Other than Tuʻi Tonga Empire what options are there? Or are you including Indonesia with Oceania?
If truth be told, the original idea of the developers was that the Spanish were OPs and the Aztecs / Maya the sacrificial victims. The fact that the Aztecs / Maya are competitively strong was an unintended effect.
Well, the Aztecs, for example, did not see the Spanish as a threat but rather as a powerful ally they could use to continue killing each other.
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Anything goes, and this thread is full of both right and wrong. Let’s not increase the latter please.
The potato only arrived in Europe in the mid-16th century, was it a resounding success? Yes. Did it lead to a population boom in the next century? Yes. At any relevance to AoE2? No.
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The mechanics of AoE 2 result in nations being largely similar. How big of a difference are Muslims, Catholics, and Confucianists in the game? Can they reflect the tribal, clan, feudal and administrative systems like in CK3? In the end, it’s just like an online game that sells appearance, voice quotes, and stories, but they can’t really just release a flavour package, because that would not be “fair”.
There’s a very high relevance to AoE2… people in South America cultivated it lmao, it was the whole point of the convo.
You can’t say people in the Americas were completely backwards and when you bring up the things they had that were ahead of Europe just say it doesn’t count.
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But what does that have to do with it? Every civilisation has tried to make the best of the land with the plants it had. It is not that having or not having potato or wine or sake is a sign of cultural evolution. Rather, what counts is how refined the cultivation methods were.
Let’s not get ridiculous, look I agree with you when you say this:
but let’s drop this fallacious talk about the invention of food.
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Obviously I’m biased, I think new civilisations should be somewhat similar to the ones already in the game, otherwise just rename the game Age of Humanity and include every empires, every tribes and every nation-states that existed through history.
The point of my posts is that, in my opinion, Mississippians are too much of an outlier to be added in the game. At least for now, I think they are not a priority.
My arguments are quite specific, but I choose them because they are somewhat shared by all civilisations already in the game. Hard to say what is medieval and what is not, because the middle ages idea is already very euro-centric, but we can still see similarities between existing civs.
I don’t care that some civilisations don’t always respect this chart. But when I see people suggest Mississippians, I feel like they are an outlier in every categories, and it will feel weird to have them in the games. Or it won’t feel weird at all because they will be represented with little regard to what they actually were.
My arguments were the following:
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M. were not as advanced as the current civilizations in military technologies: they used copper weaponry at best, bows and sling, and no siege. So in game (outside of their specific looking campaign) they will be represented either as european-looking units, or as feudal age-looking units (with more ornaments, but still). Even compared to the “least” advances civs like huns or goths, this wouldn’t feel very balanced
But Aztecs and Mayas didn’t use metals: those two civs are already exceptions in the game, we would have to make a third one. -
No stone architecture. It doesn’t make them lesser people, I literally don’t care about that, I’m talking about the coherence of the game. Someone answered me that dirt and wood were more convenient for M. My issue is that dirt and wood are more convenient for almost all civilizations (outsides of the ones living in deserts or mountains). Yet M. would be one of the only civs in the game that didn’t feel the need to build stone buildings and defenses.
See the franks, until the 10th century most of their castles were just a wooden tower and a palissade on top of an artificial hill. There is nothing very “imperial” about a bunch of lords fighting each others.
But through the next centuries, most castles became stone fortifications, because their lords needed those very expensive defenses to protect themselves. To protect them from foreign menaces (the Vikings and later the british raids), or against other lords that grew in power. When western european kings conquered regions, they also fortified them with stone defenses.
This sounds very euro-centric, but other civilization also built stone defenses to ensure their control of their lands. I got answered that Chineses and Japaneses used mostly wood, but they still used stone for important defenses. Heck even the mongols built a city at their peak.
Meanwhile, the leaders of Cahokia may have been very important (considering they sacrificed and buried 270 people in one of their mound), but they didn’t feel the need for stone, because the other city states were not actual menaces (see my point about empires) or because armies were not strong enough to justify it (see my points about technology).
Or maybe they did things differently. But if they did everything differently, why do we need them in the game?
