We’ve got another expansion to make, so where to start! We’re all joyously filled with crazy, weird ideas, bouncing them off the wall and eachother. But we’ll have to squeeze those ideas into a proper game. So where to start? Just like last time, it starts with the core of the new content, the new civilizations.
A Theme
In Age of Empires II HD: The Forgotten, we were presented with a rather obvious civ choice. Ensemble Studios had left hints behind on which civs they would’ve loved to add to the game. Some were nations that appeared in campaigns but were never turned into a proper, playable civ. Those were the easy choices, but now that we’ve used the most obvious ones, where do we go next? Over the last year(s), we’ve received a lot of feedback from players on possible new civilizations. Ranging from Medieval powerhouses like the Normans and the Khmers to less obvious or specific suggestions such as the Kingdom of Jerusalem or the Principality of Pannonia. But unlike our broader approach to AoF, we’ve decided to build out more of a thematic flair and pay a visit to a continent south of Europe with a rich history: Africa. We’ll be covering civilizations both born within the content, as well empires that held great power in the region – including one that has been requested many, many, many times by the fans.
But to keep things a bit exciting, they will all be revealed over the coming weeks, so feel free to speculate 😉
Oh except for the first one!
The Berbers
The Berbers (~700 AD) are the first African civilization to be seen in the new expansion pack. We caught a glimpse of them in the original El Cid campaigns in “The Conquerors”, where they are portrayed in a more generic term as Saracens. Berbers, however, are more than worthy of becoming an Age of Empires civilization. With dynasties across Northern Africa, the ancient Berbers will primarily be a Cavalry & Naval civilization. They’ll have 2 unique units and will also feature a unique technology that affects the entire team.
Since we’re early in development, we don’t have a lot of screenshots yet, but the Camel Archer is already properly functional in the game and looking good. As if it has always been hopping around in the Age of Empires II universe. It was of course teased with the overall expansion announcement.
And last but not least, the Berbers will have their own campaign, but we’ll share more on that later as well.
So this will be it for the first dev blog, it’s more of a tease than a proper “dev” blog, but we’ll certainly dig a bit deeper in the next episodes. We’re hoping to do these monthly, make sure you don’t miss out 😉
Romans! I know they’re meant to be defeated but to prevent any eager naysayers: there are already civs from their era (Goths, Huns, Koreans, Persians, Indians). You could adapt them by not having gunpowder, knights, demoships, weakish economy, no 2handed swordsmen and kinda weak defensively BUT make them awesome with Legionaries (slightly larger sprite, better dying animation please!) who would not have massive hitpoints but would be heavy armoured infantry killers, Galleys which could contend with the best navies, Skirmishers with slightly less armour but great overall and Light Cavalry with more hack armour and attack bonus versus infantry. Instead… Read more »
The Byzantines are the Eastern Roman Empire. If you’re looking for the Western Roman Empire, it was legally defunct by the year 480. At most, we can talk about Romans and Roman culture accurately in Italy, Spain, and southern France until the 600s. The earliest one could put the start of the AOE2 time frame is the year 395 with the Hunnic invasion of Roman and Persian Mesopotamia. That gives the Western Romans less than 100 years of game time as a civilization with a military, so there’s a question of their relevance and their possible redundancy given the inclusion… Read more »
I hope Switzeland will be one of the new civs 😀 with castle Units like Swissguard or something like that
Please consider the Portuguese as the last european civilization. Its has great importance in middle-ages as a naval civilization, and AOE2 are in need of more naval civs.
No, we’ve got the Spanish to represent all of Iberia already.
Why not add Aragon aswell while we’re at it? They ruled the West Mediterranean, the islands and Southern Italy for a long time – and their Almogavers mercenaries even conquered parts of Greece. But it wouldn’t matter, because SPANISH (read: Iberian).
Well, there is a difference between Spanish and Iberian during the medieval era. Spanish were christians. Iberian cover both Spanish and Moors, not mentioning the Mozarabs. By the way, Portuguese and Aragonese could totally be added, as long as Spanish become Castillans.
why is everybody obsessed with Portuguese, they were purely Spanish in the middle ages. if you want to have them we should need occitans neapolitans austrians…
Hello all
This is wonderful news, new civs to be added.
