The campaigns of the original Age of Kings and it’s expansion, The Conquerors, were probably the most enjoyed features of the game, no matter what expertise the player had. Thus when designing a new expansion, one cannot neglect this side of the game – and we sure as hell didn’t! So, let me take you into our magical world of new exciting stories to be played in Age of Forgotten Empires:
1. Alaric I
The trauma of the Hun invasion in the 4th century has shaped this fearsome warrior king of the Goths: fleeing his invaded homeland as a child, Alaric spent the rest of his life searching for a new place to settle. Whether he invaded the Roman Empire or fought hard battles for it, Alaric only asked for a home. Sadly, the Roman Empire was a place of intrigue, for the rule of the emperor was waning and all sorts of men played a dangerous game of treachery and conspiracy in search of power. Can the beloved king secure a new homeland for his people in this cruel empire? Enter a story of betrayal, despair and blood.
2. Francesco Sforza
I present to you the wondrous life of Francesco Sforza. After witnessing his father’s death, the young captain did not hesitate to take over command of the mercenary army. Always hungry for glory and wealth, Sforza wanders 15th century Italy, offering his services to the highest bidder. Plenty of opportunities present themselves on the way, for the Italians are continuously at war: power struggles in the southern kingdom of Naples, a clash between the northern city-states of Venice, Milan and Florence, and a weak papacy in the midst of all. Will you pick the right fights or make the wrong enemy? Take the fate of the young mercenary captain in your hands. Enter a story of opportunism, ambition and never-ending battles.
Hostis erat Venetus, nec Florentinus amicus. Hostis et Alphonsus, Insuber hostis erat. Nemo tuas Italus partis, Francisce, fovebat, non Italis quisquis adiacet ullus agris. Ipse tamen nudo statuens tentoria campo, milite cum parvo solus eras metui. Inde Briantinis Venetorum exercitus errans collibus haud audet te proprius petere. Insuber hinc trepidas acuit perterritus iras ipse quidem frustra, cui deus hostis adest. Francesco Filelfo (1398–1481), Renaissance scholar | The Venetian nor the Florentine was your friend. Even Alfonso and the Milanese were enemies too. No Italian, Francesco, took your part, nor anyone in the lands nearby. Still, though you camped in a bare field with few soldiers, you caused great fear. The Venetians, wandering in the Briantine hills, scarcely dared to approach you close. The fearful Milanese himself sharpened his wrath in vain. For god, his enemy, was at hand. Loosely translated, based on the literal one from: FILELFO, Francesco (transl. and ed. Diana Robin), Odes [1455], Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2009, 116-119. |
Future
By now you are without doubt overly excited, but there is even more to reveal! Looking beyond the December launch, we’re planning to bring out regular content patches to expand our ever magical world of AoFE. These updates will be themed about one civilization, but like this Italian themed release, we won’t limit the campaigns to one perspective. Thus the AoFE team will continue to satisfy your appetite for interesting stories and fun gameplay even after launch!
In this article I have introduced the exciting stories to be played in AoFE, but for a sneak peek about the stunning gameplay created by our most competent designers, I would like to invite you to our live show later this weekend (or watch the recap if you tuned in too late). If you want to us tell how excited you are, what you think about the new campaigns, or just want to say hi, you can always leave a comment.
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” (Maya Angelou)
Sam “Caelir” Geens
Campaign Manager and Historian of the AoFE team
Fantastic! Can’t wait! You said the opening theme will be the Italians. So does that mean, there will be only the Italian campaign at the launch of the expansion or will it include the Gothic one as well?
Because the Goths also fought in Italy, I think the second one is true.
Yeah, you’re right. I think the major part of the campaign will be in the Italian peninsula.
The Gothic campaign will be included 😉 As said before and in the text, every patch (and initially the release) will be themed around a civ, but that doesn’t mean you’ll only be playing with that civ.
I’m soooooo happy to hear you’ll be continuing the campaign series.The two current ones seem much deeper then aok and aoc campaigns.Absolutely brilliant work.In my opinion,you’ll make the older campaigns seem shallow and un-realistic.Truely marvellous especially the Alaric campaign.Best of luck to the dev team.
”Solomen,I have outdone thee”-Justinian after seeing the Hagia Sophia.
will THERE BE MORE CAMPAIGNS
1)will there be like 1 or 2 campaigns for each new civs because i hope
2)will you make a battle of the conquers which includes every civ
i hope these get answered
1) We’ll try, but it’s early to make a call on this
2) No such a thing is planned for the near future.
Keep in mind that we’re focusing on release now 🙂
OK 🙂
Any Slavic or Magyar campaigns in the making?
Also, will this be playable in multiplayer?
these sound like very out of the box and cool campaigns!
So great that there’s a Goths campaign! Absolutely awesome. I think it’d be even cooler if the Goths get the nice Slavic architecture set, so the campaign would be more attractive since it’s also featuring one of the new building sets; so that both campaigns will allow us to enjoy using the 2 new sets.
that sounds like a good idea, i hope they do that
Yeah! it’d be nice
I think it’s a bad idea to put the slavic architecture to the Goths because there were a germanic poeple.
I have another idea, the americans civilizations have their own priest. I suggest to make priest of different appearance for the other civs : an orthodox priest for the slavs and the byzantines, a buddhist monk for the asian civs and an imam for the middle east civs and the indians.
Yeah, it has always been strange to have a western bald-head guy when playing civs like Chinese.
I doubt it, It would take time to design new units, and they’re not really into that anymore. Otherwise, I’d suggest to change the king too.
By the way, in AOC when an american monk would turn into bald-head while he delivers a relic – this should be solved.
That’s true; same with the monk heroes. I remember they also turn into common monk while and, I think, also after they deliver a relic.
