You win by far.
Persia should be in AoE 4 and especially AoE 3 (god, when??), because Safavid dynasty was a world power.
But in AoE 4 period, the Ottoman and Roman / Byzantine empires were outstanding for longer than Persia.
3 Likes
I think the talking is about continuous independent statehood. First Persian Empire (550 BC - 330 BC) ended with Alexander the Great. The Second one (Sassanid) Empire (224-651), ended with the Arab conquest. Then come the Safavids and so on. You have big periods of interruptions. There are multiple Persian Empires.
Talking about a Continuous empire, the Easter Roman Empire was the longest living one. (395-1453), the starting date being under debate, some even placing it with the start from the reign of Constantine the Great, or even the founding of the Roman Empire.
About the topic of the Caravanserai, I agree it should belong also to Persians, Turks, Saracens and maybe Tatars also, but I’m not sure how this would impact the balance of the game.
5 Likes
Thats true, Just look at the organ gun. A unit that was never used in Portugal. Italy, France and the English used them.
Honestly why I wish meso civs were never in the game to begin with. To this day I avoid playing them.
hahahahaha this comment wins the internet 
2 Likes
Not a game changer building. I would gladly accept it to be turned into a regional building. Hindustanis are very strong at 1v1 or at TG so one missing feature for them is OK
This is ironic because the image @FantaMorgana presented (Spanish being technologically superior) is believed to be inadequate today.
1 Like
This is revisionist nonsense. Gunpowder, steel and the ability to sail across the oceans was an immense technological advantage that could never be matched by the Aztrecs. What the Aztecs had to their advantage was that they were at home and the Spanish were not so in a potential war of attrition the cost of fighting for the Spanish would have been greater but that is not the same as saying they did not enjoy tech advantage.
I think the devs really missed the mark in introducing novel ideas to AOE2 with the meso civs.
No. The only real technology advantage of the Spaniards was horses and ships, but the former relied on the surprise factor and the latter are only useful in battles on the coast. Gunpowder at the time were very bad, slow to reload and inaccurate.
What made the Spaniards win was a combination of things that you can’t reproduce in the game: political instability of the Aztecs, epidemics and deep hatred of the subjugated peoples who preferred to ally themselves with the Spaniards (only this can be represented, really).
Even the iron armor didn’t help much, it was heavy and would roast whoever wore it in the tropical heat, and the enemy stones and obsidian* arrows could pierce them (obsidian against metal is like a shrapnel grenade). The Spaniards, like the Portuguese in Africa, had to adopt native tools (like quilted armor), tactics and numerous allies to succeed.
Edit: Correction for badly phrased sentence (with *). Normal arrows penetrated metal armor, not obsidian arrows.
I would really like to see videos of test with obsidian against “iron armour” (I just assume you mean steel) because all I could find were people talking about poisoned arrows glancing off armour and the poison being more dangerous than the actual arrow. High quality armour of the late 15th/16th century was pretty much impossible to penetrate with arrows. At least that’s what accounts and tests show. I even found texts talking about the Spanish saying that their plate armour was a bit of an overkill.
But you’re certainly right that that’s not what conquered an empire, but the political situation, charismatic leaders and illnesses
I’ll happily believe that. One of the things gunpowder weapons do better than bows is piercing armor. That’s why as soon as they became common, armor got thicker and heavier*. Eventually this would lead to soldiers in all roles covering less and less of their body with armor even if they could afford it. In a hot and humid environment against a large number of opponents with bows you would probably have preferred an armor set from one or two centuries earlier, all things considered.
*=The thicker and heavier might also have had to do with the way armor was becoming more and more mass produced now. The price of armor, adjusted for inflation, went down, and more and more people could afford it. The flipside of this industrialization is that it may have impacted the craftsmanship and the quality of the metal in the average set as well. A set designed against arrows would still have been lighter than one intended for use against muskets though.
There’s an awareness of continuity of Persia, only dynasties change, same thing with China. So Persia is actually even older than China and I think Persia is the longest living empire together with the Roman Empire (incl. East Roman) and China.
But Romans also changed dynasties several times, a couple in Rome and several longer ones in the most important city in history: Constantinople.
The Ottoman Empire is different, it NEVER changed a dynasty. It was the very same empire throughout, the only major imperial family to last almost 700 years anywhere in the world, much longer than Tang, Ming or Qing in China. It’s possible to argue that Seljuk Empire and the sultanate of Rum form a continuity with Ottoman Empire.
2 Likes
the japanese had the same royal family for 126 generations, that’s 2600 years. first emperor in 600 BC
2 Likes
I personally don’t get the hatred for Meso civs. I like them.
2 Likes
Too bad you hate probably one of the singlest best additions to the game. Don’t get people who hate actually unique and interesting civs.
The Meso civs is the main reason I wanted to get “The Conquerors”. The rest was just nice extra, even though the extra was really nice too.
The best expansion to date, even after 22 years now and many expansions later.
90% of that time there wasn’t even “Japan” to speak of.
Much less an empire.
1 Like
To say the Japanese royal lineage definitely started 600 BC is kind of a bold statement. Most people agree that the first couple of emperors are just mythical figures. It starts to get a bit more authentic in the 1st century BC and the first real proof comes in the 6th century AD. Although that still makes them the oldest continuous dynasty.
2 Likes
Yeah most honest users agree. But with 9% pick rate for Franks and 6% pick rate for Britons, while Turks and Saracens at 1% (how unbalanced is that?!), the last thing in the world we need to worry is to give these two civs a minor age 4 unique building that’s really not changing balance but improving the game A LOT.
3 Likes
Thank you for asking me that. This question is more interesting than I remembered.
As I said in my previous post: the arrows that pierced steel armor (yes, I meant steel) were of sharpened stones. Obsidian does not penetrate steel armor, it shatters on contact, scattering hundreds of shrapnels everywhere. But when touching the skin, it is really very dangerous (No wonder it is used as a scalpel in surgeries today. Some even say it’s the sharpest material in the world).
Anyway, here are better explanations (I recommend to check the answers linked too):
On an Aztec atatl penetrating a steel armor:
On the brittleness and sharpness of obsidian and a comparison to steel blades:
2 Likes
Maybe the Caravanserai could be a shared building
3 Likes