The worsening state of AoE2 DLCs

[kucsidaveee]

Hello!
I was discussing parts of this thread, specifically the architecture aspect in this thread https://steamcommunity.com/app/813780/discussions/0/3877095200000229139/
as well, but I feel like this kind of deserves its own thread, with an expanded scope.

I feel like the devs become either lazier and lazier or more and more restricted with each new DLC. It seems like less and less substance is being added into the game since DE came out, and the community is starting to pick up on it more and more, including me.

Let’s see what we have got up until DE came out, just for context.

1. New Civ count.

Age of Kings

gave us our first 13 civs.

The Conquerors

gave us an additional 5
Here's when the forgotten team got to the game, originally for their mod, and later employed by Microsoft and made a huge impact. Keep this in mind for later topics as well.

The Forgotten Empires

gave us an additional 5

The Aftrican Kingdoms

gave us an additional 4

Rise of the Rajas

gave us an additional 4

The Last Khans

, the one that came with 4 once again.

Now let’s see what we've got since.

Lords of the West:

2 civs.

Dawn of the Dukes:

2 civs

Dynasties of India:

3 + an Indians rework into Hindustanis. There is a reason this DLC was very highly praised. Even after this the devs said that they see the positive reaction of the community, and they are listening to it. Spoiler alert, they didn’t.

Return of Rome:

1 civ. This was the first real crack in the community’s trust.

The Mountain Royals:

2 civs + a Persians rework. This is where the cracks really start to show. A mixed reception to a traditional DLC is bad news.

Let’s be fair here.

RoR was not a traditional AoE2 DLC, as it had totally different goals in mind here, so I am giving it a pass(for now), but I completely understand the community’s mixed reaction to it. The AoE2 content of this DLC is barren, and would understandably bother anyone who does not care for the whole AoE1 in 2’s engine and gameplay elements aspect. This doesn’t mean that it is fair to judge the 1 civ we got with it negatively because of it, since it is more of a novelty we even got it than anything else, but I also understand people who are angry about the fact that if they want to play all civs available, they have to purchase a quite pricey DLC(will return to this point later), full of elements they care nothing about.

But why the general decrease in new civs? Maybe they compensate for it elsewhere? We will most certainly see…

2. Architecture.

Age of Kings:

There were 4 sets for 13 civs, so 3.25 civs/set on average.

The Conquerors:

5 sets for 18 Civs, so quite a bit of an increase of 3.6 civs/set

The Forgotten Empires:

7 sets for 23 Civs, so 3.29 civs/set

The African Kingdoms:

8 sets for 27 Civs, so 3.375 civs/set

Rise of the Rajas:

10 sets for 31 Civs, so 3.1 civs/set

The Last Khans:

11 sets for 35 civs, so 3.18 civs/set.

Ever since, we haven't gotten a single new architecture set.

Now, last I counted we have 45 civs for 11 sets, giving it a 4.09 civs/set, which is a record high, and quite a bit of a record.
Almost 0.5 civs/set more than the previous one, which was in Conquerors time, the Mediterranean set being the worst of all, having 8 civilizations in it, which is basically double of the average.

Now let’s take a look at the new DLCs:

Lords of the West:

With the Burgundians and Sicilians, I understand why they didn’t give an additional architecture set into the game, but I also saw the first of the sets, the Mediterranean beginning its overcrowding, which is a problem to this day. Especially since the Byzantines and the Spanish were moved to it as well by this point in time. This was the second set to have 5 civs, the first being the middle eastern, which lost the Indians for this very reason. It was over-stacked. Yes, the solution only came 2 DLCs later, but even with African kingdoms they already moved the Indians to a duplicate middle eastern set, so it seems like they were already back then planning for a fix for this overcrowding.

Dawn of the Dukes:

Added the Bohemians and the Poles. This is where we had the first time ever, an architecture set with 6 civs inside it. The Eastern European set. This is the first place where I say they should have added a new set, to keep the number of civs in a set down. Or at least the Bohemians should have gotten a Central European set. There were multiple threads discussing this very topic, and I tend to agree with them. From this point on, I would say that 5 civs in a set is the absolute maximum limit, and it shouldn’t have been pushed.

Dynasties of India and Return of Rome:

They got an easy pass from me in this department, since RoR had a completely different goal, and the single civ we got was more of a novelty than anything else. Yes, the Romans were pushed into Med set as well, which wasn’t the best decision either, but I can’t think of a better already existing set to put them in, so I have accepted it, though already not too happy about it.
Dynasties of India on the other hand split the "Indians" apart, and made an architecture set that was used by only one civ, being used by 4, so yes. Easy pass on both.

