Important
This Topic is meant to collect comprehensive, deep (not brief) Civ Concepts with some historical substantiation and research about the most historically significant, most important or most requested civs in the Age of Empires community.
If possible, I’d like to humbly, kindly, respectfully invite amazing, highly talented forum members @SenjinKira, @Skadidesu, @TyrannoNinja, @AnaWinters and others to help us create comprehensive, deep, historical Civ Concepts for Byzantines/Japan, Aztecs, Mali, and Inca respectively (or another favorite civ of yours) and please post it here to enrich this Collection Topic for the benefit of Age of Empires 4 and all the AoE community 
I’m going to contribute the Turks/ Ottoman Empire DLC Civ Concept first:
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The Turks/ Ottoman Empire Civ in AoE 4
A Compilation of Concepts, Ideas, Mechanics, Units, Techs, & Landmarks, all with HISTORICAL SUBSTANTIATION
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General Concept
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Hybrid civ that starts nomadic but transforms into a settled empire, with amazing architecture and gameplay evolution
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Multidynastic design, with Ghaznavid, Seljuk and Ottoman elements
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Focus on strong, unique military units/techs rather than the economy
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World-unique, sui generis gunpowder techs, guns and mega Bombards; sophisticated siege/ sapping engineering
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Characteristics related to Silk Road monopoly, can thwart trade
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In real History, among all civs/empires, the Ottoman Empire ends AoE 4 timeframe as the world’s preeminent power in ~1600
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Unique Mechanics
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Starts off nomadic (all buildings mobile), but must analyze the map geography features and choose a location to totally transform into a settled civ in Age 2. The number of possible gameplay paths and strategies is huge , a dramatic transformation of Age of Empires civ concept (for a look at architecture evolution, see the all-civs Architecture Transformation Topic).
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Town Center continuously spawns villagers, slower at first, but can pick up speed with Mosque improvements. This allows players to focus on analyzing the map early in the game in order to devise a geographic strategy to switch from nomadic civ to settled civ in Age 2, or perhaps launch minor raids.
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Versatile, tanky, badass COMBO unit Janissary: The Turkish army’s backbone is the Janissary, a very unique unit, it’s an evolving combo of a melee and ranged units together. It carries a huge curved sword/scimitar for strong melee combat, but also has a ranged weapon that evolves with time: It starts Age 2 as a tanky archer+infantry trained in the barracks, with a composite bow and massive sword, and can be upgraded in Age 3 to an early hand cannonner with the same big sword. In Age 4, the Janissary can be upgraded to the beastly Imperial Janissary, still with the characteristic huge sword for melee, but now armed with the MATCHLOCK MUSKET, the revolutionary weapon invented in the Ottoman Empire in Edirne, today’s Turkey in 1465 that rendered the hand cannon and arquebus obsolete and changed warfare and world history forever, being the basic weapon of all European civs in AoE3. The Janissary is so versatile it can replace all other infantry and archers in Ages 2, 3 and 4 in a single unit line.
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General Civilization Bonuses
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Sons of the Wolf: according to the absolutely essential, foundational Legend of the Wolf, the Turks were half-human, half-wolf offspring of a mutilated boy who survived a village massacre by Chinese soldiers. As a Civ Bonus, the Turkish scout can tame gaia wolves on the map.
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Ghaznavid Jurisdiction: The Ghaznavid Empire, one of several Turkish empires in AoE 4 time, was the first world empire to be built primarily around control of the main Silk Road routes. As a Civ Bonus, when a Turks / Ottoman Empire player slays an enemy Trader carrying gold, he plunders the amount of gold profit the trader was carrying; moreover, Turks Horsemen and Cav Archer have extra attack against Traders. This bonus pays respect to the history of the Ghaznavid and Seljuk sultans and fits in the unique trade-thwarting character of the civ.
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Devshirme Age 3 Unique Tech: not really a civ bonus but a key element of the civ, the legendary, world-unique devshirme recruitment system accepted children mostly from the minority subject peoples of the Ottoman Empire into a life-long Spartan, no-pain elite army training of unswerving loyalty to the ‘Father’ Sultan, to become the core of the Ottoman army. In the beginning they were forced slaves of the Sultan, but with high pay, status and power, later Christian families begged the Empire to take their children as a Janissary. With Devshime tech, a Janissary spawns at the barracks each time an enemy villager is slayed, to model the one-and-only Ottoman recruitment system.
