pre-columbian civs are full of surprises. even most maps do them no favors. the Mercator map is really deceptive.
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Along similar lines, I enjoy trotting this map out when people say that India doesnt deserve a second civ.
Modern day India can actually fit over the capitals of the English, French, HRE, and Rus. If that area in Europe gets four civs, it’s not unreasonable for another area (which had at least a similar population, if not a greater one) to have two civs.
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They will have second civ it was confirmed by devs already so what’s the point?
Well, I suppose the point is to say it’s a tremendous decision by the Devs that I agree with completely.
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I’m not really getting this whole “geographical area” argument.
Kazakhstan is almost as big as India. South Korea is just 100 000 square kilometres.
One of those is more powerful and influential than the other.
If India gets more factions it will be for reasons that actually matter.
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Yes, for sure. My map is a response to a specific line of argument that implies that one civ is enough for the land that makes up present day India.
There’s a natural tendency for us to sorta compartmentalize many ancient civs with the modern day borders that we are all so used to.
But you are 100 percent right that the map I posted is nowhere close to a complete analysis of which civ deserves to be 9th or 10th or 15th. Those are far more complicated questions.
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I came across your posts in the poll thread about how many European civs the game should have. Then I came here since you made a dedicated post for these thoughts.
You mentioned Cahokia Mounds and that is neat to hear. I live near Cahokia Mounds! I’ve been there many times and I hope we manage to protect more of it. It’s great to see you mention it here because it was the largest city north of what is now Mexico for hundreds of years. I have seen estimates of the city having a population of 10,000-40,000, which could make it the most populous until Philadelphia passed it in the 1780s, and bigger than London in the 1200s. And there were other settlements all around here. Cahokia civilization lost most of its population in the 1300s I believe. That’s not to say the people disappeared, but it was definitely a big change.
I think as a civ, the Plains Native Americans are so different to other civs we might have in the game because they are so sparse without concentrated population. This may make it less feasible to include them. However, you have a great vision of a way to include them as a civ in the game - very nice write-up. A civ that becomes more nomadic as it advances is intriguing. The seige aspect is so foreign though. They would need seige ability if they are to attack a big wall. Even if we create a story that gives the civ control of seige it would be strange to see Plains Native Americans attacking a castle. As a video game, it is possible, and I’m sure there will not be 100% accuracy. I know some eastern tribes did successfully seige a bunch of British forts, but I am not sure about stone forts.
I have to agree that civs from Central and South America would probably make more sense in the game. If Cahokia was the largest city of the Mississippians and it’s bigger than any from the other native peoples (north of Mexico), then they are nowhere close to Tenochtitlan and the Aztec Empire’s population and concentration of culture/tech/etc. Tenochtitlan estimated population was ~140,000 and Aztec Empire was millions.
Despite that though I have nothing against including them in the game if it can work. I didn’t play as Mongols yet and am not familiar with how the game portrays them. But I believe they attacked many fortified cities. I know in some circumstances people will exclude certain civs from e-sports competitive games. So perhaps we have some civs that are not used in all game modes. Keep in mind this is purely talking about the game and not any attempt at “valuing” cultures which is ridiculous. I don’t think you would interpret it that way but I felt like saying that since you are native. By the way, my wife is 1/4th native from Southern Zacatecas in Mexico. I wish we knew more history.
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I like the way that you have mapped out this civilization (with some balance tweaks), but I don’t think it works (as written) for the timeframe of AoE4.
To head off your first response, yes people lived on the plains between 1000 CE and 1500 CE, but they did not have access to horses. If you removed all horse related mechanics then this would no longer be an issue, but then you lose out on a lot of what you have proposed.
I could be wrong, but it looks like the tribes that make up the Oceti Sakowin were based in the great lakes region during this period. And they relied more on hunting, fishing, and growing crops. It seems they were pushed west by the growing Iroquois presence - in the 1600’s well beyond the timeline for AoE4. To me, this would probably make the most sense as part of an Imperial Age landmark - gain stables and add a lot of the nomadic principles you have outlined above.
This is an issue that I have previously brought up in regards to the Spanish Empire and how they do not fit the timeline. Similarly, it wouldn’t make sense to add the Prussians, Mughals, or (extreme) USSR to the game. However, those can still be represented with their equivalents: HRE, Delhi, and Rus’.
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I’m not necessarily sticking heavily to the timeline, but for clarification, the timeline I’m focusing on for the nation can be roughly translated as 1350 - 1700. The goal is to start off as an agrarian society in the first two ages, entirely impossible to gain any horses in Age 1. Age 2 might give access to 1 or 2 horses over the entire period, but it’s not until Age 3 that you might actually be able to field a couple cavalry units, while Age 4 is where I’m expecting the players would have amassed enough Horses to reliably field a cavalry.
The Seven Fires would be stuck without a cavalry until the last age, unless they were doing exceptionally well and could gather enough Horses through raiding in Age 3. That mirrors reality - Horses weren’t suddenly everywhere on the plains and with the Seven Fires, they were gained bit by bit over time. Unlocking them suddenly in one of the ages wouldn’t make sense, the Seven Fires didn’t go from agrarian culture to horse lords overnight. The Horses mechanic simulates this a bit while also giving a quaternary resources for the Seven Fires to focus on, as they can’t collect Stone or Gold.
