I appreciated your non hysterical and rationale comments. Notwithstanding that I had played all of the existing scenarios featured in this DLC, I purchased it, mainly in support of the franchise and Philthydepphia in particular. I was happy to see him get an opportunity to monetize the otherwise free content that has provided me with countless hours of challenging (thinking Last Romans) and innovative game play (thinking the Komenos scenario). So I appreciated that I was paying full freight for essentially 5 new custom campaigns. However, the prospect of playing these unique and 19 different scenarios for a very long time is a bit off putting. This is in contrast to the traditional DLCs, where there is generally three campaigns of five or six scenarios which allowed one to appreciate the gameplay of a new civ and to follow an extended story line. (And I think Dawn of the Dukes did this the best). Strangely enough this has resulted in me taking a break from AOE2 to something totally different (hello Icewind Dale!) I'm certain to return to AOE2, but not quite yet.
What a nice review, it gives us a sneak peek on what the DLC is about and offering. I just think that Filtydelphia deserve his merit for all these campaigns, it's fun, engaging, and gave us new gameplay we never knew can. The lack of new graphic model is understandable, as this DLC seems to acknowledge Filtydelphia's contribution towards the game development and the community. It's just the pricing that I think needs to be lowered. On a side note, why don't they create new campaigns for the Civilization that already exist? We haven't seen any Chinese campaign, despite their rich history. Or all the Eastern civilizations including Japan and Korean, which only playable in Historical Battle. If they do that, the pricing is just right, or even more (preferably $14-$15). My high hope is that the Eastern Asia will have more love from the dev. I mean, they just recently add the Persian campaign in the Mountain Royals. A Kievan Rus and the Vikings also need its own dedicated campaign. And all of this for historical events we rarely know, and an interesting new historical figures with their life.
I couldn't agree more that the devs should turn their attention to Asia and specifically the various Chinese dynasties. (Although there are several custom campaigns addressing this, for example Graceful Tang Dynasty and Hongwu the Great. The former is especially neat since the author included a Tibetan civ,)
This was some high quality content that you don’t see much of elsewhere. Ornlu reviews civs and campaigns, but having a well produced review of DLCs isn’t something I’ve seen much of
Since it's already reusing stuff that already existed before it seems like a missed opportunity to re-add the El Dorado campaign as additional content to boost the number of maps they can boast about this dlc adding. Doubly so since there's already a fan recreation of the campaign in DE with a bulk of the work done that they could use as a base and add some voice acting and polish to.
I completely agree with this review despite not having bought the dlc yet. What stopped me so far is the uninspiring looking maps. It doesn't come close to what i've gotten used to. It doesn't help that there is only one voice actor, which i didn't even know before watching this review. I didn't catch the "Victors and Vanquished" map being the same as the "Historic battles" one as well. Seems to proof me more right thinking this is almost as bad as the "Forgotten Empires" dlc campaigns, which was just the mod campaigns brought over with no voice acting and no real visible changes. As i haven't gotten the "Mountain royals" dlc yet i think i will buy that first as it seems to be of the quality that i am looking for. Thanks for the review!
I appreciate the review. I just have a bit of constructive criticism. The game music and sfx are too loud generally, which isn't a huge problem because I can focus on what you're saying. What is REALLY bad is when there are voice lines playing over you like at 4:30. Hearing two people talking at the same time makes hard to focus, and the double whammy is the text on screen. I can't speak for other people, but when I see text along with narration I'm going to end up paying attention to that only to realize that you're talking too. If you want to have the VA playing then you should do the same thing you did at 5:00. Pause your commentary to let the voice lines play I don't want to be too harsh because you said this is your first video with commentary, but this video is pretty hard to get through. I'll be leaving a like and sub along with this comment, and I'll check out the rest of your channel. The silver lining is that you can only go up from here. I believe in ya.
Yeah, someone else left a comment to that effect, and they may have been a non-native speaker, which surely makes it harder, so I've already been editing my next narrated video with that in mind. Definitely appreciate your constructive feedback though, as well as your support! I'm definitely new at this (and working with very low-end equipment and free software), but I'm eager to learn and invest in improving my setup. I will always welcome your feedback.
