Are the Three Kingdoms really “medieval”? Let's find out

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

Many users have discussed wether or not heroes in ranked is good or not, or if the Three Kingdoms are civilizations or not. But in this post I will discuss something that I feel hasn’t been analyzed in depth: the “medievalness” of the Three Kingdoms, AKA if they are medieval or not. The notion that they 100% are is one of the main arguments to support the inclusion of these new civs in the game, and though many disagree, I wanted to analyze this question in detail. I am in the camp that they are not medieval, and so my post might be biased, but I wanted to make sure that my opinion was not warped by any outrage, and that I don’t disagree just because I’m angry, but because I actually thought of thins in depth. So, I’ll use my (meager) knowledge of history to find out if the Three Kingdosm are medieval. Let’s begin…

I have seen two main arguments that support the inclusion of Wei, Shu and Wu in what is supposedly a “medieval” game, which are as follows:

1- The Three Kingdoms period is the beginning of the medieval era in China, so they fit in the game perfectly. It’s just that China is more advanced and that is why their Middle Ages started earlier than Europe. Note that this is an argument used by Forgotten Empires, too.

2- There is no such thing as “medieval” China, and it’s an eurocentric notion to try to apply it to China itself. However, the Three Kingdoms were very advanced for their time, and on par with Medieval Europe, and so they are a good fit.

Both of these arguments contradict themselves, no need to explain that part. But individually, they are also wrong. I will answer to both of them and elaborate why I believe they are flawed.

First, the argument about Three Kingdoms being medieval. Well… No, they aren’t. At least argument 2 is partially correct in that area: “medieval” China doesn’t exist, because that term applies only to European historiography. As you may know, the world is a pretty big place, and for that reason every region has its own divisions of history, to make ordering events a bit easier. For example, we have the Yamato period in Japan, the Pre-Columbian period in the Americas, and the Middle Ages in Europe. However, it’d be wrong to try to apply the terms “Yamato period” to Italy, or “Pre-Columbian period” to Turkey, and for the same reason, it’s wrong to call any period of Chinese history “medieval”.

Not to mention, the term “medieval” itself has negative connotations. During the Renaissance in Europe, there was a revival of classical arts, and the promoters of these culture, at the time, thought Classical Rome and Greece were the peak of civilization, and what came after the fall of Rome were the Dark Ages, where real culture declined and barbarism took over. That’s why they referred to medieval architecture as “Gothic”, to associate it with a “savage” barbarian people. According to them, if the Ancient Era was the golden age of humanity, and the Modern Period was the revival of culture, then the Dark Ages were in the “middle”, hence the name. Modern historians, of course, reject these notions, disagree that the Middle Ages were backwards and don’t accept the term “Dark Ages” as valid, but the point is, that at least in the past, people viewed this era as “less advanced” and originally the term as pejorative.

As far as I know, this is not the case at all in China, where the Tang and Song dynasties are viewed as golden ages of the country. How then, can you call this period “medieval”? The Three Kingdoms (and up to the Northern and Dynasties Period) could reasonably be called a “dark age”, due to the long periods of internal difision and massive death toll. However, it seems that even during these times of civil war, the Three Kingdoms were still very advanced and sophisticated enough to be included in a Medieval game, not to mention it’s part of the same era as the golden age of the Tang dynasty.

So the question is, if you are using these optics to justify their inclusion in the game, can you really call this a “dark age”? Because if they reached the “Middle Ages” earlier then that’s not something to be proud of or a sign of advancement, remember that the term is despective, and if we use it’s original meaning, then technically this means their civilization declined much earlier than Europe’s. Just to be clear, I know medieval isn’t equal to backwards, but I’m just using the renaissance meaning of the term here, and I’m repeating myself as to not create confusion.

My question is, by what metric can you define “medieval” in the context of China? I don’t believe it’s possible, the term is specifically, like stated before, a historical period in Europe. This would be like saying Europe had a “Century of Humiliation”, when this is just a time period specific to China, or that China had a “Principate” when that is a time period specific to Rome. It makes no sense, why force it? In my opinion, by saying that China had a “medieval era”, you’re just grabbing a historiographical term that you know about because you know of European history, and then copying and pasting it onto a completely different region that had it’s own separate events. I doubt ancient Chinese historians said “ah yes, this is the medieval period because I said so”.

Next, on to point number 2, and this is something that has already been discussed before in the forums, so I’ll be brief.

