Our latest dev blog had some content redacted at the last minute, but we’re happy to reveal that now! The producer of the Age of Empires series at Microsoft, Ryan Chaply, was present at E3 and teased some upcoming goodness for the whole Age series.
Age of Empires II HD: The African Kingdoms
First and foremost, the name is out! Age of Empires II HD: The African Kingdoms will be the name of the new expansion pack, coming out later this year on Steam.
Additionally, a new civ has been announced, including a small teaser video with further information regarding the Malians and the Berbers. As well as little hints for further additions to the game. We’ll certainly cover more of those in extended detail in future posts, but we wanted to make sure you didn’t miss out on some possible speculation 😉
E3 Teaser
We’ll keep you posted with more goodness next weeks, including some in-depth detail on the latest patch notes and the strengths of the new mod manager.
I’m wondering what the third nation (in the crown) is… Maybe Vandals? or Visigoths?
Surprisingly the crown seems to be fictional. I haven’t found anything resembling that one neither as existing crown jewels nor in heraldry.
It’s Portugal. Visigoths wouldn’t make sense, considering we already have the Goths, would it? Vandals were too early, ephemerous and did not use that kind of plate armour.
first guy is likely ethiopian, hes got the same hat as balcha safo
mid guy looks like mansa musa
third guy im guessing is afonso v of portugal, but the fleur de lis is mostly in french heraldry
The Portugese dynasties were of French descent, from Burgundy.
Is this building in the video a wonder or a castle?
it’s a wonder modeled after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankore_Madrasah
notice how it doesnt shoot arrows
holy moly :-)))
so the Malians are pretty much confirmed eh?
Well, they are, but I doubt anybody expected an african extension without Malians 😉
I’m pretty sure now we’ll be seeing Malians, Berbers, Ethiopians, Portuguese and….something else! Maybe Nubia or Zimbabwe?
here’s hoping for nubians – theyll fit in nicely with an egyptian scenario i’ve been working on 🙂
I would really like to see Nubians in the game, but isn’t the sort-of confirmation of the Portuguese a big hint for a bantu or bakongo faction?
The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced one extension won’t be enough to cover the whole continent.
It’s very possible, yes, which is why I mentioned Zimbabwe, who were/are linguistically Bantu. But I suppose you’re right, Bantu is a good unbrella term for the whole region.
To be honest, I’d rather like to see Bantus divided in several factions, but it’s also what I wish for Slavs, Indians, and maybe even Celts.
You should already be used to Age of “Umbrella Civs” 🙂
Okay. So here’s the five civilizations that will be confirmed for The African Kingdoms: *Berbers *Ethiopians *Malians *Nubians *Portuguese Also, here’s some of my improvement ideas for The African Kingdoms: *Arbalest receives +1 attack and +1 range because it’s very ridiculous for it to have the same range and attack as the Crossbowman since the Arbalest is supposed to look more powerful than the Crossbowman since the Arbalest is an upgrade on the Crossbowman. *Italians receives Siege Onager and Heavy Scorpion (But we could remove some of the Italians university and blacksmith techs if we want) *Onagers loses the ability… Read more »
Rather than the Nubians or Zimbabwe, we’ll be adding in the Egyptians and do NOT say that the Saracens are the Egyptians because the Egyptians are minor to the Saracens because the Saracens were generally in Modern Day Saudi Arabia.
i like/appreciate your earnestness, but… Saracens are meant to represent Arabs in the narrow definition and Muslims in the broad definition. It’s an archaic term used by europeans to describe Arabs and Muslims. And here’s the thing: in the Middle ages, Egypt (Al-Masr at the time) was heavily arabised. AD 639 is when the Rashidun Khilafah gained control in Egypt under the command of Amr ibn al As. Before AD 639, Egypt was occupied by the Byzantines, so an argument for an egyptian civ based on the early Middle Ages (a la Goths or Huns) is equally incorrect. U know… Read more »
Ian does it not blow your mind that so many people in this comment section don’t bother fact checking before commenting? Guys, do a Google search. I swear every notification I get on my email from this page is someone saying something stupid and Ian launching a Google search and posting an obnoxiously pompous response involving information he’s clearly looking at on Wikipedia.
whyre you so mean?
