A Standard DLC provides a number of new civilizations and new campaigns. Below is an overview of all the Standard DLCs and what they have to offer. Since November 14, 2024, three of the DLCs below are free for everyone and part of the base game.


The new civilizations are playable in Multiplayer. You can play as the new civilizations against human opponents who don't have the DLC, and you can also get matched against them in ranked matchmaking. However, as the game is well balanced, this does not give you a competitive advantage. Even if a civilization is considered strong by online players at the moment, chances are it will get nerfed in the future.

You can't really go wrong with buying any of these DLCs. A good way to determine which ones you want to buy may be by simply looking up the new civilizations on the wiki[ageofempires.fandom.com] and go for the ones with the civilizations that appeal the most to you personally. If you are a campaign enjoyer, it is good for you to know that the campaigns from the Standard DLCs are all quite similar to each other in terms of quality.

If you have a DLC but don't want to play its civilizations when choosing to play as a Random civilization, you can (temporarily) disable the DLC as follows. Right click on Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition in your library, then go to 'Properties...' and to 'DLC', then unselect the DLC you want to disable.

With a New Game DLC you are essentially buying a new game that uses the Age of Empires II engine. This means that you get to play a game with its own civilizations and technology tree that are distinct from Age of Empires II, but that still has the same 'feel' as Age of Empires II. The New Game DLCs are the following.

Return of Rome is a remake of Age of Empires I that borrows many of its new mechanics, such as gates, from Age of Empires II. Though the remake does not feature all campaigns from classic Age of Empires I, it adds 3 entirely new Age of Empires II-style campaigns. You can also play Multiplayer in the remake, but since almost no one else is doing that, it is hard to get a game started.

In addition to providing a remake of Age of Empires I, this DLC also provides the Romans as a playable civilization to Age of Empires II. This civilization is distinct from the Age of Empires I-version of Romans. Just like the new civilizations from the Standard DLCs, the Romans can be played online, including in ranked play.

If you are the type of person who would consider buying Age of Empires I: Definitive Edition, then I recommend this DLC for you. If you are not that type of person, you might still want to buy this DLC for the new campaigns, or for the addition of the Romans civilization to Age of Empires II. However, in that case you could also just buy a Standard DLC instead, as they offer new campaigns and civilizations, too.

This DLC takes place in the classical period. Most of the base units in this DLC are re-skins of units from Age of Empires II, though there are also a number of additions to the technology tree that have no equivalent in Age of Empires II. The DLC provides three civilizations: Athenians, Spartans and Achaemenids.

This DLC provides one massive campaign in which you play as all of the aforementioned civilizations.

The civilizations from this DLC aren't necessarily meant to be balanced, and as such, you cannot play them in ranked Multiplayer. However, you can play them in lobby games, and even play them against civilizations from the base game, depending on what is chosen as 'Civilization Set' in the lobby:
- Age of Empires II: You cannot play the civilizations from this DLC.
- Chronicles: You can only play the civilizations from this DLC.
- All: You can play any civilization.

If you like Single Player content, you will probably like this DLC, especially if you are interested in the classical period.

A Cosmetic DLC provides only cosmetics and no gameplay. There are three Cosmetic DLCs, all of which provide a list of animated profile pictures:

• La Hire's Dry Humor Animated Icons
  
• Joan's Marvelous Moving Masterpieces Animated Icons
  
• Barbarossa's Barrel of Pickled Goods Animated Icons

Consider buying any of these DLCs if you want to support the developers.

This DLC provides single player content only in the form of campaign missions.

The campaigns from this DLC are in a different style than the campaigns from the base game and from Standard DLCs. The missions tend to be long, take place on very large maps, utilize novel mechanics, and often change the technology tree of the civilization you are playing as. The community is divided on this DLC. Some like the novelty and scale of the new campaigns. Others criticize them for being a slog to play through and argue that the DLC doesn't provide much new content for its price, at least compared to other DLCs. For this reason, even if you are only interested in single player content, it could still be the case that you will enjoy other DLCs more than this one.

This DLC allows you to listen to the game music without having the game open. This works in the same way as for other Steam games where you can buy the soundtrack.

It's free and allows you to play with enhanced graphics, if your computer can handle it.