Many have argued that if technological advancement is the metric by which civilizations are added, and let’s suppose Medieval Europe is the baseline for this, then many civs like Huns and Aztecs cannot make it into the game, because they weren’t as advanced in a few aspects. The Huns didn’t build cities, and the Aztecs didn’t use steel, but they’re still in the game, so this “metric” clearly was never applied by the devs. On the other hand, if technology still defines what can be included as a civ, and not excluded, then we can add the Sumerians and Egyptians too, they used bronze and built massive pyramids like the Inca and Aztecs respectively. Why are they not in the game? Could it be… They don’t fit with the game’s theme? I dunno…

And on the last part of point number 2, yes it’s true that Three Kingdoms aren’t medieval, but it’s the game’s THEME, not technology, that defines what gets to come in and what is excluded. But what about Romans, Huns, Goths, and Celts, you may ask? For the latter two, they still existed in the Middle Ages, why is this even a question? And for the former two, well, because the game also covers Late Antiquity (sort of, not all of it).

Basic information, but for context:
In Europe, the Middle Ages are said to begin in 476, after the Western Roman Empire fell, the Germanic warlord Odoacer “dissolved” the position of Western Emperor, and sent the latter’s insignia to the Eastern Roman Empire, pretty much putting an end to that State. The Romans are important to the beginning of the Middle Ages, and because the game covers Late Antiquity as well, then it makes sense for them to be present. And what about the Huns? They are also an important cause for the start of the Middle Ages, since they kickstarted the Great Migrations of Goths, Vandals, Franks and co. into Roman territory, and thus the Middle Ages wouldn’t be a thing if not for the Huns.

Are Three Kingdoms part of Late Antiquity, then? No.

Because we are using European historiographical terms, we will use European historiographical years. Generally, it is considered that Late Antiquity begins in the year 284, when a period known as the Crisis of the Third Century came to an end, and when Roman emperor Diocletian Came to power.

However, the Three Kingdoms period in China lasted from 220 to 280, so they miss the mark by a few years. Surely, you can extend the timeline just a tiny bit to include them, right? Not so fast… First, let’s look at each of the Three Kingdoms individually.

Wei lasted from 220 to 266
Shu lasted from 221 to 263
Wu lasted from 222 to 280

So out of these, only Wu was really close to making it into Late Antiquity. Not that it matters because it’s an European historiographical term.

But wait, there’s more!!!

As we can currently see from digging into the game’s files, the new campaigns span from The Yellow Turban Rebellion, all the way into the Battle of Red Cliffs. So the timeline is from 184 to 208 AD.

This means that, not only do the “Three Kingdoms” campaigns NOT cover the actual Three Kingdoms Period, but they also do not even reach either the traiditional start of the European Middle Ages (476), Late Antiquity (284), or even the “beginning” of “Medieval” Chinese history (which is not a thing, but if it were to be a thing, and if it were to start with the Three Kingdoms Period, it would begin at 220).

In other words, by no existing metric does this DLC belong in a Medieval game, or even one from Late Antiquity, for that matter.

TL;DR: No, they are not medieval, but if you disagree with my reasoning then I’d like to hear your thoughts.

9 Likes
2

No disagreements here, really. On a purely thematic scheme, the 3 Kingdoms fail the mark completely. It’s just absolutely terrible to see…

3 Likes
3

While I agree the decision for 3K was incredibly stupid, I have different reasons.

Hold up!

The reason why Europeans went west or south (around Africa) was because the Ottomans were throttling the old Silk Road trade.

There very much is a “pre-Columbian” period in Turkey between the Fall of Constantinople and when the Western Europeans started getting filthy rich off Central American gold and could trade around Africa. During this period the Ottoman Empire had full control of east-west trade and could extract extreme profits.

Chinese historians had for over 2000 years a unified recognition of the Imperial Era (since the Qin Unification).

So if you want to use massed fielding of armored cavalry as your metric for medieval tech capability, (remember, stirrups were brought to Europe AFTER the Huns’ time) then you gotta start with the Han-Xiongnu Wars, as the first wars in which more than 100,000 armored cavalrymen were fielded on single campaigns.

You don’t even have to do anything except disable knight line for the Huns (so their heaviest cavalry would be Tarkans) to use them in the campaign scenarios.

