Maybe I am a grumpy old man, but even I can tolerate the existence of seeing a Western Europe swordsmen unit belonging to the Japanese such as a Champion (looks like a Western soldier) but seeing polar bears with penguins on top of them is too much. It completely shatters all immersion.
I tuned into t90 video only to see a guy with polar bears. It completely shattered my immersion.
Open the main menu, see penguins, virtually everyone in medieval society had no idea of their existence. Since travelling was immensely difficult in the medieval ages. Travelling to this South Arctic would have everyone killed. The crew would probably mutiny to save their lives.
You couldnāt just fly from one place to the other on a plane. There was a good chance you would die of sickness on the long voyage on a boat. Meanwhile the pirates and other nasties will try kill you on the way.
Iād like there to be a āI donāt really careā option. If you donāt like them, donāt use them. Personally, I donāt like using them because Iām simply used to the current models and can end up with legibility issues if one of the models get changed. I had the same with the Centurion model for Champions, so itās not about āimmersion breakingā.
Otherwise, I see them as somewhat funny. I kinda wish theyād have a model for all units of a specific line, as what really kills the immersion is if Knights are replaced with penguins riding polar bears, but the moment you upgrade them to Cavalier you get the standard Cavalier again.
completely irrelevant but kinda interesting: northern europeans were familiar with a flightless bird pretty similar to penguins: the great auk (interestingly the species whose latin name is āpinguinusā)
Even if they knew of them they could not be used as military units. They are not horses. And if you tried to present these to the King as a potential military unit I donāt think he be very impressed.
I personally donāt bother these Ā«funnyĀ» skins. What I dislike is the time and work involved in make them that could be spent in more regional skins, or manned siege.
There are several aesthetic assests to improve the immersion that could be added before these funny things.
I would understand your complaint if it was not optional and impossible to turn off. Also itās not like aoe2 is a very historically accurate game anyway.
Yeah, the poll could use more neutral wording, and a neutral option.
That said, Iām more on the side of considering these mods āimmersion breaking,ā although thatās not how Iād ideally characterize my perception. More just that they feel goofy and out of place, which is a kindred concept - they either represent a questionable use of time/money developing silly graphics, or the good ones (Dark Knight, Xolotl-at-Arms) are wasted on being transient, jarring replacements for existing units, rather than becoming Editor units, which would give them a lot more utility and permanence. As it is, even the good mods are just mods; most donāt have the quality and none have the permanence to rise to the level of being ānew content.ā
Which comes around to how Iāve always thought it strange that the devs focus so much on modding their own game - Iāve always thought modding should largely remain the domain of dedicated amateurs, and that devs should focus on their areas of exclusivity - balance, bug fixes, and new content. Of course itās worth taking the communityās wishes into account, and for those who really like this sort of stuff to be accommodated to some degree. But the Medieval penguin-fans out there could likely enough be accommodated by amateur modders. At least Iād like to see the devs make the silly visuals and inane āchallengesā fewer and far between.
It really breaks my immersion to see a penguin, from the southern hemisphere, riding around on the back of a polar bear, from the Arcticā¦ It should either be a guillemot on a polar bear, or a Humboldt penguin on a spectacled bear!
Seriously, though, they should add the polar bear (minus penguin rider) as a Gaia unit. The graphics are essentially already made, after all.
Not to mention, if you do end up completing a challenge, it gives you an option to Subscribe to the modā¦ which you can not do and not get the mod at all!
I have seen some bizarre moments where random older event mods activate for no reason (no event taking place) though, so perhaps thatās what they mean? But itās not even due to updates or anything. Just randomly, on a random day, I got the AoE1 Scout mod activating.