A Conjecture about the Next New Civilization

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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I’d rather Haiti rev was given it’s own black militia/soldiers/guerilla fighters as in real-life. As I’ve said before in another post, it’s really odd to have an 18/19th century revolution just boil down to having 17th century Buccaneers considering they were their own thing.

Buccaneers were split into two broad groups: the mainly French ones called Flibustiers who had a Buccaneer stronghold in Tortuga, off Hispaniola and the English ones just called Buccaneers (or Freebooters) who favored Port Royal. Most Buccaneers were part of a loose coalition called Brethren of the Coast, and would often muster together in thousands strong freebooter armies and attack towns via land. Buccaneers were in the grey area of piracy - they took commissions like mercenaries but they also freely attacked the Spanish. Their Buccaneer bases had proper economies - taverns, merchants, bawdy houses, markets and various plantations along with settlers. Generally buccaneers brought in the money which was happily spent into the local economies. That’s just the 17th century!

When Buccaneering was made very much illegal, that era of Caribbean sea roving ended and then the ‘proper’ pirates appeared, either Buccaneers turning pirate or those hearing the old buccaneering tales and joining a pirate crew. The earthquakes and the destruction of Port Royal was also fairly persuasive for Sea Rovers to move on to the Bahamas where the next pirate stronghold would pop up.

The Pirates didn’t field the armies of the Buccaneers however they had fairly good organisation with crews (up to 400 each for the biggest of piratical vessels) led by the captain, who could be with a Pirate Company made of many ships led by essentially a pirate commodore. The main pirate base in the 18th century was the Pirate Commonwealth (which it was called as such in that time, rather than Pirate Rebublic) in Nassau, New Providence (Bahamas), though French pirates/privateers still operated from Petit Goave (Hispaniola). Inbetween the Buccaneering and Golden Age Pirate eras, pirates would sail from the Caribbean and make Madagascar home (Ranter Bay, St Mary and Saint Augustin were pirate bases - not the fictious Libertalia).

Again these pirate bases had plenty of wealth gained from wreck-raids and prize ships to keep an economy running (often smuggling goods into the Carolinas and beyond). Interestingly the Pirate Commonwealth and it’s small part on the bigger Caribbean pirate timeline lasted around 12 years, entire length that Gran Colombia lasted for.

I champion Sea Rovers as it covers two influencial groups which are very much linked - the Buccaneers and the Pirates with their consortiums, as well as the mercenary pirates inbetween (your privateers), which had ‘home cities’, have distinctive unit rosters, have plenty of native allies who wanted to work with pirates (native american Moskito Striker warriors from Panama, for example) and Consulate allies (Buccaneers acquired commissions/letters of marque to effectively ally and legitimately target the enemy). Also, it would make a refreshing change to play as a ‘rebel’ state.

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112

At the Sack of Campeche there were 1,400 pirates. All in one place at one time and there to do violence individually. In a military force, there’s usually about 7 people in support roles for each person who’s actively doing the violence. Plus the civilian infrastructure. Obviously this has variation from the place in history and the region. But think of the amount of people producing cloth, hemp, powder and shot. The people cutting lumber, the people growing food. Not to mention, there were plenty of active pirates in that region who were elsewhere at the time due to a lack of centralised command. We’re talking tens of thousands of people all directly interconnected and operating loosely as a force which could engage the most powerful empire on earth at the time and cause it significant damage.

The Republic of Pirates is listed as a ############# on Wikipedia, rightfully so.

Thala $
ssoc $
ra $
cy $

Is an offensive word apparently. :roll_eyes:

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115

most “pirates” in reality where privateers, essentially private people attacking an enemy of their countries shipping during war.

i really, really think making a pirate faction would be a massive mistake, they where never a serious threat to the countries operating in the new world or elsewhere.

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116

Maybe a good option would be add to AoE 3 DE pirates Minor Civilizations: Barbary Pirates (Mediterranean maps), Caribbean Pirates (Caribbean maps) and Wakō (Japanese Pirates for Asian island maps).

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117

If you were fairly-well inland then yeah Sea Rovers wouldn’t be too much of a threat (which would probably apply to many civs ), though anywhere coastal or somewhere they can moor up and trek, or trading across the seas, then you would be fearful.

The British pretty much restructured their colonial efforts to deal with Pirates (though they were happy to use their predecessor Buccaneers to muscles their way around the Caribbean) and later on, along with the US, would put a lot of effort to stamp out piracy (roughly around 1830.

The French continously used Flibustiers on commision to bolster their weaker navy throughout the age of sail, so were rather pirate-friendly.

The Spanish treated Buccaneers as a serious threat - they had the Costa Guarda who’s sole purpose was to deal with pirates, privateers and interlopers (whilst being pretty much pirates themselves). Buccaneers raided and sacked many Spanish towns, cities and fortresses (interestingly the song ‘La Bamba’ actually derives as a folk song about the sacking of Veracruz). They also crossed the jungles from the Caribbean to the South Seas and then sacked the Spanish towns along the Pacific coast.