…Which is exactly what I did in my planning document on a (approximately)16-part Sinosphere series (including factions such as Kara Kitai, Goguryeo, Dali, Tibet, etc.) of DLCs. Most have 1-2 new civs, max 3, but at least 4 campaigns and usually a scenario collection. Every one of them is between 6 to 9 “items”.

1 Like
4

如果要创造出所谓的中国中世纪开端，它至少应该符合欧洲中世纪的特点：帝国灭亡，蛮族入侵，文明衰退与复兴。很显然三国时期不符合，这段时间只是内战，而南北朝时期才真正算得上中国中世纪的开端。

If one were to create a so-called beginning of the Chinese Middle Ages, it should at least conform to the characteristics of the European Middle Ages: the fall of an empire, the invasion of barbarians, and the decline and revival of civilization. Clearly, the Three Kingdoms period does not fit this description; it was merely a period of civil war. It was the Northern and Southern Dynasties period that truly marked the beginning of the Chinese Middle Ages.

7 Likes
5

The European history and Chinese history are fairly different on the classifications of eras. I cannot guarantee when the Chinese “Middle Ages” began, but if talking about similarity, maybe it looks like:

Roman Empire ↔ Han Dynasty.
Crisis of the Third Century ↔ The Three Kingdoms.
West Roman Empire ↔ Western Jin Dynasty.
The Migration Period ↔ Upheaval of the Five Hu Barbarians.
The barbarian kingdoms ↔ The Sixteen Kingdoms.
Merovingian Kingdoms and other Germanic kingdoms ↔ Northern and Southern dynasties.
The unification by Carolingian Empire ↔ The unification by Sui Dynasty.

Not rigorous comparisons, but anyway.

I can be persuaded that the Xianbei can be regarded as a potential civ since the Five Hu including them are similar to the Huns and Germanic Barbarians, even though I still think they may be too early because ideally the Chinese civ in the game should basically focus on the period from the Sui to the Ming while representing the dynasties before the Sui as well. Once there were a Xianbei civ, it will focus on the Northern dynasties, while the Chinese civ will play the Southern for that period.

The Three Kingdoms just out of the time frame totally, like you won’t consider the Palmyrene Empire and the Gallic Empire.

3 Likes
6

Timeframe’s topic? Have you summoned me?

“Late antiquity” was invented by an art historian at the start of the last century exactly because of the bad connotation “dark ages” seem to imply. Honestly dark seems cool, it doesn’t have to be bad and in the same way “medieval” is not necessarily negative, it just means in the middle between antiquity and modernity.

But anyway you can see late antiquity and dark ages as virtually the same thing. Late antiquity emphasise the ancient part persistent in the early middle ages (remnants of classical culture and paganism) while dark ages emphasise the medieval part (Christianity and Germans).

Late antiquity is said at the widest to go from Marcus Aurelius to Charlemagne so if you take this definition is basically from the mid Roman empire to the Carolingian one. There are more restricted definitions such as starting with the crisis of the 3rd century or with the foundation of Constantinople etc and ending with the death of Justinian or the Muslim invasions etc. Middle ages proper begin around 800 AD and for China with Sui or Tang I’d say, basically with a new unified empire after years of invasions and infighting.

284 is said to be the start of the late Roman empire rather than late antiquity itself but that could work too.

There was a Marxist historian I don’t recall the name considering middle ages going from the 3rd century crisis to the French revolution. From a materialist pov it’s not hard to see why: it’s because in the 3rd century the feudal system and political fragmentation started to take over the unified Roman state, way before the famous 476. I’m not arguing it’s correct, just to show that history partition is not set in stone.

If you think both late antiquity and dark ages are not neutral enough and too Eurocentric there’s a third term that you can apply to Asia as well: migration period. Although I think late antiquity and dark ages work for Asia too because they experienced indeed invasions, political fragmentation and most of all climate change (this is basically universal).

The migration period started from roughly 200 AD when barbarians formed big confederations such as Vandals, Xianbei, Goths, Hunas, Franks etc and slowly replaced the ruling elites (Roman in the west, Han in the east but it happened in India and central Asia too). The migration period had its aphex in the west from 375 to 600 circa but new invasions continued until the end of the middle ages. In East Asia it was a bit earlier and in India a bit later arguably.

Of course if you want you can always find an exception but the point is to try to find a date that works for everyone more or less, at least for the big players.

Now the issue is with the 3k which I think are a stretch, probably the most you can stretch it without breaking the elastic but they can still work imo. The real problem to me is the fact they’re not civs and, after watching the first campaign scenario from Ornlu… All the rest. The timeframe issue is the lesser evil so to say.