I hope there will be a patch to improve these graphic problems, but I’m not sure if there can be one.
ok this will be my final question about campaings
1)when you release it in December will it be like a pre-release because only 3 campaigns or 2 will be in it (including bugs) so will the final release include everything including bug-fixes and eliminating glitches
2)will a scenario have alot objectives like many of objectives
3)will some of the objectives not be focusing on complete destruction
4)will there be optional objectives aswell
i hope these get answered
good luck aofe team
can someone answer my last question
1) It’s labelled as release, but we’re planning patches for additional campaigns.
2-4) I think I already answered these questions before, but anyway:
2) Yes
3) Yes
4) Yes, even hidden content! 😉
thank you very much caelir thank you very much
I feel like I should elaborate on Caelir’s response (and should note that I’m one of the scenario designers – I’m working on the Sforza campaign) 1. Dear god no. there may be only 2 or three campaigns, but I would never release anything with a glitch or bug in it. If it’s something that we missed, just let us know, and we’ll get it patched as soon as possible. 2. This is mainly up to the plot. For example, if you were to have a scenario about a battle in which a major player switched sides, that would happen.… Read more »
thanks for replying carol
I have short question if you are still here
1)will there be 1 or 2 campaigns for every new civ and a new battle of conquers for the old civs not the old ones like erik the red ..etc
2)will the pop limit be 125 or 150 in the campaigns,the reason i liked campaigns is because they weren’t over poulated
.hope to see reply soon and good luck on finishing 😉
I can’t reply to your comment for some reason, so here it is copied and then answered: 1)will there be 1 or 2 campaigns for every new civ and a new battle of conquers for the old civs not the old ones like erik the red ..etc 2)will the pop limit be 125 or 150 in the campaigns,the reason i liked campaigns is because they weren’t over poulated 1. erm…. not sure, honestly. I know I’m doing a full 5-scenario campaign for Sforza, I don’t really know the plans for the others. We’ll keep putting out material as we make… Read more »
I heard you are looking for voice actors?
I am not of Italian descent, but i can do a mean Italian accent.
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1. By the way, will the expansion have a briefing map with the campaigns listed like in Conquerors’ and Kings?
2. In Conquerors’, whenever there was dialogue, the text would be displayed at the top-left corner of the screen, it would be in color. Will you do that for these campaigns???
3. CUTSCENES?(I am also a good drawer).
Awesome cant wait.
You could also remake the campaigns Aoc and aoe2 has to fit the new gameplay and ai.Aoe2 has pop 75 and aoc 125 and ai is not that good
AI is significantly improved. Watch our previous weekend show http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ghRb-x-rEbg for that matter.
As a designer for the project, I’d like to do this as well. I’d also like to update the terrible map design in the ES campaigns. I would do this, but since I redid Joan of Arc (1) and it took me 40 to 50 hours of work for one scenario (which didn’t involve much serious triggering) I think we would be better off adding new content than spending the same amount of time on updating old. If we shipped with no new campaigns, you guys would be pretty pissed, right?
In Joan of arc campaign,you always get a ton of units the Franks don’t have.Thanks for redoing some of it.BTW as for me new campaigns are much better than modified old ones.Thanks for the new campaigns:)
Will the old campaigns be changed for the accuracy of civs like making Genoa in the Saladin campaign Italians or the Russians in Genghis Khan Slavs?
We haven’t planned this yet and wouldn’t be high on our priority list. We rather add content than to alter existing campaigns. 🙂
Thanks for the reply 🙂
and Genghis Khan last scenario Hungary to Magyars 🙂
also in the Barbarossa campaign Milan to Italian and Poland to Slavs.
will each campaign have 6 scenarios or more 🙂
i hope carol or caelir answer this because i am curious
It depends on if the story supports it. For example, Sforza will only have 5 scenarios, and it may become only 4 if we don’t get a lethal bug fixed. However, don’t forget the fact that we’re planning to eventually release updates with more content. For example, we might see a june update where it focuses on the Incans, and we’ll do an incan and a spanish campaign (5 scenarios each) after that, an indian update, then a magyar update, and then a slavs update. at this point I’m just talking about what I think will happen, but don’t worry.… Read more »
Please try to do a Byzantine campaign as well.They are so rich in stories that you could make more than one campaign.For example Justinian campaign, Byzantine-Arab war campaign,Basil the second campaign,siege of Constantinople campaign etc.
Also, forgot to say some things:how many of the old civs’ are you planning to have more than one campaign?
Regards and good luck:)
How would you do a seige of Constantinople campaign? Constantinople fell because some idiot left the back door open and the turk walked in. Also, how do you do a campaign where you ultimately lose?
I think the idiot you’re referring to is some Italian general who was supposed to defend the waters around Constantinople.It was the land army that besieged and for the first time completely captured the city(the other is the crusader sacking).The Ottoman Turks had 300,000 men or so while there were only 7000 defenders for the city.Also,the Ottomans had powerful cannons,among them the largest ever made which was about the size of a spit-fire fighter from WW-2.The Italian general(whose name I do not know) failed to do his job but even though it was a critical factor,it was a longshot even… Read more »
and will the new campaigns be voice acted and improved in the final release
and i hope carol replys
by imroved I mean like they will be better and making it more enjoyable and more gameplay and voice asting
and will they be long scenarios
by long i mean the map big and long and alot of objects and ….etc
I hope these get answered and sorry for the spam 🙁
Trust me. I enjoy designing massive campaigns just as much as you guys enjoy playing them, it’s just that it also takes 50-60 hours of work to get a scenario on that scale done – I said scenario, mind you, not campaign.
We hope to voice act these, but remember what I said in the stream today – if we’re going to voice act an Italian campaign, we need Italians with good microphones. (and like 10 of them)
thank you carol for replying thank you very much