The Mountain Royals:

Oh boy.
The RoR DLC already pushed the Mediterranean set up to 6 to be at par with the East European, but this DLC pushed it waaaay up to 8. People are quite pissed about this, understandably so. Not to mention the fact that what the hell does Georgia or Armenia have to do with the Mediterranean? As stated at the intro section of the thread, they should have made a new architecture set for these people, and maybe also put the Byzantines into it, making it a 3,75 civs/set. Or better yet, this should have also been a 3+1 civ rework DLC like DoI, and also added another civ next to 2 plus the reworked Persians, and made a new architecture set for the 3 new civs. They already made the unique Qizilbash Warrior and an elite version that can only be found in the scenario editor, so they might have been working on another civ that got cut at the end, but that is purely speculation on my part.
Even with that, it would be 12 sets for 45 civs, so a 3,83 civ/set. It is still high, but much better than the current status quo, and would have shown that the devs are still willing to make a new architecture set.

3. Campaigns:

Age of Kings:

5 campaigns for their 13 civs, so a 38% of civs got a campaign.

Conquerors:

It made it a bit better, by getting a new campaign for 3 of their 5 civs, and also adding battles of the conquerors, where many civs with no campaigns got at least a scenario where the players controlled them. This pulled the average up to a 44%+ battles of the conquerors, so give it a generous 50%

Forgotten empires:

This is where the fun really began. It gave a LOT of campaigns to not just the new civs, but also civs that didn’t previously had a campaign centered around them.
Also added the battles of the Forgotten, which expanded on the conquerors, but let’s not count that this time, since we have already kind of did it.
Let’s say that it added 6 campaigns for their 5 civs, bringing it up to a 60% Yes, the Vlad Dracula is a shared campaign between slavs and magyars,and El Dorado is a half Inca, half Spanish campaign, but 0.5 + 0.5 is still 1, so yeah…

African Kingdoms

came out with 4 campaigns for their 4 civs, one for each new civ.
It brought up the average to 66%

Rise of the Rajas

followed suit and came with 4 campaigns for their 4 civs, one for each new civ. It brought up the average to 70.9%

Last Khans

was interesting, since it only gave a campaign to 3 of the 4 new civs it came out with, but DE also added a new campaign to the Incas,but also removed the Forgotten empires one… 3 to 4 is . It has a bit of a twist to it, but still. This brought the average up just a tiny bit to 71.4%

Lords of the West:

3 new campaigns released to their 2 civs, which sounds good on paper, until you notice that this is the least amount of campaigns we got since the conquerors.
this is the point, where even though the percentage increases, the number of new campaigns has decreased. But for fairness’ sake, it brings the average up to 76%

Dawn of the Dukes:

Again, 3 new campaigns to 2 civs, now finally plugging that lithuania sized hole up from DE. sounds good on paper, but still only 3 campaigns instead of 4…
Average is up to 79%

Dynasties of India:

3 new campaigns, but to now 3 civs. a bit of a twist to this is that the new Gurjaras got the old Indians campaign, and the reworked Indians, the Hindustanis got a new campaign for themselves, but still it is 3 for 3.
Average is up to 81%

Return of Rome:

OOF! no new campaign for the Romans. At least not in the AoE 2 part. Again, I can only feel the frustration of everyone who does not give a dingali-ding about the AoE1 in AoE2 part of the DLC. This brings the average down as well. I like the new stuff they put into the RoR part, but they should have made a Roman campaign in AoE2 as well, maybe leading the last vestiges of the empire in an ever losing war, where most missions are not about victory per say, but losing as little as possible. Would have been quite a fresh experience as well. Brings the average down to 79%

The Mountain Royals:

Returns to the old reliable 2 new civs, 3 new campaigns format, which is simply not enough at this point. We haven’t gotten 4 new campaigns since DE came out. This combined with the disappointment of RoR, gives us quite a pickle indeed.
This brings the average up to 82% though.

4. Number of new mechanics:

A bit of a disclaimer here: I am purely looking at this in the mechanic standard. So I will count the unique technologies if they bring something new to the table mechanically, but I won’t count imperial age unique techs in the conquerors as a whole as something new, since unique techs already existed in the game, they just repeated it in the imperial age.

Age of Kings was the base game, so it is hard to quantify it. We could compare it to AoE1, but it wouldn’t be fair. So let’s leave this one out, and only compare DLC to DLC.