The 3k started in 220 when Han fell but like the fall of Rome there’s a whole prologue which is thought to start in 184 AD with the crisis of Han and the yellow turban rebellion. Marcus Aurelius died in 180 AD and the reign of his son Commodus is though to mark the end of the pax Romana and the beginning of the decline.

Marcus Aurelius is the latest AI name for Romans in Aoe1 and I don’t think it’s random because you have plenty of important emperors later than that.

Now you could say but there are Palmyrans in Aoe1… Well aoe2 and aoe3 both have Aztecs, right? Yeah in the case of aoe1 it makes less sense because aoe2 is basically an upgrade of the first and it wouldn’t make sense to have again Huns, Goths etc there imo. But I mean the game is dead, it doesn’t really make much of a difference overall for Zenobia alone.

If I had to choose a beginning date as the game was before the 3k I would say like you the end of the 3rd century with Romans switching religion, army and administration, with Jin in China, Gupta in India etc.

But even with the 3k extending it to include ALL late antiquity/dark ages/migration period you can pretty much rationalise it to include the entire mid Roman empire, shortly after its aphex (after the five good emperors basically).

This means the 3rd century is included, not too bad honestly, or at least not as bad as people make it seems to be. The 3rd century in the end is just a prologue to the 5th century, kinda similar (barbarians, pestilences, natural disasters etc). Rome would have fall if not for a strike of luck and the result was a completely different empire than the ancient one.

That said if they touched anything before Marcus Aurelius or the 3k I’d be the first to call that bullshitt, no matter what. Roman principate or Han empire at its peak… That’s just classical antiquity.

Finally it’s baffling to me that in a dlc that plays like Warcraft, giving heroes superpowers and civs that are not civs people focus so much on a stretch of the timeline. I mean they’re stretching reality, isn’t that worse?

(Again I’m not against a bigger focus on heroes per se but the way they did it just feels off while the timeframe can still work imo. The 3k civs are of course perfect for chronicles like a 3rd century themed DLC would, but not for timeframe reasons, rather because those eras were about factions and civil wars with in the case of 3k some mythology thrown in)

1 Like
7

About the start of late antiquity, I’d rather set it with the Antonine Plague so under the reign of Marcus Aurelius, so around 170. This plague killed large parts of the roman population and a disproportionate number of doctors, and as there was no printing, much of the medical knowledge was lost as masters and their apprentices died. This prevented the roman population from bouncing back, and it’s no surprise the germanic invasions started only a few years after the start of the disease.

Before that, Rome was an untouchable hegemon. After that, it was constantly on the defensive due to being severely weakened while Germans attacked. It only went downhill from here

  • Septimius Severus ravaged the political stabiltiy by starting a civil war against his co-emperor, instead of both ruling with the agreement of the Senate. He did that to put his sons on the throne (who were such good men, one murdered his brother within 6 months…). And to pay for that, he debased the currency. This started the trend that would culminate in the Crisis of the Third Century.
  • in the 220s, the Parthians were overthrown by the much stronger Sassanids, who would fight regular wars against Rome for the next 400 years, being a major threat
  • the stability utterly collapsed during the Crisis but it was just repeating what Septimius had done
  • Diocletian did increase stability, but his economic reforms were a distaster with widespread price controls (causing shortages) and inventing serfdom which made the population much less willing to defend the Empire so long that invaders would be reasonible. Standards of livings inscreased under the Germans who ditched that system.

So putting the limit at Diocletian, although he changed the system, was just one step while the trajectory had been going down for a century. The dynamic was already very similar in 200 as in 300, while it’s day and night compared to what it was in 100.

In a similar level, the fall of Rome (actually Ravenna, Rome had been sacked twice in 410 and 455) in 476 was an insignificant event at the time. I’d push late antiquity to the 620s with the rise of islam, which was an actual game-changer. The fall of Rome didn’t hurt the economy much, it even recovered due to ditching diocletianomics, it were the Arabs pillaging the Med sea who made trade collapse.

So in my book :

  • classical antiquity : up to 170-ish
  • late antiquity : 170 to 620
  • middle ages : start around 620
1 Like
8

Culturally, whole of the Three Kingdoms and the Western Jin Dynasty can perhaps be seen as an extension of the Han Dynasty. After that, China would be greatly influenced by the Hu peoples. That’s why I feel the fall of the Western Jin rather than the Han is more like the fall of the (West) Roman. Chang-an fell to the Hu peoples, just as Rome was conquered by the Germanic peoples. The Hu peoples established kingdoms in the Northern China, like the Germanic peoples established their kingdoms in the old land of West Roman.

