has become especially weird with the addition of Portugal, which is very close to Spain culturally, but has a different building set.

- The Huns settled in Eastern Europe (Magyar territory), which is why their grouping with the Germanic civs of Central/Northern Europe (Teutons, Vikings, Goths) is not a good choice. They should either be given the same set as the Magyars, or even better the new "semi-nomadic, Turkic-Mongolic" set that I proposed.


Please note that I generally respect the design decisions of the Ensemble team. I don't mean to "correct" any mistakes that they made. On the contrary, I acknowledge that they made the best decisions that they could, with only five different sets available at the time. I'm simply suggesting to update some of the old civs to a newer, more suitable set, when such a set has become available.

I feel that doing this is also a necessary step in order to harmonize the old and the new civs with one another, and avoid that the game feels “disjointed” and “incompletely patched”. The expansion civs should feel like a natural evolution of the game, and not something that is "added on". Really, everyone that I've asked has agreed with me on this; if the old and the new civs don’t fit together, it is judged very negatively, whereas harmonizing them is seen completely positively.

I guess that the low quality of the two new sets added in "The Forgotten" was an issue that spoke against switching the Spanish and the Huns, but we've got such great versions of the Southern and Eastern European sets now (made by Catbarf and Gwotyng) that there is no reason to hesitate any more. The quality is just fine.


==> Talking about numbers: My proposals make sure that all architecture sets will be used by 2-4 civs, which is a clean solution. No more single civs, or five civs using the same set.

Adding campaigns for original civs

Aside from the civ pool and the architecture sets, I also hope to finish the "campaign pool" of AoE2.

The following "superpowers" still need to get their own campaign:
- Chinese, Persians, Turks

The following minor civs also don't have a campaign yet:
- Brits, Vikings, Japanese, Koreans, Mayans

The "minor" civs can be dealt with by giving them a few single scenarios in the style of "Battles of the Forgotten". Most of them already got 2 scenarios, and all of them got at least 1, so I'd say that's good enough already, except for the Mayans (I'll come back to that later) and the Slavs. Generally speaking, the Slavs and Magyars are a special case because they share a campaign. Therefore, I think that especially the Slavs - being such a broad umbrella - deserve to receive another single scenario. The Magyars are already fine because they got Honfoglalas.

The main question is how to integrate the Chinese, Persian and Turkish campaigns. These civs are very significant powers of the Middle Ages and I feel in order to finish the "campaign pool" properly, they need to get their own campaigns. How can it be that the Vietnamese have a 6-part campaign, but the Chinese don't have any? This should be addressed.

Obviously, the Chinese campaign can be added to the "India + China" DLC, the Persian and Turkish campaigns to the "Central Asia + Eastern Europe" DLC, and finally the "America + Africa" DLC can offer some additional single scenarios in the style of "Battles of the Forgotten". Here are my proposals:


Campaigns in "Dynasties of the East"
(4 campaigns, 5 missions each)

- Tamils, Bengalis -> at least a campaign for Tamils
- Manchus, Tibetans, Nanchaos/Tais -> 2 of these should get campaigns

Extra campaign:
- Chinese

The idea here is that only 2 of the new China-related civs should get a campaign, and the third campaign should be given to China itself. This makes a lot of sense, because in a China-focused DLC you want to make sure that China itself is playable. That way, you can tell a very convincing story of Chinese history. - About the Indian sphere: The Tamils need a campaign more than the Bengalis, because they represent the Southern part of India, which is both politically and ethnically different from the rest of the subcontinent.

----

Campaigns in "The Age of Faith"
(5 campaigns: 5 missions for the new civs, 4 missions for the old civs)

- Turcomans, Balts, Georgians -> campaigns
- Wends, Tatars -> no campaigns

Extra campaigns:
- Persians, Turks

I don't think that the Tatars need to get an own campaign, because we already have the Mongolic campaign dealing with the invasion of Eastern Europe, and redundancies should be avoided. Giving the Wends a campaign is also not necessary, considering that the Balts already have a campaign dealing with the Polish-Lithuanian union. The Wends will appear as your allies in this campaign and fight some significant battles at your side.