Huns didn’t built anything: they were partly responsible for the fall of Rome (so the starting point of the game), their importance is enough to justify their addition.
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Cahokia was not an empire. It was a powerful city, but (correct me otherwise) it had no control over a large region, only the city itself and it’s surroundings. Hence adding a Mississipians civilization, as an empire where people from different cities would fight in the same army, don’t make much sense. And it’s not like the region was unified later.
The Mayas: yeah they are also an exception to this rule. -
M. were isolated, they likely had trade with the Aztecs, but otherwise all their affairs happened between M. cities. It’s not like we have instances of conflicts between them either. Apparently Cahokia was burn down once, maybe i a conflict, but that requires a lot of extrapolation.
For the campaign especially, does that mean we have 8 M. players, from mission 1 “build Cahokia” to mission 3 “keep Cahokia” to mission 6 “because of climate variations and internal rivalries Cahokia collapsed, too bad” ? It’s not like the Soto expedition was of great importance either, it was not comparable to the spanish conquest of Mexico.
The Mayas yeah but we don’t have a 6 missions campaign of Maya’s Vs mayas.
The Japanese: they fought against other civs (the mongols), they knew their existence and they didn’t fell too far behind in military technologies (compared to M.)
The Malian or Italian campaigns: for both of them, I think it would have been better to have more varied civilizations (although right know it’s hard for Malians, devs had to cheat with berbers and ethiopians, it could change in the future).
My conclusion: I’m all for varied civilization, otherwise the game would have ended with Britons and Franks. But aoe2 don’t really have asymmetric civs, if Mississippians play so differently I think they don’t have a place among other medieval civs. I could see a dlc like Chronicles, so at least in the campaign we don’t have only 1 civ fighting itself, and we don’t have to pretend they fight like europeans (or against europeans).
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I only said “Cahokia rised through agriculture”, you’re the one that brought up the superiority of corn or the “medieval dark age”. On my side I don’t think I said anything “controversial” (like I never say Native Americans were cavemen, or anything similar). I openly said it was not about the superiority of a culture over another one, but It’s how you interpreted my post.
EDIT: If you feel like I took all the situations where M. are outliers, and none where M. could shine as a good aoe2 civ, please tell me from which perspective you see them as a good aoe2 civ. I get that they fit in the timeline, but it’s not the eurasian timeline, it is its own world.
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If you don’t want a Polynesian umbrella, you can include the Tongans and Samoans. The Polynesian umbrella would be focused on infantry and ships.
Another civilization can be the Micronesians, representing the Saudeleur Dynasty, the long-lasting Yapese Empire, and Kiribati. Any of those can be separate civs, except Kiribati. The Micronesians would be primarily defensive and naval.
I put the Melanesians in my concept to round out Oceania and represent Fiji to give the Polynesians an opponent in their campaign, but they’re a lot more tribal in scope. Their specialty is archers and ships. This one isn’t necessary.
Finally, there are the Filipinos, who aren’t exactly Oceania but have the same new architecture set. They represent the Tagalogs and Visayans, and have a gunpowder, naval, and infantry specialty.
I’m of South Chinese descent too, thanks for acknowledging our history bro! Yes South Chinese indeed have heavy Tai-Kradai influences (and also Hmong-Mien influences in certain regions).
A Baipu or Pu civ is probably enough to cover the various Tai-Kradai peoples in South China (often called Raeuz / Liao or Dong in medieval Chinese records, though the word Pu was still sometimes used).
And the SE Asian Tai peoples could be introduced with a separate Siamese civ.
I’d like the Vandals
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Micronesia has more potential that I thought, the Yapese Empire was actually pretty big. And Kiribati armour is some of the coolest out there.
I think Tonga would be sufficient to represent Polynesians since their influence extended over Samoa and also Fiji.
Filipinos would be a solid civ choice, but I wouldn’t consider them as Oceania.
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I won’t go into the question of whether Cahokia/Mississippians should be part of aoe2 because I don’t know anything about them. I just wanted to point out that some of the arguments you used I found to be weak.
