It's ok.
I don't care about the civ changes to the Persians or the architecture changes. They're nice but it's not what I want to talk about.

This is an ok DLC campaign expansion. You've got three campaigns with five missions each. You've got some nice throwbacks with old AoC characters which I appreciated (even if they're traitorous snakes). Beautiful map designs, great voice-acting. Those areas of this DLC I have absolutely zero issue.

But, you are not going to be challenged at all by the AI in this expansion. I ran through on Hard and by the time this game released to this review a couple days later all three were beaten by attack moving 30-40 cav at a time to the objective.

Maps are resource rich, you will never suffer for gold or stone. Your losses mean nothing and with all the gold laying around you're never going to be punished for throwing your men away. You can quite literally make any unit you want in these campaigns available to you and just tidal wave that one unit every mission in all three campaigns.

AI rarely attacks and when it does it's reminiscent of AoK ai. Minimal waves spread out with anywhere a dozen to two dozen units per wave.

Some missions were nice, and should have been historical missions so they could have been fleshed out, like the 4th Thoros mission (crestfallen waves). You load in tasked with clearing Byzantine docks around Cyprus while dealing with two enemy ais on Cyprus itself. You're given two allies but functionally just one doing anything. In between fending off the AIyou can theoretically raid the civilian inhabitants to get extra resources. Big map, lots of enemies, theoretically it'll be a challenge to defend yourself on land and go on the water to finish the objective..right?

Wrong, AI rarely attacks you or your AI companion. Naval AI occasionally sends fire ships to your docks. It's quite literally make 10-15 galleons and 2-3 dromon and finish the mission in fifteen to twenty minutes. IT started off looking amazing and then felt incomplete as I played through it. This feeling is on every single mission in this DLC.

I don't know what happened with the developers here or if one or two were working on each campaign, but I think it would have been better to just have one or two campaigns that had actual depth versus the three "wide and as deep as a puddle" campaigns that we have currently.

4/10. Buy in a seasonal sale when it's discounted.

It's ok. I don't care about the civ changes to the Persians or the architecture changes. They're nice but it's not what I want to talk about. This is an ok DLC campaign expansion. You've got three campaigns with five missions each. You've got some nice throwbacks with old AoC characters which I appreciated (even if they're traitorous snakes). Beautiful map designs, great voice-acting. Those areas of this DLC I have absolutely zero issue. But, you are not going to be challenged at all by the AI in this expansion. I ran through on Hard and by the time this game released to this review a couple days later all three were beaten by attack moving 30-40 cav at a time to the objective. Maps are resource rich, you will never suffer for gold or stone. Your losses mean nothing and with all the gold laying around you're never going to be punished for throwing your men away. You can quite literally make any unit you want in these campaigns available to you and just tidal wave that one unit every mission in all three campaigns. AI rarely attacks and when it does it's reminiscent of AoK ai. Minimal waves spread out with anywhere a dozen to two dozen units per wave. Some missions were nice, and should have been historical missions so they could have been fleshed out, like the 4th Thoros mission (crestfallen waves). You load in tasked with clearing Byzantine docks around Cyprus while dealing with two enemy ais on Cyprus itself. You're given two allies but functionally just one doing anything. In between fending off the AIyou can theoretically raid the civilian inhabitants to get extra resources. Big map, lots of enemies, theoretically it'll be a challenge to defend yourself on land and go on the water to finish the objective..right? Wrong, AI rarely attacks you or your AI companion. Naval AI occasionally sends fire ships to your docks. It's quite literally make 10-15 galleons and 2-3 dromon and finish the mission in fifteen to twenty minutes. IT started off looking amazing and then felt incomplete as I played through it. This feeling is on every single mission in this DLC. I don't know what happened with the developers here or if one or two were working on each campaign, but I think it would have been better to just have one or two campaigns that had actual depth versus the three "wide and as deep as a puddle" campaigns that we have currently. 4/10. Buy in a seasonal sale when it's discounted.