good catch, I wouldnt have realized.
They maybe did it this way because of the way towers now work with “line of sight shoots”. however I think historical accuracy should be focused here and I would welcome a change.
as a matter of fact, as this civ is OFFICIALY Persia, as it is confirmed in the trailer, a hybrid persian - Christian hybrid architecture won’t hurt because there used to be a lot of Christians in Persia and theres a lot of churches available in iran as of today
It is not Persia lmao
they speak persian my friend what are u talking about lol
I pray for a christian revival and reunification of Persia.
What are you talking about
where they show the Muslim CIv theres a line which says: “chaboksavar amade ast” which means agile rider is ready which is in persian because arabs cant pronounce the CH sound as they dont have it in their alphabet. CH = چ
In Age of Empires IV , the Delhi Sultanate civilization is based on the powerful empire formed from the invasion of the Ghurid Dynasty (originating in Persia) into northern India spanning the years 879-1526 CE. For 300 years, this empire shaped an independent Indo-Islamic region, adopting technology present in India.
yes but in that time … there is only suni muslims thats mean arabs and persians have a same country and same type of buildings… so they didnt make a crosses on their buildings 
The Persian lines are likely from the Delhi troops.
I think crosses must be removed. Use another shape for loopholes
They are not crosses in religious sense. Actually even christian churches are without crosses in game.
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Which is why I think they should add Crosses.
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Of course it is ridicullous to have Christian church in game without a cross. Whats the point?
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The way they went with 2DE, 3de they will not add them. Let’s hope it’s moddable
This is actually quite an interesting topic, I will share some important points
a) Obviously the idea of any Christian imagery (in this case, the cross-like arrow slit) on a building that is derived from a culture with completely different religious beliefs would be a historical inaccuracy, and certainly inaccuracies are not something anyone would really want in this game.
b) arrow-loops (these slit like structures) in fortifications, started off as small holes, but evolved to vertical slits to accommodate bows obviously. They also tended to ‘flare’ at the base to give the defender better line of site at the base of the castle - fun fact. But the reason for the cross shape is in fact nothing to do with religious imagery, it is simply to accommodate crossbows - there’s even a connection in the name. Infact, sometimes the cross-brace (horizontal slits) were offset, like in some welsh castles, as it was deemed this was a better protective arrangement.
So we’re left in a really interesting place. Firstly, I couldn’t find much information of arabic nations even using cross-bows… mainly just recurve bows, and thus you also don’t see a lot of cross-shaped arrow-loops. but this is because the weapon isn’t used (as the loops are as narrow and minimalist as possible for obvious protective reasons) even Christian Europeans didn’t use a cross until the crossbow, else your just inviting a larger hole for enemy arrows.
Now its hard to know, but I can’t find many examples of cross-like arrow loops outside of Europe, infact the further you get the closer to square holes you get according to what I’ve seen so far… (the squares are present in every crenelation on the delhi walls for example), and crosses are only on the wooden hoardings… that itself is an interesting point - modern day ruins of fortifications do not capture what the wooden hoardings looked like, and its possible that everyone had cross-loops on the wooden hoardings and opted for smaller holes on the more permanent stone defenses, but that is me speculating, a real historian could weigh in there…
That being said, is a cross-bowman one of the standard unit types that all cultures get, even thought they didn’t use them? Some could argue that if the civ gets cross-bows, they should have cross-loops, just to keep ingame consistent rather than history consistent?
I sit in the camp of keeping the buildings as culturally close to history as possible, as its a great part of keeping the historical identity of your civ alive ingame, and often the decorations are completely unrelated to the gameplay (slit or cross, doesn’t matter, arrows come out)
However, It is important to get some historical perspective, the cross is less religious symbol in this particular instance, and more for the use of cross-bows specifically. I’m fully onboard with all cultures having cross-loops on their wooden hoardings if there’s historical bases for that - heck we all learnt something. But if its not present, its really not hard to remove, and a modeller can fix the crosses and replace them with slits in short order, if only to remove the possibility of people getting the wrong idea and mistaking a religious subtext (which is a very valid position, because things should be accurate)
Anyway, my two cents out, I do think its worth the devs seeing this thread to ensure its not an oversight, and is instead historically derived.
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They’ll probably not do anything about this as they don’t see this as an issue like we do.
It’s a template used for all the civilizations to save time and nothing else in mind. It’s lazy though when they are all about “historical moments” and can’t bother fixing something like this. Small but important detail in my opinion.
on the plus side, with modding support, small details like these are quite easily fixed by any modeller with the know how and the passion. And whats more small graphical changes can usually be implemented in a way that doesn’t break game data files, and thus can be used online (thing small trees etc in aoe2, as an example of how much you can get away with)
(Not saying it shouldn’t be addressed in the base game, just giving a bit of hope to those who think it wont be addressed)
Well it seems there will be ranked online PVP in game and I doubt they would tolerate even slightest modding there.
So this is a monument, not a town centre, but is also called the “palace of the sultan” according to the Delhi Sultanate info page on the official website.
Because its a monument, and these things tend to be researched to look like real-world counterparts, it would not surprised me if this was modelled after a real building. However there is a wealth of Delhi Sultanate architecture out there and I haven’t identified a building which matches it quite the same (although some ruined temples come very close). Googling “palace of the sultan” doesn’t come up with specific enough hits to dial it down to anything, and I doubt it goes by an english word as a name…
However absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence it it looks like its got a very purposeful design and shape. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is based off something real that we haven’t heard of? Its domes etc are all very Delhi Sultanate style architecture…