The name perpertuates mild forms of western imperialism that stands in the way for people to have their own identities. The game has been good enough at trying to respect how nations viewed themselves so far, in specific, it has been very well at portraying many islamic nations like the Abbasids which is impressive. So it strikes me as extremely jarring to see that apparently, they are fine rewriting these people’s heritage for the sake of internet points and popularity.
This is a history based game. Yes, it is an RTS first and foremost, but you shouldn’t be learning massive mistakes like this. This should have been a great opportunity for this game to correct one of the great misrepresentations about Romans, but instead they chose to keep perpertuating a mistake.
Sorry, not even. Literal propaganda by germans historians of the HRE.
Why do we have a game where germans are called romans but not the romans themselves? Players can handle two civilizations with the name ####### ## ##### it is not a problem.
I never understood why they went with “dynasty” rather than caliphate. This also bummed me out. At least they included the Abbasid and their name however.
There’s not some anti Roman pro German conspiracy. It’s what they called them in AoE2 as well, it is what more people know, and they just aren’t going to have two civs both called “Romans”. Maybe they should have named HRE differently.
There is. The term was popularized by historians IN THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. It is propaganda by definition. The purpose of which was to never utter “Roman” in addressing the actual Romans. Because that was what the HRE was meant to represent.
We know what has happened historically. We are not medieval peasants, and this information is readily available to us. There is no reason to keep perpetuating this.
And even more unfortunately. Those learned who understands this, are forever battling crabs like you, who knows nothing and demands to have a say.
Your nostalgia does not matter more than actual history. Give it up.
The Byzantine Greeks were the Greek-speaking Eastern Romans throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.[1] They were the main inhabitants of the lands of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire), of Constantinople and Asia Minor (modern Turkey), the Greek islands, Cyprus, and portions of the southern Balkans, and formed large minorities, or pluralities, in the coastal urban centres of the Levant and northern Egypt. Throughout their history, the Byzantine Greeks self-identified as Romans (Greek: Ῥωμαῖοι, romanized: Rhōmaîoi), but are referred to as “Byzantine Greeks” in modern historiography. Latin speakers identified them simply as Greeks or with the term Romaei.
Can you please provide some sources for these theories? While I have no doubt there was cause to undermine the eastern Empire’s legitimacy to the Roman legacy, the term itself was also used by Laonikos Chalkokondyles. Can’t really get more authentic than that.
Being coined isn’t what matters. The term was legitimate, but it never used to refer to any peoples, ever.
This was utilized by German historians living in the HRE to avoid calling the actual Romans by their name. They effectively found a synonym. This was however not what they called themselves (mind you, their heritage was the very important ROMAN EMPIRE).
The term being used today to somehow pretend that these peoples were different, is ahistorical and wrong.
They can speak Latin in like the dark ages, then go onwards to speaking Greek in the rest of the ages. But to only speak Latin like in AoE2 is wrong and disrespectful.
All I want is that they don’t ignore the Greeks in this empire like in AoE2. It’s silly to assume it’s 100% Roman like in the capital city of Rome from the western part of the empire.
The eastern as explained above is different and also the part of the empire that lasted the longest. Otherwise it’s just incorrect history.
Did you even read what you posted? It says what they described themselves as. Romans.
Just because the word “Byzantine” exists, does not make it any more legitimate of a describer of an empire that not only predates it, but kept living for almost a thousand years later.
Even the peoples who lived in the eastern Roman Empire who did not want to be associated with the Romans, did not use the word Byzantine. Because that word never became popularized in such a fashion, nor by those peoples. It was used as an EXONYM.
Did you read? " Greeks self-identified as Romans (Greek: Ῥωμαῖοι, romanized: Rhōmaîoi), but are referred to as “Byzantine Greeks” in modern historiography. Latin speakers identified them simply as Greeks or with the term Romaei."
Just because they referred to themselves as Romans does not mean that this is the Roman from the western part of the empire and Rome.
Also, there are many different empires with the name Roman, they all mean different for different reasons.
Us Greeks refer to us as Ῥωμαῖοι in this time period, but for us that means Greek in another word.
What is the problem if the “New Rome” was founded under the name of Constantinople, and at the time of the war with the Turks it was known as the BYzantine Empire.
Being coined absolutely matters. How a word is used is also matters, I’m not denying that. But your entire argument r.e. Western imperialism (which, while a valid topic by itself and something I might surprise you on, has very little to do with the freaking Visigoths or the like from the turn of the 1st millenium) is very much exaggerated for impact.
(Chalkokondyles was from Athens, and a family of no small significance either)
Would you accept calling the faction the Hellenes? Would you accept anything but “the Romans”, as that specifically seems to be the angle you’re approaching this from?
You seem to think a video game is going to correct modern-day surface-level understandings of past empires, and I’m sorry you’re just flat-out wrong. Not only has everyone capable of posting on this forum spammed the word “Byzantine” ever since we knew we were getting this reveal today, they’ve been using it since the game came out.
Nobody Barely anybody has used the phrase “Eastern Roman Empire”. Nobody has (pretty confident nobody has actually) once used something like “the Empire of the Greeks”. A video game has to be marketable, and especially within the franchise of Age of Empires “Byzantines” are very recognisable. Everyone knows what empire it refers to. Nobody is “erasing” the Eastern Roman Empire by doing so, because anyone with a shred of historical knowledge is going to know they’re the same thing, and the people who won’t aren’t going to know the Empire of the Greeks (or the Hellenes, or similar), but are going to know the Byzantines.
Would I object if the faction was renamed? I don’t think I would. But that’s worlds apart from attacking the devs and anyone who dares to disagree with you just because you have a particularly spicy opinion about a long-since collapsed Empire based on how you think they’d prefer to be addressed in a video game none of them exist to play.
Entertainment is contextual. That’s how it works, and how it fails (in the market as a whole - impressions matter often more than the quality of the game itself). You need to weigh historical accuracy against many other factors. And if you want to educate people, (pre-emptively) insulting anyone who disagrees with you isn’t the way to do it.