why in the world you propose that we should only get 2 more civs and then end development of the game?
what a galaxy brain take.
like, why would you actively want less / no more DLC content?
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What about these two:
Jurchens (Jin): One of the first civilizations to use gunpowder in a militaristic fashion.
Tamils (Chola): A Infantry and elephant civilization and one of the major exporter of Damascus steel.
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Yeah, those two are heavily requested.
Having some clear relations would better than just because they all are Asians.
Maybe one DLC to the steppe hegemony, including Jurchens and Khitans. Both are the famous opposes of the East Asians especially the Chinese.
Then the another DLC to Indian Subcontinent, including Bengals and Dravidians (better than named Tamils in my opinion). Both could make the great campaigns with current Indian civs.
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Technically, yes Celts and Japanese did not have āempiresā in the official sense.
By āimperialisticā what I mean is not the fact that whether or not the civs had actual āempiresā but whether they had imperialistic tendencies within the timeframe of their medieval history.
For instance: the Japanese did have an emperor (suggesting āempireā) but besides that, they also launched their own imperial ambitions in Korea in the two Invasions of Korea by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who led a unified nation of Japan.
Secondly, the Scottish Celts under King Robert I the Bruce sent an expedition led by his brother to Ireland, ostensibly to āhelp the Irish fight the English overlordsā but really to expand Scotlandās influence beyond that of Scotland proper, which is very characteristic of imperialism.
Even Brian Boru demonstrated some āimperialismā when he became High King of Ireland during the Age of the Vikings, though his death ended any opportunity for him to make use of his supreme authority. He is well-regarded as an āIrish Emperorā of sorts in the patriotism of Irish people today.
New civs do not have to have been āempiresā to be fit for Age II. But they need to be more than just little kingdoms or fiefdoms. Even the Koreans civ and the Vietnamese civ fit the bill of āimperialisticā despite being kingdom that remained largely isolated and withdrawn from the rest of medieval East Asia, because they had historical moments where they conquered petty kingdoms within their own borders in āimperialā fashion.
Indeed, the relationship the Central Africans had with the Portuguese would make for some interesting campaigning if they were added as new civs in Age II. If we include the fact that the Arabian Omani Empire raided and conquered part of East Africaās southern coast, then that could be enough historical justification for their adding as new civs in the game.
I shall retract my statement that the Nubians I think are the āonly viable new African civ to addā and will update my stance to this:
I think the that Nubians is the civ that would make the most sense to add as a new African civ.
My reasons: they share a close history with other civs that are already established in Age II: the Saracens, the Ethiopians, and the Byzantines. And the Nubians had a flowering culture that really stood out among all the other cultures in Africa, but their art, religion, and political diplomacy.
Not to bash on the Kongoese and the Zimbabweans, but their cousins up in North Africa: the Mailians, the Nubians, and the Ethiopians, benefited more from the cultural exchange between Europe and Asia, and that is because North Africa was much more easily accessible than Central and Southern Africa has been (of course, until the Omani Empire came to East Africa, and the Portuguese and Dutch came to Central and East Africa).
Europeās āmedieval ageā is officially stated to be from 500 AD to 1500 AD, and that the rest of the worldās medieval eras are roughly in the same time period, but not exactly. Japanās medieval era technically did not end until the Tokugawa Shogunateās demise in 1868 !!! Korea and China as well remained more or less in their medieval states until the Age of Colonization (perpetrated by the Europeans) brought the Modern Era to the rest of Asia.
But for the purpose of this videogame, I would say that what constitutes as the āmedieval era to be covered by Age of Empires IIā to be from 400 AD up to the 1600s AD for the entire world.
I say 400s because that was when Late Antiquity was transitioning into the Dark Ages in Europe which in turn marks the true beginning of the medieval age (especially in Europe; and matches the inclusion of Goths and Huns civs in the game), and I say 1600s because in Europe, despite the medieval ages technically at an end by the 1500s, some elements of that age carried on into the 17th century (1600s). The Battle of Lepanto represented a mixture of old medieval-style battle tactics (Mediterranean galleys) combined with Early Modern Age weapons and armor (matchlock rifles and cuirassiers) and that conflict was fought in 1571 AD.
Interesting! I will go and look it up.
The realm of Philip the Good was VERY empire-like. Even if it was not officially an āempireā the Dukes of Burgundy controlled a vast economic empire, coupled with owning territory all across France and the Lowland countries.
