It can happen it’s 2023, aoe 2 had to take that route but it was way before
But the AoE 2 civs are identical to each other (they are a copy and paste); AoE 4 will at most reach 24 large civs and little more…
8 European civs: English, French, HRE, Rus, Byzantines, Ottomans, Castile, Portuguese
8 Asian civs: Abbasids, Delhi, Mongols, Chinese, Japanese, Cholas, Khmers, Vietnamese…
4 African civs: Malians, Ethiopians, Berbers, Kanem
4 American civs: Mississippians, Puebloans, Aztecs and Incas
And then the civs variants…
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There’s a good chance we never get American civs since it would be hard to make them work without going super ahistorical (aztec bombards/trebs anyone?) I could also see a Scandanavian and Italian civ get added, maybe even Poles. We could even see Korea or a 3rd Indian civ maybe, and likely something in Persia.
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As a counterpoint, there is a good chance we’ll see American civs because they have been present in previous titles even with similar limitations. Not to mention the asymmetry and how that could provide interesting design challenges and gameplay options.
So this being focused around an individual character as they age up, with choices coming down to her abilities, points to a name change being unlikely. It makes the most sense to refer to the choice as if it were an individual and not an organizational entity.
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No it does not make the most sense. Having every other name in the game refer to groups and one refer to just an individual does not make the most sense.
She is not your only unit. You still have a whole army not just an individual. As I said above it is easy to come up with better names that still convey she is the focus.
But the variation here is a focus that is specific to joan of arc, even making the units focused with her. House of arc may seem like it makes sense if you want to have every faction maintain the same language, but in a historical context she was abandoned by the people she served and remained an individual entity up to her execution. This also is a complete change and evolution for the age series, nothing like this exists to compare itself to.
Im for all of it! Anything new and with Japan is wonderful!
It being a stylistic change; an exception even, doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sense.
I get that people aren’t a fan, but that’s a bit different (valid though).
So it turns out that Jeanne d’Arc Variant will simply be a Hero unit with more depth. In my opinion, every civ should have a Hero unit, as it is in AoE 3. By the way, I would prefer it to be part of the basic French civ - Variants, I would prefer them to be a complete reskin of the basic civs.
It is like using the wrong tense, or part of speech.
There is no reason to make an exception. Good design only makes exceptions when necessary, or when doing so has an outsized benefit that outweighs introducing inconsistency.
- Army of Jeanne d’Arc
- Jeanne d’Arc’s Army
- Followers of Jeanne d’Arc
- House of Jeanne d’Arc
All of those keep her name in the “civ” name, but follow a more consistent naming convention with the game. There is just no good reason not to.
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I’m glad that strange names such as:
- Jade Empire renamed to Zhu Xi’s Legacy
- Sultan Army renamed to Ayyubids
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With respect, there’s plenty of reason not to.
I’d hash some of then out, but others already have. I’m fine to agree to disagree, too (as I think a bunch of fair positions have been put forward, separately of the less fair ones).
I have yet to see a cogent argument for not maintaining a consistent naming convention.
It would maybe be one thing if every “variant civ” followed a new naming convention, but they do not. Some are consistent with what we already have, this is not.
Names aside i really like the jeanne starts as peasant and improves its really cool
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No other civilisation nor variant (as far as we know) revolves around the hero like this new variant does.
I could nitpick your suggestions if I wanted to, but I don’t want to. Anyone can nitpick anything historical, when it’s in good faith it’s a large part of what I enjoy about history (and always have).
If they’d renamed Jeanne to something to simply remain consistent, I’d understand as well. But I also understand sticking to their guns here. The variant design is quite literally unique.
Now maybe one of the other variants will have a named hero and I’ll look like an idiot. But they renamed two already, and nobody was really objecting to the Order of the Dragon in the first place. There therefore has to be a reason why Jeanne defines her variant, and the design they’ve detailed today sure seems like reason enough compared to the civs in the game so far.
It seems very clear that she is the defining part of her faction, there is more information under the faction on the website now.
That is why in the examples I took two seconds to come up with I still included her name in the faction name.
I assume they are completely insistent on her name being prominent and I understand why.
It IS still a faction though, fighting against other factions. Her hero unit being central to the gameplay does not change that or make the naming logical. Changing the name to be consistent also does not make it unclear that she is central to its design.
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The difference is I’m not arguing against your suggestion. I even made one or two of my own last week.
All I’m arguing is that there is a cogent reason for this difference in name, that’s all.
Honestly I still have yet to see one.
The fact that the faction revolves around her unit can be a good argument to include her name in the faction title. It is not a good argument to simply abandon consistency and just slap the one unit’s name on as the faction name. It IS still a faction, so it should be named as one.
It is really quite simple to do so.
The examples I gave maintain both logical consistency AND emphasizing that Jeanne is central to the faction design/gameplay.
Historical accuracy has already gone out the window with this faction, it doesn’t even work as a “what if” situation which can often be used to handwave historical inaccuracies in AoE games, so that cannot be used as a reason not to use any of those name suggestions.
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