The main thing that dissapointed me was the lack as any assets. I get it that the DLC is cheaper than the ones with new civs, but even those give new assets to campaigns of existing civs. Even with the intros and outros they reuse existing graphics- that would be fine for a community mod, but for a official content it's just lazy. Most of the design work was already done before this DLC was announced. When I heard those custom fan scenarios were getting a repolish I expected the treatment of regular official scenarios with original assets, voice actors and artwork. I enjoy the scenarios but probably my enjoyment would be the exact same for free with the mods.
Nice video review of the DLC. I love Age of Empires single player content, but the lack of new real stuff for this DLC is just so off putting to me. What is already contained in the DLC isn't bad, but when the DLC is about 75% reused content (art assets, already free scenarios from the mod page), it really makes me question whether I should have purchased this or not. I remember people gave Return of Rome a bad shakedown for it literally being AoE1 resold to you in the AoE2 game engine, but at least that DLC gave you a whole lot of new stuff, as in 3 new campaigns, with full voice acting, art assets, units, etc. I hope whatever single player focused DLC they do next (if any at all), they put a lot more effort into it than this. Victors and Vanquished is just passable, not great.
Yep, those are basically my thoughts. IMO there's basically no reason in 2024 to not at least include some new graphics for a DLC, especially considering they had already been skimping on adding new stuff for a while. Definitely hoping their next offering provides a respectable amount of new models, among other things.
I'd appreciate it if you turned down the music a little so we can hear you clearly. Nothing against the music. I absolutely love the music of AoE 2, but I can't hear you clearly over it.
Thank you, that's very important feedback. I unfortunately can't change this video without deleting and reuploading, but I will be mindful of that for all future videos.
@@AdmiralWololoThis DLC will be worth it if they improve some of the aesthetic and gameplay aspects of AoE2DE instead of paying a single scenario glorified skirmish.
This DLC is Lazy. it should had to add more Units and items for the scenario creator perhaps making improvements for the scenario creator or even a scenario creator tutorial with this DLC
The thing is: new Aoe campaigns often have annoying bugs. And I also think that the price point is too high (for mostly remaked community scenarios) -> I wait until there is a 50% price discount. I would not call them "the most Controversial Aoe 2 dlc" because in my eyes Return of Rome was even more controversial and straight bad.
If they added the roman civ in AoE2 for free and the rest of the dlc you needed to pay for I feel like most people would reverse their opinion on the dlc. If all you care about is AoE2 content then, yes, it is a very bad dlc. If you like aoe1 it's the best version of the game to date and a great improvement over AoE1:DE
This DLC is what if we made an Ubisoft open-world game in Aoe2. Grindy, boring and you forget or wish to forget about it the moment you shut down the game. The Ragnar scenario was about 3.5-4 hours of slog and genuinely one of the worst experiences in gaming I've had the displeasure of. Who even is this DLC made for? People who like to play with 5 units clearing a gigantic map bit by bit, multiple times? These people are masochists. It lacks the quality of any single-player experience, game or map, in the last at least 20-30 of video game in terms of narration and gameplay, you would think this DLC was made by first-time map maker rather than an experienced employee of Microsoft.
Your comment shows ignorance to the entire RPG category of scenarios such as vampire hunter , lord of the rings , the matrix to name a few. That’s what this DLC most resembles
Lack of new civs doomed this dlc. There should be some significant changes and unique features. I think devs should focus more on making already existing civs unique. What we see in every civ is copy and paste. There is no uniqueness in civs except for unique units. There shouldn’t be anything like giving to mesoamerican civs swordswoman, pikeman and crossbow lines. Instead use already existing scenario units like iroques warrior, amazon warrior, amazon archer etc. No ships like galleon, fire galley, demolition ships etc instead give them trash water unit like cannoes. Mesoamerican civs could gain access to those ships by converting enemy docks just like they get access to xoloto? warrior by converting stable. Btw once stable is converted these civs should be able to build stable. It’s shame this building skin appear only in the scenario. In my opinion mesoamerican civs advantage should rely on 1/2 pop efficiency to compensate very limited (new)tech tree. I hate seeing them as some civs with European techs. They were native civs. There is no documented use of trebuchet by American civ in the medieval. Devs should be more ambitious and redesign already existing civs to make them look properly and give them historically accurate tech tree. I like what it looks like in StarCraft games. You build some significant building to be able to produce specific unit. Aoe should follow this and even add sth extra. For example gunpowder store would unlock handcannoner and bombard units. If enemy converted this building they would be able to produce these types of units if their converted building is destroyed - they immediately lose access to it. That’s it. Another great idea from StarCraft games is capacity of transport ships. Some units take various amount of space. This is the way to forever solve (10 elephant - yes, 11 archers - no) problem. Another feature devs could use is introducing boarding ship to wololo enemy ships or introduce tech allowing galleon line to board enemy ships under 50% hp to be converted. These are few of my ideas. There are more but I feel it won’t happen anyway because most of aoe2 users are scared of changes. Peace ✌🏻
Yeah, interesting ideas for sure. I doubt they'll fundamentally change the way that Mesoamerican civs work, but regional units would be nice, and there's a lot of player support for giving them accurate regional skins instead of having plate armored swordsmen, arbalesters, etc. So maybe we can hope for that.