For the Persians, I propose a campaign about the war against their rivalling superpower, the Byzantines. We have too few campaigns from the early time period anyway, and it's a welcome change to get a "pre-Islamization" setting for Persia, which can also showcase the War Elephants ideally. - The Turks have to be considered a superpower, too, because they had two significant empires: the Seljuk and the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans became the dominant force of the Middle East in the late Medieval Period. The Seljuks were also pretty impressive as they conquered Persia and much of the Byzantine territory. The story of the founder of the Seljuk Empire, Tughril Beg, would make for a nice campaign.

Such a Turkish campaign would fit well into the "Age of Faith" theme, because it touches upon important events in the history of Islam - especially the inner-Islamic struggle of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ versus sunnites. I will write a more detailed description of my campaign idea for the Turks elsewhere. The Persian campaign may not fit well into the „Faith“ theme, but all the other campaigns of the DLC will.

Please take note that we have no campaigns anywhere between Israel (Saladin) and India (Prithviraj) so far - that whole "middle part" of Asia has been ignored. This will be changed by giving campaigns to the Persians, Turcomans and Turks. If it's still too much to have five campaigns with 23 missions in this DLC, the Turcoman and Turkish campaigns can be combined into a single one (as proposed in the "Lost Empires" DLC, see below).

----

Campaigns in "The Chieftains"
(3 campaigns, 5 missions each; plus a big collection of single scenarios)

- Mississippians/Muisca, Mapuche, Swahilis -> campaigns
- Kanembu -> no campaign

Extra single scenarios:
- "Battles of the Forgotten"-style collection, incl. a Mayan "early period" and a Slavic scenario

It's probably a good idea to give campaigns to the two civs that use the new architecture set (Mississippians/Muisca and Mapuche), because people will be eager to play those. For Africa, we need at least a Swahili campaign.

I think that the Mayans should get another "early period" scenario, similar to "Dos Pilas"; because everything else we got for America is from the late period, and the early/classical period surely deserves more than just one scenario.

----

Campaigns in alternative DLC "The Lost Empires"
(5 campaigns: 5 missions for combinatory "Turcoman + Turkish" campaign, 4 missions for all other campaigns; plus a middle-sized collection of single scenarios)

- Turcomans, Balts, Teotihuacans/Mississippians/Mapuche, Swahilis -> campaigns
- Tatars/Wends/Georgians, Muisca, Kanembu -> no campaigns

Extra campaigns:
- Persians, Turks (combined campaign with Turcomans)

Extra single scenarios:
- "Battles of the Forgotten"-style collection, incl. a Mayan "early period" and a Slavic scenario and an extra Turcoman scenario

The Turcomans and Turks can get a combinatory campaign, in a similar fashion as the Slavs and Magyars. I will describe my concrete ideas for this campaign in detail elsewhere (I already have the historical settings in mind). The Turcomans should also receive an extra single scenario, seperately (!) from the campaign, because 2-3 campaign missions are a little thin for them. The Turcomans are definitely one of the "major civs" in the game because they had several huge empires; that's why they deserve the extra scenario. The Turks already got two scenarios, Manzikert and Bapheus.

One of the American civs should get a campaign; but I wouldn't choose the Muisca, because they're basically already covered: El Dorado is their myth. Of course, if we got a Teotihuacan campaign (from the early time period), then it's completely redundant to give the Mayas an additional scenario from this period, which means they can be left out.

Additional note: In this DLC, I have reduced the length of most campaigns to only 4 missions, to press a large number of campaigns and scenarios into this final expansion set. It's not ideal, but this DLC is a compromise anyway (combining two DLCs into one).

Finally, a single scenario for each new civ that didn't get a campaign, such as the Bengalis, should be added. The DLC will then have ~27 missions. If this number is still too high, you can cut the Swahili campaign and give them 1-2 scenarios instead. Considering that we already got 3 satisfactory campaigns from Africa (Berbers, Malians, Ethiopians), the Swahili campaign is not an absolute must. Another option is to delay one of the campaigns, meaning that you don't release it when the DLC comes out, but with a later patch.


==> The goal is to give every major civ a full campaign, and every minor civ at least one single scenario. New civs that don't get a campaign will get a single scenario instead. Ideally, a DLC has between 20 and 25 missions.

