I’m finding a lot more small issues when looking at the map.
For example Crimea was mostly inhabited by Tatars until Stalin deported them, which is a little outside of the AoE2 time frame.
AoE2 covers more then 1000 years of history so it’s definitely very hard to get good borders.
But it certainly focuses on the second half of the Middle Ages (looking at campaigns especially) so it would be best to look at worlds maps of the time 1000-1500 AD.
Sure if there was a generic “Slavic” civ then yes, but judging by the civ itself in game it’s the East Slavs which the Croats and Serbs are not.
And the Romanians are not slavic, they have slavic influence sure, being surrounded only by slavic nations (except the Hungarians) tends to have that effect, but they are not a slavic civilization.
I had a dilemma whether to mark Romania as Slavs civ or not. I marked it only because of the Boyar unit and to territorially connect the Southern Slavs with Ruthenia (Eastern Slavs).
Boyar is an Eastern European thing rather than slavic thing. Yes, it originates from the Slavs. Used by the Kievan Rus and Bulgarians, but later the Romanians, Lithuanians and Baltic Germans also adopted the term of Boyars.
I have mixed feelings about Boyars being in the game. They were noblemen rather than a warrior class. Sure, it helps Eastern Europe stand out since “Boyar” is a highly popular name even in the west, an average person is likely to have heard of Boyars, but an army of 50 boyars? not a thing.
Boyar was like a Count or Duke for the west.
One cool thing though, if boyar is to be kept (probably will) is to replace Paladin with Boyar for Bulgarians, Slavs (whatever they are renamed), Lithuanians and Romanians (if they are added) and the UU can be something else. A shared unique unit much like the Winged Hussars for Poland & Lithuania.
These three civs are enough to have access to Boyar.
Slavs civ, after being renamed into Ruthenians civ, could receive Voyi (a warrior who belonged to the team, in Ruthenian “Druzhina”) as their Unique Unit (and maybe even early-modern Streltsy).
Although this one isn’t perfect, it’s a lot better than any of the others that were posted, though I’m not sure about the expansions… The China based expansion idea has all factions that I think are of worthy addition but in Africa I’d go for Kanuris, Songhai and Yoruba, personally.
Current Mesoamerican civs: 2
Current South American civs: 1
Current East African civs: 1
Current West African civs: 1
Current South Asian civs: 4
Current Southeast Asian civs: 3
Current Central Asian civs: 2
Current East Asian civs: 5
All these are far more important than any region of Europe according to numbers
I would actually like to get the Romanians or even the Serbs at some point in the far future, but I don’t think Europe should be touched in the next 4 or 5 DLCs at the very least.