3 Likes
9

I agree, though if 3k are here to stay you need to somehow rationalise that (and it’s still possible although as I said it’s a stretch).

10

I see no need to rationalize it. They shouldn’t be in the base game, full stop. They were warring factions from the Han Dynasty, not actually different, significant cultures. UpmostRook’s logic seems to me like a much more acceptable logic line as it’s more in line with the original concept of the game, which is what should be followed.

3 Likes
11

I’ll admit I didn’t think that example through xd, but then again the Discovery of the Americas affected the entire world, I should have used something else…

Damn that’s a lot… Remember to make a Ne Zha DLC, I heard it’s quite popular, gotta chase that clout.

I am fully convinced they could be a civ. Or could have been, because you know how Wei’s design is.

I agree, and also the same trends appeared all over the world. But marking a specific year for the entire planet, for the start of Late Antiquity, is complicated, and I prefer looking at each area’s historiography separately. For example, my country was once conquered by Spain but nothing significant happened in 1492, so while the Discovery of the Americas kickstarted important events that would impact this country’s future, I prefer to look at the specific year the conquest began to signify the start of a new era, as that is much more appropriate in this specific case.

Back to Three Kingdoms… On paper it wouldn’t break the game to include things from 180 onwards, but with this game’s focus on the Middle Ages, and Later Late Antiquity (not a real term but let’s pretend it is), then the appearance of the Three Kingdoms is jarring. Even more jarring is the campaign, which pushes the timeline way too far and is pretty much Classical Antiquity, except by definitions that push the beginning of Late Antiquity the farthest.

I agree with pretty much everything, however that doesn’t mean the game was conceived with these ideas in mind, clearly it regards 476 as the start date of the Middle Ages, and I believe it’s more thematically appropriate for AoE2 to stick to it, even if it’s debatable that it’s correct or not. After all, the game’s timeline covers the Rise of Islam regardless of where the Middle Ages actually began.

Overall I changed my opinion a little bit, and it’s that regarding the timeline, the devs should balance both real history and the game’s thematics at the same time. And I believe this DLC fails in both areas, too.

2 Likes
12

The issue is we’ve had the Huns for a quarter century with a campaign before 476. With the introduction of the Romans the start was 312 in my head cannon (Constantine wololoing himself to christianity), and as the game doesn’t have the same limits everywhere, notably ending earlier in Europe… overall in my opinion it’s on the very edge but still justifiable for the timeline. Every significant actor you’d need for 400 AD Europe were already there in 200 AD, except the Arsacid Parthians soo-to-be knocked out by the Sassanid Persians.

I’d indeed prefer at least using the name of regional Chinese peoples instead of names of kingdoms. But if I want to be indulgent with the idea of splitting the Chinese but not really, the Chinese are portrayed as an unified culture from a later time especially now that they doubled down on gunpowder, starting with the Tang. By the time of the 3 Kingdoms, China has not been unified for long, it’s only 4 centuries after the first unification by Qin Shi Huangdi, I assume there still were some significant differences between different areas of China, especially considering the 3K followed natural borders. It’s a reverse situation to Europe in which the roman culture got decentralised through contact with the barbarians (while they didn’t bring much genetically) and relative isolation with the breakup of trade and administration.

On that point, renaming the 3K civs at least to regional chinese dialects would limit the damage.

(but they don’t seem in a hurry to do so, there also is the issue of renaming the Slavs to Ruthenians now that we have 3 other slavic civs…)

1 Like
13

I’ll just let you know that in the new campaigns, the non-Three Kingdoms factions are depicted with the Chinese civilization, or at least that’s what I saw so far in Ornlu’s video, but I imagine they will do the same for the rest of the scenarios. So… I was hoping they wouldn’t do that because that means, if they are “technically” the same even if it’s Ancient times (I disagree, but we’re going by what the game portrays), then that means there just so happened to be very unique and distinct civilizations that appeared out of nowhere, lasted 50 years and then were absorbed into the Chinese civilization yet again. The more I think about it, the greater the thematic disconnect becomes…

But on another note, I always wondered if they could make multiple Chinese civs, appropriate to the timeframe. Not naming them after dynasties of course, but I think there’s potential as long as they are named after ethnicities somehow. Anyway, the cat’s out the bag because of 3K, let’s just add the Ming civilization depicting the Mingese people xd

2 Likes
14

They did use the Burgundians for the Burgundians in Attila despite the civ taking nothing from the invasion period and being solely based on the 14th and 15th centuries Grand Dukes, so it’s not the first time they do that.

