AoE2 devs: Please stop trying to experiment and just listen to the community

[Tyranno13]

@CitingOregano34

I’d prefer they avoid using Wikipedia for research

Or at least, just using wikipedia properly.

You can check the sources at the bottom, and if those sources go back to wikipedia again, abandon the page.

[FloosWorld]

@MatM1996

Technically it was not a revival of the series, since in 2013 you had AoE Online with its dlcs; the only thing is that in 2013 it had just been announced that it would stop receiving support (prior to its closure in 2014)

Yeah, technically not a revival but from what I’ve seen AoE:O’s impact on the series was much smaller than 2 HD’s.

[RealMatrim2]

@FloosWorld

than 2 HD’s.

I would like, that the developers add more unique editor units to all civs and eliminate more common units for all civs. There is so much wasted potential in Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition.

The Victors and Vanquished DLC makes me a little bit happy, that we can finally train Imperial legionnaires and Nordic warriors in the military buildings (Barracks and Warrior Hall) of the Byzantines and the Vikings.

It is further nice, that another unplayable editor unit comes into play with the Varangian Guard of the Vikings. This special unit is trainable at the Wonder (Hagia Sophia) at the Komnenos Scenario with the Byzantines, where they represent foreign mercenaries.

@Age of Empires Dev (Microsoft):

And yes, before I forget it, the community is still waiting of MORE ARCHITECTURE SETS for all civs for OVER 4 YEARS… Please finally satisfy this wish and ideally this year 2024.

[CanineCrown7153]

@RealMatrim2

Imperial legionnaires

Which scenario is this and under what conditions?

[RealMatrim2]

@CanineCrown7153

Which scenario is this and under what conditions?

You can find the Imperial legionnaire at the 2 Byzantines scenarios namely Constantine (1453) and Komnenos (1081) at Victors and Vanquished DLC. The mission Komnenos (1081) is optimally designed for it without tiresome and you can train this unit “unlimited” in the barracks.

I had a lot of fun with it… However, I would like to see, that the fighting strength to be increased even further in order to do justice to the word “Imperial”.

[SamePorpoise303]

@RealMatrim2

that we can finally train Imperial legionnaires and Nordic warriors in the military buildings

I mean it doesn’t take too much science to do that, just one single trigger. If you want you can train both of them in any of my scenarios…

[Atsavin]

Romans should not have militia line to begin with. We should start with a weak Legionary that gets stronger.

[RealMatrim2]

@SamePorpoise303

I mean it doesn’t take too much science to do that, just one single trigger.

The best solution is for such previously unplayable editor units, to find their official way into the game, which is why I am writing things about it. The fact, that we now got the Imperial Legionnaire and the Nordic Warrior in the new DLC, is great. I continue to hope, that they will soon become a permanent part of the Romans and Vikings.

@SamePorpoise303

If you want you can train both of them in any of my scenarios…

Yes I will like to do that. I really like the Late antique time frame anyway.

[Atsavin]

Give those boys life! Some people will never see most of these scenario editor units because they never play with the scenario editor or scenarios. So much beauty in these units.

[SamePorpoise303]

I think militia and man at arms fit aesthetically but in my new Roman campaign I’m gonna give them this instead of the longswordman:

It’s already a scenario editor unit but nobody use them.
Still not a perfect fit but better than longsword probably.

[CanineCrown7153]

@RealMatrim2

You can find the Imperial legionnaire at the 2 Byzantines scenarios namely Constantine (1453) and Komnenos (1081) at Victors and Vanquished DLC. The mission Komnenos (1081) is optimally designed for it without tiresome and you can train this unit “unlimited” in the barracks.

For scenario design purposes, in which square position? Under what requirements? What happens to the militia line?

@Atsavin

Give those boys life!

Imperial Legionaries and Centurions having aura interactions when

And Nordic Swordsman, and Eastern Swordsman.

Though I suppose having kbQueries would make it even easier for designers, because you could make like the Centurion Aura effect for any unit you’d want to any unit you’d want

[CitingOregano34]

I just got an idea that, while more historically accurate, it would take more work and assets to do. Since having Legionaries in the Late Western Empire is not accurate, I think they could replace the entire militia line for Rome and make them all unique units.

Auxiliary → Limitaneus → Comitatensis → Palatinus

idk

[DynasticPlanet5]

Can we just keep it simple and stop trying to make every civ have a special upgrade line to standard units

I feel like my words arent sticking

[MatM1996]

@RealMatrim2

@Player870583437, Thank you very much for these civ graphic at the beginning of this topic, although the Central asia area could still be expanded by 1 or 2 civs more. You are bringing one of the best summarized civ suggestions into the forum, but unfortunately the developers are ignoring almost most of it so far, which is just sad. Maybe the Armenians and Georgians are prototypes of these graphic, we can only hope so…

I do not know, what other DLCs and Updates will be released this year, but it would really be desirable, if the developers continued the “old line” with new civs and campaign DLCs. I think to this, it would be a good solution for a new future way, to bring multiregional DLCs into the game, what contains civs from different world areas, to satisfy many players at the same time.

The “new line” with singleplayer missions as new DLC content is not particularly well received here in the forum. The main issue is, that the developers put a lot of recycled missions into the game, instead of creating much new ones and they sell these clones much too expensive. The playerbase accept certainly new singleplayer missions, but only then, if they are honestly announced, new created and are not clones.

I found the same graphic on “Reddit” in a better resolution and am posting it again, so that everyone can clearly see the mentioned civs.

