I was hoping for a new civilization DLC

[Froz7y]

No pressure to the devs tho, this game is awesome. The most relaxing game to play between my studies. I just wish we had more civilizations, maps and new native units and mercs or just new units in general.

[.:Jj:.]

I was hoping for a new campaign. Once per 15 years seems like a decent pace.
Or some real AI rework.

[Rhalius]

I'm happy that they showed some attention to the old civs to make them a bit more unique looking though.
Only played as the Dutch yet after the patch, and now their skirmishers look different in the second age, sadly not afterwards. But their halberdiers get a nice unique appearance once upgraded, looking pretty fancy though unarmoured.

I'm looking forward to checking out all the other changed royal guard units.

[James3157]

Originally posted by .:Jj:.:

I was hoping for a new campaign. Once per 15 years seems like a decent pace.
Or some real AI rework.

Not once per 15 years, but once per year. New civilizations for AoE III: DE at this point is overdue. Longer than a year at this point since the last two civilizations were added from a May, 2022 dlc. Despite it having more civilizations than AoE IV with 21 total (but five more civilizations than AoE: DE) it is still considerably less civilizations as well than AoE II: DE. I am predicting our next AoE III: DE dlc will be coming out no later than November of this year. If another dlc does not come out by then I honestly do not know when AoE III: DE will be getting more dlc again.

[Rhalius]

Can't really compare it to AOE2 DE considering how little unique there is about civs there, even less with Age of Empires 1 DE.
Also no home city cards or anything happening with moving an age up. And AOE3 has an age more. Also a lot happening on maps with trade routes, natives/mercenaries, treasure guardians and all that.

I would certainly like to see new civs though, too many of the current ones are using the European architectures and at least some of their units.

Especially after the last Europe focused pack, I'd like to see more of Asia and the middle east, new civs that use the asian dynasties mechanics.

[Maxillian]

Originally posted by Rhalius:

But their halberdiers get a nice unique appearance once upgraded, looking pretty fancy though unarmoured.

You might be surprised, but sometimes clothes were worn on top of the armor.

Image of Spanish pikeman wearing clothes on top.

[Maxillian]

Originally posted by Rhalius:

I would certainly like to see new civs though, too many of the current ones are using the European architectures and at least some of their units.

Would love it if they give European architectures a similar treatment like the new Royal Guard upgrades. Just some of the building getting a make-over, but not necessarily all of them. Like a new look for the Town Center, Capitol and Houses.

[Slamurai Jack]

I certainly wouldn't mind more, but I already got far more than I expected from this game. Before it released, I expected little more than updated graphics for AOE3DE given that AOE 3 was the black sheep of the series, so getting 2 new civs on release, 6 more in DLC, and reworks to old civs absolutely blew my mind.

[James3157]

Originally posted by Rhalius:

Especially after the last Europe focused pack, I'd like to see more of Asia and the middle east, new civs that use the asian dynasties mechanics.

AoE III: DE severely lacking when it comes to Asian and Middle Eastern civilizations is not an opinion, but a fact. The only civilizations from Asia and Middle East currently are Ottomans, China, India, and Japan. (Russia does not count, because Russia started in Europe before it spread to northern Asia and a small part of North America.)

[.:Jj:.]

Originally posted by James3157:

AoE III: DE severely lacking when it comes to Asian and Middle Eastern civilizations

This is a video game with a creative vision and certain themes, not a geographical atlas- it's not 'lacking' anything.
It's one thing to plea for adding things that you like and wish to see, it's something else to accuse the game of being incomplete and coming short of promised/appropriate content that should be there.

It's not an abstract 4X game when you can cram everything and it still 'works'. It's 'lacking' things like new campaign content which is very slim right now, reworked AI that can properly utilize all building, gameplay strategies and terrains, or properly updated map editor tool that in its current state heavily resembles one in OG AoE III, in other words- it's clunky, unintuitive and much less popular than one in AoE II.
When it comes to major and minor civs, revolutions, tribes, royal houses, mercenaries- it's bursting with content and options for the player.

[Catalytic]

Originally posted by .:Jj:.:

I was hoping for a new campaign. Once per 15 years seems like a decent pace.
Or some real AI rework.