More details on methodology, architectures and campaigns

In the future, I'm planning to write a more detailed text on the following topics, to round out my proposals:

Firstly, a description of the methodology that I’ve used to stay as objective as possible, minimizing subjective preferences. In other words, I want to make it transparent that I did a good scientific job and didn’t jump to conclusions. You’ll be able to follow my line of reasoning, so that you can either agree with it, or not.

Secondly, I want to give you more details on the architectural concepts and campaign ideas that I have in mind. These have only been partially laid out so far and I’ll go into more depth then.

[GrizzGolf]

I like the post above about adding some NA civs.

[Cats. Just Cats.]

Originally posted by GrizzGolf:

I like the post above about adding some NA civs.

I'm against overdoing it and adding an America-only DLC or something like that; there are too many world regions that still need some additions, and frankly America (despite its popularity) shouldn't be given too much weight. Of the six world regions I've identified (2 per DLC), America is actually the only one that doesn't have a "must-have" civ that is super important to add (or the game would feel incomplete without it). So in theory, we don't need to re-visit America, however...

I think it would be appropriate to extend the current 3 American civs to 5 (add 2 more), because if the Definitive Edition ever gets regionalized units, it would be a waste to give a full set of regionalized units (not only American monk, but also archer, swordsmen etc.) to only 3 civs. Furthermore, it's also a waste to only have 3 Eagle civs.

So, even if America has no big missing civilization that jumps to the eye, it should get extended a bit. Doesn't matter so much WHICH civs are chosen, although I have to admit the Mapuche would provide a nice campaign.

[H&K416]

I support @Cats. Just Cats.You seriously have been working on that in your mind bro
but i only disagree about the Mapuches, trough it would be a good campaing

[papermaniacman]

Originally posted by Cats. Just Cats.:

Architectural changes for original civs

Mongols and Byzantines - from AoK:

I've proposed to change the appearances of two AoK civs, namely the Mongols and Byzantines. Here's my reasoning: The Mongols and Byzantines have always been the least fitting members of their architectural groups, and they would really benefit from an upgrade to a more suitable set. The "Chinese" style is only appropriate for the "Into China" mission of the Mongols' campaign, but it looks bad in every other setting; especially when the Mongols fight in Eastern Europe. The Byzantines have long been criticized for looking too "Islamic" and having a mosque.

The main issue is, though, that the introduction of Karluks, Tatars and Georgians makes it necessary to update the Mongols and Byzantines. It would be completely counter-intuitive not to give Mongols, Karluks and Tatars the same building set. The Mongols would feel strangely isolated if they kept the old set. And the same is true for Byzantines and Georgians. Side note: For the few people who dislike the changes, you can provide the option "Use new architectures for the original civs", which can be unchecked. But I'm fairly sure that almost nobody will do that, if the quality of the new sets is good. People have been asking for an upgraded Byzantine set for ages (pun intended).


Spanish and Huns - from AoC:

In "The Conquerors", we got the Spanish, who were our first Southern European civ, and the Huns, who were our first Eastern European civ. However, because there were no dedicated architecture sets for Southern and Eastern Europe at this time, these civs were just given the old sets. Later, when the appropriate architecture sets were introduced (in "The Forgotten"), the Spanish and the Huns weren’t switched. It's time to do that now.

- Spain clearly belongs in the Southern European group, and the situation has become especially weird with the addition of Portugal, which is very close to Spain culturally, but has a different building set.

- The Huns settled in Eastern Europe (Magyar territory), which is why their grouping with the Germanic civs of Central/Northern Europe (Teutons, Vikings, Goths) is not a good choice. They should either be given the same set as the Magyars, or even better the new "semi-nomadic, Turkic-Mongolic" set that I proposed.


Please note that I generally respect the design decisions of the Ensemble team. I don't mean to "correct" any mistakes that they made. On the contrary, I acknowledge that they made the best decisions that they could, with only five different sets available at the time. I'm simply suggesting to update some of the old civs to a newer, more suitable set, when such a set has become available.

I feel that doing this is also a necessary step in order to harmonize the old and the new civs with one another, and avoid that the game feels “disjointed” and “incompletely patched”. The expansion civs should feel like a natural evolution of the game, and not something that is "added on". Really, everyone that I've asked has agreed with me on this; if the old and the new civs don’t fit together, it is judged very negatively, whereas harmonizing them is seen completely positively.