@PeakHornet46539

By that logic (idiotic), we would only have the original games. Many civs were umbrellas and needed to be broken up. If the multiplayer tournament holders don’t want to have certain civs in the running, they should make the rules as such. Not everything needs to revolve around the MP. In that same token, not ripping off the single player crowd with this type of stupid DLCs…

@Player870583437

Here a minority of players wanted campaigns, most wanted new civs. But the issue is not campaigns, I’d have no issue with a campaign DLC even if it’s not my cup of tea (imagine the audacity if I had). But really what V&V was is a rip-off, 13$ for mostly workshop content.

My guess is that since players who wanted new civs were split into pro-Europe & anti-Europe players (once every few topics there’s a europe non-europe debate) the devs wanted to avoid all of this and just focus on something that wouldn’t create uproar because you didn’t pick the other side. My solution to this would simply be make a non-regional DLC. Not everyone will like all the DLC, but everyone will like parts of the DLC. Easy.

Some maps from T90s videos would be cool too. They used to make new maps too up until DE.

@Apocalypso4826

Wow, you really, really hate DLC civs. I enjoy them because I like having fresh new toys to play with.

@Tyranno13

More likely the devs were worried about putting out too many civs in a “short” timeframe and wanted to try other types of DLC out.

@PeakHornet46539

Devs really need to make it up to the community. A chunky free update with new building sets and new unit skins, models would help.

@Skadidesu

What the game needs most is regional skins.
Basically ever generic unit just looks European.
It feels so wrong to play most other parts of the world, which probably makes people prefer playing European civilisations, because they feel coherent.
Every unit a Frank or Teuton player will ever build will look correct and fit into the setting.
But a Hindustani player will have a strange mix of South Asian units and European units next to South Asian buildings.

The worst are the Africans that almost only have white skinned units and the Americans that have Plate amour and stuff like that.

@DynasticPlanet5

For me its almost entirely about all the “regional units” that get no screen time. Id rather not add more and morw regional units for every small section and kingdom on earth so lets get more Eagle elephant and steppe lancer civs

@Nerathion

But the topic is listening to community, this thread has people talking about their wishes for (and against) civs and what they want the devs to do.

Your comment wasn’t off-topic, but ignited a similar already-discussed topic. It’s not like this is the first time this has come up, questioned, and answered on the forums. Either way - the community on the forums largely supports DLCs outside of Europe, as DE has already had two DLCs for Europe. Middle Ages is a great opportunity to showcase civilizations from other parts of the world when Europe wasn’t as advanced as the rest of the world. Why can’t we see African civilizations at their peak?

AoE2:DE has been a fantastic game throughout its history for introducing players to other regions of the world and their history. It could do much more to help dispel myths of other regions of the world being technologically far behind Europe, when a good chunk of AoE2’s gameplay is about the Dark Age Europe went through. 11

I’d say games like AoE2 and Civilization have done wonders for introducing players to new regions they wouldn’t otherwise know nor be taught about. It’s sad to see that the DE’s DLCs, outside of Dynasties of India didn’t really continue the theme. I don’t think it’s because ‘Europe sells’, that might’ve been a factor for AoK. People will buy and support a DLC with new civs, especially if the civs are fun. The main worry has simply been whether people get fatigued by even more civs, and giving preference towards Europe right now really smells bad.

But hey, who knows what the next civ-DLC will be!

Yes, I agree with everything…

@Atsavin

I’ll take a Purepechan, Songhay, Nubian with a side of Tai and Tibetan.

@RealMatrim2

I would like Zapotecs and Nubians, but also Central Asian civs which are not mentioned on the map, such as Pechenegs and Sogdians.

@Akoskaaa10

I suggest the Purepacha instead of Zapotecs. They defeated the Aztecs many times.

It has to be Purepechans and Zapotecs, Bormu and Nubians (Songhai did not stop being technically represented by the Malians until 1494) (Songhai was about to enter TAR in AoE 3 but as it lasted a short time they left it as an alliance of the Hausa and that’s it) and Thai and Tibetans (but the issue is if the Chinese government would let it)…

@voidpointer131

As a former Blizzard fan, just doing what you feel is best is orders of magnitude better than blindly listening to the community.

@voidpointer131

They had a terrible habit of not knowing when to say no to player suggestions, so they would put every stupid idea into the games, even if it was suggested by a crazy minority and no one else liked it.

@Player870583437

What happened at Blizzard?

@Player870583437

You seem to avoid talking about what actually happened. What did they add? to what game? what did the players suggest? why they were a minority?

I mean specifically what happened.

Can’t say whether it was a good or bad thing if I only know the general idea of it.

Blizzard blindfolded as always…

@SameCylinder301

As a modder/scenario maker since 2007, I find there are too many good scenarios on workshop for me to have time playing them.

I have about 50 custom campaigns, I even started to design the Blood campaign and the Historical Battles of the 16th century from AoE 3 DE for AoE 2 DE… I was about to do the China and Japan ones and then the Yamato one from AoE 1 DE, but they already beat me to it xd…

Zheng He Voyages - Mods - Age of Empires

[Hudson] Yamato Campaign(Ported Version) - Mods - Age of Empires

[MatM1996]

@cucuct

Some players want to play random civs, but don’t want to be assigned to certain civs (this is a real issue I saw on Reddit). At present there’s no way to achieve this. DLC civs are permanently available despite disabling the DLC in Steam.