Those are both reasonable requests. I will note to be fair that this team has continually updated the AI. I notice the behavioral changes with their major updates because I play single player vs the AI. I have a tiny pittance of exposure to computer programming including AI and it informs me just how incredibly difficult it is to write "good" AI for a strategy game and still keep system requirements reasonable and performance adequate. You can't do what they do with chess and brute force calculate the odds of winning for every possible move to pick the best choice. And you don't want to script play like older games used to do. It makes the AI opponent too predictable and easy to counter. And you don't want to just load it up with free resources either because who likes playing against a cheating computer with perfect reaction time? So you have to design heuristics, patterns to follow and switch between, and ideally you do it without a tangled mess of if-then logic.

I'd love to see the AI be better like anyone else, but it's honestly pretty good right now, with the exception of a handful of annoying things it does like stagnate and stop attacking in team games, or completely fail to negotiate water maps, or properly play about half the revolutions in the roster because of quirks in the mechanics they introduce.

A new campaign would be very welcome, but also a lot of work. The DE team raised the bar,, and that's a good thing. But campaigns take a long time to do and do right. It's not just map design and crafting all the triggers for the scenario, then balancing that on the various difficulty settings. You do that for each scenario in the campaign, and you need to have a cohesive and compelling story. You need voice actors and custom animations for cut scenes, and maybe custom map assets, etc. All of that costs money. Would you be willing to drop $20 on a new 30-mission 3-part campaign? like the ones from the original game and it's expansions? I would, but I'm not certain how many others would. It's a big risk for the developer financially.

Right now, they're so close to being in a place they could call "done" with AoE3 where they could park it as is, consider it complete, and move on. Age of Mythology's got a remaster in the works that a lot of us nerds are eagerly looking forward to as well. So my guess is that AoE3's going to get parked soon, not abandoned, but parked while they work on getting AoM:Retold out. Having just picked it up in the summer sale and played through the main campaign, I had a blast with it, and can't wait to see what they do with the reboot. If I'm Microsoft right now looking at where to put the money, it's in AoE4 and AoM:R right now.

[Darth Revan]

I was hoping for the hero cosmetics volium 2 dlc. I hate loosing access to already unlocked event hero skins temporarily when i have no access to the internet for whatever reason.

[Rhalius]

I noticed most factions do have a new locked hero skin. I figure those are already in game and like once a month we might get to unlock one through an event like this dumb bear skin for russia currently.

Seriously, why the heck did they kick it off with the worst possible thing? Some others look pretty cool.
Chinese, Brittish, Dutch, Germans, Indians and Ottomans all seem to be getting a great new explorer skin. Maybe more but those I can remember from the top of my head after quickly going through it the other day.

[Scintilus]

We badly need Persians, Koreans, Siamese, Omanis, Zulu for the game. My wallet is ready for more civs dlc.

[skiamachia]

How about the Nootka, or some other northern/Arctic North American Indian nation, as a new civ? The game already has the Inca, Aztec, Lakota, and Iroquois, which covers most of the different nations, but the entire vast territories of the north and arctic are neglected. There is plenty of opportunity for unique units. You could have Eskimo hunters who use a harpoon, and cause low damage but slow enemy units down temporarily, simulating the effect of a harpoon stuck in a guy! How about fast kayak units that can use stealth? The explorer can build totem poles to inspire nearby units. Why not throw a dog sled unit in there too, just for fun lol

[King Hades]

Originally posted by skiamachia:

How about the Nootka, or some other northern/Arctic North American Indian nation, as a new civ? The game already has the Inca, Aztec, Lakota, and Iroquois, which covers most of the different nations, but the entire vast territories of the north and arctic are neglected. There is plenty of opportunity for unique units. You could have Eskimo hunters who use a harpoon, and cause low damage but slow enemy units down temporarily, simulating the effect of a harpoon stuck in a guy! How about fast kayak units that can use stealth? The explorer can build totem poles to inspire nearby units. Why not throw a dog sled unit in there too, just for fun lol

Personally? If a new Native Civ WERE to arrive I think it would either be Cherokee or Mapuche. They are arguably the best known in the world nowadays out of those left, so would make sense to me.