Tim and Jack sit down with Ben Angel, narrative lead for Age of Empires 2 Chronicles, to explore how his team approaches story-driven campaign design within RTS constraints, discussing the balance between historical authenticity and engaging gameplay while examining why single-player campaigns remain the silent majority of RTS players.
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This episode features an in-depth conversation with Ben Angel, narrative lead and designer on Age of Empires 2 Chronicles DLCs, covering the challenges of creating character-driven narratives within RTS limitations, the design philosophy behind varying difficulty levels that fundamentally change gameplay rather than just adjusting numbers, and how historical authenticity differs from strict accuracy. The discussion explores pitch battle design challenges, the persistent misconception about RTS demographics where competitive multiplayer represents a vocal minority while campaign and skirmish players form the silent majority, and why the genre’s apparent death was actually publishers ignoring their existing audience. Ben shares insights from his ancient history PhD background, his work on Anno 117 at Ubisoft, and his vision for future narrative-focused strategy content beyond ancient settings.
Critical Moves Podcast Episode 58 Show Notes
Episode Title: Ben Angel on Age of Empires 2 Chronicles: Narrative Design in RTS
Hosts: Tim, Jack
Guest: Ben Angel (Narrative Lead, Age of Empires 2 Chronicles)
Episode Length: ~72 minutes
Episode Summary
The episode examines how Ben Angel and his team brought narrative-focused campaign design to Age of Empires 2 through the Chronicles DLC series, challenging conventional RTS design assumptions. Ben explains how his PhD in ancient history informs historically authentic rather than strictly accurate storytelling, discusses the technical and creative challenges of adapting pitch battles to AoE2’s engine, and reveals data showing campaign players vastly outnumber competitive multiplayer users despite being less visible in online communities. The conversation covers difficulty design philosophy where lower settings provide defensive resources while higher difficulties remove them entirely, the role of community content in maintaining game longevity, and why the RTS genre’s decline resulted from publishers ignoring their existing audience rather than players abandoning the genre.
Narrative Challenges in RTS Design
Radio Play Advantages Over Cutscene-Heavy Games
Ben identifies RTS games’ omnipotent perspective as an opportunity rather than limitation for narrative delivery. Characters can engage in dialogue while gameplay continues, avoiding the cutscene-gameplay-cutscene rhythm that removes players from interactive experiences. Alexander and Darius trash-talking across battlefields works through RTS conventions where physical proximity doesn’t constrain communication. This approach maintains player agency while delivering character development and plot advancement simultaneously.
The format enables scenarios impossible in other genres. Two commanders separated by miles conducting verbal exchanges feels natural within RTS abstraction, creating dramatic tension without interrupting player control. Ben contrasts this with modern narrative games requiring extensive cutscene watching between gameplay segments, arguing RTS can integrate story and play more seamlessly.
Creating Specificity from Generic Systems
The writer’s primary challenge involves transforming identical pre-rendered assets into story-specific elements. Every supply cart arriving at Alexander’s fleet receives unique flavor text mentioning arrows fletched with eagle feathers or specific weapon types rather than generic “supplies arrived” notifications. This specificity creates narrative texture from functionally identical game events.
Ben emphasizes this as the narrative designer’s core responsibility—injecting distinctive detail into systems designed for mechanical rather than storytelling purposes. A barracks producing identical units can represent different military cultures, training philosophies, or historical contexts through writing that contextualizes generic mechanics within specific narrative frameworks.
Chronicles DLC Design Philosophy
Narrative Through Gameplay Restrictions
The Alexander campaign opens with three scenarios where players serve under King Philip’s authority, mechanically reinforcing Alexander’s subordinate position through gameplay limitations. The fourth scenario removes these restrictions when Alexander becomes king, confronting players with sudden freedom and responsibility that mirrors the historical pressure of unexpected kingship. Gameplay structure communicates character arc more effectively than dialogue alone could achieve.