@TwerDefender

nah, the civs need to fit mechanically and thematically as well. I’d pay money to have burgundians, bengalis, gurjaras, romans, georgians, and armenians removed from the game

@TwerDefender

you are still forced to face them in multiplayer and they decrease my enjoyment of watching tournaments (I literally stopped watching HC V whenever georgians were picked)

And it’s normal, they are civs that people buy to play with them, even in random… the only way you can’t play with those civs is by not buying the dlc and playing only against the AI with the AoK mod…

@Skadidesu

I feel like they are trying out different DLC models this year.
But the problem is that they already failed at the execution of the first test. People wanted a campaign only DLC, but they wanted:

1. actual campaigns
2. actual new content
3. pay less then for a full DLC

so the test is kinda pointless. The bad reviews (and likely low sales) are not because it’s a single player only DLC.

I wonder if we will get single civ DLC like AoE3DE did. But they should only cost 5$ (the same a single player only DLC should cost).

@TwerDefender

yeah, i stopped playing because of them
I don’t have a problem with them being in the game, but I hate that I am forced to play against them. just give me an aoc or base DE queue

@IEatPain1227

I remember hearing that the pros are having an issue where its hard to learn everything with the sheer number of civilizations, I feel like people need to brainstorm a solution. Personally I hate facing overpowered, broken, & lousily designed civs that are also not immersive enough and some kind of limiting factor should be at play. Maybe every single new civ should be bad at the top level exclusively lol.
Perhaps there should be an exclusive Ranked gamemode where only like a dozen civs can be picked which rotate out monthly and tournaments can imitate that gamemode for the lack of civ availability to ease the learning difficulty.

@Tyranno13

I am very confident. This forum isn’t the only place people discuss this game, and that poll isn’t “the number of people that would whine and throw their toys out of the pram if they didn’t get ANOTHER European civ” it’s if people would be happy with it. And no big company makes an expensive design decision to avoid the complaining of a small fringe of the community.

@voidpointer131

They removed flying in Warlords of Draenor (World of Warcraft) because some players said it ruined exploration. Turns out most players like flying (they never said it because they didn’t need to) so they hated this change. Instead of completely reversing this change, they gradually introduced a new system that players had to go through to unlock flying. Ultimately I think they reached a good compromise, but it took them many patches (i.e. years) to figure it out.

Another example was leveling. Many players hated it because it was too easy (in this case it might not have been a minority but the consequences are the same as before). The solution? Just make it harder. Everyone hated it. Turns out there were many problems with leveling that weren’t limited to the difficulty, so making it harder just made it even more of a drag. Eventually they completely revamped it in Shadowlands but I haven’t played since so I don’t know how it turned out.

Probably the most infamous example is what happened to Warcraft 3: Reforged, where some players said they wanted a Warcraft 3 remake to never happen because it would divide the community. Blizzard’s solution? Crossplay between the two versions. Turns out it was impossible, so to keep the promise they blasted the original from the players’ Battle.net account and gave them Reforged for free, but the ones who bought it actually simply unlocked “better graphics” (which were actually worse due to development issues but that’s another beast entirely). On top of that, when Reforged was announced they promised changes for the game’s story and mechanics. Again, players who liked this idea never said so because they didn’t need to, but the ones who disliked it were very much vocal about it in the forums, so Blizzard scrapped the changes, pleasing a vocal minority but pissing off the vast majority who were looking forward to it.

@Apocalypso4826

Despite the fact that Europeans easily caught up to and quickly surpassed Asians in basically everything, especially technology? There’s a reason history is taught from a Eurocentric viewpoint: Europe did most of the heavy lifting for the last 500 to 1000 years.

I don’t mind most of the game being European because most of the significant historical events took place in or involved Europe.

@Apocalypso4826

Keep in mind that anti-Western propaganda is just as common nowadays as pro-Western propaganda. People love to downplay the accomplishments of Europeans, despite the fact that European technological advances basically set the standard for the rest of the world once globalization set in. Other parts of the world may have invented many things, like gunpowder, but Europeans adopted that technology and then used it to its full potential.

For instance, Chinese gunpowder weapons were so weak that they resorted to trying to reverse-engineer European guns, but failed to because they were so advanced they didn’t know how they worked. Europeans have had this incredible talent of massively improving on other people’s inventions, and it’s why they’ve dominated the global culture ever since. You may not like what I say in this post, but that’s the simple reality that no one wants to see.

@TwerDefender

that’s just patently false. Until the renaissance europe was significantly behind even the near east, let alone the far east.
aoe2 ends just after the renaissance, so eurocentrism is not warranted “because europe did the heavy lifting” in any way.

what might justify some eurocentrism is the opposite: europe was extremely far behind in the 4-9th century, hence the term “dark age”, something the rest of the world did not experience. So the whole dark age-feudal age-knight/castle age is itself eurocentric

@Apocalypso4826

Then why did Europeans consistently dominate technologically superior enemies, like the Muslim caliphates trying to conquer them? If Europe was so backwards, it would’ve been easily conquered, yet it never was, at least permanently.

And yes, I know that the Muslims conquered Spain, but even that didn’t last. None of the conquests did. Considering Europe was supposedly backwards, that’s a major achievement.

@SameCylinder301

But it’s still not related to the fact that this game has too many European civs added, make the number even bigger than rest of the world altogether. It’s simply not eurocentrism, it’s europe only.

@Apocalypso4826

Yeah, there are probably too many European civs. However, I don’t mind their existence because I find European history more interesting than other regions’ history. Still, from a gameplay standpoint, most don’t add anything new.

