>pandered to non-Europeans so much the game lost all identity and playability

They just had to fuck it up

>>716445103 (OP)
Amen

>>716445103 (OP)
What do you mean?

>>716446947
The most recent DLC was supposed to be the China DLC and instead China got shafted out of a campaign AGAIN and instead you got the Three Chinkdoms with hero units and broken mechanics.

>>716445103 (OP)
>not my heckin historical time period on a game that has let you play huns for 25 years

>all factions are just human faction but slightly different nation
talk about bloat

>>716447354
Fuck off gook

>>716447354
>Deus vult.

>>716447239
Ummm yes but the HVNS came to EVROPA so they are allowed (I'm a White Man, by the way).

>>716446947
100000000 civs, regenerating shield mechanics on units, units having special attacks, etc

Still playing the OG as I did over 20 years ago.
kys zoomer retard

>>716447486
>>716447604
sorry but most EU nations are barely nation enough to be even considered in history books imo

I like AoE2, I love building a cozy town and eventually going to war, but I don't like the APM-focused nature of the game

What's a game like AoE2 but slower, more tactical, colony building and cozy?

>>716446947
Latest DLC is about the fucking Dynasty Warriors characters from 3 Kingdoms and the latest patch is getting rid of major mechanics in the name of casualization.

This fucking game was the last bastion of decent online multiplayer and Microsoft has finally smelled the cash cow and come to fuck up it up and im unironically crashing out over it

>>716449028
go back to sucking dicks on reddit

why wont they pander to me, the handcannoneer guy who asks for buffs?

>>716445103 (OP)
It is less that they pandered and more that they were desperate to crank out DLC so they started filling the game with more and more factions that diluted and eroded away the gameplay and balance. Breaking apart India and China into six new factions was just retarded and truly unnecessary.

>>716449263
SAAAAAAAAAAAAAR glorious INDIA defeatededed Julius Caesaaar

>>716449263
the india spleet wasn't that bad, but holy shit the 3chinkdoms is so fucking bad. even the chink split with khitans actually being a mix of khitans+tanguts while also being OP was so fucking retarded.

>>716449297
I hope this isn't a shitpost and what Indians actually believes

>>716449263
The India DLC was one of the most well regarded. Great campaigns, great civs, and India being just "India" instead of the separate groups from the time period had been a long running complaint in the community.

Splitting the Chinese up would have gone fine as well. But because of the one china laws instead of actually breaking up China into the distinct groups of the time period we instead got literal CCP propaganda 3 kingdoms bullshit that the devs have stated is explicitly based on the book and not the historical event. The 3 Kingdoms civs in AOE2 can now summon Lu Bu dual wielding 2 handed swords, in fucking MULTIPLAYER.

Not even the chinese players liked it, so I'm hoping they'll capitulate and remove them from ranked (or even just the hero units) once they have a new DLC lined up.

Europeans enjoy gawking at foreign cultures THOUGH, its their whole thing

>>716449602
>CCP propaganda 3 kingdoms bullshit that the devs have stated is explicitly based on the book and not the historical event.


Here's the thing about all that: there is no historical basis to the three kingdoms stuff. It is and always was purely fiction.

>>716449602
>the devs have stated is explicitly based on the book and not the historical event. The 3 Kingdoms civs in AOE2 can now summon Lu Bu dual wielding 2 handed swords, in fucking MULTIPLAYER.
Holy fuck, what were they thinking?! What are the pros saying?

>>716449145
besides england, france, germany, austria, switzerland, greece, the roman empires, the holy roman empire, norway, sweden, denmark, netherlands, poland, etc?
I wonder how many chink, zigger or amerishart provinces have even half the history of little fart countries like switzerland LMAO

>>716449727
Nothing, its been half a decade since 2DE came out and this became a legitimate revenue stream for all of them. Even uber autists like T90 are dead silent.

Its unironically fucking over, the pro scene has sold us up the river and the new blood in the scene doesn't understand how "literally the thing we did with AOE3 that pissed everyone off so much, again" is a problem

>>716449827
Dark times...

>>716449827
Oh and who could forget? This time its not relegated to an unpopular sequel, they're grafting it into 2, forever. Every future DLC, no matter how good, future releases? All stained with 3 Kingdoms fuckery forever.

