izigame.me

I seldom have mixed feelings about AoE 2 DE content, I either love it, or hate it. These feelings usually come in the form my reaction to what is brought before me, regardless of the type of content which is why I could love a Civilization, but absolutely loathe a map they are strong in, for example.
With that premise in mind I'd like to share my thoughts on the DLC, and what it brought to the table.
The things I love(d):
1. The new Civilizations.
Great in concept, great in reality, all three Civs have introduced new (and for many, older and reluctant to change and innovation players) scary mechanics, never seen in the game before, such as the Ratha Unique Unit, or the Wootz steel tech. (which is VERY scary to face) With those in mind and all the other additions to the game thanks to these new civs, I can say the DLC is a banger and opens a lot of possibilities and roads for diversified yet consistent gameplay. This is healthy, great job devs.
2. The changes to the game.
Addressing feedback from the community, both at the top and at the bottom of the ladder is a tricky situation to handle and sometimes you face the hurdle of the majority of the playerbase trashing on you because one pro did one thing and suddenly their favourite thing is gone. If League of Legends (10+ million players at its peak) managed to climb such a mountain, so could the Forgotten Empires team, and they did.
-Attack Move exploit Fixed (maybe a bit too well haha)
-KOTD4 Arabia removed (Sorry memb, but that map got really boring really fast, despite forging people in fire.)
-Improvements to Melee unit pathing with attack move etc...
While it's true that you could argue that these changes are not related to the DLC, they certainly are, as the patch came in bundled with it and this patch took a long time to polish and make sure it worked as it should.

Now for the bads, which aren't many, but hey.
1.The Campaigns.
This is a thorn in my side because the effort and dedication of map makers and scripters and Campaign devs IS ENORMOUS and it really pains me to say that I did not enjoy the campaigns.
The stories they tell are GREAT, I love them and I really find them to be pleasant and engaging.
The gameplay however, is decently frustrating and unfortunately not up to par to previous campaigns.
In terms of mechanics, uniqueness and flexibility the campaigns in the Dynasties of India DLC are severely inferior to the Lords of the West and Dawn of the Dukes campaigns:
One mission of the Hauteville Campaign in example had more mechanics than the whole Dravidian Campaign, ouch.
The Campaign AI (I played on Hard) quite blatantly cheats and/or is given a huge advantage over the player in all possible given ways, either with infinite population or resources or with really annoying map cheating, which is definitely not a new thing, but in previous DLC campaigns it was either really veiled, or not present (very noticeable in AoC campaigns for comparison's sake.)
So overall no, because of the clunkiness of certain mechanics (Mission 4 Dravidians having to be in a town to use it is no bueno) and the frustrating and not so engaging gameplay which timers aren't meant to have you enjoy a fun storytelling experience, but rather a sluggish slog through the mud of GRINDY GAMEPLAY I can't say I can recommend the Campaigns of this DLC. At least not at the hardest difficulty. Just enjoy them at moderate to avoid pointless mental fatigue.
Saving grace: The Davepala Campaign. Given its lesser level of difficulty as a whole, the story and gameplay are quite fitting and the experience is pleasant albeit devoid of unusual mechanics (I will quote again the Hauteville campaign as a benchmark)
Babur's wasn't bad either, but nothing special or very remarkable.
All in all I can't not Recommend the DLC, it's good and everyone that worked on it deserves a lot of credit and love, despite my harsh criticism. Just don't go in and expect campaigns to stomp Jadwiga's or the Hauteville's.

EDIT JUL 28 2022:
Changed the review from positive to Negative.
The total lack of response from the dev team has been nothing short of appalling.
The released Civs (which as I said before, are interesting and I like the mechanics introduced) are EXTREMELY unbalanced; The Bengali are the worst Civ ever added to the game, sporting the lowest winrate% in just 3 months since their release, while the Gurjaras are literally PAY TO WIN, being the strongest most broken faction ever added to the game. But what is really baffling is that in THREE MONTHS, T H R E E, the devs have completely IGNORED the players that have been calling for changes and fixes. For the first time ever I've witnessed to Pay to win being added to a RTS game, and it is sapping my enjoyement out of it because I'd rather resign than play another match on the ladder vs Gurjaras knowing that I won't learn anything from losing to a possibly worse player that just needs to change which button they press from the stable to win vs me. Or make 4 chakram throwers and kill my 25 pikemen in 3 volleys.
When Lords of the west came out, both the Burgundians and the Sicilians were nerfed instantly the moment both the community and pros demanded changes to OP aspects of the civ. Here we are, still waiting for Bengali not to be a waste of space and Gurjara to not be the abomination of design that they are. Get a grip.