The successors to the Buccaneers, your Caribbean Pirates, attacked anyone generally, and certainly were not privateers when the many Wars stopped (pirates would often be ex-privateers). In fact many pirate companies sailed to Madagascar (which I’d say would make a good ‘Revolt’ civ for them) to use it and its surrounding islands as pirate strongholds and as a staging point to raid the Indian Ocean. Pirate Henry Every joined forces with other pirate companies and plunder Mughal ships making the equivalent of $190 million in modern terms and then sailed halfway across the world back to Nassau

Whilst, I think a piratical ‘minor civ’ would be apt (though if you are using their services, surely they would be Privateers), there’s enough justifcation for a Caribbean Sea Rovers civ.

A rough-around the edges civ that can switch between being complete outlaws (Unaligned) to working with a nation (Buccaneering/Privateering for Dutch/English/French) in a mercenary fashion (all in a Consulate-style of national support in the form of a Governor’s House), an additional resource of Plunder (we talking plundered valuable cargo/treasure - not coin) which can modify shipments to your piratical settlement as well as purchase higher tier units, and bring something new to the table (a mostly infantry-based non-native American civ which relies on plundering and smuggling).

A proto-state civ with a Plunder resource model would also work hand-in-hand with a proper Barbary State/Corsair civ and even the Cossack Hetmanate/Zaporozhian Sich civ (these guys, despite being mostly land-based, use small boats for raids and warfare and even sacked Istanbul).

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118

You know, you have made some good points. It’s not something I would buy, and I would prefer other civs before something like this, but it wouldn’t be out of place in the game.

Unlike Romans in Age 2

Edit: the comment about Romans is not about the new DLC, but about the people who want to add Romans in Age 2.

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119

i think if one wants a naval civ there are much more interesting choices like Denmark, Korea or one of the Indonesian countries.

pirates are built up a lot in popular culture but in reality they werent that important, larger more important cargo was transported in fleets and therefor entirely outside the capability of pirates to attack, the biggest “pirate” operations therefor where in fact nations navies conducting raids.

the biggest most dangerous “pirates” where not found in the new world but in north africa and sometimes south east asia, those pirates actually often did operate as states and would often raid coasts, as oppose to new world pirates who almost exclusively kept to the seas and again where in reality often privateers not pirates.

the period in general had much more crime than we are used to in our modern day, it was a violent time with even small cities of 5000 people having half a dozen murders a year.

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120

We kind of already have 1 1/2 pirate states. The Maltese were pirates with a thin veneer of religiousness and the Haitian revolution is styled entirely with a pirate theme.

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121

The Safavid Empire would be an interesting addition to a lack of middle east civ aside from the Ottomans.

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122

With Arabians civ in one Middle Eastern DLC of course :wink:

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123

Honestly, I predict that the next DLC civ order will go something like this:

  • 1: Brazilians
  • 2: Persians and Siamese
  • 3: Argentinians
  • 4: Maori and either Hawaiians or Rapa Nui (probably the first two)
  • 5: Either Gran Columbians or Danes, Poles, Moroccans, Omani, Koreans, Mapuche, etc., but most likely the first
  • 6: Zulu and either Kongolese or Malagasy
    After that, they’ll probably only release single civ DLCs with one or two maps each.
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124

I would like to finish expanding Africa with 2 more civilizations, including Zulues. I would like more about southern Africa such as more native and the Madagascar map.

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125

Canada seems very possible. You get to play Canadians in a historical battle, and they would mesh well with the USA/Mexico themes and blend more European style (especially British/french).

Brazil is the other successor nation that could be added and is likely. I’m not sure how it would work with the federal state age up system though.

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Lol what? They couldn’t even leave their island because they ran out of trees to make boats. Tahitians, Tongans, Samoans, and Fijians were all considerably more developed and even then they’re at most minor civ material.

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the canadians in the historical battle has nothing unique and is close to the only thing canada did in the period (and they werent even independent). the americans had 2 unique units by comparison.

also canada doesnt have 20 states, which is a minimum for the new world nations. brazil and argentina do, though i seriously doubt well get a 3rd spanish speaking nation.

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128

Que lástima. En fin, a veces se gana, a veces se pierde

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129

Argentinians and Gran Colombians are missing civilizations for fair division of post-colonial civ between both Americas.

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130

I doubt very much on Gran Colombia - that entire civ lasted as long as the Pirate Commonwealth on Nassau (which was a small blip in a grander Caribbean piracy timeline).

If there were to be any new federal state civs, we’d see an ex-Portuguese civ - the Brazillians.

I’d wager that the developers would want to create a civ pack with multiple (Asian/Native American/Euro) civs over another federal civ first, with Brazil or whoever appearing as a seperate DLC much like the others.

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131

You could get Gran Colombia and have Colombia, Ecuador and Memezuela revs

The thing about adding ONE South American country is that that will mean other people from other SA countries will want their country added too.

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Of course, because that does not currently happen, right? :smiling_imp: :us: :mexico:

I don’t think the language of a civilization matters.

I just want to remind you that any civilization that the developers make is intended to generate profit, there is no clear way to guess the next civilization, because in reality it could be anyone, I only recommend asking for the civilizations that you are interested in, because discussing the because a civilization will not appear is counterproductive.

Thank you for your patience and I hope you have a nice day. :slightly_smiling_face: