• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Age of Empires II HD getting another expansion Rise of the Rajas (on Dec 19)

P

prudislav

Member
just appeared on steam
header.jpg

http://store.steampowered.com/app/488060
Release Date: 19 Dec, 2016
Welcome to Age of Empires II HD: The Rise of the Rajas; the third new official expansion for the Age of Empires II universe in over 17 years. Challenge friends with four additional civilizations, new units, technologies, and build your empire on both water and land. Guide history’s greatest heroes in Southeast Asia through four additional campaigns and conquer your foes with mighty hordes of elephants under your command!
  • 4 New Civilizations
    • Burmese – Assemble the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia through a legion of Battle Elephants that can demolish the most powerful of defenses. The Burmese unique unit is the Arambai, a ranged cavalry unit with a deadly but low accuracy attack.
      Khmer – Construct the largest religious monument in the world and amass an immortal army of devastating siege weapons. The Khmer unique unit is the Ballista Elephant, a mounted scorpion that can be upgraded to fire two bolts simultaneously.
      Malay – Conquer Southeast Asia with the vast island empire of Malay and upgrade your docks to harbours which can shoot arrows. The Malay unique unit is the Karambit Warrior, an extremely cheap infantry unit that can quickly overwhelm its foes.
      Vietnamese – Lead your people to independence and wage guerilla warfare with an extremely powerful arsenal of ranged units. The Vietnamese unique unit is the Rattan Archer, a heavily-armored ranged unit that is effectively impervious to enemy archer attacks.
  • 4 New, Fully Voiced Campaigns
    • Gajah Mada: On the island of Java, a new power is rising. Gajah Mada, prime minister of Majapahit, conspires to build an empire to rule the waves and islands of the Archipelago. Will he be able to balance his unquestioned loyalty to the king with his growing ambitions?
      Suryavarman I: It is the early 11th century and the Khmer Empire is in turmoil, torn apart by competing factions and surrounded by hostile neighbors. Only one prince, Suryavarman, has the courage and cunning to defeat his rivals and restore the Khmer to their former glory. Seizing the throne, however, is just the first of many tasks. Will Suryavarman muster the strength to expand his domain, overcome adversity, and create a timeless legacy as the king who attained Nirvana?
      Bayinnaung: A warrior king seeks to unite a divided land. But when he is betrayed, only his devoted servant can continue his legacy. Can a mere commoner ascend the Burmese throne and build the largest empire in Southeast Asian history?
      Lê Lợi: When a civil war plunged Dai Viet into chaos, the Ming Emperor intervened and seized control. Now, the only hope for freedom from oppression lies with one man: a minor noble named Le Loi. Will he be able to unite feuding factions, defeat the Chinese, and regain Vietnamese independence?
  • New Generic Units
    • Battle Elephant: Created at the stable and available to each of the new civilizations, the Battle Elephant is a slow and powerful cavalry unit that is devastating in melee combat. Each new civilization has its own unique bonuses to set their Elephant regiments apart.
      Imperial Skirmisher: The long-awaited upgrade to the iconic Elite Skirmisher unit, the upgrade is available to the Vietnamese and all of its teammates.
  • New Environments
    • Land meets the sea in The Rise of the Rajas! Alongside massive rainforests, treacherous beaches, the new mangrove forests and shallows provide a whole new playstyle. The new amphibious terrain can be built on and both land units and ships can pass through it. This new terrain type is featured on each of the five new random maps.
  • Improved AI
  • 5 New Random Maps
  • 5 New Special Maps
  • 5 New Real World Maps
  • 13 New Terrains
  • New Scenario Editor Objects
  • Spectator Mode
Click to expand...
 
J

JordanKZ

Member
These AoE2 HD expansions tend to sell pretty well.

Microsoft should hire a studio to make AoE4 or something. I dunno, crazy idea, right?
 
O

orochi91

Member
Just bought the HD collection a few weeks ago.

I can't believe they're still making expansions for it!

Used to play this game, along with AoM, all the time when I was a kid.

Great stuff.
 
D

Dryk

Member
Banjo-Kazooie said:
It still amazes me they are making expansions to this haha
Click to expand...
One of the advantages of AoE II with regards to cranking out expansions is that because the civilisations mostly just differ in their access to the tech tree and their passive bonuses you only need to draw a new set of building sprites and the sprites for a single new unit.
 
L

Lime

Member
I sure wish Microsoft would do similar remasters and rejuvenation of their other old IPs, such as Mechwarrior and Mechcommander :/
 
T

Tagyhag

Member
It's so great when they announce a game so close to its release. Hopefully the winter sale gives it a 10% discount or something.

How About No said:
Wow...talk about support

AoE and AoEII were the shit back in the day
Click to expand...

Yeah, AoE hasn't aged well but I'd be lying if I said that I wouldn't buy a remastered version of it. Unfortunately the source code was lost apparently.
 
Chiramii

Chiramii

Member
Nice to see that game is still rolling, but where's the AoE III love? :( II is good and all but I actually prefer III.

*runs*
 
T

Tagyhag

Member
Chiramii said:
Nice to see that game is still rolling, but where's the AoE III love? :( II is good and all but I actually prefer III.

*runs*
Click to expand...

It'd probably take a lot more work to do a AOE 3 expansion, plus:

Owners: 3,766,620 ± 50,421
Owners: 1,894,826 ± 35,855

It's half of the potential sales.

They'd should just do a 4 instead. If there's one thing that they should take from 3 is the deck system, really liked that.
 