>>716449727
dead silent because microsoft funds all the tournaments, so unless you want to get excluded it's better to shut up.

>>716449864
I really hadn't realized how much dead weight the scene had taken on. But SO MUCH of the community online is basically "So what if its bad just consoom"

>perfect timeless game gets ruined because of competitive faggotry

MS sees this game as a massive esports moneymaker of course they want to pander to asians

Sloppily made China wank DLC is one of those things that we just have to live with, game companies just can't resist it.

>be singleplayer chad
>be unaffected by any of this

Comfychads win again

>>716450159
They fired all the devs that made that really great Chronicles DLC while all the 3 Kingdoms devs stayed on.

>>716450159
>>716450264
Also, the 3 Kingdoms patch broke several campaigns that have gone over a month unrepaired.

>>716450085
Worst part is that if fans gets sick of how gay the game gets with future expansion packs and decide to use voobly or make a fan patch again, chances are overwhelming high we will see either
>Conquerors
>HD
or
>Base Definitive
But the likelihood of
>Literally every piece of content right until they completely cocked it up with 3 Kingdoms
Becoming an agreed upon standard in the future is slim to none.

>>716445103 (OP)
I'm glad I can kill my boar with TC fire

>>716450578
I'm not going to lie, I've been going back to HD lately. I prefer the purity of what the game was originally at this point. They have changed and dumped too much extraneous shit on DE at this point.

>>716449926
T90 in 2020
>Holy shit I'm going to be borderline alarmist about the Burgundians Flemish Revolution tech
>I'm never going to play AOE4 because I didn't like AOE3, I like AOE2 and I want it to be AOE2
T90 in 2025
>Crickets despite being a made man from the Facebook gaming deal he took

>>716449602
to be honest the heroes suck. even in 4 vs 4 where you can spend 1000 stone, wood and gold on a wonder, and still have some army i would not go for a hero unit because it is just 500 gold and food wasted on a unit that will die in seconds. a wonder will be a big deal and may win games if they are too equal, but a hero will just kill some units and die. it is a waste of gold.

>>716450645
Nice anon, enjoy your rotting carcass, I'm not playing this game anymore if this is where it's going.

>>716450645
Ensemble introduced that change in Age of Mythology for a reason, along with all the other ones.

>>716450714
Bad or good, heroes in mutliplayer is a clear crossing of the point of no return for the development team. It's clear and demonstrable proof that brain drain has hit Forgotten Empires/Worlds Edge and too many of the key founding members have left to continue to make expansions at the level of quality they did before.

>>716450705
when 3chinkdoms first came out, i kept expecting a video about him bitching how bad it was. will never respect his views on the game again lmao

>>716450705
I don't like t90 because he said Spirit of the Law was autistic.
He is ... but he shouldn't be saying that

>>716449162
>and the latest patch is getting rid of major mechanics in the name of casualization
like what? i think autofarms and seek shelter are good additions, personally

>>716450897
even if i agree that the idea is bad, for as long as it is balanced in a way where noone but a noob would buy a hero it is somewhat ok. i have only bought a hero when we were soo far ahead it did not matter. for the time being it is balanced around winning the game already in order to buy.

>>716445103 (OP)
Literally nothing stops you from just playing the shitloads of euro civs and campaigns. Also like every second expansion is about some euro civ. And euro civs also equally received shittons love with the recent update giving everyone new castles and elite unique units

You are just seething that other civs Also rightfully got spotlight and the game is not just a euro wank. The only thing that's still missing is regional unit models at least one for asians, middleeast and mezoamerica, so not everyone has euro halbs and knights. Then the game will be pretty much perfect, the kind of shit I wanted since I was a kid

>>716451064
It's the gameplay changes that came along with the non euros, not the civs themselves.

>>716450978
it nerds archers and their movement. it kind of breaks the rock - paper - scissor the archers - infantry - knights. the way things are going, people will now just spam champions and win.

>>716451064
I'll say it, the catholic monk skin is so fucking good.