Because you’re constantly responding to people’s suggestions in obnoxiously condescending fashion. Yes, some of your comments are okay, but many of them are also needlessly offensive. If you want to respond to every single comment that people make here that is your prerogative, but maybe let some minor mistakes go unchecked every once in a while?You don’t have to school people on every single little thing, yet you’ve repeatedly done it again and again. I know it must be weird that I pop out of nowhere to tell you this, but I keep getting notifications on my email about these… Read more »
yeah, out of nowhere. you dont post anything for 2 months and then come back to call me obnoxious and pompous… and to ‘accuse’ me of getting info from google and wikipedia. if you read these comment sections youd know that i dont respond to every single person who says something inaccurate. i make an effort every time i correct someone not to sound condescending, i never insult someone’s intelligence or call them names. Even still if someone were to tell me that it’s still coming across in a bad way way id apologize and change the way i say… Read more »
You definitely sounded pompous in the comment you just made above, just look at your tone.. “‘U know what the Saracen Unique Unit is? it’s the Mameluke!” “U know why the Saracens aren’t just based in “modern day Saudi Arabia?” ” Let the guy have his say, if he’s wrong he’s wrong but you don’t need to batter the guy, do you get your kicks out of doing that ? Say what you will but that was obnoxious, pompous and uncalled for. And yes, you have been doing it intermittently throughout this AOE expansion “blog series thing”. And maybe people… Read more »
You really like to start flame wars, don’t you JGB? That and upvoting your own posts. Toxic behaviour at its finest.
Okay so now you’re up to edit number three, it’s damn cute and I love it. I think your response is coming along nicely, I’m gonna give you another two or three days so that you come back to your own working draft (as you have done three times in the last three days) and add some more. Let me know when you’re happy with the final draft! Talk about being sneaky, this is outright insecure. But seriously, you can re-edit this post again today, tomorrow and the day after or you can call a spade a spade and admit… Read more »
Wow, that paranoid passive-aggressiveness of yours is incredible, as if I even cared to “patrol” your comments.
I do follow lan-olesa, and when I noticed him having a wierd conversation I decided to give it a check. It was with you, surprise.
This forum is about AoE2HD’s xpack, I won’t lower the level and make the whole thing even more toxic than it currently is, I’m here to contribute to the game in any way I can (might I be wrong or right), not having fights – I’ll leave that to you, you’re very proficient at it.
A great way to start would be to not respond to me in a conversation I’m having with Ian, to stay out of it and to leave me alone. I suggest you do that. I can show you how many times you’ve changed the above comment over the last few days if you want (as pathetic as it was sad) there’s this thing called screenshots, so I suggest you take your crap elsewhere because you’re not having any luck with me.
Saracens was an umbrella term for Muslims during the Middle Ages, at least in Western Europe, it’s as generic as it can get.
Do you remember which UU do Saracens have, btw?
“African Kingdoms” is a nice title, but I was expecting something like “Forgotten Continent” x)
I think the 5 new civs will be malians, berbers, shongais, ethiopians and portugueses xD
I don’t think Songhais would be a good idea, they were more significant once the Medieval Era was over, and with only five new faction they would be redundant with the Malians because of their area of influence. I’d rather like Nubians.
At the same time, Songhai would give a yang to the Malians’ yin. Come the time to create interesting campaigns and battles for the expansion, Berbers can fight the Portugueses and Spaniards, Ethiopians will have the Turks and Saracens, Portugueses will have the Berbers, Saracens, a dash of Spanish kingdoms and pretty much any African civs due to their extensive exploration, trades and relationship with the continent. Malians will have the Berbers (in the form of Tuaregs) and Portugueses to a small extend, but without a neighbor like Songhai, Malians campaigns and battles may have to rely too much on… Read more »
At this point, we can’t say for sure that every new faction will get its own campaign and that all campagins will feature new factions. Saracens, Italians, Spanish, Byzantines, Franks and Turks were all involved in Africa’s business at some point.
I’d really like to see the Nubians get their own factions, but I think Portuguese wouldn’t make sense without Bantus, or as I’d rather like some part of them, such as Bakongos or Shonas.
Swahilis could be interesting too, though.
God, a single expansion won’t be enough to cover the whole continent…
I know. You’d think that we’d have gotten used to that feeling by now but nope.
I’d wager they’ll add the Moors.
saracens and berbers are already in the game
so Malians unique unit would be trading cart can shoot arrow, the speed of the trading cart is the fastest in game. i guess.
I was wondering if the Villagers, tradecarts and monks will have an alternative skin for the new african civilizations.