@SameCylinder301

A main problem happened here, is devs didn’t change names for vanilla civs before they add new ones, as a result we have Franks, but we also have Burgandians, and we have Slavs, but we also have Bulgarians and Poles. If they changed their names from Franks to ####### ##### to Russian, it would be much better. That’s also true for future civ divisions.
Another big problem is we have too many repeated civs for Europeans, like Huns and Hungarians, Roman and Byzantium, it makes the number unvital big.

@Skadidesu

But why didn’t Europeans permanently conquer Muslim lands? Why did the crusades fail at the end?
Why did the Byzantine Empire fall to the Turks?

Same logic.
Christians got Spain back at the same time it lost the Balkans.
Muslims conquered Malta and Sicily and parts of southern Italy but Christians Lebanon and parts of Palestine.

Arabs had armies suitable for their lands and Europeans had armies suitable for their lands.
Thin clothes and Camels don’t do well in European winter while heavy armour is painful in the heat of the Middle Eastern summer.

@Player870583437

I think the worst place to be in this pro-western anti-western battle is eastern european. Because they are considered not western enough by the pro-western and too western by the anti-western.

Doesn’t make historically sense is a non-argument in my opinion because nothing can happen until it does. There is always a first.

Every other nation from India to Africa acted like Europeans. Not would have. Wallachians and Moldavians had to pay tribute to the Ottomans in gold and children.

The Ottomans likewise have a rich history of slavery. It’s not that the west was more evil, all countries when in the position did the same, it’s that the west was more successful.

You can make the case that the westerners had an “easier spawn” with a more forgiving geography, but you can’t make the case that the west was more evil since everyone when having similar power had done the same.

Western colonialism? what about all of North Africa and Persia being Muslim, what caused that? colonialism. They were all playing the same race, the only thing the west is “guilty” of is winning. You can make the argument that everyone was bad, to which I agree, but if you make the argument that only the west is bad because it won, that’s hypocritical.

There is a huge difference between I won’t and I can’t.

@fleuret_jp

I heard that meso people’s inmunities probably weren’t weak before, they were weakening by climate change, lack of nutrition, war, hard work and so on. I also heard Spanish and some europe countries conquered Africa and America by not only war but also mainly dealings in the Age of Discovery. They could give guns and iron (for civil war) in exchange for labor.

It’s good to think history with various perspectives.

Yes, it’s quite a topic…

@Player870583437

I like the fact that despite adding new civs the balance is still pretty good and the old meta is still very reliable, with Franks & Britons still being good and fan favorites.

Yes, it is a miracle that the balance is still intact despite having like 45 civs xd… in AoE 3 that is impossible, because either you have very strong civs or very weak civs…

@CitingOregano34

then RoR which was unnecessary but at least it had nice campaigns

Well at least they tried to give a second life to AoE 1 DE in RoR, the mode has potential but of course they have to expand it with new dlcs…

@Lotor13

People wanted Return of Rome,

there are 2 points
-It is specific DLC, “not for everyone”

• many people refused to read description about DLC and get dissaponted

@Player870583437

They “avoided” it by releasing a “camapaign” dlc and no new civs.

@Player870583437

I agree with you, but get that thought to its logical conclusion. You said that there are 3 people that keep demanding Slavic, Italian and German civs. While that poll shows very clearly the people that would want the NEXT DLC to be an European one is quite big. That would be happy with it as you speak. More specifically the question was “Romanians, Croatians, Serbs and Slavs rework DLC as the next DLC”, it wasn’t even Europeans in general. That is nowhere near the “3 people” that you imagine. And if you check the forum right now 2 of the most popular topics are: Civ concept Croatians & Teutons split. Both European. The number of people who wan’t Europe isn’t as small as you wish it to be.

@Skadidesu

The problem is that this is an English speaking forum.
Europeans (and people in European colonies like the US or Australia) are on average a lot better in English then like Chinese people for example.

So there is an inherent bias in the forum that is hard to account for.

But the devs mostly make European civs anyway.
There will still be some massive Empires outside of Europe missing when they are finished adding each individual part of the HRE as it’s own civ.
AoE3 doesn’t even have Persia yet and they already added Malta.

@Player870583437

Companies like sales.
This is why they added Korea in the Conquerors despite the Koreans not being conquerors.
This is why they added Vietnam in both AoE2 and RoR.
This is why Dynasties of India sold so well.
As for China, it’s China’s desire that there is only 1 China, so adding Tibet or Manchu will likely decrease sales if not outright ban them.

And the next big market is the American & European one as you said, people who overwhelmingly like European civs. (talking AoE2 players in generals, not the most dedicated as in the people on the forums)
And what is wrong with that? I don’t see anything wrong with a Chinese who likes Chinese civs, with an Indian who likes Indian civs, but for some reason according to some users when an European likes European civs there is a problem.

@Skadidesu

We had 5 DLC.
4 European DLC and one Indian DLC.

Not very balanced.
One region of the world has more then half of the civilisations.

@Temudhun

Even before that, if we look at HD, Euro civs managed to sneak into the African and Central Asian dlc’s.
And yes, I know that Portuguese were involved in African colonisation early on and Bulgars came from the steppe, it doesn’t change the fact that it kept increasing the numbers of Euro civs when it should have been the time to shine for some of the most neglected parts of the world.

@Akoskaaa10

Middle Ages was Age of Asia. There should be 3 times more Asian civs than European.

