(That guy is really counting, he’s not making up the number 
)
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This is the fairest argument I’ve seen so far, and again it doesnt really matter at the end of the day. I understand why the Byzantine’s wouldnt represent WRE, but if aoe2 civs are based on culture/ethnicity, the Italians are already in the game.
“But the late medieval/renaissance era Italian civ doesn’t fit with Rome”
True, and most of the other civs are also based on generalizations. The Saracan civ doesn’t accurately represent every Arab faction from 400 to 1500, but they’re still there. The Persian civ is clearly based on the Sassanids, yet it’s used to portray all possible Persian factions of the time period, including Islamic ones. Etc. etc. etc.
If we are now getting into a situation where different time periods of the same group each merit their own civ, then what would be your argument against including the Selucids, Parthians, and Sassanids as three separate civs? Or giving each Chinese Dynasty their own civ?
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Seleucids and Parthians would be out since they don’t reach the earliest established time period of AoE2 (fall of Rome).
As for any other civs that fit AoE2 time period, I wouldn’t be opposed really, Sassanids would actually be cool to depict the Byzantine–Sasanian war of 602.
Overlapping of civs is already happening in AoE2, we had the Slavs depicting all Slavic civs, now we have civs like Lithuania and Bulgaria for example, I would just rename Slavs to “Kievan Rus” at this point.
Same could be said about Italians, we could divide them into Genoese, Venetians (we already have Sicilians), it all depends if the devs can make the civ work imo.
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Tbh, I was expecting at least 3 New Civs and UTs, UUs are harder to make because they would need new models and textures, but not having new UTs is disappointing, probably a deliberate decision to avoid changing the game too much for the Vietnamese players.
I definitely do not want a Roman civilization. I’m fine with it being there for fun for other players, or for custom scenarios, but what we know of as the Roman Empire had transitioned into other states by the beginning of the time period that aoe2 exists in.
I get that some people care only about having fun and not at all about realism, but they absolutely should not sacrifice my enjoyment for the sake of those people. The competitive landscape should be designed for everyone.
If all you play is ranked, then just don’t buy this dlc. It clearly isn’t for you in the first place.
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But now that WRE has been added, you can make this same argument that people made for it: Huns and Goths are in the game, therefore Rome can be added because they interacted with each other. If we interpret the Romans civ broadly, they interacted with the Seleucids, so why not add them now? And so on and so on.
The fall of Rome timeframe was a main argument for not including the Romans in the first place. If that’s out the window, then why not just continue pushing the timeframe farther and farther. Prior to the Huns being added I would have said that they definitely didn’t fit the timeframe.
And again, for 20 years or so, aoe2 has been fairly consistent in labeling the civs for broad ethnic/cultural groups, rather than specific kingdoms. If you want a Byzantine-Sassanid War scenario, the current Persian civ is basically the Sassanids already: Zoroastrian coded, with War Elephants and Taq-i-Kisra as a Wonder.
The difference is that the game designers made the smart decision to label them broadly as ‘Persians’ rather than ‘Sassanids’. Thus even if the civ was mostly based on a specific state, it could still represent other Persian factions (e.g. Samarkand in the Genghis Khan campaign). I always preferred this approach to (for instance) the Sid Meier Civ games, which are very inconsistent in how they label things, and have a timeframe so huge that the US is fighting Babylon.
I dont think Lithuanians are Slavic, and you can argue that the Bulgarians have Turkic origins, but I agree that the Slavs have at least some overlap with other civs. I would have very much preferred cultures which are currently unrepresented (Much of Africa, North America, Caucasus) be added rather than adding more and more stuff into Europe. But if the new model for DLCs is to add things that people have been asking for, it’s only a matter of time before something is gonna be added which pleases some people and annoys others. I think we’ve reached that point.
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It’s you’re enjoyment vs the enjoyment of others we should all chill and enjoy what we’ve got, and hey if they release Romans when you face them you could destroy them and obliterate them and I don’t know could be fun for you too
If the choice is between playing something I don’t enjoy anymore and not playing at all, I will just not play at all. It takes very little to take a game from enjoyable to unenjoyable.
Then don’t let the door hit you on your way out.
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It doesn’t take losing very many players before you suddenly have long wait times in queues. Losing other players harms you, as well. This can easily become a self perpetuating cycle, as players get frustrated of waiting, so stop waiting, meaning the other players have to wait longer still.
There are many downsides to making divisive and controversial choices like this, which is why I fully support their decision not to add Romans to ranked play.
If you don’t like the dlc, don’t buy it, it’s as simple as that.
I don’t even play online. This stuff doesn’t even affect me.
That’s the thing, we don’t, my point is that we are specifically talking about LATE Romans that were relevant in the earliest time period already depicted in the game (when the Huns arrive, the fall of Rome), and again like I said in my op, that seems to be the case judging by their unique units.
Of course we can’t do infinite association that’s ridiculous, but having the Huns without the Romans is like claiming you can make an omelette with only the pan and no eggs.
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At that stage, we are talking about post collapse Rome, which we already have in the byzantines and italians.
Having the Huns isn’t great from a realism perspective, but their existence doesn’t justify making things even worse.
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AoE2 time period begins with the arrival of the Huns, so that is just false.
You already have Huns fighting Aztecs, Japanese fighting Ethiopians, adding Rome is no less “realistic”.
I can’t fathom how adding a Rome civ hurts your enjoyment.
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By that logic, we could add America as a civilization and give it f-16s and tanks! Who cares, right?
No. Aoe2 has a systematic logic to it. It’s not always 100% consistent with that logic, but that does not mean that logic should not be upheld.
I literally have no idea how anything said in this post led you to think “tanks” and “f-16s” but alright.
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Actually, it starts with the Battle of the Frigidus in the Alaric campaign in 394 AD, you even fight Western Rome in both his and Attila’s campaign. Western Rome fits just right.
But people NEED to throw a fit, they NEED to say dumb stuff like “Rome is in? Ok then let’s add martians with flying saucers” or “We could have gotten some North American civilization we don’t know nothing about other than they #### ####### RUINED FOREVER”
Meanwhile, Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans can use metal and nobody here gives a spark because they were more than 20 years ago to the game, woopy doopy doo
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If we throw proper time frames out the window, why stop at rome? Heck, the latest time Rome existed as a significant power is further away from the Imperial age than the Imperial age is away from the modern day. Forget f-16s and tanks, we could have spaceships at that rate.
The existence of a few anachronistic civilizations in the creation of the game 20 years ago doesn’t justify breaking the rules now. If anything, the rules should become harder as the game becomes more well defined.
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Goths and Huns also didnt fit into AoE2. They are just accepted cause they were added in by ES who didnt know anything about history. Now using that mistake for more mistakes 25 years later, is wrong. The game should not just become a random mixture of other games, but become a well-defined game with well-defined time-line. And when we look at the campaigns, almost all campaigns are in the 900 to 1600 timeframe and only 4 are before.
All these civs like late ancient romans and their contemporaries could be made into their own game with own contemporary mechanics, rather than having romans, goths, huns, with Xbow, Knights, castles and gunpowder…
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And nobody is saying that those anachronisms are a good thing. Two bad things doesn’t magically become a good thing.
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