I guess that the low quality of the two new sets added in "The Forgotten" was an issue that spoke against switching the Spanish and the Huns, but we've got such great versions of the Southern and Eastern European sets now (made by Catbarf and Gwotyng) that there is no reason to hesitate any more. The quality is just fine.


==> Talking about numbers: My proposals make sure that all architecture sets will be used by 2-4 civs, which is a clean solution. No more single civs, or five civs using the same set.

Adding campaigns for original civs

Aside from the civ pool and the architecture sets, I also hope to finish the "campaign pool" of AoE2.

The following "superpowers" still need to get their own campaign:
- Chinese, Persians, Turks

The following minor civs also don't have a campaign yet:
- Brits, Vikings, Japanese, Koreans, Mayans

The "minor" civs can be dealt with by giving them a few single scenarios in the style of "Battles of the Forgotten". Most of them already got 2 scenarios, and all of them got at least 1, so I'd say that's good enough already, except for the Mayans (I'll come back to that later) and the Slavs. Generally speaking, the Slavs and Magyars are a special case because they share a campaign. Therefore, I think that especially the Slavs - being such a broad umbrella - deserve to receive another single scenario. The Magyars are already fine because they got Honfoglalas.

The main question is how to integrate the Chinese, Persian and Turkic campaigns. These civs are very significant powers of the Middle Ages and I feel in order to finish the "campaign pool" properly, they need to get their own campaigns. How can it be that the Vietnamese have a 6-part campaign, but the Chinese don't have any? This should be addressed.

Obviously, the Chinese campaign can be added to the "India + China" DLC, the Persian and Turkic campaigns to the "Central Asia + Eastern Europe" DLC, and finally the "America + Africa" DLC can offer some additional single scenarios in the style of "Battles of the Forgotten". Here are my proposals:


Campaigns in "Dynasties of the East"
(4 campaigns, 5 missions each)

- Tamils, Bengalis -> at least a campaign for Tamils
- Manchus, Tibetans, Nanchaos/Thais -> 2 of these should get campaigns

Extra campaign:
- Chinese

The idea here is that only 2 of the new China-related civs should get a campaign, and the third campaign should be given to China itself. This makes a lot of sense, because in a China-focused DLC you want to make sure that China itself is playable. That way, you can tell a very convincing story of Chinese history. - About the Indian sphere: The Tamils need a campaign more than the Bengalis, because they represent the Southern part of India, which is both politically and ethnically different from the rest of the subcontinent.

----

Campaigns in "The Age of Faith"
(5 campaigns: 5 missions for the new civs, 4 missions for the old civs)

- Karluks, Balts, Georgians -> campaigns
- Wends, Tatars -> no campaigns

Extra campaigns:
- Persians, Turks

I don't think that the Tatars need to get an own campaign, because we already have the Mongolic campaign dealing with the invasion of Eastern Europe, and redundancies should be avoided. Giving the Wends a campaign is also not necessary, considering that the Balts already have a campaign dealing with the Polish-Lithuanian union. The Wends will appear as your allies in this campaign and fight some significant battles at your side.

For the Persians, I propose a campaign about the war against their rivalling superpower, the Byzantines. We have too few campaigns from the early time period anyway, and it's a welcome change to get a "pre-Islamization" setting for Persia, which can also showcase the War Elephants ideally. - The Turks have to be considered a superpower, too, because they had two significant empires: the Seljuk and the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans became the dominant force of the Middle East in the late Medieval Period. The Seljuks were also pretty impressive as they conquered Persia and much of the Byzantine territory. The story of the founder of the Seljuk Empire, Tughril Beg, would make for a nice campaign.

Such a Turkic campaign would fit well into the "Age of Faith" theme, because it touches upon important events in the history of Islam - especially the inner-Islamic struggle of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ versus sunnites. I will write a more detailed description of my campaign idea for the Turks elsewhere. The Persian campaign may not fit well into the „Faith“ theme, but all the other campaigns of the DLC will.

