So a few days, I've shared a screenshot of a scenario I'm currently working on (or more specifically a campaign; which unfortunately, I accidentally saving a blank map over the file, meaning I'm forced to start all over again). The campaign I'm working on is specifically about the Dharma Kings of the Tibetan Empire (Songtsen Gampo, Trisong Detsen, and Ralpacan). The reason why I decided to make a campaign about the Tibetan Empires is because I'm mostly disappointed that Tibetans will never be added into Age of Empires 2 (for starters, Age of Empires 2 is one of my favorite historical strategy games and I really wanted to see Tibetans added as a playable civ) since the devs confirmed there will be no new civs after the Definitive Edition release.

That being said, I'm still not going to give up on trying to convince the devs to get Tibetans as a playable civilization in Age of Empires 2. Sadly, the modding support in Definitive Edition is very disappointing, as there still isn't a way to add custom made civs via modding without replacing existing civilizations (not to mention that modifying unit and building graphics in Definitive Edition is much harder than in HD). However, the scenario editor features with the new triggers didn't disappoint me, as there are several new trigger conditions and effects that makes scenario design more enjoyable (such as manipulating tech tree, change civilization and player names, and the new variable system). With the new scenario editor features and the new central Asian civilizations, I find this as an opportunity to design a Tibetan campaign focusing on the three Dharma kings and the opportunity to show the Tibetan Empire's history. By showing medieval Tibetan history via the new scenario editor features and a campaign, I can at least show the devs the rich history of Tibet and why the Tibetans should be added as a playable civilization in Definitive Edition. I'm also planning to follow-up with an open letter after I finish designing the campaign.

That being said, there are other factors that might prevent the devs from adding Tibetans as a playable civilization (i.e. Chinese censorship laws or time constraints), but at the same time, Age of Empires 2 feels very empty without a well-known nomadic empire in the AoE2 time period around central Asia that is known as Tibet. That being said, I am open to ideas and suggestions with my scenario design and campaigns. Here are a few details on what I'm working on right now and my ideas on my scenarios and the campaign:

• The current campaign format is a five scenario campaign focusing on the Dharma kings, with 4 scenarios focusing on each of the Dharma Kings: 2 scenarios on Songtsen Gampo, 1 on Trisong Detsen, 1 on Ralpacan, and 1 somewhat unrelated to the Dharma Kings (currently the Battle of Talas is the unrelated scenario, which is relevant historically because the Tang defeat of the battle of Talas was one of the major factors of decline of the Tang's influence of central Asia alongside with An Lushan Rebellion; which in turn led to Trisong Detsen's military accomplishment of capturing the Tang dynasty's capital twice. Plus, the Tibetans were involved in the battle of Talas). Most of the scenarios are your typical "build and destroy" scenarios similar to several of the official campaigns, but I am doing some extra creative freedom (for example, the Ralpacan scenario involves the player that is only allowed to convert units with Monks and in harder difficulties, killing a unit will either penalize the player or result in an instant game over).
  • With that being said, I may also consider making three separate campaigns focusing on individual Dharma Kings of Tibet, with each with 3-4 scenarios, instead of having a single campaign that focuses on all three Dharma Kings. The advantage of this over my current format is this will allow me to tell more about the Tibetan Empire's history and will explore more scenario types than just build and destroy or fixed force scenarios such as RPG style scenarios or puzzle scenarios (the Tibetan Empire isn't just conquering nearby neighbors and other tribes, the Tibetans also was expanding the influence of Buddhism and Tibet as well diplomacy). However, this will involve a lot of researching of several Dharma Kings and may take longer for my campaign design.
• I'm also some getting some feedback and advice from /u/JimeDorje on portraying the history of the Tibetan Empire and the Dharma Kings (you may have recognize him for answering several of your questions in Age of Empires Media Mondays from the /r/AskHistorians subreddit). Although much like every Age of Empires 2 scenario, there is room for creativity and obvious historical inaccuracies (*cough, cough* using Byzantines and Persians as placeholder civs for Armenians and Georgians respectfully in the fifth Tamerlane scenario or the Into China scenario of the Genghis Khan campaign).
• For the placeholder civilization for the Tibetans, I'm currently using Tatars as the placeholder civilization for the Tibetans. The reason for this is because I imaged the Tibetan tech tree to be very similar to what the Tatars would have (except Tatars don't have Arbalests, Paladins, strong defensive structures, or having good Monks, but that's something that can be fixed with triggers), and the central Asian architecture set the Cumans and Tatars have reflect on what the Tibetans were like prior to the sinicization of the region (the Tibetan were once warlike nomads, even during the time of the Tibetan Empire when Buddhism was spreading into the region). Hence, this is why I think the Chinese civilization is a terrible placeholder civilization for the Tibetans (and not only that, using Chinese as a placeholder civ for Tibet fully acknowledges China's "Tibet is always part of China" viewpoint bullshit). That being said, I'm also open to other civilizations as placeholder civilizations for the Tibetans, so feel free to discuss your opinions on this.
• By average, I'm expecting my Tibetan campaign to be completed within a year or two (mainly because I'm pretty busy in real life as well and play other games) unless if I accidentally screw up like I mentioned earlier in this post.
• The "Tibetans" in my campaign will be playing will have their completely unique tech tree and unique perks when you research several unique techs (more or less thanks to the new trigger functions in the scenario editor). For example, researching Recurve Bow allow archers and cavalry archers shoot an extra projectile while Maghrabi Camels will also bestow HP regeneration for all cavalry units except Knights.
• My step by step plan for Project Tibet: 1) Design scenarios for the Dharma Kings campaign, 2) Showcase my updated civilization concept of the Tibetans (which will be done around the same time as step 1 so players can expect what the Tibetans will be like when playing the campaign), 3) If well received, write an open letter to the devs convincing them to add Tibetans in Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition (or at least allow modders to add custom made civs without replacing existing civs in AoE2:DE). If the campaign is badly received, then I'll go back to step 1 and redesign everything again.

