Future DLC Poll

[antisocialmunky]

So, what would you buy?

[Tsavong]

I think there going to do Elite Units of the East or something in that vain.
I would probably buy it.

The Update, 3rd December: For those of you hoping to see an Elite Units of the East pack too, we'd encourage you to watch this space.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Huh, I hadn't really thought of a lighhearted pirate DLC. Could be cool to have some sort of mini campaign like that. I'm convinced, sign me up!

I do think the big wars of the era are greatly underdone, though. A more serious effort to portray the War of Spanish Succession or Seven Years War would be great. Or a closer look at Frederick the Great, for instance.

[Owen Glyndwr]

I'd go for an expanded map or a Switzerland.

However all that's peanuts if they release the modding tools they promised us...

[Zenicetus]

I think some of these fit the idea of "DLC" better than others, if we're talking about fairly low-priced downloadable content to expand the game.

For example, the "Caribbean Pirate Mini Campaign + Pirate Units" might not be too hard to do easily and quickly, because there are already pirates and pirate territories, and they operate within the existing game map. This would be very similar to the Native American DLC they've already released. I would be more interested in buying a Pirate mini-campaign than I was for the Native American campaign (which I didn't buy, partly because the premise seemed silly).

The "New Factions(Swiss Confederation, etc)" is on a different level, if we're talking about something added to the grand campaign. It would involve re-balancing *all* the existing campaign factions against each other, with lots of play testing, even if the map wasn't expanded beyond what it is now. This would apply to the "All of N America Map" also, if it involves adding new native factions.

Re-balancing the entire grand campaign is a tall order, with the risk of breaking the core game if it isn't done just right. It's why (I assume) the BI expansion for Rome was such a major re-write of the campaign and sold as a separate expansion, and why the Kingdoms expansion for M2TW never went back and updated the M2TW grand campaign. There are similar problems with "More Detailed Maps" if that means more roads and towns with buildings, because now you're into a major re-write of the core game engine. The campaign AI can barely handle the existing level of detail.

I may be wrong, but I don't think we're going to see anything more than a few new units, maybe one more mini-campaign (that doesn't touch the grand campaign) as DLC for this game. The actual "expansion" for ETW that makes major changes to the main campaign, similar to what BI was for Rome, is called "Napoleon:TW".

[antisocialmunky]

The Swiss units are in the game but the faction just isn't. Would be fun if CA added a ability for them to lend you money and you have to pay interest on it.:)

[al Roumi]

I'd be interested in detailed and expanded maps. Maybe as an ETW expanded or "Marathon" campaign.

One of my turn offs in ETW is the size of the provinces. It makes it quite easy to capture what constitutes an entire country in one battle -which I find less rewarding (never mind realistic) than, say EU3.

Since ETW came out I've ummed and ah'd over whether what the map calls "France" or "Spain", never mind the perenial compromise-too-far that the Italian peninsular is in TW games, is really appropriate in terms of offering the balance of realism and gameplay I expect/hope for from a TW game. Maybe for this reason I find a campaign as one of the Central european powers the most interesting?

[KLAssurbanipal]

Pirate Units