Cheyenne Rider -> Cheyenne Dog Man, and other Prairie Native Names

This is a Cheyenne Dog Man, as they are called in Cheyenne (Hotamétaneo’o).

Then this is the in-game Cheyenne Rider.

Are they not clearly meant to be the same thing?

Let’s rename the Cheyenne Rider to Cheyenne Dog Man, since that is what their name is in Cheyenne.

(Btw, “men” is being used in the all-encompassing effect that it gets used in the word “mankind” - Women could be Dog Men as well, but since the models and voices are all male, it’d serve as both a more accurate statement to what the in-game representation is and make them more noticeably separate from the Tokala Soldier. If this isn’t a concern, then Cheyenne Dog Soldier would work just fine.)


On a slightly related note, can we rename the Tokala Soldier to Kitfox Soldier? When translated into English, Lakota terms don’t remain in Lakota, they get translated into English - hence why my family name is White Bear Claws, not Matȟošaké Ska. It better translates how the name is heard and understood when spoken in Lakota.

This, also, opens a whole discussion about the names of the rest of the Lakota military. There’s references to the Bare Lances and the War Badgers, but both send more Kitfox Soldiers - Why not make a card specifically called War Badger and have it be a powerful upgrade to the Axe Rider, and give it a new name? Replace the Bare Lance with the Crow Riders and make it a powerful upgrade to the Bow Rider or Rifle Rider, along with a name change.

Just, please, there’s whole warrior societies the Lakota had that could stand to be used here. Y’all go out of your way to make Landsknechts, Uhlans, and Janissaries, but you couldn’t be bothered to make the Crow Riders, the Bare Lances, the Strong Hearts, the War Badgers? The Shield Soldiers, the Elk Soldiers, the Bowstring Soldiers?

Can we get a rework of the Lakota where the actual military history of the culture is used to make the military aspect of the civ?
The other societies of the Cheyenne could be included with a rework of the North American Natives, since they’re now extremely underwhelming in comparison to the African Natives, let alone the European Royal Houses.


So which name would y’all prefer for the Cheyenne cavalry unit?

  • Cheyenne Dog Man
  • Cheyenne Dog Soldier
  • Cheyenne Rider

0 voters

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I want to add this - I looked through the Lakota, Hauds, and every North American minor civ north of the Rio Grande

There is a single unit among these civs that is from history. Every other unit is some random made-up bullshit by the devs.

That unit is the Tokala Soldier. If the Devs update the Cheyenne Rider to Cheyenne Dog Man, that brings the total up to two units based on history.

That is 2 out of 30 units.

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i love how a thread about dutch skirm uniforms not looking 16th century enough gets positive feedback and a thread about the entire lakota civ being a work of fiction gets a whole novel of why you should shut up

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By activating “I think this name/design has no historical basis”, I special summon “the master of game design and business” with a 10k word length description that prohibits you from talking about it.

Then I automatically summon “the grand inquisitor against the evil Eurocentric community” without even having to activate anything related to Europe.

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Can you imagine how much drama it would generate if I posted this exact same argument in one of the bajillion “let’s complaint about minutiae of the european civilizations” threads?

In fact, you don’t even need to imagine, people go insane at the mere mention that “maybe Europe shouldn’t be the sole focus of the game.”

Like if the devs can implement an absurd number of unique units for every single last European civilization in game, the least they could do is to at least adress these issues, which in my opinion are much more pressing, about the Lakota.

You know, getting the Ottoman treatment…

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Yeah one person with a well-known, constant, annoying urge to lecture on almost any idea represents “people”. Here’s the drama you want:

Yeah but he is just another representative of the evil Eurocentric community who only supports European reworks and only opposes non-European reworks!

Just turn every single thread into a “this evil community only care about Europeans” trial when op has mentioned nothing about Europe at all, while a similar behavior of “talking about one European nation that is not mentioned in a post about another European nation” will normally result in public execution.

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Sounds like you tried to summon the “I’m distracting people with stupid analogies to hide that there is an obvious double standard” card

And failed miserably

Yes, for example:
Immediately accuse someone as Eurocentric because he mentions one European nation in a thread about another European nation.
Then jump into a thread about native Americans to accuse others for talking about European nations in other threads.