Please take note that we have no campaigns anywhere between Israel (Saladin) and India (Prithviraj) so far - that whole "middle part" of Asia has been ignored. This will be changed by giving campaigns to the Persians, Karluks and Turks. If it's still too much to have five campaigns with 23 missions in this DLC, the Karluk and Turkic campaigns can be combined into a single one (as proposed in the "Lost Empires" DLC, see below).

----

Campaigns in "The Chieftains"
(3 campaigns, 5 missions each; plus a big collection of single scenarios)

- Mississippians/Muisca, Mapuche, Swahilis -> campaigns
- Kanembu -> no campaign

Extra single scenarios:
- "Battles of the Forgotten"-style collection, incl. a Mayan "early period" and a Slavic scenario

It's probably a good idea to give campaigns to the two civs that use the new architecture set (Mississippians/Muisca and Mapuche), because people will be eager to play those. For Africa, we need at least a Swahili campaign.

I think that the Mayans should get another "early period" scenario, similar to "Dos Pilas"; because everything else we got for America is from the late period, and the early/classical period surely deserves more than just one scenario.

----

Campaigns in alternative DLC "The Lost Empires"
(5 campaigns: 5 missions for combinatory "Karluk + Turkish" campaign, 4 missions for all other campaigns; plus a middle-sized collection of single scenarios)

- Karluks, Balts, Teotihuacans/Mississippians/Mapuche, Swahilis -> campaigns
- Georgians/Wends, Muisca, Kanembu -> no campaigns

Extra campaigns:
- Persians, Turks (combined campaign with Karluks)

Extra single scenarios:
- "Battles of the Forgotten"-style collection, incl. a Mayan "early period" and a Slavic scenario and an extra Karluk scenario

The Karluks and Turks can get a combinatory campaign, in a similar fashion as the Slavs and Magyars. I will describe my concrete ideas for this campaign in detail elsewhere (I already have the historical settings in mind). The Karluks should also receive an extra single scenario, seperately (!) from the campaign, because 2-3 campaign missions are a little thin for them. The Karluks are definitely one of the "major civs" in the game because they had several huge empires; that's why they deserve the extra scenario. The Turks already got two scenarios, Manzikert and Bapheus.

One of the American civs should get a campaign; but I wouldn't choose the Muisca, because they're basically already covered: El Dorado is their myth. Of course, if we got a Teotihuacan campaign (from the early time period), then it's completely redundant to give the Mayas an additional scenario from this period, which means they can be left out.

Additional note: In this DLC, I have reduced the length of most campaigns to only 4 missions, to press a large number of campaigns and scenarios into this final expansion set. It's not ideal, but this DLC is a compromise anyway (combining two DLCs into one).

Finally, a single scenario for each new civ that didn't get a campaign, such as the Bengalis, should be added. The DLC will then have ~27 missions. If this number is still too high, you can cut the Swahili campaign and give them 1-2 scenarios instead. Considering that we already got 3 satisfactory campaigns from Africa (Berbers, Malians, Ethiopians), the Swahili campaign is not an absolute must. Another option is to delay one of the campaigns, meaning that you don't release it when the DLC comes out, but with a later patch.


==> The goal is to give every major civ a full campaign, and every minor civ at least one single scenario. New civs that don't get a campaign will get a single scenario instead. Ideally, a DLC has between 20 and 25 missions.

More details on methodology, architectures and campaigns

In the future, I'm planning to write a more detailed text on the following topics, to round out my proposals:

Firstly, a description of the methodology that I’ve used to stay as objective as possible, minimizing subjective preferences. In other words, I want to make it transparent that I did a good scientific job and didn’t jump to conclusions. You’ll be able to follow my line of reasoning, so that you can either agree with it, or not.

Secondly, I want to give you more details on the architectural concepts and the campaign ideas that I have mind. These have only been partially laid out so far and I’ll go into more depth then.

I still think they should release 4 or 5 dlcs so you can have a central asia + India DLC, an overall america DLC, a " neolithic" DLC, a caucasus + east Europe DLC and an Africa + remainig civs DLC

[conqueror060]

I think three more DLCs would be sufficient. One for the eastern europe, one for the whole asia which include the asian missing civs and one general like "the forgotten" for the remaining african and american civs.