@@AdmiralWololo unfortunately most of the players don’t care. People on forums claim there is no need to change units appearance… I think otherwise. Look at hussar for example, why they still have wings after 3 years of dawn of the dukes dlc which introduced winged hussar? Well if it stays in the game forever then why the heck to introduce unit like this. There’s no point. Suddenly half of civs have access to it(winged hussar but not on steroids).🤣 I’m actually one of the biggest poles’s civ critic because I’m polish myself. I know better that winged hussar were actually heavy cavalary with long lances. Truth be told they should be an upgrade for steppe lancer following aoe2 logic but devs made it even worse. 🙈 It is as you say, devs won’t make necessary fundamental changes. And even if they decide to do it, you’ll be grandpa till then. Players got used to this game too much and are not ager to potential changes.
I appreciated your non hysterical and rationale comments. Notwithstanding that I had played all of the existing scenarios featured in this DLC, I purchased it, mainly in support of the franchise and Philthydepphia in particular. I was happy to see him get an opportunity to monetize the otherwise free content that has provided me with countless hours of challenging (thinking Last Romans) and innovative game play (thinking the Komenos scenario). So I appreciated that I was paying full freight for essentially 5 new custom campaigns. However, the prospect of playing these unique and 19 different scenarios for a very long time is a bit off putting. This is in contrast to the traditional DLCs, where there is generally three campaigns of five or six scenarios which allowed one to appreciate the gameplay of a new civ and to follow an extended story line. (And I think Dawn of the Dukes did this the best). Strangely enough this has resulted in me taking a break from AOE2 to something totally different (hello Icewind Dale!) I'm certain to return to AOE2, but not quite yet.
Thanks! Yeah, I tried to be fair, definitely a mixed bag here though. I'm just really hoping the devs take peoples' feedback seriously on this one.
What a nice review, it gives us a sneak peek on what the DLC is about and offering. I just think that Filtydelphia deserve his merit for all these campaigns, it's fun, engaging, and gave us new gameplay we never knew can.
The lack of new graphic model is understandable, as this DLC seems to acknowledge Filtydelphia's contribution towards the game development and the community. It's just the pricing that I think needs to be lowered.
On a side note, why don't they create new campaigns for the Civilization that already exist? We haven't seen any Chinese campaign, despite their rich history. Or all the Eastern civilizations including Japan and Korean, which only playable in Historical Battle. If they do that, the pricing is just right, or even more (preferably $14-$15).
My high hope is that the Eastern Asia will have more love from the dev. I mean, they just recently add the Persian campaign in the Mountain Royals. A Kievan Rus and the Vikings also need its own dedicated campaign. And all of this for historical events we rarely know, and an interesting new historical figures with their life.
I couldn't agree more that the devs should turn their attention to Asia and specifically the various Chinese dynasties. (Although there are several custom campaigns addressing this, for example Graceful Tang Dynasty and Hongwu the Great. The former is especially neat since the author included a Tibetan civ,)
I think the dev avoid Chinese campaign for political reasons. Folks in there don’t love the idea of a divided China
This was some high quality content that you don’t see much of elsewhere. Ornlu reviews civs and campaigns, but having a well produced review of DLCs isn’t something I’ve seen much of
Thanks, always appreciate a supportive word!
Since it's already reusing stuff that already existed before it seems like a missed opportunity to re-add the El Dorado campaign as additional content to boost the number of maps they can boast about this dlc adding.
Doubly so since there's already a fan recreation of the campaign in DE with a bulk of the work done that they could use as a base and add some voice acting and polish to.