N

Nzyme32

Member
Will wait on some reviews after the mythologies expansion was poop. Still, hoping for the best since I do still love AoE 2 and the expansions for it so far
 
Tevious

Tevious

Member
Having just gone to Cambodia to see all the Khmer ruins, I can't wait to play this.

BTW, for those interested, the Star Wars sister of this game, Galactic Battlegrounds, is getting an update to it's community expansion Expanding Fronts this week.
 
firenskill2000

firenskill2000

Member
Just a warning to those who haven't bought yet, the multiplayer save was broken until fairly recently when they released a beta patch. I haven't played since it was released so I can't comment on whether or not it's fixed but definitely look into it if MP is something you're interested in.
 
L

LordBaztion

Member
I'm excited for more age of empires but, damn, they have just launched a patch to fix the problems with the latest expansion after nearly a year.
 
C

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
Will pick it up if it's good. Looks like the AoM expansion was pretty poorly reviewed, but the last AoE2 one was fine. Hopefully this one turns out well.

Tagyhag said:
They'd should just do a 4 instead. If there's one thing that they should take from 3 is the deck system, really liked that.
Click to expand...

I'd modify it to limit it more and have it focus on research, rather than unit and resource shipments. Have lots of across-the-board deck-exclusive researches, along with some civ-exclusive and semi-exclusive ones. Basically allows you to customize the way your civ develops instead of just having the standard research loadout.

I imagine a lot of people would disagree with that though.
 
Chiramii

Chiramii

Member
Tagyhag said:
It'd probably take a lot more work to do a AOE 3 expansion, plus:

Owners: 3,766,620 ± 50,421
Owners: 1,894,826 ± 35,855

It's half of the potential sales.

They'd should just do a 4 instead. If there's one thing that they should take from 3 is the deck system, really liked that.
Click to expand...
You're right, and those numbers hurts my soul. Oh well, I'd take a new Age of Empires. And yes, the deck system was great.
 
D

DJKhaled

Member
I wish they'd do a mac port of the HD version so I can play on my macbook, age of empires is perfect to lay in bed and play. But I'm hyped for this, glad they're at least keeping AoE alive in some form even if it's not a proper sequel.

chaosblade said:
I'd modify it to limit it more and have it focus on research, rather than unit and resource shipments. Have lots of across-the-board deck-exclusive researches, along with some civ-exclusive and semi-exclusive ones. Basically allows you to customize the way your civ develops instead of just having the standard research loadout.

I imagine a lot of people would disagree with that though.
Click to expand...

That sounds really terrible.
 
S

sibarraz

Banned
The thing that I most love about the new expansions is that I learn about old civilizations that never thought were that big, like the malis
 
D

DocSeuss

Member
Tagyhag said:
It's so great when they announce a game so close to its release. Hopefully the winter sale gives it a 10% discount or something.



Yeah, AoE hasn't aged well but I'd be lying if I said that I wouldn't buy a remastered version of it. Unfortunately the source code was lost apparently.
Click to expand...

I played AoE yesterday.

Game's still better than every RTS that came after it.
 
K

killertofu

Member
I dumped way too many hours into the HD remake when it first came out. Hesitant to get sucked in again.

There's nothing worse than playing a 3 hour game and losing.
 
C

CecilRousso

Member
Fantastapotamus said:
And make it Win10 store exklusive
Click to expand...

We should all be very grateful that the Windows Store didn't exist when AoEII HD was being made. If it had, it would certainly not have 8-10k concurrent players and with that not getting new expansions and bugfixes more then 15 years after the intial release.
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Tagyhag said:
It'd probably take a lot more work to do a AOE 3 expansion, plus:

Owners: 3,766,620 ± 50,421
Owners: 1,894,826 ± 35,855

It's half of the potential sales.

They'd should just do a 4 instead. If there's one thing that they should take from 3 is the deck system, really liked that.
Click to expand...

~1.9m people is still a large userbase. I think the biggest roadblock is logistical: AoE3 was sold outside of Steam, on the GFWL Marketplace and at retail, the former of which is now dead while the latter doesn't use GFWL, so in order to be fair, Microsoft would have to develop a website that analyses GFWL accounts/retail keys and grants a Steam key for the Complete Collection, and also set up a support system to account for those who have a purchase receipt but either can't log into their long-forgotten GFWL account or no longer have their retail copy. It doesn't help that the game wasn't available digitally anywhere upon release.
 
S

sibarraz

Banned
I think Age of Empires 3 already has enough content and I can't think of any civilization missing from that era.

Besides, AoE2 has the advantage that even without support, the game still a good playerbase
 
M

Mcdohl

Member
sibarraz said:
I think Age of Empires 3 already has enough content and I can't think of any civilization missing from that era.

Besides, AoE2 has the advantage that even without support, the game still a good playerbase
Click to expand...

I keep forgetting there was Age of Empires 3.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Laying the groundwork for my take on Age of Empires 4.
Opinion Drama Community
24
2K
Monado Blade replied
Japanese and Western Fusion Style RPG Rise of the Third Power Announced, Launches Q2 2022
13
2K
SpongebobSquaredance replied
Civilization VI: Gathering Storm (expansion) announced for Feb.14th, 2019 (PC)
13
1K
Helios replied
Total War Warhammer 2 |OT| Of Mice and Ratmen
7 8 9 10 11
541
89K
lifa-cobex replied
Fire Emblem: Echoes vs. Metroid: Samus Returns; which was the more successful remake?
33
8K
wwm0nkey replied
Top Bottom