One thing I will clarify on about my argument on that new civs need to have something āimperialisitcā about them, is whether they subjugated/conquered/controlled a foreign people at one point of their medieval timeline or not. The Burgundians in this case ruled over the Flemish people (precursors of the Dutch and Belgians). They even had dealings with the German counties, despite being a French-speaking nation. It is all very much illustrated in the Burgundian campaign of John the Fearless and his son Philip the Good.
Please elaborate. You tell me "no, you are wrong @Antelope962027 " but you do not explain the why.
Looks to me that you are simply just listing random tribes and civilization names without really understanding where they came from and what their histories were.
And even if you are right, that these peoples are āperfect new civ candidatesā do you really think that this videogame can handle another +20 civs?
First, Venice is already represented by Italians, and second: what better and great empires are their? What are their names?
And WHY are they better and greater? What is your criteria for that?
The Byzantines BARELY exerted influence on medieval Georgian affairs. They did not even annex Georgia at all as a part of the Byzantine Empire. I should know, because I am a Byzantinist scholar.
The Byzantines even fought several wars against Georgia, which is a sign that the Georgians were very independent enough to contest the mighty Byzantines.
The Armenians were more under the control of the Byzantines than Georgia was. Most of that is due to how the Armenians readily accepted Byzantine suzerainty, to the point that a good chunk of Byzantine troops were in fact Armenian. On top of that, several Byzantine Emperors were Armenian by birth.
I still think Armenia can be granted their own civ though, despite thisā¦ Cilicia Armenia like I already pointed out makes Armenia a viable candidate for new civ.
Thank you for making this statement @TungstenBoar . It reminds me of another criteria I have left out: recognition.
There is ZERO point in adding a new civ in a game that hardly anybody knows about, whether that be in the history scholar community or in the common people today.
The Athabascan Native Americans of Alaska are REALLY fascinating for me to study aboutā¦but does anyone besides me know about them? Very definitively, no. That makes the Athabascan people sadly, not a good enough candidate for new civ.
Keep in mind, ladies and gentlemen, that just because a proposed new civ may satisfy one of two important criteria for ānew civā that is not enough to become a new civ until they fulfill most if not ALL the other criteria.
What does Empire-like mean and why would it knclude the Burgundians who got most of their territory through unions?
Why should I if you have looked at it so much?
And if you didnt dont claim thst theres not any viable civs left to add. I could make you s list of states you can look in wikipedia for if you want. I dont want to explain you all the stuff going on at the middle ages if you act so arrogantly.
I already doubt we wilk get more civs after the 48th so its not my problem. Im only telling you that saying that we only have a limited ammount of medieval civs worth adding is wrong.
Can I tell you that it frustrates me that you say that Im making up stuff while you seem to know little about Africa and nothing about these peoples?
I mention them because I know their stories. I know of the powerful city states of the Yoruba and Hausa, I know of the massive trade empires of the Sahel built by the Songhai, Kanembu, Ghana and Zaghawa, I know of the great sultanates of eastern africa built by Somalis and Swahilis, of the long lasting kingdoms of the Mossi, Beninese, Kongo, Ugandans and Nubians and I know of the stone forts built through the massive territory of the Shona Kingdoms of Zimbabwe.w
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Not completely necessary. We still have Slavs.
Current Indians is indeed mostly Rajasthanis.
Then you would know the historical impact Venice had during the middle ages.They come under all the criteria you have looked at when selecting civis.And yes they are already covered under Italians but so were all the DE new civis burgundy under franks bohemians under teutons etc.
This would be the same for any civi depending on from once own point of view.till recently even I had no idea of georgians.
And Iām of the opinion that Slavs should be renamed to Rusā, now that other Slavic civs were added (Bulgarians Poles and Bohemians). There was a poll on this forum some time ago and a solid majority thought that too.
Thatās very logical but highly unlikely to happen. Especially when we have a Rus civ in AoE4 and devs chose AoE4 civs name in a way that it is distinct from AoE2 civs. Chinese and Mongols were unavoidable I guess.
I am not disputing Veniceās impact on world history, especially that of the Mediterranean. But for me, I see no justification to split the Italians civ into two civs, because that is exactly what you are advocating for when you speak of adding Venice as its own dedicated civ.
