Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Return of Rome (DLC)

Return of Rome is a DLC expansion for Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition that does something genuinely interesting: it transplants Age of Empires 1 civilizations and gameplay systems into the more polished, better-supported AoE2 engine. The result is not simply a texture pack or a nostalgia cash-in. You get Ancient-era civilizations like Rome, Greece, Macedon, and Palmyra competing within a reworked tech tree that strips out the familiar AoE2 Imperial Age progression and replaces it with a tool-age-to-iron-age structure. If you grew up grinding through the original AoE1 campaigns and always wished the pathfinding was not a complete disaster, this is the answer you did not know you were waiting for. From a mechanics standpoint, the AoE1 civilizations play noticeably differently from the base AoE2 roster. Resource gathering rates, unit stat profiles, and the absence of certain AoE2 quality-of-life features (queue farming, some automation) are adjusted to reflect that earlier design philosophy. Decision-making is front-loaded: your build order coming out of the Stone Age matters more than in later-period AoE2 because your economic and military windows are tighter. The 8 included civilizations each carry distinct unit rosters and bonuses, so the strategic variation is real rather than cosmetic. Players who treat every match like an optimization problem will find enough asymmetry to keep theory-crafting alive for a long time. For newcomers to the whole franchise, the onboarding situation is worth addressing directly. Yes, this is technically a DLC, which means you need AoE2: DE as the base game. But that base game is one of the better-tutorialized strategy titles available, and Return of Rome layers in its own campaign missions covering civilizations and battles from antiquity. The 229 total campaign missions across the full product (base plus DLC) mean there is a massive structured progression path rather than a sudden drop into multiplayer ranked queues. A player who starts with the tutorial, works through the Joan of Arc or William Wallace campaigns in the base game, and then transitions into the Roman or Greek campaigns here will accumulate real mechanical fluency before ever touching a skirmish match. That is a legitimate beginner path, not a workaround. The weaker spots are worth naming. The DLC civilization count is 8, which sits thin compared to some AoE2 expansions that add double-digit civs. The AI for skirmish and campaign scenarios is serviceable but not sophisticated enough to teach you optimal play at higher difficulty brackets. Competitive multiplayer for the Return of Rome mode is a smaller pool than standard AoE2 ranked, so queue times can stretch depending on your skill bracket and time zone. Mod support exists via the same in-game editor and workshop infrastructure as AoE2: DE, which is a genuine asset, but most of the active modding community still concentrates on the Medieval-era content. The Steam review score of 95% positive across a very large sample is a reliable signal here. The base game plus this DLC represents close to 300 hours of structured content before you even count multiplayer or mod scenarios. If you want to understand why 1990s RTS design was so influential, and you want to do it inside an engine that actually respects your time, this package delivers that without requiring you to tolerate ancient interface friction. Diego, Scout Team