Yeah, definitely missed some key opportunities to add more. Hopefully this improves with future DLCs.
SO glad i didn't pre-order this..
good review, thank you
I completely agree with this review despite not having bought the dlc yet. What stopped me so far is the uninspiring looking maps. It doesn't come close to what i've gotten used to. It doesn't help that there is only one voice actor, which i didn't even know before watching this review. I didn't catch the "Victors and Vanquished" map being the same as the "Historic battles" one as well. Seems to proof me more right thinking this is almost as bad as the "Forgotten Empires" dlc campaigns, which was just the mod campaigns brought over with no voice acting and no real visible changes.
As i haven't gotten the "Mountain royals" dlc yet i think i will buy that first as it seems to be of the quality that i am looking for. Thanks for the review!
It's literally just a paid Historical Battles with better scenarios, most of which were free content before the advent of this DLC.
I appreciate the review. I just have a bit of constructive criticism. The game music and sfx are too loud generally, which isn't a huge problem because I can focus on what you're saying. What is REALLY bad is when there are voice lines playing over you like at 4:30. Hearing two people talking at the same time makes hard to focus, and the double whammy is the text on screen. I can't speak for other people, but when I see text along with narration I'm going to end up paying attention to that only to realize that you're talking too. If you want to have the VA playing then you should do the same thing you did at 5:00. Pause your commentary to let the voice lines play
I don't want to be too harsh because you said this is your first video with commentary, but this video is pretty hard to get through. I'll be leaving a like and sub along with this comment, and I'll check out the rest of your channel.
The silver lining is that you can only go up from here. I believe in ya.
Yeah, someone else left a comment to that effect, and they may have been a non-native speaker, which surely makes it harder, so I've already been editing my next narrated video with that in mind.
Definitely appreciate your constructive feedback though, as well as your support! I'm definitely new at this (and working with very low-end equipment and free software), but I'm eager to learn and invest in improving my setup. I will always welcome your feedback.
Nice review.
I bought the DLC but didn't have time to play it yet.
I hope for more deep analysis on the overall state of the game.
Thanks! I do a few types of things on this channel, but there will definitely be more of that to come
Have a comment to boost algorithm
I accept this tribute
The main thing that dissapointed me was the lack as any assets. I get it that the DLC is cheaper than the ones with new civs, but even those give new assets to campaigns of existing civs. Even with the intros and outros they reuse existing graphics- that would be fine for a community mod, but for a official content it's just lazy. Most of the design work was already done before this DLC was announced. When I heard those custom fan scenarios were getting a repolish I expected the treatment of regular official scenarios with original assets, voice actors and artwork. I enjoy the scenarios but probably my enjoyment would be the exact same for free with the mods.
Yeah I completely agree. Biggest letdown for me as well. Could have been easily a 9/10 even with its other flaws if they added a lot of new assets.
Nice video review of the DLC. I love Age of Empires single player content, but the lack of new real stuff for this DLC is just so off putting to me. What is already contained in the DLC isn't bad, but when the DLC is about 75% reused content (art assets, already free scenarios from the mod page), it really makes me question whether I should have purchased this or not. I remember people gave Return of Rome a bad shakedown for it literally being AoE1 resold to you in the AoE2 game engine, but at least that DLC gave you a whole lot of new stuff, as in 3 new campaigns, with full voice acting, art assets, units, etc. I hope whatever single player focused DLC they do next (if any at all), they put a lot more effort into it than this. Victors and Vanquished is just passable, not great.
Yep, those are basically my thoughts. IMO there's basically no reason in 2024 to not at least include some new graphics for a DLC, especially considering they had already been skimping on adding new stuff for a while. Definitely hoping their next offering provides a respectable amount of new models, among other things.
Not great, not terrible
I'd appreciate it if you turned down the music a little so we can hear you clearly. Nothing against the music. I absolutely love the music of AoE 2, but I can't hear you clearly over it.
Thank you, that's very important feedback. I unfortunately can't change this video without deleting and reuploading, but I will be mindful of that for all future videos.
@@AdmiralWololoThis DLC will be worth it if they improve some of the aesthetic and gameplay aspects of AoE2DE instead of paying a single scenario glorified skirmish.
Thanks!