@DynasticPlanet5

Did I mentiom we only have 3 Eagle civs. Put aside your real world worthless nationalism and pride that doesn’t mean much when these are events over 500 years ago: gameplay potential isnt being explored!!

@Temudhun

And this! This is ignorance masquerading as facts. 500 years of Western domination of the world is merely a simplification, 1000 is just blatant Eurocentrism and colonial propaganda.

@Apocalypso4826

Other cultures managed to do that too, and I find such instances fascinating, but none of them had a lasting impact like European innovations did. European guns literally changed the nature of warfare forever, and that cannot be understated.

@SameCylinder301

You are totally wrong about the concept “eurocentrism”. It means a world that centered in europe, not means a world only has or only care about europe. This word usually be used for measuring the whole world with European standard, like AoK set its 4 ages as dark age, feudal age, castle age and imperial age, despite Asian civs didn’t have some of those. That’s eurocentrism. Devs in AoK still add many non-European civs, and the number of them is even bigger than that number of European civs.

@Apocalypso4826

Other cultures managed to do that too, and I find such instances fascinating, but none of them had a lasting impact like European innovations did. European guns literally changed the nature of warfare forever, and that cannot be understated.

@Apocalypso4826

But that’s basically what I mean. Most of the life-changing innovations from the last 500 years happened in Europe. Whether or not Europe was significant before that point is a matter of debate, but Europe has been the most technologically advanced region of the world for that period of time, at least.

It’s important to understand all of European history so that we can understand how Europe got to the level that it is today. That’s why teaching history from a European perspective is fine. We can still study the good and the bad to come to more balanced conclusions, but not teaching anything significant about European history is going to lead to the impression that it has historically been unimportant in the world stage, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

@Temudhun

Ok, that’s just ridiculous. You didn’t previously talked about the last 500 years, but the last 500 to 1000 and now you’re trying to backpedal by pretending it’s just “a matter of debate” for the 11th to 15th centuries, but guess what? They’re part of the time period covered by the game, while nothing beyond 1600 is. So who cares about Europe in the last 500 years when we’re discussing a game covering more than a millenia, only one century of which overlaps with the time period you’re so focused on?

@Juggernaut8704

If you are either of the two category then you will automatically start categorising people into allies and foes.
So you need to change yourself and see history with neutrality without the lens of either of the two categories.

@Juggernaut8704

Then focus your attention towards facts not opinions. Don’t discuss what is underrated or what is overrated. Discuss what achievements they achieved and what factors played a role in that achievement.

Discovery of New World is a massive advantage to exploit. The closeness of Iberia to the New World is a huge geographical factor as to why it was the first to lay foot into the resource rich land.

Middle East falling in the middle of Oriental and Occidental World is a huge factor in Middle East getting wealthy in the Islamic Golden Age.

The Strait of Harmuz and Strait of Malacca got rich because of their strategic location. As the Artic Ice melts a new trade route might open up north.

There are factors responsible for everything. Believing only one small region of the world is the sole innovator that influences history is ridiculous.

First wave of Archeological Excavations during early 20th century was sponsored by Church to prove the correctness of Bible but they discovered the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Babylon. Should we have made satisfaction with only that much discovery?

As other parts of the world develops they will start researching their own histories. Modern historians are trying to patch together the stories to create a larger picture of world interconnectedness.

@TungstenBoar

I think the idea of anti European propaganda existing as an important factor in western academia does however completely invalidate the idea that you are even close to unbiased. Tbh, Its very hard to look at things objectively, I probably cant myself, even if Im from a western background, because at least to me the non-European cultures that are so neglected by almost all media and most western historians fascinate me. The whole variety, complexity and (I know its an stupid word) exoticness makes them to me extremely interesting.

But I will at least try to look for some concensus, I think anyone can really think that some specific culture and people were the most impreasive. Im constantly surprised by the achievements of the Maya who had a relatively small populations, terrible geography, and limited tools, but built some of the most impressive monuments seen anywhere in the medieval world, specially for the first half of the first milenium.

I do however think that saying that Europe deserves a privileged space among the cultures of the middle ages is a huge stretch. For a long time, Europe (and to a large extent, the middle east) was unable to field large armies because of poor supply lines and organization, the Battle of Grunwald, which is considered to be one of the largest battle of the middle ages, had less than 100000 men. The Siege of Vienna, a battle which included a huge coalition, 200000. The Tanguts, a kingdom of the 11th century in China, with the population of around half of France at the same time period, were able to field a million soldiers, and had battles with around 300000 soldiers deployed. They deployed heavy cavalry amd had to face against the tightly packed spear formations and crossbow volley fire regiments of the Chinese. Those are all things that Europe was able to do much later.

The East (China amd Indua) similarly were much ahead of Europe for a looong time in production of metal, crops and in sciences. While their muslets were less advamced than western and specially Ottoman muskets, their tactics and cannons were slightly more advanced until the 17th century from what I understamd. Edit: And even then, there are exemptions like the Vietnamese who developed the Jiaozhoi Musket

Even discarding the Americas and Africans as overall weak and destined to be conquered is overly simplistic and the arguments used for it often dont make a lot of sense. Africa had access to gunpowder thanks tp trade with the Ottomans, and they were extremely wealthy, with the riches they produced being important for trade worldwide. Nubia was able to prevent the Muslim expansion. A declining Mali empire was able to easily repel all the Portuguese expeditions. The Spanish were only able to easily conquer the Americas because of a string of extremely lucky occurrences, because of the Aztecs being hated by pretty much everyone, because of a Muisca Federation in which petty warlords were manipulated against each other, and because the Inca empire was in the middle of a Civil War. All these lucky events gave the Spanish the native manpower needed to expand the empire.