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I’m going to make things easy, if they turn this topic into something controversial, I’ll start sending out warnings and ultimately the thread will be closed. So I urge you to moderate yourselves and discuss on good terms without seeking controversy.

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Is it really awful of me to ask that the Lakota get units based on our military history? I’ve provided examples, like the Kitfox Soldiers, the War Badgers, the Bare Lances, the Stronghearts, etc. This is how our militaries were named, and they even tried to establish a set look and fighting style for each of these societies - the Kitfox wore the buffalo horn headdresses, the War Badgers lined their lances with otter fur and embedded glass shards into it, the Crow Owners primarily focused on ranged support, etc.

I’ve given examples. It isn’t that hard to take the bits I have and put more effort into research on the part of the devs to create these as actual units in the game.

How many unique European units are there, and yet the entire continent of North America (north of the Rio Grande) gets a whole one unit based on history?

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As always I don’t want this to turn into another Europe vs “non-Europe” thing.

Though it’s somewhat sad, most people in this community and the development team (despite not necessarily all European) are inevitably more familiar with European history of this period, thanks to education and modern entertainment. Thus it is “easier” to get more European stuff into the game and there are more discussions on details about European civs. It’s not that the community don’t care about some other topics like native Americans, or oppose giving them better representations (that guy opposes almost every idea he considers “not profitable” btw). Most people including myself just lack the knowledge. That’s why this community really need people like you.

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Well that person just cannot help lecturing about game design and business on almost every rework suggestion.

There have been people banned from the forum for the racism they perpetuated on my posts. I didn’t even bother reading that guy’s comment.

To keep on topic, the Cheyenne could also use a name update - rather than being called the Cheyenne, it might be prudent to rename the minor civ to simply Dog Men. The Dog Men of the Cheyenne were a secretive religious outpost that kept its distance from the rest of the Cheyenne, but with the knowledge that they would always show up to help the rest of their people when needed, and that they would always be the protectors of the Cheyenne.

But the Dog Men were pariahs by choice, and they would not have been found in your typical Cheyenne settlement.

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Fun note on this in general - it would make far more sense for Native American minor civs to have been made with a religious bend rather than the Asian ones to have been done so, and it would have made far more sense for the Lakota + Haudenosaunee explorers to have been religious leaders and for the Asian explorers to have been military leaders.

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This is a history game.

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You know… when I stop and think about it… yeah that would have made things so much easier, huh.

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They don’t even need to do much more than change some names and appearances for units to fix a lot of the representation issues.

Would it cost to make new models and textures? Sure, but they do that all the time! Just look at the new PUP, they updated the visuals for all the royal guard and church tech units of European civs!

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It’d be AMAZING to see the North American minor civ units get updated thoroughly. It’d be great to see some warriors show up.

For the moment, however, I think it likely that a few of the smallest civs might not have enough info left about them to update in a meaningful way - specifically, the Klamath and Nootka might be a bit light on relevant information to update them in any meaningful manner.

The rest, however, could easily be done.

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@JjForcebreaker Your post has been deleted.

You are not the one to tell her what she should and should not comment on this forum. If you see something against the forum rules, please report it and the moderation will decide.

While @AnaWinters could have used some softer words, she’s reflecting her frustration at what she considers a relatively easy-to-address historical inaccuracy of the game.

To @AnaWinters I recommend that you do not treat as racist any person who might be a respectful critic of your speech, except for the person who really behaves like that.

The freedom of one person ends when the freedom of the other person begins.

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What exactly is the point of the forum, if any discussion is impossible? What is controversial, something somebody doesn’t like?
Could you explain why did you remove my post that did not contain anything breaking forum rules, just because somebody didn’t like it? How exactly isn’t that censorship?

You deleted my posts as an off-topic one, while it was a direct reply about the topic of the thread, unit in question. I’ve explained, without any profanities and or other forms of rule-breaking forms, in detail the reason why I do not agree with the need for a change of that unit’s name. It’s simply a mistake on the moderaiton side, easily proven for anyone that can read with comprehension.