- The use of metal weapons as a criterion seems subjective to me. I posted a text just above about how the Aztecs managed to get by without metal weapons. And the idea of some indisputable European technological superiority that many still believe in (I’m not saying you defend this) is not valid for this period. A good example is how the Portuguese tried to replicate the success of the Spanish in Africa (Guinea, Kongo and Mutapa, for example) and failed miserably, since the epidemiological factor was against them (and not in their favor, as with the Spanish) and their only technological advantage (caravels) was useless on land. In other words, technology outside its context is useless.
And I honestly don’t know where you and the other user got the idea that the Aztecs and Mayans were an exception in Sandy Petersen’s (or Ensemble’s) mind. From the interviews, Sandy seems to have always planned to add them.
Finally, the visual issue can be solved with regional skins, but that’s another matter.
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Malians — Songhai, Kanem-Bornu and many others in Africa — didn’t use stone either, they used mud bricks, wood and even straw. However, they all built an empire and considered the neighboring peoples a threat, as evidenced by the countless fortified cities throughout the Sahel, from Senegal to Sudan.
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Huns are the least justified civs to be in aoe2! We don’t know where Huns came from, we don’t know where they went, we don’t know their language, we don’t know their culture, they didn’t leave any writings or archaeological remains to let us know who they were or what their buildings were like, and no legacy other than overthrowing an empire that was already dying. They are almost a literary trope: a nomadic people (the Romans despised nomads) overthrowing the largest empire of the time. It’s really hard to find your arguments reasonable after that.
Imho, I think we should use the “general rules” and the game’s own requirements to include any civ.
The “general rules” would be if (1) the civ had a kingdom and (2) in the medieval period: 400-1600 in aoe2. And everyone already knows the game’s requirements: a wonder, AI names, campaign, visual material, possible enemy civs to add (or at least one already included that works as an enemy), features that give good bonuses/techs and a unique identity etc.
If Cahokia/Mississippians meet these requirements, I don’t see why they shouldn’t be included.
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Iroquois fit better than Mississipians imo, especially now Aoe3 is abandoned
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I really don’t find any of these points compelling.
- Sure they weren’t the most advanced, but a couple regional units could cover most of the issues.
The standard unit roster is a bad fit for every non-European civ, even ones far less exotic than Mississippians.
How it this even remotely an issue? They had massive constructions and fortifications, even at a scale exceeding Europeans.
This isn’t true, by far most castles were wooden even later on. It’s a misconception they were mostly stone because those are the only ones that survived to the present.
Paradox depicts it as controlling a large expanse of territory, not just an urban center even in 1337. They’re generally quite historically minded, so I’d imagine they are basing that on decent sources.
People also are generally requesting Mississippians as a whole, not just Cahokia.
- They were an empire in the center of North America, not at all isolated. Presumably they’d be added alongside other American civs like Puebloans or Algonquins (representing Skraelings).That would give them a few more options to interact with. Also, de Soto’s expedition was of the same scale as Cortez.
I hate to break it to you, but the Americans are on the same planet as Eurasia and have the same chronology.
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Iroquois would be very anachronistic. Mississippians are actually the right time period.
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Because Germany is as big and populous as Africa and America I guess.
I’d prefer Vlachs and a Celts split, but I’d be fine with a Saxon civ if it meant Goths would no longer be a umbrella of Germanic civs.
Would love to see both significantly more expanded on. As I’m more familiar with American civs this is what I would like to see:
Split the current architecture set to Mesoamerican and Andean. Perhaps add a third, I am partial to the Mississippians personally. For the Mesoamericans I’d like to see Teotihuacan and Purepecha civs. It might be stretching it as well since this invention was a Pipil one, but perhaps their stone thrower can replace the scorpion or mangonel line? At least to use a real Mesoamerican siege replacement that actually existed. For the Andeans maybe the Wari and Chimor. If we were to have a Mississippian architecture set, we could have the Quigualtam chiefdom (or perhaps they can be represented with the Natchez?). Cahokia would obviously be the other one.
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Do we know any campaign story to set on Mississippians?
If there needs to be a character to center it on, a figure like Red Horn might work.
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I seem to remember an actual Mississippian leader who would make for a good campaign, but I can’t remember his name.
Respond when you recall it.