Age of Empires II (2013): The Forgotten DLC

New units, new civilizations (Incas, Indians, Italians, Magyars/Hungarians, and Slavs), and brand-new singleplayer campaigns! Also has new features, such as new game modes and Twitch.tv integration, for the multiplayer scene. This brand-new expansion set for Age of Empires 2 really enlivens a 16-year old game with new strategies, new tactics, and new possibilities for building your historically-inspired empire. Highly recommended!

This review is more of a PSA Notice rather than an actual review, but I feel posting a review about it is necessary with the start of the Summer Sale. As of the 5.7 Update, several of the campaigns featured in "The Forgotten" are incredibly bugged and are 99% unwinnable. The biggest problem is that the first Campaign in Forgotten, Alaric, is the one that is the most effected and also the one Campaign everyone will likely play first. Without word if there is going to be another update or not in the near future, I have provided a fix to these Campaigns in the Workshop that removes the Extra AI's and fixes the Triggers. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1407316176 ----- As a short and more proper review, it is the weakest of the 3 DLC's in terms of Single Player Content, but it's still well worth the $2.50 it's priced at currently. It has the most Civilizations at 5, compared to the 4 you get each with the other 2 DLC's. They're also all rather good Civilizations. Both the Incas and the Magyars are great for beginners since Incas are a great "jack of all trades" civ with pretty much a counter to everything and Magyars have a very simple, easy but effective tech tree and build order. Italians are one of the best water civs in the game with a pretty good land game to boot. Indians are very strong once you know how to use camels. Slavs are probably the "weakest" out of the 5 and by weakest, I mean average at worse. Even though their archers are garbage, they're great on closed maps such as Arena & Black Forest and Boyars, their Bonuses and their Unique Techs are all excellent (Except Free Tracking, That's pretty much a waste). The Campaigns themselves is where the DLC kind of falls flat. There is no voice acting unlike the original Campaigns in AoE2 or the DLC that followed this, so all the dialogue is done through text. Most of the Scenarios in the Forgotten are very "RPG"ish where you are only controlling a few units, sometimes just one or two, for the entire scenario with little base building involved. Mostly you're just getting to point A to B with some side quests here to there. That being said, there are Campaigns in this DLC that is well worth checking out and playing, such as the Goth (Alaric) & Indian (Prithviraj) campaigns. Both of them are more "traditional" campaigns (Outside of that one half of that one mission in the Indian Campaign). A good number of the Scenarios in the "Battles of the Forgotten" are also rather good. Just remember, again, to subscribe to the fix linked above. Finally, this is usually the cheapest way to get full access to the "Expansion Dataset", which is what the latest balance updates and additional content is played on. Full Access means that you'll be able to play the Expansion Dataset offline in Single Player and have access to all of your AoC Civilizations (The original 18) and the DLC Civs you own while playing the Expansion Dataset online.

100% Recommended. The civilizations added here come with very interesting new units, and the DLC also adds very entertaining campaigns. A good DLC, not a masterpiece, but a very good job. 8.5/10

New civilizations are okay, but don't bother. Stick with the other DLC. The campaigns are totally unplayable, the triggers do not work and its just horrible. But let me lead you through step by step. Alarich campaign - quite fun to play, some broken triggers, so you might need to restart Dracula campaign - If you like 5 minutes intros without any spoken dialogue before you can start to play, you're good. Oh yeah, also some broken triggers, that might force you to restart an entire mission. Bari campaign - If you like sending your hero (not a random unit) back an forth to the same NPCs on a map multiple times, you're good! Oh yeah, also some broken triggers, that might force you to restart an entire mission. Sforza campaign - Quite fun to play, except for the complicated maps, that are too much your Units AI. "Just" some broken triggers. El Dorado campaign - Mission 2 cannot be finished due to broken triggers. I stopped playing at this point. Result: What a shame. While the other DLC are nice to play and not broken, this DLC is utter trash. Don't buy.

⭐⭐⭐★ ★ Nice new additions. Really wish there was some voice acting for the campaign though. 9/10.

its a good dlc as it gives you 4 new civs and one new upgrade for every civ and i think for some civs they get some other stuff to but the big minus is that the campain has no speech even during the game so if you like playing the AOE campains then you better ready to read ALOT during this DLCs campain

