Korea stands in an awkward position where it’s not the most powerful or strongest military power of the time, but it’s one of the civs most easy to research from the region.
I had to bend over myself trying to find the Siamese unit names (you may see all the sources I had were in Thai) and to this day haven’t been able to reliably find anything for Burma.
Yes, although the Burmese and Siamese dynasties had stronger military power and political status during this period（In Chinese historical records, wars broke out between Myanmar and the Ming and Qing dynasties, and the Ming dynasty failed to achieve its goals in Myanmar. The Qing dynasty also suffered certain setbacks in the early stages of the Qing Burma War. The Anglo Burmese War also had a broader impact; Siam Thailand, on the other hand, was a pioneer and model of reform in modern Southeast Asia and successfully maintained relative independence in the modern colonial wave,）However, due to the subsequent rise in the overall status of East Asia (including Korea’s own historical record keeping habits), compared to Korea, Southeast Asia has always lacked in-depth research from foreign countries
The most important thing is that after World War II, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, South Korea’s rapid rise brought more attention, while Southeast Asian countries fell into recession due to internal instability and other issues, allowing South Korea’s own history and culture to be more widely promoted, while Southeast Asian countries lacked attention
So there’s a saying that goes, “All history is modern history”
Yep, there’s far more potential Asian civs that have projected more power than a Korea, which was on the defensive seemingly a lot of its time in the eras covered in AOE3. But yes, it’s incredibly easy to come up with a full, historic roster of units that fit in all the standard slots/roles due to the information out there.
It’s a shame there is very little non-Thai sources on Siamese stuff - its seems like a really interesting (and strong!) civ and whilst I’ve made comments on adding Korea, I’m doing so on the basis that it’s a ‘go-to’ Asian civ - I’d take far more exotic (to European eyes anyway!) civ choices (as long as they’re fairly unified and had some intereaction with the world) over easy ones any day.
Influence is not the most important factor…most of the civs are regional powers.
Koreans just have good documentations (from themselves and its neighbors) and iconic images to easily follow thanks to modern entertainment.
I would say Japan was not as important before Meiji Restoration. But who cares. The samurai image is so deeply embedded in modern entertainment. It’s so easy to pull of a “Japanese civ” of this period with much uniqueness.
I’ve got a couple of responses to this, some might seem like I’m playing it too safe, some might seem kinda batshit.
So the cavalry shouldn’t really be unique. Tanky hand cav, good armor/resist stat, but slow and not particularly high in damage. The ranged cavalry should be fast but kinda frail, and also have lackluster damage–but where this unit stands out is that it’ll deal siege damage with its normal ranged attack because Korean carabineer/dragoon units began life as scouts and spies firing exploding arrows from metal tubes on horseback. Later these became more sophisticated and proper rockets, and later still more reliable flintlock weaponry.
The infantry isn’t particularly unique, and in fact all of the English sources we have for them are really quite generic, to the point where military manuals deliberately treat swordsmen and spearmen as interchangeable under the name of “salsu”–a term that applies to any backline armored melee soldier. So when I went about assigning unit names to Korean infantry, I had to use both foreign terminology and made up names for units in my own outline. Gakggun for the foot archer? Term doesn’t exist as far as I know but it’s best represented as the middleground between a Yumi and a Longbow. Salsu? Yeah it’s there. Daeduyin for a musketeer? It’s not even a Korean word, it’s a Korean corruption of an epithet assigned to Hamgyong musketeers by the ############ people of Amuria. Naegeumwi as a dopp-like hand infantry? Eh, I feel odd about including a royal guard unit but whatever. It’s a valid historical name. Pyolgigun? Blatantly stolen from Wars of Liberty, but these guys were using early models of Mauser and Berdan riles, they’re not the Carolean-types WoL chose to portray them as, they’re better served as Skirmisher-like units under AoE3: DE rules.
The Mangam Hwacha should just be a card that allows Hwacha to work like Organ Guns, Napoleon Guns, or Gatling Guns with their own cards.
The provincial garrisons thing is hard to nail down. IIRC, they totally overhauled the internal defense systems like three times.
Yes, I agree…Persia and Oman first, then Burma and Siam and lastly, Korea and Vietnam to make the game more competitive…I could also add Tatars and Uzbeks…so you have an AoE 2 civ and one of AoE 3 in each dlc…