Conquerors:

8-9
-Heresy tech: Converted units die instead of being turned is something that wasn’t in the game before.
-Theocracy tech: Only one Monk in a group must rest after a conversion. Brilliant tech for mass monks, and it is something new as well, mechanic-wise.
-Huns Atheism tech. This was the first time ever something could interfere with the victory countdown system other than fully stopping it.
-Villagers are able to automatically start gathering resources once the drop off structure is built.
-Ability to automatically refresh farms, by pre-paying them in the mill and stocking up. This will later be reworked a different way, but it also counts here.
-Chat commands to allied computer players, giving you a lot of flexibility on the way you interact with the computer. Clearly a huge increase in utility.
-Huns need no houses for population. This was something never seen before.
-Goths +10 to max pop limit civ bonus. It is something that IMO needs a rework since the now standard pop limit is 200 instead of the 75 that was back in the day, but it is big.
-I am not sure if I should count the regional units like the eagles or should I just put it into the it’s just a unique unit variety. I will leave it to you. But the regional skin is definitely won’t count, since buildings always had them and they just got added to units as well.

The Forgotten:

4
-Allies can train your unique units (Condottiero). This was something never done before, so I want to count it here.
-Madrasah tech:Killed owned Monks return 33% of their cost (Saracens, Castle Age unique tech) This was the first time a unit and your resources got entangled, which later on allowed the creation of the steppe lancers, and other units that generate resources. But this is the time it was done first.
-Siege towers. At this point, untrainable, but a unit that can drop things through walls is something that wasn’t done before.
-The first time ever bonus damage is specifically calculated thanks to Magyar villagers being capable of killing wolves in 1 strike. Later the same is used for bonus damage reduction civ bonuses and abilities.

African Kingdoms:

1.
-Feitoria constant resource generation ability is a first ever.

Rise of the Rajas:

2.
-Karambit Warriors only cost half a pop. This is the first time something costs a decimal population ever.

DE and Last Khans:

14-? HUUUGE
-Cross play between Microsoft Store and Steam
-Manual gate rotation (using mouse-wheel)
-Mixed technology and unit queue
-New scenario editor features, including a reworked triggers system. I am not even sure on how to quantify it, since a lot got added here.
-New server-based multiplayer, which is great, since cheating in MP became a lot harder.
-Progress bar for buildings, effects on them if they are working
-Zoom functionality
-Toggles for automatic Farm and Fish Trap reseeding. This is the thing that made the previous farm reseeding outdated. This was a HUGE QoL improvement.
-Auto scout ability for the starting scout cavalry only
-Lithuanian Leitis ignore armor ability
-Lithuanian Relic -> cavalry attack civ bonus.
-Bulgarian Konnik dismount ability
-Cuman Mercenaries (Cumans) tech: All team members can train up to 10 Elite Kipchaks for free at the Castle in the Imperial Age (slot 4). Training units for your allies is something never done before.
-Tech (or town centers) being available 1 age early for the first time.

Lords of the West:

2
-Charge attacks introduced with Coustillier
-Ability to gather gold from farming for Burgundians. First ever ability to gather multiple types of resources at once.

Dawn of the Dukes:

1
-Obuch’s ability to strip enemy armor.
-Folwark’s Area of effect ability. First time AoE ability is put in the game.

Dynasties of India:

0
-The ability to garrison something in a building to gather res- wait a minute. Sheep are just relics. Never mind, move along.

Return of Rome:

1
-A toggle in the menu that most people never use, and allows you to play AoE 1 in 2…

The mountain Royals:

1
-Mobile resource drop-off point in the mule cart.

5 Pricing.

Age of Kings & Conquerors together in HD: 20 Euro
Forgotten: 9 Euro
African Kingdoms: 10 Euro
Rise of the Rajas: 10 Euro
Remake & Last Khans together in DE: 20 Euro
Lords of the West:10 Euro
Dawn of the Dukes:10 Euro
Dynasties of India:10 Euro
Return of Rome:15 Euro
The Mountain Royals:15 Euro

With RoR, they justified the 15 Euro price tag with all the extra they put into the game with all the AoE1 stuff being ported over, the AoE2 stuff being a bonus on top of it. But then what is the excuse of The Mountain Royals?
It didn’t add anything extra, it didn’t add another game into this one, and it most definitely didn’t add the volume of content the HD DLCs used to do, for cheaper.