Reason or decency is not reserved for people with a couple of pixels of a badge next to their name and I don’t see a reason to not express my opinion about what is being written here.
You seem to be reviewing this thread, and as I’ve said- deleted lengthy post on topic as ‘offtopic’, while insulting the creators and their work doesn’t seem to bother you.

I didn’t express any frustration, I presented detailed explanations. So be so kind and do not delete substantive content and focus on frustrations on the forum.

It’s not an inaccuracy. That unit is not named wrongly. The demand is to expand, lengthen the unit name at the same time removing the basic description of that unit type ‘rider’, which doesn’t help anything gameplay-wise, and makes it slightly harder to quickly asses in the heat of the battle what is that unit.
It is a unique name, but before uniqueness the more important factor is simplicity, and since there are o other cavalry units- this full unit name could be added as part of the description, flavor text.

Shorthands like that are present everywhere, not only among minor civs and native tribes, but all major civ, including poster boys like Brits or French. Treating a game like historical dictionary is bad idea on many levels, and these numerous reasons were taken into account when designing all AoE games. AoE3 have been pushing the boundaries when it comes to bombardment newcomers with sheer amount of unique terminology, alternative technology via shipment cards, or an overwhelming amount of distinctive units.
Having units be branded with their class-type is simply a crutch for people learning the game, or ones with less time or worse memory/not interested in memorizing all these unique concepts.


This is a video game. Not a history book. Not a school teaching aid. And gameplay design and game balance come first, and for various practical reasons from a need for a specific unit archetype not present in history, to simply lack of time/budget/knowledgeable consultants specialized in certain subjects (often of secondary or tertiary importance) it’s more than OK to create units to just fit the design requirements.

From the first game to AoE IV, historical accuracy was and will remain out of the question in regard to the vast majority of content. Historical themes are a coating and flavor of a game, adjusted and tailored to it. Not the other way around.

I would very strongly recommend you reconsider the words you’re using to describe the work done by game creators. Now and in the past.
Again- this is entertainment, and none of the core staff in dev studios was, is, and most likely will be required to be a professional scholar in the field that happens to be a subject of video game that is being made at that moment.
It’s all made up, it’s all symbolism, simplifications, heavily reductionist translation of the spirit of a certain time, into a real-time strategy video game meant to be at best- inspiration to seek knowledge on your own if touched countries, regions, or mentioned historical event are alluring to the player.

If there is a well-documented, researched military unit that is fitting the time and broader design (and is no less interesting than what’s already here) and can replace a generic archer, spearman, swordman, slinger, skirmisher etc- nothing is stopping anyone from creating a suggestions thread. Heavy, unplanned rework of very old civs is very unlikely, especially in a remaster and not a game in the early access stage, but it might become helpful if presented well.

Making up structures, technologies, units, attacks etc. with just some thematic coating is a standard and a baseline and expected (and good) thing, even in the most historically dedicated game- AoE2, where only 1-2 special civ units were granted unique names. Ease to learn and remember unit roster comes first.
In AoE3 it was inverted, and the amount of unique, not shared special units, and unit variants is staggering compared to all other AoE entries combined.

‘Cheyenne Rider’ tells the story, and until other cavalry units are introduced- there is no need or point in making learning the game (for newcomers and ones that just played AoE3 years ago) ever so slightly harder.
Well, there is a point in your personal (and half of a handful of others that might even think about this) satisfaction, thankfully this plea, along with dozens of other demanding introductions to the game the most obscure or irrelevant things possible, doesn’t matter.

All you do here seems to be nitpicking, complaining, and apparently now- offending people that spent a lot of time and effort creating a video game that covers a fantastic historical period, and focuses on many civilizations, countries, tribes and ethnic groups completely forgotten for centuries and barely present in video games, any games.
I’ve played a lot of strategies and AoE III even in the original form already paid an impressive amount of attention to portraying these things, and with time the amount of content focused on natives in Americas outgrow almost all other games I’ve seen combined. The amount of neutral native settlements present on these maps alone could fit a couple of RTS games. And that’s just a small, extra layer of optional gameplay.