I can’t wait to see the Polish, or the Portughese. Europe history will not be complete without these 2…but what about Romanians?
It could be an interesting choice too. In fact the Magyar Wonder…the Hunyad Castel is in Romania.
Each of the 3 historical provinces ( Transilvania, Moldova and Valachia), could be the starting point for a unique Building/technology/unit…like Armored House, Villager Army, Moldavian Archer.
no offense, and this isnt specifically a dig at your comment, but i wish people would actually read this announcement that they’re commenting on.
it says explicitly that this is an Africa centered expansion. The Polish and Romanians have no connection to that theme. The Portuguese are a possibility, because they’ve written above that the expansion might include nations that had significant influence in Medieval Africa.
Portuguese influence in Africa only begun in 1415 with the conquest of Ceuta (masterpiece of an operation, by the way). After that period the occupation of costal regions all the way south up to the Cape of Good Hope was pretty relentless, but I don’t see this as a valid reason to add yet another civ that can be represented by the Spanish (and that’s already the later stages of AoE2’s timeline). Portuguese are just another sub-group of Spanish people, like the Aragonese or Castilians (Middle Age POV – and genetic too, btw). If they are focusing on Africa, I’d… Read more »
I absolutely agree, i just meant that of the three possible civs the op had mentioned, portugal was the most plausible.
you’re totally right that the expansion should focus on African Civs, and there’s more than enough potential content (I’d be surprised if Mali wasn’t confirmed soon).
ugh… im just getting so tired of all the commentors who are ignoring the declared theme and demanding that their own preferred obscure European factions be added to the game (As if Europeans arent already overrepresented among AoE2 civs).
Portuguese must be in the game. There weren’t spanishs. Is a diferent culture with a diferent lenguage. Spanishs are more like Visigoths and Portuguese are Lusitanes more like Celts. Around the year 1000 when the Spanish kingdoms of Leon and Castilla resemble in 1 unified kingdom the Portugal kingdom gain his independence. It is important for the game not only because portugal had been in Africa but cause the bereberes had been in iberia. I also want to see more Africa Civs. Ethiopia Mali also the Bantu and the kanuri. But I think is a great moment to include also… Read more »
Oh and before you say “But the crown of Aragon” I agree they also should be an independent civ. The same happen with the Normans who are different from the vikings since they were in Normand France, different from Franks since they were in England Britain, different from Britons since they were in Sicilia and Napoles. And different from the Italians from the north who were lombards or ostrogoths. But both Aragon and Normans they don’t fit in this expansion as the Portuguese or Arabs fit.
If you want to be that picky, you’d add dozens more European countries because we all have our differences. In a global prespective, however, our (European) differences are rather small, I’ve been taken for Spanish, French, Italian, Irish and even Russian just based on my looks.
I don’t want to be that picky but if you have Teutons to represent all the german peoples we shouldn’t have goths or franks or britons. So i think if you divided the German tribes in Teutons for eastern, Franks for western, Britons for the anglo-saxons and Goths for those who were to Italy and Spain, You can divide the iberic people of that time at least in portuguese, spanish and moors/berbers. Same happen in Britain where you have the island divided on Celts and Britons. I think slavs should be divided too but just not in this expansion cause… Read more »
The problem with your view is simply a matter of magnitude/scale. Germanics were a MASSIVE meta-ethnic group, and their differences were very noticable since recorded history. Middle Age Iberians were proportionally few and pretty homogenous. Franks simply represent France. Also their Frankish ancestors, but for instance modern South French, have much less “Frankish blood” than Northern/Eastern French, are and genetically closer to Iberians (even linguistically they spoke a different language than Northern French). They will obviously still be represented in game by Franks, and that’s perfectly fine. As a note of curiosity, Souther French language (Occitane) influenced Portuguese language a… Read more »