>>716451186
infantry has always been the weakest of the 3 though

>>716451271
because there were counters. if archers are weak, i will just make half my barracks make halberdiers and the other half champions and then just put a rally point at your base. bonus point if i use aztecs or other infantry bonus civs

>>716450978
Animals can be farmed for food no matter what which takes away a lot of mechanical complexity in the opening.
>Luring boars is a whole semi-difficult process and even at the top level most pros have slightly different ways of going about it. The advanced method is to send villagers into your TC and shoot at the boar until the last possible second, then ungarrison them so the villager arrows do the killing blow. If you do it right, you have significantly more health left between all your villagers, if you do it wrong, the TC hits the boar and its worth no food. This means that TCs can now simply shoot the boar and there is a strictly best way of going about boar lures now.
>It also means that having an aggressive dark age where you try to steal or otherwise debilitate opponents food sources is a nonviable strategy now
They've also been nerfing archers which were the most micro heavy unit in the game. And buffing infantry because they were pretty niche and didn't see a lot of use, but now we've run into a situation where they've nerfed archers so much and infantry so much were starting to see a breakdown of the balance the units are meant to strike.

>>716451369
I mean, even considering counters, infantry have always been the weakest and least viable of the 3 since forever.

ITT: Korean autists mad now that a 2 second delay on luring your boar doesn't cost you the whole game

>>716451445
>>716450978
Thing is that something like auto farms while it does convenience the player and make it easier, it doesn't remove mechanical depth. Going back to the farms is a micro check and nothing else, and even then it can still be meta to turn it off during openers to not spend too much on farms. Seek shelter is similarly like cutting down only 2-3 keybinds in the process and you still need to correctly select the units, press the right keybind, and still might get fucked for using the automated option if your villager decides to pick the tower thats on the other side of the enemy units to run inside of instead of the much safer tower/castle/TC.

This is a """qol"""" change that outright removes mechanical complexity from the slowest part of the entire match. All to cater to faggots with ladder anxiety who can't handle fucking up anything in their openers without rage quitting

>>716451569
still, archers required some micro - if i cannot just knight spam you i have to build mangonels which too require micro to bear your archer micro. Now I will just send 10000 champions at you and you will not be able to do shit to counter it. even with mangonels, the counters too required mangonels. infantry is just a "set a rally point and forget' 0 micro solution.

>>716451578
See
>>716451445
>>716451671
You are clinically retarded

>>716449602
>India being just "India" instead of the separate groups from the time period had been a long running complaint in the community.
You're joking, right?

>>716449748
You genuinely believing that shit like switzerland has even remotely the same relevance or significant history in the middle ages as any of the asian civs in aoe2 is just your utter trash westurd education showing itself. You are not being taught about anything in the world beyond greece that you are trying to hog as if north western europe had more to do with it's culture than eg. persians do.

You tards genuinely believe you birthed human civilization despite you not being any of the multiple regions that actually birthed it. You also genuinely believe the west was always some world leading whitepower supremacy region when the west only gained a lead in the last few centuries, and tthrough most of the middle ages you were the same dirty peasants as most of the rest of the world was.

AoE2 devs are actually doing some justice for the non euro civ representations. They get extra points for recognizing that persia was the country that birthed heavy cavalry, giving them the coolest heavy cav in the game

>>716451850
He's gotta be a shill, that was NEVER anything that anyone wanted

I liked aoe3

>>716451850
It's been a complaint since they came out man. Devs even admitted India was just umbrella'd because they thought the first HD Edition DLC was the only one they'd get to do ever.

I have to deal with indian immigrants who think haggling is a part of other countries economic systems every fucking day at my job. But goddamn man, that's the single best DLC for Definitive Edition and it was (I never understood it, but it was) widely requested.

>>716451445
>Animals can be farmed for food no matter what
I don’t pay much attention to aoe. When was this change? With the chink kingdoms?

What was even the rationale for it? People don’t even kill other people’s animals to deny, they just lame and steal them for themselves, so what was the point?

>>716451894
I'm gonna make this as simple as I can for you. Nothing outside western europe matters. Except for the places that western europeans settled.

By virtue of influencing France, Germany, and Italy, Switzerland is a thousand times more important than whatever shithole you're from. You literally cannot refute this after the Age of Discovery.