@Juggernaut8704

Actually no, the British and Portuguese wrote about Mughal muskets having twice (may have been exagerated) the range of their own muskets when they first encountered them due to the superior steel barrels. What lost the battles was the absence of a standing army, which was common in most of Indosphere. The army was called upon when required and they were from very diverse backgrounds. So they lacked the discipline and morale as compared to the european counterparts who were gaining “professionalism” as they were exploring new lands and learning new techniques.

@SamePorpoise303

My opinion is that the current “anti western” sentiment in western academies is actually a continuation of western colonialism, it’s pure privilege when you can lament about your own lifestyle while continuing to live that privileged lifestyle, it’s a very Christian sentiment, after all laicism, science and this pretence to talk objectively about other cultures is just another face of Christianity and of colonialism. Logic itself is a western product so to me all this argument feels just hypocritical. I’m very used to this kind of arguments from university, it’s just dishonest and removed both from the person and the culture (because of trying to be objective or to force empathy).
In the end the west is never and never will be anti west because that just doesn’t make historically sense, I think materiality comes before logic but here we get very philosophical and I’ve already been banned for making political jokes so I just say: like Marx would have said just look at material conditions, at what happens, the west is at his most colonial power nowadays whenever tries to cancel its story and show how it is the good one trying to accept everybody as long as they marry western values.
In the end as a westerner I think it would just be hypocritical to feel shame, of course I may feel it but it’s a personal thing, not a “construct”, it’s just fake rhetorical post colonialism hypocrisy to speak up about it to signal value in elite social contexts. Every other nation from India to Africa would have acted like Europeans did if they could so what’s the point? You’re crying about how the world works not about Europeans being ugly. To me it’s just stupid moralism and nothing else. If you really feel that bad about the west stop using phones, the internet, technology, science etc.
The world is just an hellish hole full of wars and injustices, just look around, even in the west recently, they’re just showing how hypocritical westerners are, yeah the liberal and progressive ones. In the end it’s just rhetoric, people in universities are delusional privileged that assess other people’s privileges and never worked a day in their life, come on… If you’re really Marxist (like so called critics of west call themselves) nowadays you can’t believe this crap.
The western world looks ugly because it won the rat race but everyone else would have act the same because that’s how life works, strong and weak, not goodies and baddies, there’s no inherent quality to non westerners, we’re all humans (isn’t this the point of being against racism?) in all good and evil we can do and it’s funny to see that people try to prove that there were strong empires in Africa and pre-Columbian America as to prove that those people were as terrible as us because empires mean imperialism so what are we even talking about? Europeans were just stronger during the colonial era, it won’t always be like this but if people in power in the west tolerate and sometimes even brag about “freedom of expression” or “anti” west sentiment in western academies what do you think this could mean? Come on… If something disturbs the power the power reacts otherwise it won’t.

Yes, I couldn’t have said it better…

@Apocalypso4826

I’m willing to concede the point, but I still think Europe during the Middle Ages is seriously underrated.

It is not underrated…you have the fall of Rome (395-476), the Viking age (793-1100), you have the Crusades (1095-1291), the Hundred Years War (1337-1453) and now the fall of Constantinople (1453)…then you have the entire Renaissance and early modern age, which it shares with AoE 3, until 1600…

@Skadidesu

This is just wrong.
Like seriously wrong.

Europe did a lot the last 200 years. More like the 19th century in general. Lost a lot of influence again since.
This was a very formative period for the world do Europe had massive influence so it shaped the way a lot of things were seen.
Like history was written from a European point of view (especially if you read it in an European language like English).

Until before the Industrial Revolution the rest of the world was not really behind Europe. The Qing empire had a higher GDP then all of Europe combined.

I don’t believe that wrong historic trope that Europe was totally awful during the middle ages, but that doesn’t mean that Europe was super advanced and ahead of everyone.

A lot of things like military technology are also not really comparable since armies adept to the enemies they face. In India it might have been more important to have an answer to Elephants then to have one against super heavily armoured knights.

Well, we are talking about what Europe did between 400 and 1600… what you are talking about happens in AoE 3 where Europe brings out its full potential in the Industrial Age…

@Skadidesu

Those two are completely unrelated though.
Also Huns are not European. They should not use Central European architecture in AoE2. That’s just completely utterly wrong.

The Hungarians also migrated unto Europe from Central Asia, so you can choose at what point you would consider them European.
All Europeans (besides the Basque people) didn’t live in Europe 4000 years ago.

True, the Huns would have to use East Asian architecture, as they do in the last mission of the Rise of Rome campaign… the Magyars/Hungarians are fine because it is the Hungarian kingdom…

@Skadidesu

the Forgotten Empires

It’s just The Forgotten…

@Apocalypso4826

I know more about European medieval history than basically any other period of history.

In my case, I prefer the ancient and modern ages, the medieval age becomes very cumbersome for me with so many kingdoms, dynasties and events…

@Temudhun

wtich hunts, religious obscurantism, tyranical absolute monarchy

That continued to be the case until the middle of the 17th century…

@Apocalypso4826

If it helps, I do frequently study every region of the world and its history, and am still continually impressed by how favorable Europe looks compared to them. Maybe it’s my inherent bias, but I’ve found that Europe just seems to always manage to pull through even when other regions are conquered by major powers. So it’s not like I only like Europe; I like the rest of the world too, but find Europe to be the most impressive historically.

True, but it is understandable considering that there are not that many written records prior to 1500 in regions outside of Eurasia…

@TungstenBoar

I was mostly talking about China when talking about the poor muskets

I honestly should learn more about the Mughals

In AoE 3 DE you can learn a lot about both…the Ming and Qinq Chinese used Arquebusiers instead of Musketeers and the Mughals introduced gunpowder and artillery to the Indian subcontinent in the Battle of Panipat in 1526…in the 18th century the Mughals were defeated by the Afghan Durrani Empire in 1747 and then they were occupied by the British EIC for a century between 1757 and 1857, when they fought for their independence (the Sepoy Rebellion that is the Indian campaign in the game)…

[MatM1996]

@Juggernaut8704

When the resources of the colonised country isn’t used for the benefits of the natives. It is taken away for the profit of the coloniser country.

A country taking over another country and converting it’s population is not colonizing.

A country taking over another country replacing it’s population is colonizing.

Of course, of course…

@CitingOregano34

Colony: a country or area under the full or partial political control of another country and occupied by settlers from that country.

@CitingOregano34

Not necessarily. Colonization is the act of building colonies. You can go to a deserted island and build a colony, despite not genociding anyone. You can also erase entire populations, but if you don’t settle the land with “your” people, you’re not colonizing. And if you conquer lands without sending settlers afterwards, it’s also not colonizing.

@Temudhun

Hmm… By this definition, not even the European occupation of Africa and South Asia in the 19th/20th century count as colonization, so I’m not sure it’s a perfect definition. I haven’t really studied the topic, but I think there are several criterias to fulfill:

• A form of segregation between colons and locals, no matter whether it’s by law or de facto. Ultimately, the colons must hold most if not all the political power, and usually the locals can’t even be part of the adminitration.
• The dehumanisation of the local people who are treated as inferior by their very essence. The justification can be biological, spiritual or other, but no matter what, adopting the colonizer’s culture can lower the opression but not make it disappear completely. As a result, mariage or other forms of unions between colons and locals are discouraged if not outright forbidden and “mixed blood” people tend to form a new social category.
• The hierarchisation of civilisations based on supposedly objective criterias.
• The creation of an ideology to legitimise the colonisation process, making it not only acceptable but a moral imperative. See the manifest destiny, the white man’s burden or the French “mission civilisatrice”. Usually, it’s helped by the last two points.

So, every colonization is a conquest, but not every conquest is colonization, And even some conquests from Europeans outside of Europe, such as the Diadochi Kingdoms or even the Crusader States in the Middle East, aren’t actually covered by this concept (which doesn’t mean that they’re more justified or that we can’t have a negative opinion of them, I think it goes without saying but on the internet it’s usually better to be very clear on those things). On the other hand, it does indeed include the actions of some non European countries, even to this day, and I don’t think we should shy away from it even if saying that as a French person makes me seem hypocritical.
Anyway, I agree with you that it’s certainly not true that every single country/culture in history has done colonization at some point.

Note: I know that my definition doesn’t cover the Greek colonies in the Ancient Era. I actually wouldn’t categorize it as the same phenomenon, they share the same name because it was the best term we could come up with when we started invading the Americas but ultimately it evolved into a different direction.

Yes, that is, the European cities that we manage in AoE 3 are colonies (the native, Asian and African cities are villages like in AoE 2)…

@Darkness01101

A free expansion pack with all new civs (at least 4), maps (at least 5 or 10), campaigns, gameplay features, technologies, game modes, bug fixes galore, QoL improvements galore, graphical touches, visual effects touches, water improvements, weather additions, time of day additions, an in-game museum to honor AoE 1997/1999 (to look at old AoE1/2 concept art, behind-the-scenes footage and dev interviews, design docs, game box/manual scans, never-before-heard game audio or graphics/engine tests, interviews with the voice talent), and much more.

That would be beautiful…

@Apocalypso4826

Clearly my pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Pandora’s Box has been opened…

@SameCylinder301

I think it’s OK. You can’t start a topic, expressed your views and close it when others try to express their view.

@Apocalypso4826

It’s not that I don’t want other people to express their views. I just think it’s gotten off-topic for too long.

@Player870583437

These subjects shouldn’t be pandora’s box in the first place, as long as we talk about them reasonably. It’s exactly when they become taboo that problems begin in my opinion. If we deem a problem we don’t like as “taboo” that problem will never be talked about in the first place, which is not the way of fixing a problem or preventing it from happening in the future.

Yes, it needs to be said…

@Player870583437

That’s how Bosniaks and Albanians converted to Islam, they used to be Christians before the Ottomans invaded the Balkans. In Romania, Bulgaria and Greece was a lack of mass conversions, but not because of lack of trying for the Ottoman. Which raises the question, is it colonialism only if succesful? or the mere fact of attempting it makes it colonialism? or at least an attempt of colonialism?

The Romanians were not directly under direct Ottoman rule only because the Ottoman, after numerous Romanian resistances to being directly ruled by muslims, deemed it much trouble to have the Romanians as a puppet state than under direct rule. It’s again not for lack of trying from the Ottomans, but because the Romanians proved more trouble than it was worth it for the Ottomans.
The main idea is that I believe the mere fact of racism, discrimination, segregation and treating a part of the population as 2nd class citizens, is not the core of what makes something colonializm. Take the Romanians being treated as second class citizens in Hungarian-ruled Transylvania. Could you call it occupation? yes, could you call it oppression? yes. But could you call it colonializm? I don’t know.