In Conclusion

The number of Civs/DLC have decreased since DE came out from 5/4 to 2
The number of Architecture sets/DLC have decreased from 2/1 to 0
The number of campaign/dlc have decreased since DE came out from 6/4 to 3
The number of new mechanics was kind of consistent, so I will not diss that one.
And all of this on an increasing price tag.
All in all, give us more money, while we give you less.

Do better, Microsoft and Forgotten studio

, or you are going to eat up all the good will DE created, and when that is gone, you will be left with an ever shrinking base of people willing to buy your stuff.

Addendum 1:

First things first, I have gotten an interesting point that I also answered in the comments below, but I will also add here:

6.Timing

HD and Forgotten came out in 2013
The African Kingdoms in 2015, so 2 years
Rise of the Rajas in 2016, so 1 year.
DE and last Khans came in 2019, so it had 3 years of dev. But that is understandable in the sheer amount of content it added.
All of the above came out in november or december, and I mention it because the next one,
Lords of the West: 2021 January, so 1 year and a bit.
Dawn of the Dukes 2021. Augustus 10, so in half a year
Dynasties of India 2022. April, so 8 montsh.
Return of Rome in 2023, May, so more than a year, but since they ported all of AoE1 into 2 and made a whole bunch of new stuff for 2 is astonishing in such a short time. Bravo.
The Mountain Royals 2023, October, so again about half a year.
I don’t understand why they don’t let the DLCs “cook” and fix bugs that the new DLC would introduce, not to mention it would also give the devs time to fix bugs that have been in the game for quite some time and the frequent crashes that became more and more prevalent through the years. We can wait for new civs. Most of us have been playing the game for a long time, believe me when I say that we will be here, even without new content for quite some time.
Not to mention that this means we spend more on the game in a year than we used to. I believe slowing down new DLCs would be beneficial to both sides, since AoE loses more players due to frustrations with bugs/instability than the lack of new content

Now for the new stuff.

I can’t believe what happened since I have posted this.
Selling gif packs for profile pics for 3 Euros a pop.
Who thinks that this was a good idea? The community wanted regional unit skins, new architecture styles and what not, but not this.
3 Euros for 8 gifs is just laughable. I would say that look at the reviews, but only owners can do reviews and only those pick it up who are such fans that they can’t handle that some people criticize their beloved franchise(see comments below for examples). It’s funny how that works, isn’t it?
Mind you, this does not add anything into the game itself.

[Moist Butt]

Didnt read everything.

"And all of this on an increasing price tag.
All in all, give us more money, while we give you less."

Seems consistent with everything else from where I am from (inflation). I am not defending this in anyway, but let's be realistic here.

[The Icecream Snowman]

You vote with your money. If you don't like it, don't buy it.

[KingKickAss]

Its worth noting that the developers weren't intending on making DLC for DE and ended up doing it because of community request. Which would probably explain why they're just giving out these packs with two civs.

[Buge]

You know AoE4 exists? They are more likely to work on the Current content.

[Basarab Laiota]

thats a lot of text

[Mulzaro]

I like how people constantly say Rise of Rome only adds 1 civ and completely ignore the fact that it adds the best version of Age of empires 1 so far.

[kucsidaveee]

Originally posted by Mulzaro:

I like how people constantly say Rise of Rome only adds 1 civ and completely ignore the fact that it adds the best version of Age of empires 1 so far.

This is why I made the following addendum into this.

Originally posted by kucsidaveee:

Let’s be fair here.

RoR was not a traditional AoE2 DLC, as it had totally different goals in mind here, so I am giving it a pass(for now), but I completely understand the community’s mixed reaction to it. The AoE2 content of this DLC is barren, and would understandably bother anyone who does not care for the whole AoE1 in 2’s engine and gameplay elements aspect. This doesn’t mean that it is fair to judge the 1 civ we got with it negatively because of it, since it is more of a novelty we even got it than anything else, but I also understand people who are angry about the fact that if they want to play all civs available, they have to purchase a quite pricey DLC(will return to this point later), full of elements they care nothing about.

I gave a pass on both this and the architecture side, since that was not the focus of the DLC.
And you are literally talking to someone who defended RoR vehemently.
I just wrote that I understand what the community felt about it.

[-Dare Devil/x/]

-Can you add time frames? Or at least guesstimated dev time? For example 3 DLCs in 1 year while smaller individually may be larger than 1 DLC in a different year? Might be interesting.

[BirbNotBird]

Originally posted by kucsidaveee:

Hello!
I was discussing parts of this thread, specifically the architecture aspect in this thread https://steamcommunity.com/app/813780/discussions/0/3877095200000229139/
as well, but I feel like this kind of deserves its own thread, with an expanded scope.