The intended goal is to have Horses build up over the ages, with the player devoting more and more of their resources towards getting Horses for both their villagers and military to make their nomadic-dependent economy functional.
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I definitely think there is room in AoEIV for some Native Americans civs. They added a whole new dynamic to AoEIII and are quite fun to play…and for me that is what matters. I think people get to hung up about civ choices instead of the potential fun factor. This is a just a game afterall.
Well thought out post. I like it.
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I get where you’re coming from, but it still just doesn’t line up to AoE4’s timeline for me. I think we just have differing viewpoints here that we won’t be able to reconcile, which is okay.
But that is how it works for other civilizations. Old World civs get to the Imperial Age and all of a sudden they can make gunpowder units. When in real life they would be experimenting with mixing them in and siege cannons should come significantly before firearms. That jump in technology is represented by going up to the next age. I was just trying to brainstorm a way to reconcile my main issue.
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I am aware, but you have to note that I also needed a way to replace 2 resources for the Seven Fires just to make them playable at all. The Horse mechanic gives them a distinctive playstyle, focus, and interesting mechanics while also solving one of those resource issues at the same time.
I’m not going for a massive amount of realism here, only about as much as is present with any other civ already in the game.
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I love the idea! I find the gathering of horse concept and making a slow, radical shift in gameplay really cool in the spirit of asymmetry for AoE4. When modding comes out, I would absolutely play the Seven Fires if you have the opportunity to make them.
I have some suggestions, but as I am neither experience in age of empires or the Seven Fires history please let me know what you think. My major gameplay concern is that the strategic decision making from a Seven Fires player would be predictable, as it is literally limited to how fast the player can gather horses. As written here, I believe the Seven Fires player would be forced to turtle until their horses started coming through, which I think is fine, but the pay-off needs to be strong enough to merit the weakness. You could simply make the cavalry of this civ much stronger, but what if the instead of just mounting villagers with horses, the villagers became the cavalry? This makes your late game power spike even more dangerous because of the massive cavalry flood you could pull off, while not having to overload the statistics of the midgame cavalry units. Other benefits may include making the late game nomad fantasy work a bit better (if your entire economy can fight, you can use more of the map space), and naturally balancing the no drop off points by splitting your Khuwa’s time between gathering and fighting.
Since you’ve said the war is not just a man’s job, I am curious if the reverse is true, and that the “professional specialism” (e.g. warrior, artisan, laborer classes) concept is less prevalent in this culture? If so, this could be one way to represent that.
And on the landmark idea, maybe take a note from the Abassids, and have a central culture/religion structure that provides unique technologies like the house of wisdom?
Sorry for the block reply, I just think the possibilities are neat 
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I really do love the idea too, especially with the horse concept. I hope the devs can also use this creativity for a native faction.
Relic needs to hire OP it seems
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This idea is nonsense.
You could basically also come up with creative ways to put the Inuits of Greenland, the Sámi people of northern Scandinavia, or the Polynesians of New Zealand in the game.
The problem is that this game is about nations/civilizations that truly excelled in the very specific area of military between 500AD and 1500AD.
That is why the Mongols and the French are in the game, but the Sámi and the Inuits are NOT.
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IMO AoE 4 is a historically themed competitive RTS, and civilizations are included based on multiple criteria, first and foremost among them being innovative gameplay. This concept of the Seven Fires certainly fits that bill.
The inclusion criteria for civilizations isn’t really the point of this post, and I would appreciate continued conversation on the OP’s concept in a constructive manner.
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IMO AoE 4 is a historically themed competitive RTS, and civilizations are included based on multiple criteria, first and foremost among them being innovative gameplay.
Your claim is incorrect. Pre-requisite is excelling in the area of military. Nothing more, nothing less.
You can have “innovative gameplay” by adding aliens to the game, but wouldn’t make sense.
In the same manner, adding Inuit, Sámi, Polynesians or any of the North American natives to the game wouldn’t make sense.
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There’s native Americans in AoE2 and AoE3, including the Incans who were economy-focused. There’s a lot of nations who wouldn’t stand a chance against each other. The English didn’t excell militarily at all, they were actually kinda shite at it. Only reason they won battles against France is because France also kinda sucked back then. HRE was one of the few European nations that was powerful back then.
They were actually pretty damn good at fighting.
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There’s native Americans in AoE2 and AoE3, including the Incans who were economy-focused. There’s a lot of nations who wouldn’t stand a chance against each other. The English didn’t excell militarily at all, they were actually kinda shite at it. Only reason they won battles against France is because France also kinda sucked back then. HRE was one of the few European nations that was powerful back then
Ehhh… no that is completely incorrect. English and French were powerhouses during the Middle Ages. They were small, but they were powerhouses.
They were actually pretty damn good at fighting.
Against whom?? Literally ANY nation or empire that ever existed successfully fought off their neighbors for a sufficient amount of time to be considered a nation or an empire in the first place.
That is why the word excel is emphasized.
In the same way that Mali philosophy was ‘there’. It existed. But Greek and Chinese philosophy was better. English food is ‘there’ and exists, but Thai food is better. Making a game about the world’s best philosophy or food would not include Mali or England.
This topic is basically attempting to add Mali to a game about philosophy or England to a game about food. It makes no sense at all.
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English was not a powerhouses at all in Middle Ages. In years of 1300, french and HRE population was arround 15 millons both (with a 20 millons peak), england arround 6 millons. Incas population before spanish conquest ~14 millions.
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