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Rulers of the Mediterranean: can build Ottoman-unique speedy Galleys and Barbary Corsairs faster (interestingly, the Ottoman Empire was the only AoE4-time civ on Earth to achieve superpower status both on land and the sea, even China did not achieve that).
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Cannon Foundries: the Turks / Ottoman Empire were most enthusiastic adopters of cannons, heavy guns and bombards; their Siege Workshop is called Cannon Foundry, and all Turkish gunpowder artillery (Cannon, Abus Gun, Culverin and Great Bombards) is created faster.
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Monopoly Age 4 Unique Tech: not really a civ bonus but a key element of the civ, the Turks’ ultimate unique tech in Age 4 is Monopoly. At the end of the AoE 4 timeframe, the Ottoman Empire was planet Earth’s superpower. The Ottomans established a near-monopoly on the global trade artery Silk Road for centuries, spurring the great navigations and the age of discovery that changed the world. Expensive Age 4 unique tech Monopoly grants the Turks / Ottoman Empire player a tax of 20% of all the adversary’s Trade Profit from then on. This unique tech concept is a strategic revolution in Age of Empires gameplay because it forces turtling adversaries to reconsider a full reliance on trade for late gold revenue. It’s like Abbasid camels making cavalry weaker, but on a macro , strategic scale.
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Dark Age
- The Turks / Ottoman Empire civ starts the game with a mobile Town Center and a very humble, poor mobile Mosque to improve villager spawning. Contrary to the Mongols, Turks need Yurt (house) to support population.
- Turks can build a stable and train the fast but weak Early Horseman and extra scout for all-out exploration and analysis of the geography in Age 1.
- The Age 2 landmarks are the Alp Arslan Mausoleum and the Twin Minaret Mosque, both Seljuk masterpieces.
Feudal Age
- Turks can train the Seljuk Spahi (cavalry archer) and the Imam (see Tolerance) in Age 2.
- Raiding Party unique tech: being adept, first-rate raiders in history, Seljuk Spahis can torch buildings in Age 2.
- Mehter: (recognized by UNESCO of the United Nations as the oldest army band in the world, either a unit or temporary boost?) the iconic Turkish army band boosts troop speed and attack with energizing, inspiring powerful music (see videos of Mehter on the Turkish civ Topic).
- The Age 3 landmarks are the green-stone Rumi Mausoleum in Konya dedicated to one of humankind’s giant poets and philosophers, the Islamic “Poet of Love” Rumi (most popular poet in the USA still in 2021); and the romantic, soaring Galata Tower, one of the history’s oldest, tallest, most iconic stone towers, from where the world’s first paraglider flight jumped off.
Castle Age
- In addition to the Trebuchet, the Turks /Ottoman Empire civ gets the Great Bombard in Age 3. * The awesome, beastly, iconic, world-unique historical Great Bombard from 1451 is much larger (monster-sized), more expensive with more HP than a normal Bombard; it moves and fires very slowly, but with more attack and range.
- The Janissary can have the ranged weapon upgraded from composite bow to hand cannon in Age 3 (from Janissary to Veteran Janissary). Seljuk Sipahi upgrades to Heavy version.
- Tolerance Age 3 unique tech: reflecting then-unmatched Ottoman acceptance of all ethnicities and religions in the medieval Empire, Imams can convert enemy villagers without a relic after researching Tolerance.
- Turks / Ottoman Empire gets the iconic, dignified, tanky heavy Ottoman cav “Turkish Knight” Spahi with a brutal skull-crushing mace as a weapon in Age 3.
- The Tophane (“Bombard Yard”), the world’s largest cannon foundry from 1468 in Istanbul, is an Age 4 landmark to produce Imperial Bombards with extra HP (see the amazing Tophane in the all-civs Architecture Transformation Topic)
- The other Age 4 landmark is the Topkapi (“Gate of the Bombards”) Palace from 1465, the home of the Ottoman Sultan, quite simply, the world’s LARGEST palace when built, which boosts economic efficiency.
Imperial Age
- Janissary can have their ranged weapon upgraded from hand cannon to matchlock musket (from Veteran to Imperial Janissary), Spahi and the beastly Great Bombard are also upgradable to Imperial, the Imperial Great Bombard can utterly OBLITERATE a stone wall in a couple of bombardments.
- The Monopoly unique tech brings about a major strategic transformation of the game (read details anout this important unique tech in Civ Bonus above).
- The Wonder of the Turks is the colossal, exquisite universal masterpiece, the Blue Mosque in Istanbul.
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