I feel like the devs become either lazier and lazier or more and more restricted with each new DLC.

In Conclusion

The number of Civs/DLC have decreased since DE came out from 5/4 to 2
The number of Architecture sets/DLC have decreased from 2/1 to 0
The number of campaign/dlc have decreased since DE came out from 6/4 to 3
The number of new mechanics was kind of consistent, so I will not diss that one.
And all of this on an increasing price tag.
All in all, give us more money, while we give you less.

Interesting insights, but the conclusion leave out many positive things in DE approach, with its own nuances.

I don't think 0,5 + 0,5 should be one properly 1 though. Few HD campaigns quality is suck with or just too artificially time consuming, or not even "teach" player about the civs at all. Yea, Historical Battle exists, but it's too short.

Introduction of new gameplay mechanics is hella controversial tbh. Still think garrisoning sheeps is unique enough. Everytime a new mechanism is introduced, bugs.

I haven't even mentioned the cost of developing extra building collapsing animation. DLC civs also got their own unique castles design.

So then the AOE2DE got into a dilemma, to either continuing pushing the rate of civs like what you said, which will leave many new civs with the absence of their campaigns, with tons of problematic issues with bad coding.

Or they can just simply trying to pick up a slower approach. Reworking civs and giving what's still missing. Lots of unique techs have been reworked to suit for more general gameplay than buffing one type of UU units.

I don't think you're in the wrong, but surely I felt something missing in your writing. And the last sentence feels really weird.

[kucsidaveee]

Originally posted by -Dare Devil/x/:

-Can you add time frames? Or at least guesstimated dev time? For example 3 DLCs in 1 year while smaller individually may be larger than 1 DLC in a different year? Might be interesting.

This is an interesting point.
HD and Forgotten came out in 2013
The African Kingdoms in 2015, so 2 years
Rise of the Rajas in 2016, so 1 year.
DE and last Khans came in 2019, so it had 3 years of dev. But that is understandable in the sheer amount of content it added.
All of the above came out in november or december, and I mention it because the next one,
Lords of the West: 2021 January, so 1 year and a bit.
Dawn of the Dukes 2021. Augustus 10, so in half a year
Dynasties of India 2022. April, so 8 montsh.
Return of Rome in 2023, May, so more than a year, but since they ported all of AoE1 into 2 and made a whole bunch of new stuff for 2 is astonishing in such a short time. Bravo.
The Mountain Royals 2023, October, so again about half a year.

So why don't they let it cook?

[GRIGGSENUM]

I'm seeing this pattern not just in this game, but pretty much across the entire gaming industry as a whole. It feels like over the past few years games are becoming more and more lazy, broken, and monetized. Idk what's going on, but this isn't the only game having this issue.

[Nightflash]

Quite a selfish stance to just expect they have to keep adding dlc:s when they don't.

[ReborN]

Originally posted by The Icecream Snowman:

You vote with your money. If you don't like it, don't buy it.

Already done this. Latest dlc was the first I won't buy. And from here on out if they keep the overpriced dlc I won't buy anymore.

[[T.R.] James]

The worsening state of much text

[-Dare Devil/x/]

Originally posted by kucsidaveee:

Originally posted by -Dare Devil/x/:

-Can you add time frames? Or at least guesstimated dev time? For example 3 DLCs in 1 year while smaller individually may be larger than 1 DLC in a different year? Might be interesting.

This is an interesting point.
HD and Forgotten came out in 2013
The African Kingdoms in 2015, so 2 years
Rise of the Rajas in 2016, so 1 year.
DE and last Khans came in 2019, so it had 3 years of dev. But that is understandable in the sheer amount of content it added.
All of the above came out in november or december, and I mention it because the next one,
Lords of the West: 2021 January, so 1 year and a bit.
Dawn of the Dukes 2021. Augustus 10, so in half a year
Dynasties of India 2022. April, so 8 montsh.
Return of Rome in 2023, May, so more than a year, but since they ported all of AoE1 into 2 and made a whole bunch of new stuff for 2 is astonishing in such a short time. Bravo.
The Mountain Royals 2023, October, so again about half a year.

So why don't they let it cook?

-Beautiful, yeah this is what I was looking for. It sorta does feel like those less than a year DLCs had the least content. It certainly seems that letting it cook means they can squeeze in a bit more polish and fixes and content.

-Makes me wonder about trying to keep momentum and grow the playerbase by churning out content. Or maybe the upper management were thinking about $$$ from an executive push. Who knows.

-What are your thoughts?