Leo, tu estas passar a tua opinião sobre a identidade nacional como “factual”. Tu não falas por todos os Portugueses, sobretudo se a tua opinião sobre o assunto é completamente minoritária e exótica (para não dizer mal informada). Se quiseres podemos discutir este assunto de forma privada ( esta secção de de comentários não é destinada a este tipo de conversa, seria ” flood”), e eu posso te mostrar porque é que os teus argumentos baseados em generalizações com três ou quatro factos históricos deitados a mistura não têm peso. Há quem gostasse de jogar com a civilização Portuguesa neste… Read more »
Eu não falo por ninguém a não ser por mim próprio – isto é um fórum aberto e cada um é livre de dizer o que bem entender – nem alguma vez disse que não quero Portugal no AoE2HD, muito pelo contrário. O que eu afirmei foi que, visto que a filosofia do jogo sempre foi de aglomerar vários povos semelhantes numa única civ, Portugal (bem como outros países) fazem pouco sentido existirem à luz daquilo que o jogo foi/é. A identidade nacional como a conhecemos hoje na Europa era algo inexistente na idade média. Até a nossa guerra da… Read more »
“A identidade nacional como a conhecemos hoje na Europa era algo inexistente na idade média.” Claro, ninguém diz o contrário, mas mesmo não existindo identidade nacional como hoje se entende havia e continua a haver uma identidade cultural no Norte,que também se encontra na Galiza, e que está ligada de forma continua á formação do País. Isso é inegável. “mas nada muda o facto de que durante a idade média Portugal era apenas mais um dos reinos Hispânicos cristãos, e de todos o mais recente.” Duas questões no que diz respeito a isto. Em primeiro, Portugal era de facto um… Read more »
O “Hispanic” ou “Spanish” é uma questão de semântica, que pode admito poder ser confusa para estrangeiros, mas a origem da palavra é a mesma, ainda no período Visigótico a palavra “Spaniae” era usada para definir a península/reino. Como eu disse antes, até Camões usou o termo “umas gentes fortíssimas de Espanha” nos Lusíadas para se referir aos Portugueses. Para um Americano o “hispanic” se calhar até significa alguém com ar de Mexicano e um sombrero (sem ofensa para eles). Obviamente hoje em dia Espanhol/Spanish tem um significado (político) altamente diferente do que tinha há séculos atrás, e eu referi… Read more »
Aglomerar “Hispanic” com “Spanish” é aglomerar Hispânico com Espanhol. Um Hispânico é um habitante da antiga região romana da Hispânia, um espanhol é um cidadão do Reino de Espanha. Usar ambos como se tivessem o mesmo significado, sobretudo falando com estrangeiros, é convidar confusão. O Reino de Espanha foi criado em 1492. Espanha tinha o mesmo significado que Hispânia, a palavra latina da qual evolui, e significava a península ibérica. O Reino de Espanha apropriou-se desse termo para se referir agora a uma entidade política, mas é normal que antes de 1492 (e até durante um período posterior) que os… Read more »
Your grasp of pre-Portuguese history is biased by political views, in which the connection to the Lusitanians was enhanced because of their successful military resistance against Rome, and the typical “we’re not Spanish” approach that has existed since the Estado Novo. If you want to use Iron Age tribes analogy, you should be mentioning the Gallaecians, not Lusitanians. That’s even were our name comes from – Portus Calle (Gallaecian Port). Portugal was historically a part of León, and is embrionically connected to Galicia (which was a subordinated to León) – even genetically Portuguese, Galicians and Leonese are the same. The… Read more »
Si te consideras mas español que portugués porque no tenemos esta conversación en ese idioma. Yo soy de Uruguay un país donde se habla castellano y que queda cerca de Brasil y te juro que no entiendo mas de 2 palabras en portugués. Eso es porque como bien dijiste el portugués esta mas cerca del galaico que el castellano. 2 lenguajes separados y a partir del primer milenio 2 reinos separados. Merece una civilizacion en el juego. No entiendo como los propios portugueses no la quieren.
Tio, no me considero, ni soy, Español, pero que hay muchíssimas similitudes entre nosotros (en especial en locales cercanos de España, la Raya), las hay – como las brujas jaja.
No he dicho que no quiero Portugal en AoE2HD, solo que no veo eso como necessario.
