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.
Well I really strongly hope that the third guy is Baldwin of Jerusalem, the crown hints it and generally they look familiar: http://nobility.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Baldwin.jpg
I think that men will be Alfonso I of Portugal, nicknamed “the Conqueror”. And it has more and less the same crown xD
It’s just a generic European crown from the middle ages.
Expansion about Africa and an European shows up. It’s obviously the Portuguese, there’s virtually no doubt now that they’ll be included.
New Mod manager! *faints*
any speculation on what is seen in the teaser? the gebeto/gebito is probably the ethiopian UU since all i can find about the word is related to the berta people of ethiopia. the guys that are selected at 2:40 seem to be a UU with a throwing attack, im assuming the mali UU because the purple wonder is the sankore mosque the blue side appears to have a single dark horsed cavalry unit, also with a throwing attack, that gets killed at 2:46. since they also have camel archers, this might be the second berber UU that’s been hinted at… Read more »
Being portuguese, I think one of the bonuses of using Africa as a (great) theme is that it allows the devs to improve the marine metagame, with some new civs: playing competitively in an Island environment these days leaves us with two to three good civs to play with. In this aspect, there’s a lot of potential AoE2 still has in store for us. I hope the portuguese will be good for more than marine warfare, if at all: most of the nautic bonuses I’d give to the portuguese can already be found among the japanese or the italians. Fortunately,… Read more »
I think if we get a Portuguese civ, it’ll have naval bonuses of course, and it doesn’t need to be the same of the other civs bonuses. Maybe ships with higher HP, faster, with more attack or armor… there’s lots of possibilities left.
Probably a naval UU will happen, like a Caravel or a Nau, besides one of those random bonus you just mentioned. Portuguese ships were notorious for being very large and/or being very heavily armed. A ship named Botafogo (meaning Spitfire) was reported to have an insane grand total of 366 guns.
I hope they don’t focus the civ on naval stuff too much, however, I wouldn’t like it being sorta unidirectional.
Yeah, not mentioning naval bonuses are useless on a map without water.
By the way, I think Portugal should have a bonus on naval technologies (less expensive or developed faster) since une of their qualities was inovation.
If we get Portugal, it will be strong with infantry, cavalry or archery? What do you think is more historically accurate? And what might be his land UU?
I actually have been thinking about it a little bit. Prepare to read a little bit, if you have the patience. Certainly not a cavalry-focused civ. Usually when Portuguese forces fought against Castilians, it was generally the latter who fielded more (and heavier) cavalry units, especially in the 1300 and 1400s, usually because of French influence and connections. At the time Portugal was clearly closer to England – forging the oldest alliance still in effect today, over 600 years old! – despite being close to France due to dynastic ties in its earlier years. In fact I wouldn’t even be… Read more »
Thanks for the reply. i’m interested because i’m brazilian and portuguese descendant. My english is crap but i prefer to talk in this language for everyone to understand. i’ve just read from wikipedia that Mali were good archers. The developers already revealed that berbers will be an cavalry and naval civ. Then it fits perfectly that Portugal becomes an naval and gunpowder civ with tough infantry (at least with full infantry upgrades). It should have hand cannoners, bombard cannons/towers and cannon galleons. Now talking about UUs: i shouldn’t consider another foot-hand cannoner (we already have jannissaries), nor another pikeman-like (kamayuk).… Read more »
If I’m not mistaken the “besteiros do conto” were simply crossbowmen paid by the Crown to act as defenders of “concelhos” – cities that had recieved a “carta de foral” by the king, meaning that they were not subject to feudal rule. They were basically a “permanent” city defense militia (again the defense thing).
They weren’t very numerous, apparently in 1421-22 there were 5000 around the country.
They could be used as a UU, but I’d rather see something else.
I think Portugal should act as a Naval+Defense or Naval+Gunpowder civ, possibly with good anti-cavalry potential.
Long but interesting. It certainly got me pumped for a Geraldo Geraldes campaign.
Anti-archer infantry looks like a reasonable choice, but unless they get another bonus, it would be redundant with huskarls. Maybe something against ALL ranged units, including throwing axemen and mameluks, but excluding siege units?
There seems to be a some very specific European civs in the Forgotten Empires, with too brief of a history (consider Magyars, Slavs or Italians which really are sub-class of Teutons, Goths, and Byzantines). And Portuguese would fall into that same category too.
I think the developers should really focus on getting some important and diverse civs rather than just filling in with these too specific civs. Having said that, African Kingdoms seems legit! 🙂
yes, i like Henry the Navigator and also many other explorers of Portuguese, someone reached the cape of the good hope. the last one of course is the great Christoper Columbus.
Columbus was Geonan, he served the King of Portugal for a while, but ultimately left for Castille after the Portuguese king rejected his proposal to reach the Indies by going West.
Ferdinand Magallean, however, was Portuguese (also serving Castille). Amongst many, many others.
Great ! I wonder if the existing civilizations will get something new. In AoC they get imperial unique techs and some new upgrades like thumb ring. In AoFE they get castle age unique techs. And now? I suggest that more civs get the imperial camel upgrade, because it gives the impression that heavy camels became useless (except the Saracen one).
So Mali and Berbers are confirmed, with Portugal there being all but confirmed, odds are Ethiopia and Kongo are the two civs left, with Zimbabwe and Kilwa being the wildcards here.
May be the next civ. Is Vandals.
Zulus confirmed?
No, that would be anachronic.
wonder if there villagers will be black. The regular villagers are tan enough for them to get away with civs that are asian or middle eastern, but they’ll actually have to make them black this time.
How about that building mechanic he said?
Berbers stronk