Yes, in fact the Romanians remained Orthodox Christians, as long as they paid vassalage to the Ottomans, they could continue with their semi-independence… and the Greeks, although they were occupied by the Ottomans, had the Phanariots who sought that the country will regain its independence what they achieved in the European revolutions of the 1820s…

@CitingOregano34

I’d prefer they avoid using Wikipedia for research, so we don’t have another issue like what happened with the Thirisadai. I mean, the AoE4 devs traveled to the countries they were representing in game and consulted with all kinds of experts. The AoE2 devs don’t have to go to such lengths, but all I ask is they use books and PDFs for research, even if they’re free on the internet, instead of getting trolled by Wikipedia again.

Of course, of course, I understand…well, it is what it is…the resources are scarce, so they will have limited sources…

@Tyranno13

Or at least, just using wikipedia properly.

You can check the sources at the bottom, and if those sources go back to wikipedia again, abandon the page.

Of course, your thing would be to use encyclopedias or historical documents from Google Academic and as a last option, Wikipedia…

@FloosWorld

Yeah, technically not a revival but from what I’ve seen AoE:O’s impact on the series was much smaller than 2 HD’s.

Yes, that is, AoEO didn’t hit that much because it had a cartoon aesthetic (which I don’t really like either, but you get used to it), at the start it had 2 civs, it didn’t have pvp and the dlcs civs were very expensive (15 usd for each one), it wasn’t a bad game (I play it with Project Celeste and now it’s a very good game, especially when the Indians come out), but people asked for AoE 4 and the remasters were like a gesture to the nostalgic fans of the saga while Microsoft continued with its experiments…

@RealMatrim2

I would like, that the developers add more unique editor units to all civs and eliminate more common units for all civs. There is so much wasted potential in Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition.

The Victors and Vanquished DLC makes me a little bit happy, that we can finally train Imperial legionnaires and Nordic warriors in the military buildings. It is further nice, that another new editor special unit comes into play with the Waranger or Varangian as a Viking at this DLC.

@Age of Empires Dev (Microsoft):

And yes, before I forget it, the community is still waiting of MORE ARCHITECTURE SETS for all civs for OVER 4 YEARS… Please finally satisfy this wish and ideally this year 2024.

@RealMatrim2

The best solution is for such previously unplayable editor units, to find their official way into the game, which is why I am writing things about it. The fact, that we now got the Imperial Legionnaire and the Nordic Warrior in the new DLC, is great. I continue to hope, that they will soon become a permanent part of the Romans and Vikings.

@Atsavin

Give those boys life! Some people will never see most of these scenario editor units because they never play with the scenario editor or scenarios. So much beauty in these units.

@SamePorpoise303

I think militia and man at arms fit aesthetically but in my new Roman campaign I’m gonna give them this instead of the longswordman:

@CitingOregano34

I just got an idea that, while more historically accurate, it would take more work and assets to do. Since having Legionaries in the Late Western Empire is not accurate, I think they could replace the entire militia line for Rome and make them all unique units.

Auxiliary → Limitaneus → Comitatensis → Palatinus

Yes, I agree… one way to give more freshness to AoE 2 would be to give more UUs to the classic civs or change military lines for their respective unique units, as happens in the more modern AoE…

@RealMatrim2

You can find the Imperial legionnaire at the 2 Byzantines scenarios namely Constantine (1453) and Komnenos (1081) at Victors and Vanquished DLC. The mission Komnenos (1081) is optimally designed for it without tiresome and you can train this unit “unlimited” in the barracks.

I had a lot of fun with it… However, I would like to see, that the fighting strength to be increased even further in order to do justice to the word “Imperial”.

They also appear in the campaigns of Alaric and Attila and in VaV in Gaiseric (406) and Vortigern (440)… God, how hard it is to kill them in Gaiseric, they are very tough, and I am going with dozens of huscarles and Nordic Warriors…

@Atsavin

Romans should not have militia line to begin with. We should start with a weak Legionary that gets stronger.

True, but in fact the Romans did have a militia line (the Auxiliaries, the Limitaneis and the Comitatenses)…

@RealMatrim2

Yes I will like to do that. I really like the Late antique time frame anyway.

Yes, I think they should expand Late Antiquity in RoR (300-373) with Celts and Goths and put the battle of Adrianople (378) in RoR or AoE 2…

[Atsavin]

@MatM1996

Tibetans (but the issue is if the Chinese government would let it)…

I don’t think the Chinese government would mind as long as there is no scenario or campaign against China. If there is, there is Bhutanese. I would love a Tangut, Bhutanese, and Jurchen dlc.

[Mahazona]

@Atsavin

Bhutanese

They are not a standin for tibet,its worse than calling normans sicilians.

[RealMatrim2]

@CanineCrown7153

For scenario design purposes,

Okay that sounds interesting. I can imagine, that an Imperial legionnaire making a good advertising in any scenario. However, I think, that the developers should work a little on his appearance, in order to be able to better distinguish it from the previous legionnaire.

@CanineCrown7153

in which square position? Under what requirements? What happens to the militia line?

I assume, that he behaves similarly with all of your points to the usual legionnaire. But try it out yourself at the editor. I do not know enough about it at this time.

[CanineCrown7153]

@RealMatrim2

assume, that he behaves similarly with all of your points to the usual legionnaire. But try it out yourself at the editor. I do not know enough about it at this time.

I mean, is it available from the beginning or do you need to complete a quest, or get to Imperial Age or something?