Han Chinese are one single huge ethnic group. And throughout most of history Chinese were a single united entity and slowly assimilated neighbours.
That’s why most games set on china are based on three kingdom period (ancient age) where three dynasties were fighting and Chinese culture had not yet assimilated it’s neighbours. But in AoE2 medieval age Chinese is one civ and cannot be split. It’s United ever since the unification in Ancient Age.
It is like this:
You cannot have Indians and Tamils in a single game because Tamils are Indians.
You cannot have Germans and Europeans in a game because Germans are Europeans
But you can have Chinese and Tibetans in a single game because both are different things, they don’t overlap.
You can only add civs from East Asia not split Chinese.
People comparing Indians umbrella civ with Chinese are just ignorant. They are looking at only the population and continent without giving a second thought.
I agree that China should be one civ, but not because of China had always had one single ethnic group, but because of simplicity’s sake. The concept of a unified Han ethnic group was created very recently, well outside of the time period covered by the game. For a very long time in history the Han (or Huaxia to be more exact) only referred to those living on the Central Plains, whereas those in the north, south, east, and west of the Central Plains weren’t considered as Huaxia, even if they were under the rule of a Central Plain dynasty.
Ok, I think we need to stop talking about ethnic groups and geopolitics, and focus on the balance aspects of my proposed civs instead.
Indeed I am referring to the Central Planes as the Chinese. Kingdoms around them are different people and need their own civs. But that doesn’t mean we are splitting the Chinese civ.
Am just annoyed with all people comparing Indians directly with Chinese who are ignorant of both these Asian world. Indians are more comparable to Europeans. Imagine if you have a civ called Europeans as one civ, that’s what is Indians. Modern day boundaries of China is not encompassing only Chinese, it is covering other people as well. But AoE2 is a medieval era game and modern day boundaries mean nothing.
I would certainly love to see the Jurchens, Tibetans and T(h)ais added to the game. I like your civ ideas.
Slavs have “Slavs”(=Russians) and Bulgarians
HRE have (I guess you meant that) Italians, Burgundians and Teutons.
Indians have nothing other than one civ.
Yes the case of Indians is comparable with Slavs case but bigger in scale. Atleast they have some variants to kind of cover their three main regions. East(russian speaking Slavs), West(Magyar(winged huszars) and Lithuanian) and South(Bulgarians)
Teutons are a military order (it is not umbrella of different cultures), and we already have two German speaking civs in the game.
I’d like to see a Jurchen or Khitan civ too, but as we already have the Mongols, the Huns, the Cumans, and the Tatars, I fail to see how we can make them different from the aforementioned civs.
Tibetans would probably face censorship from the Chinese government, Tangut is a much safer option in my opinion.
Thais should definitely be added to the game, but to be historically accurate it’s better to call them Siamese.
It will be better to fix all those overlaps with the vanilla civs in your civ ideas as mentioned by @CheshireWig3203 . If you look at the civ designs of AoE2 carefully, you will notice none of the bonuses is repeated twice. So think of something new and innovative. Almost each and every bonus has to be made unique.
Tai Kingdoms (Purple, Orange, Blue and Green) ruled the most part of Southeast Asia at 1400 CEST.
In my opinion you can make them different. Both Jurchens and Khitans were famous thanks to their metallurgy and armor. I haven’t finished my Khitan civilization, but I think the Jurchen one is different from aoe2’s nomad civs.
They can train water buffalos from Mills (maximum 20, 30W cost) Tartars can feel a bit similar, but they are a broken civ and we can expect them to lose one sheep. Also this is not free, but very effective in the early game compared to Farms
Extra melee armor on Steppe Lancers - Why not? They are an “armored civ”
Armor technologies are merged - This saves resources and gives a better transition
Extra pierce armor on gunpowder units -The first nomadic gunpowder civ
Iron Pagoda Unique Unit
Good Heavy Cavalry (Nomadic civ without Hussars), Cavalry Archers and Gunpowder)
Water buffalos are found in Southern China and SE Asia, while Jurchens hailed from Manchuria, I don’t think allowing them to train water buffaloes from mills makes too much sense, perhaps allowing them to train boars from mills would be more appropriate, since it’s known that the Jurchens (and other Tungusic tribes) raised boars, ate their flesh, and made coats out of their leather and fat to protect against cold.
But I agree with the rest of what you said, they should be a civ that focuses on heavy cavalry, but then again we already have the Cataphracts and the Boyars.
Or even bears, if you want them to be more exotic. It’s known that the Ainu people from Hokkaido (not far from the Jurchen homeland of Manchuria) hunted bears and kept bear cubs and young bears as pets. In fact I once made a civ proposal on Reddit for the Iroquois where they could train black bears from their TC once they’ve researched their Castle Age UT called Forest Spirit.
This is not based in reality, and is in fact a terrible “Noble Savage” stereotype.
You cannot really tame bears, not reliably so, like you can do with dogs. Native Americans were also not D&D Druids and Rangers, that can talk to animals and plants, and are all spiritist stoners that “see the Great Spirit” in every rock and cloud.
They were actually just normal people, and there was no Forest Spirit.
Sorry if my Iroquois civ proposal sounds somewhat stereotypical, but the Black Bear is mostly conceived as a unit that could counter cavalry, since North American civs, just like their meso counterparts, had no access to cavalry.
I suppose they would have Spearmen units, and an analogue of he Eagle Warrior to compensate for lacking Cavalry.
If you really needed an anti-Cavalry UU, though, then the Algonquin Warrior is there, and they could just make it a Tomahawk Warrior with a Ranged Melee attack, that deals extra damage to Cavalry.
Get the hell outa here with your facts and common sense. Modern day Canada has a secret army of highly intelligent genetically mutated grizzlys and you just wait for the day Canada sets out on the conquest for world domination.
This is actually a meme on AoE3 DE, where Canada can ship Super Grizzlies, and the unit icon has them with a tricorn and “I’m growing stronger!!” laser-eyes.
Maybe it really is true…
Maybe the real Bear Kingdom was not Russia all along…