*note just pick up DE version of AOE 2 nowadays, HD Edition isn't the complete package anymore and it does a complete overhaul of the campaigns of The Forgotten. which is what this negative review is covering but I'll leave it here so others know about the issues that this dlc has* The Forgotten DLC has probably the best DLC civs to date, their all special and have very unique units/upgrades. But the biggest issue with this DLC isn't the Civs or the new modes, but the campaigns. They are very buggy and have a ton of issues, I don't mind they don't have voice acting compared to the other campaigns and that the enemy doesn't use normal resources (they get given pretty much unlimited resources), but the fact each update that comes out for AOE 2 breaks these campaigns even more. Its really hard to complete these levels now just due to the levels not working probably and that there is still balancing issues with them, I honestly really like the scenarios and the levels themselves but the fact that you can spend anywhere from 30 mins to an hour to complete one just for it to bug out in the end. Its just downright unacceptable for these campaigns to not be fixed for a long time now, they need to be updated and the bugs that are in them to be fix (also maybe add voice acting as its so strange to play them without hearing voice acting for the characters). Right now the only reason to pick up this DLC is for the very fun and unique civs, but sadly due to issues with the campaigns I just don't recommend paying full price for it. Wait for a discount if you want to buy it just for the civs, until then I don't think it worth its price tag until they fix the issues with this DLC.

[i]The review is written from single-player perspective.[/i] [h1]Short version: 65%[/h1] The Forgotten breathed new life to a ten-year old game and gave way for all the DLCs that made the HD edition so fun. Still, playing it, especially its campaigns, shows that this is still just a fan mod with a price tag. [h1]Long version:[/h1] This is the commercial version of the free [url=http://www.forgottenempires.net/install]Forgotten Empires[/url] mod, a fan-made project that managed to create some lasting waves in a decade-old game upon its release. For the most part, this DLC is the same product, only with some patches and seven proper campaigns that theoretically introduce the new game mechanics and civilisations. In practise, these campaigns are scenario scripting and map-beautification showcases with little regards to anything else. Apart from the a set of Conquerors-like missions, they are closer to lightweight isometric RPGs than actual real-time strategy. On top of that, they have no voiceover, almost every mission is full of script and trigger bugs, the pathfinding is abysmal, and many tasks are easy to exploit to the point of accidentally breaking objective sequences. For those who prefer random maps, The Forgotten fares better, since we get plenty of new civs and map types to play around, and many of the new technologies help with different kind of play styles. Thanks to this, even old players can find something new or rebalanced in it, offering something fresh and exciting to play.

It's been a really long time since any Age of Empires game has had attention. I'm glad they gave this one some, in particular, since this should serve as a substitute for the long-awaited Age of Empires IV, until such time as that can be released. Maybe never. Hopefully next year, or the year after that. But maybe, this will work. Plenty of new civilizations and campaigns to choose from, there is literally no reason to not have this. It's not even one of those modern-day DLCs that adds stuff that should be in the game but wasn't there for some reason. No, this was made entirely for HD, and I guarantee wasn't even conceived when the original game was under construction. It just adds a little flavor, not base content. And the result tastes really good. Mmm, food analogy.

Originally a mod for Age of Empires II: Conquerors, The Forgotten adds new units, civilizations, game modes and more. It's a rather unique situation, as the original game - Age of Empires II - was released nearly 15 years ago, getting an official DLC so many years later. Microsoft and Skybox Labs hired the original team behind the Forgotten mod to work on this addon which can be interpreted differently. I see that as Microsoft willing to give us as much of an addon they can, this late down the line. Looking from a fair perspective, this content pack does not add That much. A lot of people will consider the content sparse for it's price tag of 9€/$10, but I am personally blinded by my love for the original game and the very idea of getting to play new content for a 15 year old game. That does sadly make this review more of a fan's input, rather than an honest and neutral review. To be fair though, if you originally bought AOE2HD - a pretty niche title - you should already know what to expect out of this DLC. ([url=http://steamcommunity.com/id/mendozacheers/recommended/221380]Review of AOE2HD[/url]) The main addition are the 5 Civilizations; Italians, Indians, Slavs, Magyars and Incas. They cover some pretty interesting historical and geographical locations that can easily be related with the exisiting civilizations. All with new unique units, building textures and strength/weaknesses towards other civilizations. The textures look very similar to that of the originals, and you will have a hard time figuring out this was originally a mod. Everything is very well polished overall, something I was personally a bit afraid of before playing it. Only downside would be the Campaigns that did not capture me that well. Honestly the original campaigns probably would not either if it was not for the nostaliga playing them. They are much more advanced than the original campaign, since the modders have gathered techniques over the years. All the maps are much more compact and detailed, and they take much longer to complete. They are often more about 1 unit/hero making it through the map rather than base-building and army-training. [b]If you Love Age of Empires II, intrigued by the thought of 5 new Civilizations to play with online, or on LANs, this is an excellent addon. Not so much if you are a single-player only and were looking for just the campaign.[/b]