Jack notes how the DLC subverts Age of Empires conventions by limiting rather than expanding player options, creating scenario-specific experiences that serve narrative purposes. The second mission’s ambush scenario provides villagers but prevents building construction, forcing resource gathering under pressure rather than enabling standard base establishment. These restrictions feel contextually appropriate rather than arbitrarily limiting because they emerge from historical scenarios.
Variety Over Formula
Ben rejects the traditional RTS campaign structure of sequential skirmish matches on pre-made maps as insufficient for 2025 expectations. Chronicles includes city-builder mechanics with district placement, moving base scenarios, and political gameplay where reelection rather than enemy defeat determines success. This approach mirrors games like Titanfall 2 introducing temporary mechanics for single levels, prioritizing experience variety over mechanical consistency.
The team conducts cost-benefit analysis for each scenario’s complexity, predicting development time and potential bugs against gameplay value. Some scenarios prove more intensive than anticipated, but accumulated experience improves prediction accuracy. The accessible scenario editor—the same tool available publicly since 1999—enables experienced designers to execute ambitious concepts despite technical constraints.
Historical Authenticity vs Accuracy
PhD-Informed Flexibility
Ben distinguishes between historical accuracy and authenticity, preferring the latter as his design guideline. Strict accuracy would produce unengaging experiences—the Battle of Salamis consisted of ships ramming each other, which wouldn’t translate to AoE2’s dock-building ship-production mechanics. The medium requires adaptation, and authenticity focuses on capturing historical essence rather than literal recreation.
Ancient sources present additional complications. Alexander the Great’s primary sources were written centuries after his death, leaving massive documentation gaps and personality uncertainties. Ben’s rule involves avoiding direct source contradictions while using imagination to fill unavoidable gaps. The result should feel plausibly true and capture history’s essence without claiming comprehensive accuracy.
Ancient Values Over Modern Morality
Ben consciously avoids the common popularization approach of making ancients relatable through modern value systems. The ancient world was genuinely strange and different, and Chronicles embraces rather than minimizes this foreignness. Characters think within ancient frameworks—they’re uniformly religious, concerned with honor codes more prevalent in ancient societies, and reference the Iliad as their cultural touchstone.
The Alexander campaign initially appears structured as familiar Disney-style “young person seeking recognition” narrative before revealing itself as Sophoclean tragedy operating under ancient rather than contemporary moral logic. Players commit terrible acts through ancient value systems rather than modern ethical frameworks. This approach creates more interesting historical fiction than projecting contemporary sensibilities onto fundamentally different cultures.
Difficulty Design Beyond Number Adjustments
Fundamental Gameplay Changes Across Difficulties
Chronicles’ difficulty settings transform gameplay experiences rather than merely adjusting resource multipliers or AI aggression. Standard difficulty (actually the easy setting despite confusing nomenclature) provides relaxed pacing with sufficient resources for comfortable play. Moderate represents Ben’s personal benchmark—challenging but not requiring “sweaty micro nerd” skills. Hard removes defensive resources entirely, forcing active unit production over passive castle defense.
Lower difficulties might require capturing fewer simultaneous objectives because less skilled players struggle with multitasking. A scenario demanding control of multiple river crossings might require holding three simultaneously on hard but only two sequentially on standard. This accommodates different player capabilities without reducing challenge to simple numerical advantages.
Resource Distribution Philosophy
Stone availability illustrates design philosophy differences across difficulties. Lower skill players receive abundant stone for walls and castles, enabling passive defense through building placement. Hard removes map stone entirely, requiring active unit composition and tactical positioning for defense. Each difficulty targets specific player preferences—some want relaxed city-building experiences while others seek intense tactical challenges.
Ben serves as the moderate difficulty benchmark. When he confirms a scenario works at moderate difficulty, that establishes the standard for players wanting challenge without requiring competitive-level micro-management. This personal testing approach ensures difficulty settings reflect actual player experiences rather than theoretical balance assumptions.
Pitch Battle Design Challenges
Multiple Approaches to Single Battles
Alexander’s famous battles—Chaeronea, Granicus, Issus, Hydaspes, Gaugamela—receive different mechanical treatments because pitch battles fundamentally conflict with AoE2’s campaign-focused pacing. Chaeronea uses standard build-and-destroy on battlefield-styled terrain with players controlling one army wing. Marathon focuses on force gathering across Attica before brief final battle engagement, making preparation rather than combat the primary gameplay.
