Just found out about how the second DLC of this year will look like and was shocked to know that the Ballista Elephant is going to be one of the unique units of the Tughlaq Dynasty, but the question is: Does that make any sense? Looking at the Ballista Elephant, it was exclusively used by the Khmer Empire, but somehow, the Tughlaq Dynasty ends up being the one with the Ballista Elephant (this is the case before the Khmer becomes added as a civ). Like this has got to be a joke. Giving the Ballista Elephant to a faction not based on Cambodia (and it’s being given to a variant civ) makes absolutely no sense. This problem has got to be fixed!
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This DLC sees quite a few seemingly repurposed assets.
Like you said the Tughlah Dynasty feels more Southern India or SEA. The Delhi Sultanate was known for heavy cavalry not such extensive use of elephants everywhere.
“Macedonian dynasty” had their entire unique roster being Viking, even including buildings, though the Varangian guards were just a specific regiment not a whole faction or ecosystem.
I guess it’s very likely Khmer and Viking civs were planned some time and some assets were made. But they had no budget or time to make buildings, sounds and full civ designs, so they stuffed into their closest possible civ as “variants”
Still a bit surprised the “Viking” variant is under Byzantine not English or HRE
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Not at all
In fact, Vikings or properly named the Scandinavian Mercenaries called Varangians were part of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantines) army and acted as a Elite Force
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It’s one regiment of heavy infantry, not a whole ecosystem with cavalry and archers and not carrying wooden churches with them.
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Ok I gotcha!
Instead they should have developed a Standalone Scandinavians civ and a Spanish civ plus a worthy campaign
Very disappointing this new DLC I must say!
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As far as I know, Khmer wasn’t the only civilization/empire to use ballista elephants.
Ballista elephants were also used in Southern India, where they traded with the Khmer people.
What I don’t know is whether Northern India used ballista elephants…
However, I don’t see a problem with that… if more civilizations used them, it should be shown in Age of Empires IV.
And there’s nothing stopping Khmer from having a different ballista elephant, with more improvements.
Afaik the only record of this were on an ancient khmer relief.
So there is no evidence elsewhere
It’s not even sure if that image reflected true military practices in Khmer or artistic exaggeration
You’re using famous and widely circulated drawings/sculptures as a basis.
However, there are ancient scriptures that mention the use of weapons such as ballistae on elephants in India. These are writings, not sculptures.
" According to the Mahabharata , the elephants were provided with armour, girths, blankets, neck ropes and bells, hooks and quivers, banners and standards, yantras (possibly stone-or-arrow-hurling contrivances) and lances."
It even makes some sense, since Khmer and the Chola Empire (southern India) had contact with each other.
Just wanted to point out it’s Khmer, I don’t know where you’re getting that Y from
Picture this. They were working on 2 new civilizations and 4 variants. Then, boom. A meeting happend with executives that want to cut funding for the project and downsize. They still however want just as much money, if not more.
Remember, a lot of these assets are outsourced. They pay 3D studios, independent artists and likely musicians, voice actors rather than hiring them. So they may very well have just expected this to have been the case for Norse and Khmer. But, when the news hit that the executives realize, “Oh, people will still buy the product without the expensive assets?” And cut that funding, the AoE4 teams likely had to scramble and make as many unique assets they could.
So that’s when they decide to split up the DLC, to buy themselves time and turn civilizations intended to be new into variants. They release some of the finished variants early because let’s not kid ourselves, 6 variants may be too much variant for someone who doesn’t like variants. So the Khmer and Norse civilizations are repackaged into what they are now, and the Crusader DLC becomes a small version and preview of what’s to come ahead for those looking to spend a little money, but not too much at once, with the likely hood that months later, they may have some more money for more DLC.
Doesn’t paint a good picture of what may have happened.
I’m slightly worried they decided to not purchase commissioned production assets simply because they didn’t have to, but maybe I overestimate the sales figures for AoE4.
Thanks for letting me know. I don’t know where the Y came from either, lol =D
I wouldn’t consider Mahabharata as a reliable historical source either. But that’s interesting to know.
Similar thing happened to the 3K DLC. You have Han Chinese “civs” with wonders from later independent northern peoples, unique units that either look SEA or wear a freaking animal pelt, and then two different peoples stitched into one civ.
The production this year has signs of “management kicking in” everywhere
Of course some people would deny it utterly because “no reliable source” and “they always had a coherent vision for their designs” but we could speculate