>>716452079
Its in the upcoming patch.

Which is especially grim because it means despite sitting at 50% approval on steam, we are getting more enshittification instead of a back track.

>>716451123
Eh, it's really not that big of a deal

The only thing I don't like is the arrow dodging ability of the gurjara cavalry. That shit just doesn't make any sense, and it's also not easy to calculate with.
Charged attack of the burgundian UU or charged defence of the iron pagoda is completely fine.
Fire lancers with their ability are straight up cool and fun to use. Wish they would do a Reiter unit too, basically a knight but with a pistol he shoots when he has charge.

Also they fumbled on the bohemian wagon fort. It should have worked like a trebuchet where you have to set it up as a stationary base, like you could actually build a little wall to protect eg cannons or handcannoniers with like 8 of them

>>716445103 (OP)
>archer civs nerfed
so it's knights and camels again

>>716451850
>>716451958
For further context, the far and away most requested civ was Poland, Poland is the Ridley of AOE2

India was like right behind by my estimations.

Other than that popular requests include every single European nation whinging for specific representation. And fleshing out China (Big monkeys paw)

>>716445103 (OP)
The DLCs peaked when the first mission of the Barbarossa campaign had all the correct civs

>>716452093
Western relevancy is not as timeless as you think it is, don't take the last couple centuries as the norm, as they literally weren't in history, and won't be in the future. China is set to retake it's position as the world leader/single most relevant country, and the west is also rapidly going bankrupt with their debts piling much faster than it's gdp grows

AoE2 is cool because it takes place in a time when the civs were more evenly matched. The mezoamericans are pretty much the only civs in the game that need some plot armor

>>716452715
>Everyone said a Polynesia expac was too unrealistic
>Now we have 3 Dynasty Warriors civs
THE MAORI COULD HAVE SPARED US THIS FATE

I TRIED TO WARN YOOOOOUUUUuuuuuuuuu

>>716452838
They're mud hut shitters, but India and SEA have reps so the Polynesians may as well join...

>>716453043
I am the only Polynesians for AOE2 apologist on earth and even I can attest that SEA and India are significantly more advanced on every single front other than naval navigation.

Polynesians have everyone else on earth beaten on that

I just want blast furnace for vietnamese

>>716452838
Ancient china was literally rome level in terms of advancement
Should be noted that rome was also generally more militarily competent than feudal europe was through most of the middle ages, and legionaries could have likely defeated similar size medieval european armies up until late medieval periods
Their inclusion at least from a "power level" perspective is completely fine

>>716453219
I don't agree. Rome's legions were embarrassingly out of date as early as 300AD. It's part of why the western empire failed.

>>716453219
Dude if that was true the byzantines wouldn't have completely changed their military...

>>716449748
Don't lower yourself by talk to bugmen

>>716447230
>hero units
AoE dota is only a matter of time

>>716453271
almost all of Rome's problems were internal. I like to remind people that Rome had 52 emperors and only 2 of them died from old age on their farms. The rest: most died killed by their guard, not even dying on the battle field - literally assassination was the most common reason for an emperor to die. There were also some emperors that died by accident and not from provable assassination... but maybe it was assassination too.
Not even modern day USA presidents die from assassination that often - USA has had much more than 2 presidents die from old age in their home, and only like 2-3 assassinations.

>>716453219
It's not about it being ancient china.
It's not even about having a campaign about fictional content
Hell, it's not even about the fact that it's thinly disguised propaganda at worst and spineless kowtowing at best to the CCP

It's about designing 3 entire civs that have, up until this point, been based around peoples who truly existed, civilizations, if you will. And instead basing these 3 off of 3 armies from a fictional fucking BOOK. And it's not like you can even ignore it, because all 3 of them can summon some horrible flavor of Lu Bu dual wielding greatswords.

>>716445103 (OP)
>Gives chingchong pingpongs there 1000 BC fantasy kingdoms

>>716453271
Nah. Regular mercanaries heavy infantry will always be stronger than a minority of trained knights and mostly untrained levies. There is a reason the west also started to adapt heavy infantry mercenaries in the late medieval periods

>>716453510
I mean they had more than 52, but i think 52 of were those that were presidents for a long time. the others were assasinatinated even faster. There were some kids emperors too and they never reached 18 years of age. so i have to say it was more than 52 but assassination was still too common.