Looking Back on my old Tibetan Civ Concept

About a year ago, I've shared a Tibetan civ concept in this subreddit (this is made long before the information of Definitive Edition was announced). That being said, after the negative feedback I got from the community, I kinda stopped doing civ concepts altogether.

That being said, after looking back in my old civ concept, I feel that my original civ concept of the Tibetans was poorly designed for three reasons:

• Lack of full understanding of the meta: One of the reasons why I threw in ridiculously OP and stupid civ bonuses such as Stable units gaining +1 pierce armor per age starting a Feudal Age (with a total of +3 in Imperial Age), thinking this will be strong enough of a civ bonus to justify Tibetans not having Bloodlines (and I've seen far worse civilization designs of the Tibetans, one person in Steam even looked into my original Tibetan civ concept and had the idea of trash Cavaliers with +3 pierce armor, something that I would even think about making a civ concept on since trash Knight units is very hard to balance around). After a discussion with other folks in the AoE2 community, I feel that Knights having +1 pierce armor while having access to fully upgradable Paladins (all Blacksmith techs and Husbandry) is enough justification to not give Tibetans Bloodlines (I even talked to Tatoh on stream a few days ago on his Twithc stream and this is something he agrees on). Here were my highlights on what my ideas were for the Tibetan civ when I designed the civ concept:
  • One of my main designs of the Tibetans for the player to fully commit into cavalry units without having access to Bloodlines (currently in the AoE2 meta, Franks is the only civilization that fully commit into cavalry without Bloodlines, and that is because they have their own pseudo-Bloodlines with +20% HP for cavalry units as a civ bonus. And even so, Paladin is the only cavalry unit that the Franks commit to in the lategame because 192 HP Paladins is pretty strong). That being said, I also wanted the Tibetans to make other cavalry units their army compositions (more specifically, committing into cavalry archers without Bloodlines in the lategame as an option)
  • I also wanted the Tibetans gameplay wise to lose horribly to the Goths lategame, which is reflected on them having bad infantry and no Hand Cannoneers. That being said, having civilizations lose horribly to the Goths lategame really depends if you see this as a good or bad civ design and may vary from player to player (and we know Mayans and Malay lose hard to the Goth's lategame Huskarl and infantry spam). I use Goths as a measurement of comparing civilizations lategame, but then realize that there are too many factors in the meta that can measure to definite a "lategame" civilization (i.e. 1v1, map type, teamgame, etc.), so using Goths as a measurement of judging civilizations in the lategame is a poor comparison meta and gameplay wise.
• Stubbornness: Another factor on why I think my original design of the Tibetan civilization is my own stubbornness. I had many disagreements with other players whether or not my ideas were balanced or not. The community is more or less too focused on the extra pierce armor thing on Stable units when I wanted to showcase other uniqueness of my Tibetan civilization concept (i.e. their unique unit being a light cavalry that have dual functionality of healing nearby units like a Monk and being a combat light cavalry unit at the same time, a unique feature that most units in Age of Mythology and Age of Empires 3 have (i.e. the Egyptian Priest unit) in Age of Mythology). I try to argue that the pierce armor bonus was balanced with Halberdiers countering Paladins without Bloodlines while the community disagree. In the end, the community was right. If I had readjusted the civ bonus to be something like Knights +1 pierce armor, the community would have focused on other aspects of the Tibetan civ concept such as unique techs, unique units, and tech tree. In the end, I should probably be more open to the community's suggestion rather than trying to defend a civ bonus that was broken.