As it stands, Italians civ represents the Italian land military of Milan, Florance, and Genoa (among other Italian City States) from the access to Condottiero, Genoese Crossbowmen, Pavise technology, and gunpowder bonuses, the trade prowess and naval might of the four Maritime Republics: Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Amalfi with reduced cost to naval techs, excellent naval tech tree options, and the Silk Road tech, all in one civ.
Now, while it you could split Italians civ into several civs, like one civ to be Venice as you argue, and one into Genoa, and one into Pisa, and one into Milanā¦et ceteraā¦ the problem is, is that they would be too similar. Sure, there are SOME key differences, but they are all Italian, made use of crossbowmen and heavily armored infantrymen, many Italian city-states had excellent naval technology (not just Venice), but not states like Milan who were more land-based.
So why create a Venice-only civ when you can still pretend to play āVeniceā with the Italians civ already in the game?
You donāt see Teutons civ being split into Bavaria, Austria, Saxony, the Rhenish Palatinate do you?
Vikings is not split between Denmark, Norway and Swedenā¦ Japanese civ does not split that civ into all the multitude of Daimyo clans, like Shogun: Total War does.
If you really badly want Venice to be added in, Mahazona, then you are better off petitioning the Age IV developers for a Republic of Venice in that game, because Age IV is more ānationsā than ācivilizationsā.
Georgians are very well known because of a certain Soviet dictator that fought Hitler and killed millions of people. Wanna guess who that was?
Besides modern history, Georgia is also well known for being the one non-Western nation and non-Eastern European nation to have participated in the Crusades. Furthermore, Queen Tamar the Great of Georgia and King David IV āthe Builderā are popular monarchs that hail from Georgia, and would make excellent campaigns should Georgia be added as a new Age II civ.
The Dukes of Burgundy were powerful enough to bring the Kingdom of France to its knees, plus they had huge bargaining power with the Kingdom of England. That makes Burgundy well-worth having their own civ in this game. But to clarify what I meant earlier: by āempire-likeā I mean a realm that had the influence of an empire, even if it was not or is not classified as āempireā. Indeed, the Dukes of Burgundy were not ākingsā nor āemperorsā but they most certainly behaved like their own monarchs and ran their realms very independently until the successors of King Charles VII of France finally brought the recalcitrant Duchy back under Royal French control.
I disagree, because Age II is already becoming overshadowed by Age IV as players start to shift to that newer game, and also to other new medieval-themed games. Secondly, Age II cannot readily absorb another 8-10 civs when the current number already is a lot.
If you in fact do know a lot of Africa medieval history, then I apologize, as I did not want to come off as insulting you or your intelligence.
However, to explain why I said
I felt like you were just mentioning a couple of African tribe-nation names as enough justification to add them into Age II. If you do know a lot of history of these various peoples @TungstenBoar then by all means, share the history about these people that would support your argument that they are worthy to be in Age II! I appreciate efforts by people in this forum to put for historical justification as to why Civ X or Civ Y would be an great new civ to add into Age of Empires II
Answer in this comment section, or if necessary, make your own dedicated post in this Forum to highlight reasons why the Swahili (to pick an example) are a new civ option, andāmost importantlyāhow a theoretical Swahili civ would look like? UU? Techs? Civ bonuses? What is their Wonder? Etc. etcā¦
From what I have started to notice, Age I & II represent civilizations while Age IV represents nationalities. (I am unsure about Age III, but that game seems to be similar to Age IV in being a game of nations and not civilizations)
The key difference being that a civilization could involve several nations and nationalities, but that nations are more singular in their representation.
So the āSlavsā in Age II could be interpreted to represent many peoples and nations that were āSlavicā but the Rus in Age IV more specifically represents only the nations that had Russian heritage, such as Novgorod, Muscovy, and Kiev.
The concept of nationalities is tricky since itās a relatively recent concept. For Age 3 itās the people, for most itās strongly aligned to a country but the Germans are a strange case : mainly based on Prussia but with some Austrian elements (even hussite chariots), and in the DE they have the HREās flag (they had Prussiaās flag on the original version). Though you can rebel as countries and they added the United States that break this model, they are not called the Americans.
AOE4 is inconsistant, some are named after peoples (French English Chinese Mongols) while others after political entities (Dehli Abbasids HRE). The Rusā could fit both.
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Isnt this the same as having an armenian civi when they are already a part of byzantines?
I think they just chose to be different from AoE2 civs at all cost.
Both have the Chinese and the Mongols, the exact same name.
Chinese could be named after one of their dynasty but that would be bad idea from marketing point of view.