>>716449145
Show me a single piece of African history

>>716453510
Okay but yhe western roman empire didn't collapse because of its emperors. It collapsed because of actual serious issues, like a demographic crisis with slavery, concentration of wealth/destruction of the middle class, and a weak defence strategy that had to rely on increasingly expensive border fortifications

>>716453707
it did not help that just like USA of today, the inner political sphere was a joke. just see this:
>During the 50-year period of the Third Century Crisis (235 to 284 CE), Rome had 26 emperors who ruled, most of whom had very short reigns due to political instability.

>>716453219
lmao wumao.

>>716445103 (OP)
>>716449162
Good, now play Expanding Fronts

>>716453775
Okay I know this is hard to understand, especially when you grew up in a totalitarian state like China, but the person in charge is not important. At all. Not even when they own 95% of the wealth. That's right. They have very little control. Mind blowing, I know

>>716453856
I dont like the dark age in SWGB much. It feels like it's literally just to AOE2 opening with less food available

>>716453875
the people in charge of Rome used to change every year unless it was some big dick that actually is remembered and actually cound unify the empire. Its like Biden vs Barack or Trump - do you even remember Biden being a president? But in these times you did not have a fixed mandate time so Biden would be a president for a year before he disappears.

the people need a leader and the leadership should be somewhat stable. you cannot have rich people come and go every year for a stable culture to take root. Elon Musk was a fag 10 years ago too and he is still alive. In Rome Elon would long be gone.

>>716454101
>-

>>716453875
if the monarchists could read they would be very upset with you

>>716445103 (OP)
3kingdoms stuff was so dumb
like just split Chinese into Tang/Song/Ming if you're not going to do Tibetans/Dali/Tanguts

>>716449748
America has an older unified national identity than half of these.
Most European nations were fragmented and tribal as fuck and had provinces swap hands yearly until Napoleon forced the entire godforsaken continent into the modern age.

>>716454173
China has had the same president and ruling class for a long time.
Russia has had the same Tzar for like 20 years already even more.
Even the USA had 2 presidents for 8 years we can remember....
but Rome had periods of basically anarchy with no popular emperor.

>>716447239
Huns are 100-200 years after the Three Kingdoms period. That's how ludicrous it is.

>>716453576
be honest anon
Nobody would fucking mind if the next expansion was a bunch of german civs. If anything people would be fucking hyped. I mean things like bavaria, saxony, prussia, if they just split iconic german units between them like landsknechte or reiters
Literally nobody would have an issue with this, and you know that. It will probably happen sooner or later, as teutons are too small of a generalization for them.

But since it's China all the redditors are seething that they didn't make fucking tibet a new civ instead (despite tibet militarily never being a strong region). Don't get me wrong I wouldn't like it if it was 3 kingdoms only, but they put 2 other civs in the expansion too, which is already as many as most other expansions had, and then you have 3 more civs on top of that. Most of the hate for this expansion absolutely comes from china-bad bias, it's easily the best expansion we had since conquerors

>>716454259
>America
>unified national identity
I once had a guy from the Ozarks ask me if Chicago was scary. I thought he meant black people to be totally honest. He did not, he meant seeing that many people, that quantity.
I have been to rest stops in the south and the west that look like the third world.

Idk man, I think one of America's biggest pressure points is that people in different places live such different lives

I bought AOE2 DE a couple months ago but I haven't really gotten into it yet, and the last time I played aoe2 was probably 2008
which dlcs are good and which are a waste of money?

>>716454437
I’m not sure the most inbred lunatics you can possibly find in the entire country are the best population sample.

>>716454472
the dlcs the game now comes with are great.
as you can tell from this thread, 3chinkdoms is shit. victors and vanquished is shit.
after that, it's more about what you're interested in.
chronicles is a great singleplayer campaign, mountain royals i hear is good, return of rome is decent.

