Yes, from 1321 to 1398 only, so just 77 years. In reality it had started to break apart very quickly after just 30-40 years.
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AOE 2 players: Indians is such a broad term to many peoples, rename them into delhites or whatever.
AOE 4: Delhi Sultanate is too specific, please rename them into Indians!!!
The joke speaks itself…
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I’d really like a citation on that. I don’t know in which way you’re calling it exact - it was neither the same dynasty or the same extent. Even the capital was shifted down to the Deccan once! The indo-islamic culture it introduced was in flux throughout. The only things that were more or less consistent were that these were originally turkic rulers that followed islam, and that rule was based from Delhi (apart from the aforementioned exception).
The political entity was Hindustan, as the Sultans called it themselves:
the rulers in the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal periods called their Indian dominion, centered around Delhi, “Hindustan”
(source)
The Greek name India was in use much before:
The terms Indos (Ἰνδός) for the Indus river as well as “an Indian” are found in Herodotus’s Geography. The loss of the aspirate /h/ was probably due to the dialects of Greek spoken in Asia Minor. Herodotus also generalised the term “Indian” from the people of lower Indus basin, to all the people living to the east of Persia, even though he had no knowledge of the geography of the land.
By the time of Alexander, Indía in Koine Greek denoted the region beyond the Indus. Alexander’s companions were aware of at least North India up to the Ganges delta (Gangaridai). Later, Megasthenes included in India the southern peninsula as well.
This rests on the assumption that there will be more kingdoms added. If so, then yeah Indians would be too broad. My point of exclusion was centered around the idea that A) there were other indian kingdoms around the same time/immediately before the Sultanate that controlled areas that at times fell under the sultanate (delhi included) and B) if this was the only representation of Indian civilisation, then it would be incomplete and exclusionary.
Except that Byzantium was the ancient name of Constantinople and the namesake of the Byzantine Empire, that lasted a millennium. The demonym is Byzantine. The ancient ethnonym was Byzántios. None of this applies to the Sultanate - Delhi was the city but the empire was Hindustan and the demonym (and ethnonym) is Hindustani. What exactly constituted India or Hindustan varied throughout. The political entity of Hindustan lasted over a millennium, not the Delhi Sultanate. And again, the Sultanate is what we call that period of rulers, not what the political entity was known as.
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A big misconception of yours here is that the rulers of the so-called Delhi Sultanate called their empire Hindustan. Hindustan refers to India itself, not the empire. The name Hindustan is derived from the same place the name India is derived from. Its not a bad option, certainly better than India, or Indians, however the basic idea is the same. Of course, if you have no problem with the Delhi Sultanate representing all of India, then sure, the name is alright, but that is not what you nor what many people out there want.
I would point out here that the naming conventions you are going by are best used in Europe, where most of the major empires belonged to the same land as the areas they ruled, such as France, England, Spain. Even in these cases, the names are not very consistent.
With the Delhi Sultanate, it is an exact political entity simply because everyone who uses the name refers to the exact same dynasties and the same succession of rulers. Its a collective term for multiple dynasties that were more or less the same. Nobody really calls the Mughal Empire, or the Rajputs or any Dravidian Empire “The Delhi Sultanate”.
As far as the Byzantine Empire goes, the Byzantine Empire does not simply represent the people of Byzantium, it represents a lot of different peoples. The Byzantine Empire, too, had shifting borders, and it did not have a single dynasty either. All it really has is a legitimate name, and while I believe that states should be called what the rulers call them, the Delhi Sultanate’s proper name is either going to be the separate dynasties that it consisted of, or they would represent all of India, neither of which suits the game.
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Exactly, compromises have to be made. IMO that Hindustanis solution is the “least bad”.
By the way, I first got the idea from the linguistic composition of India. When I have troubles delineating a civ, linguistics are often of great help. Here some interesting quotes from Wiki:
Hindustani is the lingua franca of Northern India and Pakistan
The language’s first written poetry, in the form of Old Hindi, can be traced to as early as 769 AD. During the period of Delhi Sultanate, which covered most of today’s India, eastern Pakistan, southern Nepal and Bangladesh and which resulted in the contact of Hindu and Muslim cultures, the Prakrit base of Old Hindi became enriched with loanwords from Persian, evolving into the present form of Hindustani
It strongly supports the choice of Hindustanis as a name for that mixed Hindu-Islamic culture the “Delhi Sultanate” civilisation is supposed to portray.
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You missed an important point: using a state name such as “Delhi Sultanate” is a major break from the AoE traditional naming of civilisation, which until now was based on ethnonyms or demonyms only, highlighting the cultural dimension of the civilisations’ design.
Having the English, the Chinese, the Mongols and then the Delhi Sultanate and perhaps later the Umayyad Dynasty, the Holy Roman Empire, the Swiss Confederation & cie would be a very clunky and inconsistent mix. IMO all civs should be named on the same basis, as much as possible (ethnonyms/demonyms or state-related/dynastic but not both).
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Personally, i think we shouldn’t
Naming it “indians” would make it an umbrella… and many people don’t get represented in umbrella civs.
The approach the devs are taking IMO is best, and makes way for a potential expansion for India.
We don’t want an AoE2 repeat, and consistency doesnt have to be maintained for a series to be good.
Your third suggestion is a great idea, but i’m also waiting for the northeast 
Dehli Sultanate was made by Turkish tribes but maintained in India, and they had War Elephants
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I really like the idea of using specific names for the civs instead of general, kinda reminds me of the Total War games.
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Lol most of them are triggered because the first indian civ in AOE 4 has “sultanate” in its name… you know what i mean
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I personally think they were named to be “easy to understand”
Em, aren’t factions in Age of Empires named after the people?
Also people and nation is not the same.
Greeks is weird in AoE1, in that timeline Greece was divided between different city states like Sparta, was called Delian League and the Peloponnesian League, it took some time till Greeks were united as nation, Greece. The right name would be Hellenians for them.
Also even weirder is England,
em they kind of did exist after they were “conquered by the normans” prior its
Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms or Heptarchy
four main kingdoms in Anglo-Saxon were:
- East Anglia
- Mercia
- Northumbria, including sub-kingdoms Bernicia and Deira
- Wessex
- Essex
- Kent
- Sussex
I prefer it if they are called Indians instead. No need to be to much specific. Better if they call China as Ming Dynasty as well.
I really like this split. it seems possible and well named. although ther emight be overlaps in region, I wonder how diverse their gameplay would be?
and how would their campaign play? I guess the delhi sultanate would have a specific sory, with a certain enemy civ, which would that be?
and if we add these 3 indian civs, who would they oppose in a campaign?