I guess chinese players are crippled by not having gunpowder units, making them weak generic locals.

So much would have been dodged by making them a chronicles…

3 Likes
15

If you really want a “medieval equivalent” of China, I think it was the Warring States period and ended with the Qin dynasty already. After that there was no such thing like feudal hierarchy. There were warlords or separatists but not like dark age Europe

That is why calling 3K “very medieval” is a stupid argument and a good example of “not even wrong”. You can define medieval outside Europe however you like because medieval is an European concept. It existed simply because westerners defined their “classic” and “modern” era and need a name for the long gap between them.

Before the age of exploration, historiography between regions were not aligned. You look at pre-Columbus America. There was “pre classic” “classic” “post classic” Maya then “contact period”. There was no “medieval” Maya. Not all regions need a “medieval era”.

People stick to chronologically relevance as the theme not because they are conservative or they hate WE. It’s just simpler.

2 Likes
16

If you read my comment you’ll see that we agree. The only difference is that to me the states not being civs is a greater offender than the timeline extension.

We’re in the realm of more or less of course, I’m not pretending you can find an exact date that would work for the entire world.
But like someone else said western Jin in 266 and late Rome in 284 could have worked well enough or Constantine and the upheaval of the five barbarians in 313 circa. There are plenty to choose from.
If they add the 3k (taking aside the “they’re not civs” issue which to me it’s worse) you can still find some common ground although it’s stretching it.
What doesn’t make sense to me is to start in 395 in Europe with Alaric and have the Chinese start only with the Sui in 580. It doesn’t feel consistent and fair.
But if you end with Lepanto in Europe it’s ok to have noryang point or the mapuche imo, it’s just 30 years give or take, it’s acceptable.

3 Likes
17

Indeed it’s not obvious to make other regions coincide with the european middle ages. For China, (I’ll get crucified for saying that…) you can make the argument it started with Qin Shi Huangdi unifying China for the first time, it’s a significant milestone. The same as the Romans in Europe at the same period yes, but in China it always managed to reunify itself as opposed to Europe.

18

I consider Lepanto to be a complete outlier. But the game doesn’t need the same exact limits everywhere.

1 Like
19

In the game’s case, China also starts in 395 because that’s also Alaric’s start. It’s arbitrary, but before this DLC it’s been accepted this was the start of the timeframe of the game, in a global scale. It has nothing to do with time periods, it’s merely the start date of the Alaric campaign, and then it’s applied to the rest of the world because it’s contemporary.

If I explain it like that it doesn’t sound too convincing xd, but like I said before, China has no Middle Ages or Late Antiquity, because those terms are not specific to Chinese historiography. So trying to apply those terms and see where each of these eras begin in China, generates a lot of unecessary debate that goes nowhere. Anyway, I think starting the game in 395 because of an in-game campaign is the best choice, makes everything simpler and makes AoE have more thematic consistency.

1 Like
20

Now the civ of Slavs is obviously focusing the East, while the other three are not, and each of them had their own kingdoms like Kievan Rus’, Kingdom of Poland, Kingdom of Bohemia, and Bulgarian Empire. Therefore you can clearly tell a kingdom or faction should be represented by which civ in a scenario.

On the other hand, if the three new Chinese civs generally become representatives of their regions, still you can’t absolutely tell a Chinese political entity should be represented by which Chinese civ among the four. Which one is for the Northern Song and which one is for the Sothern Song. Should them be different? Such kind of problems is stupid from the beginning.

By the way, in terms of the political correctness of modern China, separating the Han Chinese into more pieces is more unacceptable than separating the Chinese into a Han and non-Han others, and separating the Han Chinese by regions may be more unacceptable than by periods.

I usually call the time frame of the game as the particular period of “4th-16th century” rather than “the Middle Ages” or “the medieval period” when the discussion is going to be rigorous. Calling the game medieval is just for a casual talk in a convenient way of saying. Defining a fixed start at the 4th and a fixed end at the 16th, so there is no need to consider about the meaning of a historical event to other regions.