This DLC is Lazy. it should had to add more Units and items for the scenario creator perhaps making improvements for the scenario creator or even a scenario creator tutorial with this DLC
Yeah, that would have been a huge improvement.
The thing is:
new Aoe campaigns often have annoying bugs.
And I also think that the price point is too high (for mostly remaked community scenarios)
-> I wait until there is a 50% price discount.
I would not call them "the most Controversial Aoe 2 dlc" because in my eyes Return of Rome was even more controversial and straight bad.
If they added the roman civ in AoE2 for free and the rest of the dlc you needed to pay for I feel like most people would reverse their opinion on the dlc. If all you care about is AoE2 content then, yes, it is a very bad dlc. If you like aoe1 it's the best version of the game to date and a great improvement over AoE1:DE
This DLC is what if we made an Ubisoft open-world game in Aoe2. Grindy, boring and you forget or wish to forget about it the moment you shut down the game. The Ragnar scenario was about 3.5-4 hours of slog and genuinely one of the worst experiences in gaming I've had the displeasure of. Who even is this DLC made for? People who like to play with 5 units clearing a gigantic map bit by bit, multiple times? These people are masochists. It lacks the quality of any single-player experience, game or map, in the last at least 20-30 of video game in terms of narration and gameplay, you would think this DLC was made by first-time map maker rather than an experienced employee of Microsoft.
Your comment shows ignorance to the entire RPG category of scenarios such as vampire hunter , lord of the rings , the matrix to name a few. That’s what this DLC most resembles
Lack of new civs doomed this dlc. There should be some significant changes and unique features. I think devs should focus more on making already existing civs unique. What we see in every civ is copy and paste. There is no uniqueness in civs except for unique units. There shouldn’t be anything like giving to mesoamerican civs swordswoman, pikeman and crossbow lines. Instead use already existing scenario units like iroques warrior, amazon warrior, amazon archer etc. No ships like galleon, fire galley, demolition ships etc instead give them trash water unit like cannoes. Mesoamerican civs could gain access to those ships by converting enemy docks just like they get access to xoloto? warrior by converting stable. Btw once stable is converted these civs should be able to build stable. It’s shame this building skin appear only in the scenario. In my opinion mesoamerican civs advantage should rely on 1/2 pop efficiency to compensate very limited (new)tech tree. I hate seeing them as some civs with European techs. They were native civs. There is no documented use of trebuchet by American civ in the medieval. Devs should be more ambitious and redesign already existing civs to make them look properly and give them historically accurate tech tree.
I like what it looks like in StarCraft games. You build some significant building to be able to produce specific unit. Aoe should follow this and even add sth extra. For example gunpowder store would unlock handcannoner and bombard units. If enemy converted this building they would be able to produce these types of units if their converted building is destroyed - they immediately lose access to it. That’s it.
Another great idea from StarCraft games is capacity of transport ships. Some units take various amount of space. This is the way to forever solve (10 elephant - yes, 11 archers - no) problem.
Another feature devs could use is introducing boarding ship to wololo enemy ships or introduce tech allowing galleon line to board enemy ships under 50% hp to be converted.
These are few of my ideas. There are more but I feel it won’t happen anyway because most of aoe2 users are scared of changes. Peace ✌🏻
Yeah, interesting ideas for sure. I doubt they'll fundamentally change the way that Mesoamerican civs work, but regional units would be nice, and there's a lot of player support for giving them accurate regional skins instead of having plate armored swordsmen, arbalesters, etc. So maybe we can hope for that.
@@AdmiralWololo unfortunately most of the players don’t care. People on forums claim there is no need to change units appearance… I think otherwise. Look at hussar for example, why they still have wings after 3 years of dawn of the dukes dlc which introduced winged hussar? Well if it stays in the game forever then why the heck to introduce unit like this. There’s no point. Suddenly half of civs have access to it(winged hussar but not on steroids).🤣 I’m actually one of the biggest poles’s civ critic because I’m polish myself. I know better that winged hussar were actually heavy cavalary with long lances. Truth be told they should be an upgrade for steppe lancer following aoe2 logic but devs made it even worse. 🙈
It is as you say, devs won’t make necessary fundamental changes. And even if they decide to do it, you’ll be grandpa till then. Players got used to this game too much and are not ager to potential changes.
it was the worst ever dlc for aoe2. tbh everything in it was bad. a total SCAM!