Good discussion and I think I learn a lot. Lets see what the developers do 😀
Let’s be clear, this guy may be Portuguese but he does not at all speak for the majority of Portuguese people, quite the contrary in fact. We Portuguese consider ourselves very different from the Spanish, certainly different enough that we see ourselves as our own civilization and nation. That Leo doesn’t see it this way is his view, and I wouldn’t have said anything were it not the fact that he’s posted dozens of comments in this article posting his view as fact. A view that is, and this is vital, completely against what 99.9% of Portuguese people believe. It… Read more »
I am a Brazilian Historian (graduated in 2013) and grandson of Portuguese people by both sides of my family (like a huge part of the population in my country), and I totally agree that Portugal deserve an own civilization. Portugal is unique in Europe and was already a separate country, with a separate civilization, and a culture that was very particular as early as in the 11th century (see “Condado Portucalense”). The influence Portugal had in the Age of Discoveries (and that could be included in campaigns set in Africa and India), could not be in any way represented by… Read more »
So wait, they’re still adding to the recent expansion?! Surprised. So, if there’s anything I’d want, it’d be two things: The golden age empires of the first AoE (Greece, Rome, maybe one more to combat them for logical reasons) and to fix how the infantry look. The Persians are already available, and there’s the Italians which resemble Rome, why not actually include Rome and Greece? There’s already Heavy Swordsmen, Centurions, and one other unit in the editor that were from the old game, all designed for these empires. Their architecture could be based off of the coliseum and aqueduct game… Read more »
Greeks and western romans doesn’t fit the timeframe. The greeks were under byzantine rules at the middle age. The bizantines were the eastern roman empire and the middle ages end when they fall agains the turks. the western roman empire fall when this game starts. but you have the spanish for their possessions in iberia. The franks in the galias. The italians in italy And the britons for their possessions in britain. Also you have the holy roman empire founded by charlmagnes a frank and then ruled by teutons like the hohenstaufen.
Age of Empires I had its expansion called “Rise of Rome” which covers the period you describe.
i no like that the units no more fit very well to the AoE Style, same with the Magyar Huzar or the Boyar or the Imperial Camel on the Forgotten Steam Version, Condotteiro also doesnt more fit into the game, this new more 3D looking units destroy the complete feeling,
i will watch the developement about this DLC but it seems i will not buy it when the units not fit.
It would be nice if they rework the GUI for examples adding taps for Buildings they are in CTRL + 1 similar in star craft, or after click an villager to build a house with shift to take a path to farm something…
Also animating threes that are moving in the wind…
An upgrade to cast two units a the same time…
Something that bothers me is that every standard game you play except if choose mayans or chinese you have to start pressing HCCC and building a house. I believe adding 3 of populations base to every civ will avoid this and open more strategies to the early game. I also would like to be able to build bridges and something cool can be building walls and gates above the water. And make the house weak so people don’t use them as walls too often. AND PLEASE THIS IS IMPORTANT: I’m worried about how multiplayer will be now. Divide it in… Read more »
I wish we see some love to american civilizations. I mean, Tupis, Guaranis, Cherokees and Iroquois deserve a civ of their own
Mapuches Charruas and Inuits too! maybe for a future american expansion
Those civs became relevant later in history and does not fit on the time period of AOEII, they are most likely to be AOEIII civs. Civs like Chankas, Toltecs, Mixtecans, anazazi, Teotihuacans, Tiwanaku empire are more likely to be AOEII civs
Yeah, pretty much. That’s the problem with nomadic or semi nomadic native american nations, they didn’t build stone walls, castles or huge war ships, they had no access to gunpowder, horse and iron working until it had been introduced by european settlers in the time period after Age of Empires II, some were hunter gatherer and had no knowledge of farming… Not that I’m saying the depiction of Aztecs, Mayas, Incas, even the Huns, in Age Of Empires II was historically accurate, but in my opinion, you cannot have nomadic or semi nomadic native american civs in Age Of Empires… Read more »
Is to fill the map. For me, more civs more fun. Right now all the civilizations have brulotes! when only the byzantines used the greek fire. I don’t mind if they do them more powerful than what they were for balance purpouse.
What about fixing the lag with online playing first?