Gaugamela employs wave defense with Darius’s massive forces flooding toward player positions, representing overwhelming numerical superiority through mechanical pressure. Granicus adopts Total War-style control without building construction, focusing on Alexander’s cavalry flank maneuvers. This variety acknowledges that no single approach perfectly translates historical battles to AoE2’s systems.
The team balances experimental approaches against AoE2’s proven gameplay loop. The Granicus scenario lasts approximately twenty minutes—engaging and cinematic but too limited for extended play. Most scenarios must incorporate base building and resource management because those systems define why players enjoy Age of Empires fundamentally.
The RTS Audience Misconception
Silent Single-Player Majority
Ben’s access to World’s Edge data reveals that campaign players overwhelmingly prefer standard (easy) difficulty, the competitive multiplayer community represents a vocal minority, and massive player populations never touch ranked play. Many players exclusively engage with skirmish matches against AI or campaign content. These demographics remain invisible in online forums and community discussions, creating false impressions about player preferences.
Publishers misread this dynamic throughout the 2000s, pursuing multiplayer-focused designs that accelerated gameplay and deemphasized campaign content. This ignored the actual audience—people who enjoy RTS games as relaxing city-building experiences or narrative-driven single-player adventures. The genre’s apparent death resulted from ignoring existing players rather than players abandoning the genre.
Jack connects this pattern to Heroes of Might and Magic and Sudden Strike franchises, where decade-long gaps between installments reflected publishers chasing industry trends rather than serving established audiences. Ubisoft’s 2015 Heroes of Might and Magic installment failed because it pursued broader market trends instead of franchise-specific strengths.
Why Age of Empires Endured
AoE2’s longevity stems from serving multiple audiences simultaneously—strong launch campaigns drew initial players, fun skirmish modes provided casual play, and competitive multiplayer satisfied esports enthusiasts. The accessible scenario editor enabled community-created content extending the game’s life through user-generated campaigns and maps. Games like Warcraft 3 demonstrate how mod support creates lasting engagement decades after release.
Ben argues that modern games seeking similar longevity must accommodate diverse play styles rather than optimizing for single audiences. Some players approach AoE2 as city-builders, which might seem inefficient but represents legitimate player expression. Rejecting these approaches limits potential audiences and reduces games’ cultural staying power.
Development Background and Future Vision
From Ancient History PhD to Game Writing
Ben’s career trajectory began with Age of Empires 1 at age six, leading to ancient history academic specialization and eventually game writing at Ubisoft on Anno 117. Chronicles originated from the Rome at War mod for AoE2, which caught World’s Edge’s attention and evolved into official DLC through partnerships between the mod team, Capture Age studio, and new hires including Ben.
AoE2 was the natural platform due to existing mod foundation, experienced community members with scenario editor expertise, and the game’s continued support alongside AoE4. The two titles serve different audiences under simultaneous development by separate studios rather than AoE4 replacing its predecessor.
Aspirations Beyond Ancient Settings
While Ben’s niche currently centers on ancient period content across Chronicles and Anno 117, his personal writing style favors modern British dark humor over grand ancient epics. He envisions future projects featuring strong character focus, sophisticated English-language dialogue avoiding cliché, and distinctively dry British comedic sensibility—a “personal crusade” given modern gaming’s tendency toward certain narrative styles.
Ben expresses interest in hypothetical Red Alert 4 development, citing Red Alert 2’s exemplary campaign and Red Alert 3’s impressive actor roster (Jonathan Price, J.K. Simmons) as inspiration. His ultimate design vision combines Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War’s hero mode and massive scale with innovative fantasy settings like Rise of Legends’ creative faction designs (steampunk Renaissance Italy, Arabian Nights mythology, Mesoamerican space laser aliens).