But to be honest, I think we have already covered the most important missing regions with the african kingdoms and rise of rajas DLCs

[Cats. Just Cats.]

Originally posted by conqueror060:

I think three more DLCs would be sufficient. One for the eastern europe, one for the whole asia which include the asian missing civs and one general like "the forgotten" for the remaining african and american civs.

But to be honest, I think we have already covered the most important missing regions with the african kingdoms and rise of rajas DLCs

I don't think that makes too much sense, because India, China and Central Asia combined need at least twice as many additions as Eastern Europe alone. One of my principles is to avoid preferring one region over another because I subjectively like it more. My dream is that every civ can get the weight that it deserves, not the weight that pop culture gives to them.

The Bengalis are a good example for an overlooked civ. Everyone who claims that he can put all of Asia into a single DLC will cut the Bengalis. But they had up to 5% of the world population (more than the Holy Roman Empire) and some of the most advanced industries in the world, so 12% of the whole world's economic production was done by the Bengalis by the end of the Middle Ages (History of Bengal, Wikipedia). Which is much more than the whole of America.

I don't know about you, but I want a game in which the big players (politically, militarily, economically) are identified properly and get their own civs in a future expansion set.

[Whakahoatanga]

I've already mentioned that before that the population of the Americas is a highly discussed topic among scientists with the estimations going from 20 to 120 millions. Honestly, even if you don't like to hear that Cats. Just Cats, concerning priorities I would go first for North America than going back to India, even if it is a subcontinent with admittedly rich history considering we have zero factions from there compared to one way too huge Indian umbrella.


@conqueror060: Well I would kinda understand it if there would be no new DLC for HD because afaik the masterplan of Ensemble considering civs is almost done. Though I would be kinda sad if they decided this way. There could be easily 5 DLC to get to the point of "completing" the world.

[Cats. Just Cats.]

Originally posted by Szaladon:

I've already mentioned that before that the population of the Americas is a highly discussed topic among scientists with the estimations going from 20 to 120 millions. Honestly, even if you don't like to hear that Cats. Just Cats, concerning priorities I would go first for North America than going back to India, even if it is a subcontinent with admittedly rich history considering we have zero factions from there compared to one way too huge Indian umbrella.

I am aware of that, but even with 120 million, North America will only be 10% of it (= 12 million), because it's consensus that the vast majority of the population lived in Meso- and South America. India is 90 millions though. The numbers are for the year 1500.

But sure, if you put a really strong emphasis on the principle that each world region should at least have 1 civ to represent them (which is an understandable position), I can see why you want to visit North America in the next expansion set.

[conqueror060]

Holy crap after a week my laptop is ruined again because of the Windows 10 update. It freezes on login everytime. I'm so stupid i trusted again win10!!!!! Does anyone know a fix for this? I just wanted to play definitive edition dear Microsoft!!! :( :( :(

[Fristi61]

There's a lot of new entries in the "news" section of the Forgotten Empires webpage popping up this month all of a sudden after nothing new since July. In-depth analysis of maps, UTs, civ bonuses etc. All their social media seems more active.

Usually I'd say that seems like a lead-up to an announcement.

[NIKFS]

Originally posted by conqueror060:

Holy crap after a week my laptop is ruined again because of the Windows 10 update. It freezes on login everytime. I'm so stupid i trusted again win10!!!!! Does anyone know a fix for this? I just wanted to play definitive edition dear Microsoft!!! :( :( :(

tip: make a windows 10 boot stick and install a clean install, seems to be the best way to get win10 to run without such problems, still forcing everyone who wants to play the game to the windows store still is a BS tactic from MS....


also its faster to install windows from a stick, trust me i already had to do it 3 times due to MS ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up the updates and now once just because i wanted a clean install before changing some parts soon

[Whakahoatanga]

Originally posted by Fristi61:

There's a lot of new entries in the "news" section of the Forgotten Empires webpage popping up this month all of a sudden after nothing new since July. In-depth analysis of maps, UTs, civ bonuses etc. All their social media seems more active.

Usually I'd say that seems like a lead-up to an announcement.

We're getting closer to the release of AOE1:DE. Maybe this means nothing for AOE2 (for now until the start of AOE2:DE).