>>716454472
Everything but Victors and Vanquished and Three Kingdoms is Cash Money

Standard DLC ranking:
Dynasties of India>Dawn of the Dukes>Lords of the West>Mountain Royals

Chronicles is kick ass but it's worth noting it's singleplayer only and you play civs exclusive to the campaign with their own tech trees and stuff. It's different but reallllly good.
Return of Rome is a little weird, it's a port of AOE1 civs (+Ancient Vietnam as a nod to how much Vietnam adores AOE1 (Please give us your money Vietnam)) and mechanics into 2 with stuff like trading and gates added. The multiplayer for it was sadly dead on arrival but it has new campaigns for some of the civs and the most popular campaigns from 1 ported over (I think fans ported the rest).

>>716454837
Oh also Return of Rome does come with 1 multiplayer civ. Which is of course Carthage

>>716447048
>Teutonic
>no cool devil helmet
Pass

>>716449162
AoE was never balanced, Starcraft players always made fun of it for how little it cared about actual competetive gameplay

>>716455149
Ok first off, Starcrafts balance is just that fucking social experiment with the monkeys. It's just everyone doing the exact same thing for thousands of games because that's what everyone does and the timings are too tight and the maps too static for experimentation. Then one guy from Korea goes "hmmm, wait a second" tries ANYTHING NEW, and it's discovered that in reality, his move folds the old strategy in half like an omelette. Then the cycle begins anew.

Second off, it's not about balance, the heroes could be bad, the new civs could be bad, removing legacy mechanics could have no bearing on winrate. I'd still fucking hate them.

>>716455149
starcraft broodwar isnt balanced but thats ok because it's tough to utilize all the broken shit and mapmakers make decent maps. starcraft 2 is even more of a shitheap and has the same shitty maps forever.
aoe2 is more balanced.

>>716454472
Dont fall for the circlejerk. 3kingdoms is easily one of the better expansions
It not only adds 5 new civs instead of the usual 2 but they are really fleshed out civs too, having more unique units than most civs have

>>716455693
come on, anon. don't bait the poor man.

>>716455693
+1 social credit

>>716453503
jhoan d arc ressing my units and giving them armor fucking when?

>>716455073
The new elite upgrades look gay as fuck. This is a history game not Warcraft

Hero units were an impressively shit idea. They could've done it to aoe4 and gotten praised but noooo the humiliation ritual for gweilo was too important

I thank the Lord almighty every day that I'm not a subhuman multiplayernigger and don't have to worry about gameplay balance issues.

Everyone knew that 3 kingdoms was a terrible DLC. Even the devs knew but they were too chickenshit to say so. They just pushed out two obviously unfinished DLCs frankensteined together in order to coincide with the PS5 port.
So now a 25 year legacy is dead and buried. I hope to fuck this game somehow gets good mod support in future so all this can be fixed and we can add as many new civs etc as we want, but I doubt it considering (((microsoft))).

>>716456441
>The devs are degrading the games vision and mechanics in the name of keeping the DLC grift going (because the story DLC didn't sell enough)
>A-At least I dont play multiplayer!
I hope for bad things for you and your loved ones.

Question for the tourneyfags: Did you not hate when they added new monks? Sounds really bad for readability.

>>716449526
You've never heard of Indian supremacists? It's not a majority position, but I'm pretty sure that guy owns a newspaper. And remember, you're only seeing the ones smart enough to write functionally in english.

>>716456979
Monks are still visually distinct from every other military unit in the game

>>716450965
Spirit of the law is a fucking treasure. He's worth 100,000 normalfags

>>716450965
Compare the spirit of the law face reveal to t90s face kek

>>716456979
You can use whatever visual mods you want in a tourney to my knowledge so you could just put them back

>>716457493
Link?

>>716459773

>>716451894
retard.... switzerland was massively influencial in the middle ages regarding warfare
landsknecht? armies moving from mostly peasant levies to mercenary armies, to professional armies? all because of the swiss
meanwhile you (literal) shit eaters were living in caves until the 800s

>>716450139
This. Literally every game has some China wank in it now. It's fucking exhausting.

>>716449162
Good. Now they need to put a cool down on splitting armies constantly via positioning changing and make quick walling impossible. Not strategy all micro.

>>716466394
Journalist tier take

>>716445103 (OP)
WE

>>716466839
whoever thats supposed to be.