Rise and Fall as Unrealized Potential
Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War represents what RTS could have become before genre hibernation according to Ben. The F1 hero mode enabling Mount and Blade-style direct character control, massive walls, and Total War-approaching army scales hinted at design possibilities the industry abandoned. The game’s development shutdown before completion resulted in janky release despite strong conceptual foundation.
Ben’s ideal RTS would combine Age of Empires resource gathering and base building with armies approaching Total War scale, featuring three-layer AI systems (general, tactical, unit-level) executing player strategy without micro-management requirements. Fantasy settings would avoid high fantasy clichés, instead creating visually unique historically-inspired worlds enabling diverse design possibilities.
Persistent Choices and Branching Limitations
Production Reality vs Ideal Design
Chronicles introduced persistent choices affecting later campaign scenarios, departing from traditional AoE2 where each level exists as self-contained experience. However, full branching narratives proved impractical—creating alternative levels that only 50% of players experience contradicted production constraints. The grandfather paradox emerges when players replay earlier scenarios making different choices then jump to later unlocked levels, creating temporal inconsistencies.
This represents broader tension between ideal narrative design and practical development realities. RPGs enable branching through single persistent save files while RTS discrete level structures allow temporal jumping that breaks narrative continuity. The team settled for consequence-carrying choices without full alternative scenario creation.
Alexander’s Sexuality and Character Complexity
Deliberate Ambiguity Over Definitive Statements
Ben approached Alexander’s sexuality through ancient source analysis rather than contemporary assumptions. Plutarch portrayed Alexander as sexually abstinent, possibly viewing conquest and glory as substitutes for physical relationships. This “bit weird about sex” characterization informed Ben’s Alexander as somewhat above “mortal rutting”—conquest satisfies urges others fulfill sexually.
The comparison to Anthony Hopkins’ William Bligh in The Bounty provided character template—both men remain weirdly removed while subordinates engage physically, prioritizing duty and military concerns over carnal matters. Hephaestion’s relationship with Alexander remains deliberately ambiguous, readable as devoted friendship or romantic partnership without definitive resolution.
Hephaestion functions primarily as Alexander’s disciple rather than lover, consistently encouraging grandiose ambitions and pretensions. His narrative role involves bringing out Alexander’s most extreme aspirations rather than providing romantic subplot. Ben acknowledges definitive evidence lacks clarity, making ambiguity the most historically honest approach.
Genre Limitations and Opportunities
Military Focus Constrains Personal Narratives
RTS scenarios requiring military content means fascinating non-combat aspects of Alexander’s life receive cutscene treatment or omission entirely. The genre’s mechanical requirements limit what stories translate to playable scenarios, focusing exclusively on warfare despite historical figures’ broader activities.
Ben notes this creates challenge for narrative designers—interesting character moments and political maneuvering often occur away from battlefields, but AoE2 scenarios must center military engagement. The solution involves integrating character development into military scenarios through dialogue, objective design, and contextual framing rather than separate personal sequences.
Publisher Dynamics and Creative Freedom
World’s Edge Decision-Making Authority
While Ben maps potential future Chronicles DLCs, ultimate decisions rest with World’s Edge based on community demand and commercial viability. The Battle for Greece DLC logically opened classical era coverage, with Alexander the Great as obvious sequel choice requiring no publisher convincing due to universal name recognition.
Comprehensive classical history coverage would require decades of continuous development—Ben jokes about dying of old age before reaching Punic Wars content. Publisher priorities balance community desires against realistic development scope, acknowledging impossibility of satisfying every historical period preference.
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Episode Verdict
This episode provides rare insight into narrative-focused RTS development through Ben Angel’s practical experience balancing historical authenticity, gameplay variety, and difficulty accessibility. His distinction between authenticity and accuracy offers useful framework for historical games generally, while data confirming single-player campaigns’ dominance challenges persistent industry assumptions about RTS demographics. The discussion of difficulty design as fundamental gameplay transformation rather than numerical adjustment demonstrates sophisticated approach to accessibility without compromising depth. Ben’s vision for character-driven narratives within traditionally mechanics-focused genres suggests potential directions for strategy gaming’s continued evolution beyond ancient settings into diverse tonal and thematic territory.
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