• Too focused on trying to balance historical accuracy and gameplay, with too much emphasis on historical accuracy: Another reason why my original civ concept was pretty bad because I was too focused on historical accuracy and gameplay. Then I remembered how the Chinese civilization was designed and looked at their tech tree. A lot of historians may scratch their heads thinking why the Chinese in AoE2 don't have Hand Cannoneers, Bombard Cannons, and Block Printing (the well-known inventions of China) while from a gameplay perspective, it makes more sense. The Chinese in AoE2 is a well-rounded jack of all trades civilization with a strong unique unit (Chu Ko Nu) that is hard to deal if massed up. From a historical perspective, having the Chinese not having Hand Cannoneers, Bombard Cannons, and Block Printing makes little to no sense, but from a pro player perspective the Chinese is a well-balanced civilization. Likewise, from a historical perspective, having extra pierce armor for cavalry units that scale in age make reasonable sense because the Tibetan Empire was known to use cavalry units that wore lots of armor. But from a gameplay perspective, having +1 armor on Knights while having access to FU Paladins is enough justification for not giving them Bloodlines (and FYI, I've also shared my civ concept to JimeDorje to him and he did gave me a B+ on historical accuracy of the Tibetans :P).

That being said, I do plan to rework my original Tibetan civ concept that would fit into the Definitive Edition standards and reshare it in the subreddit. With that being said, the reworked Tibetan civ concept that I will share later on will be the "tech tree" you will see in my Tibetan campaign and I will be open to feedback in terms of gameplay and ideas. That being said, there are some trigger functions and modding where some of my civ bonuses and ideas may not be possible (i.e. the unique unit "combat medic" light cavalry, +1 pierce armor for Knights without giving them extra melee armor, a unique tech where successful conversion with a Monk cost 50% of faith gauge, a team bonus that gives everyone a unique tech, etc.), but I'll try to get other functions such as unique techs to work through triggers in the scenario editor (I think you can use triggers to have "placeholder" unique techs and when the said tech is researched, you can also triggers to activate another effect). I also want the Tibetans to be as unique as possible in my civ concept design, showing the devs the creativity and the uniqueness from the AoE2 community that may convince to consider adding Tibetans as a playable civilization in the near future. Every cavalry civilization have their own uniqueness in Age of Empires 2. I think every Definitive Edition civilization (Cumans, Lithuanians, Tatars, and Bulgarians) introduced are the most uniquely designed civilizations as of this date and probably look into their designs to see how I can make my Tibetans civ concept to stand out even more.

Feel free to share your thoughts and ideas on the Tibetan scenario and campaign in regards to their history and such; as well as thoughts and ideas for Tibetan civ concept.