As a reason why the devs should listen to one forum user in particular, not really.
As a reason why you would stop buying dlc… I don’t think you need a more constructive reason than “I don’t wanna”…
No, but the other two are.
I would stop buying the other DLCs because my trust would be broken by their complete botchery of a Caucasus DLC. That would only be if they gave them unfit architecture, mind you. Hopefully they’re not too lazy to make a new architecture set.
Nothing wrong with it if you were proud. Pride in one’s work is normal, and more so if that work is flattered by the devs taking inspiration from it, if that’s the case.
Not really, I just don’t think there’s good evidence for this kind of thing, but people will believe what they want. The point of showing the coincidences with my own ideas and what turned out to be the Roman civ design is not to toot my own horn so much as to show that the bull’s-eye of official civ bonuses is large enough that even a shot in the dark has a surprisingly good chance of hitting it. Some of the official civ design choices are questionable, and honestly I wish the devs were more in touch with the community on some topics like this. But until there’s better evidence for it, I regard overlaps mostly as coincidences due to the relatively limited and convergent nature of hypothetical bonuses, and the extremely limited nature of dev participation or even known viewership of creative forum topics.
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I think if the devs want to keep going indefinitely, they should definitely hire some forum users, because I think without fresh perspectives, they’re gonna run out of design space pretty quickly.
Ive been civ crafting long before those lucky enough to figure out how to adjust the engine or know how to program ezpz have had a chance to do so.
I can promise I never felt like I was low on idea and bonus individuality.
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Yeah, same here. But I’m concerned that the devs might be slightly overworked. If they are, then civ quality might suffer for it. Who knows?
Point is, a few fresh faces won’t hurt.
Yeah, the Middle Eastern architecture being used for the Armenians and Georgians would be a massive travesty. They really would need a new architecture set to properly represent their style.
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So I still have no objection to Cumans continuing to cover the Pechenegs and Kazars who were active in the north of the Caucasus before the Cumans.
On the other hand, the Magyars include the history of the Kingdom of Hungary in addition to the nomadic period, so it is not short.
The number of civilizations is not infinite. In my opinion, for the sake of the game, those nomadic civilizations must become some kind of umbrella, otherwise there must be too many of them.
Huns covers nomadic peoples (not necessarily Turkic) who were active in Europe (Pannonia) during late antiquity and early medieval times. Avars fit the definition very well.
Cumans cover those Turkic peoples active in the north of the Caucasus and influenced by Europe and the Byzantines.
Tatars cover those Turkic peoples active in Central Asia and under Mongol influence.
Turks cover those Turkic peoples active in West Asia and converted to Muslims. Mainly Seljuks and Ottomans.
The Mongols, of course, the khanates of Genghis Khan and his people.
Potential umbrellas can be:
Gokturks, representing the Proto-Turkic peoples active in East and Central Asia before the rise of Mongols, especially in the early Middle Ages, such as Gokturks themselves, Tiele, Shatuo, Karluks, and early Uyghurs.
Sogdians, covering the eastern Iranian city-states and nomadic peoples of early medieval Central Asia.
Khitans, mainly representing the Liao Dynasty and Qara Khitai, and their ancestors, such as the Xianbei people.
Jurchens, the umbrella for the Tungusic peoples. (Strictly speaking, the Jurchens were not nomads, by the way.)
Tanguts, nomadic Tibeto-Burman people who founded the Xixia Kingdom. If Tibetans can’t become their own civ, then they may be put under the Tanguts. (Conversely, if Tibetans can, Tanguts may be put under Tibetans instead, when the devs want to save the number of civs rather than have the 2 civs.)
Don’t worry, I knew. I mentioned it just to say that this might also be one of the reasons why the devs currently use Huns as the umbrella. In fact, it could be enough for a game as entertainment products don’t need to be too strict.
Isn’t a Byzantine architecture set with an Orthodox church nice and reasonable? It can serve Byzantines, Bulgarians, Armenians and Georgians, exactly 4. It also relieves the overcrowded Eastern and Southern European sets by the way.
Yes, I would prefer this over what the other guy suggested. Whether they go that route or a dedicated Caucasus set, either solution would require a new architecture set, which hopefully is something they’re willing to do. If they turn out to go with a Byzantine set for all four, I’ll probably just have my team mod in a custom Caucasus architecture set whenever it’s finished (assuming the expansion comes out before my mod does, which is dependent on how soon the next expansion is happening and if it’s Caucasus-themed). Heck, even if they make a new Caucasus set, I might mod one in anyway based on my own designs if I’m not satisfied with the official set (but that’s unlikely, if they have the same ideas I do).
Also, I think Georgians and Armenians are more difficult to represent with the current civs than Kazars and Alans. At least to my, admittedly fairly uninformed, mind, Cumans representing Kazars and Huns representing Alans is fine – whereas Persians representing Georgians and Byzantines representing Armenians (as in the Tamerlane campaign) is not so great.
It would probably be about as bad as the current architecture for Incas and Huns… Although those are also pretty bad!
I think an American expansion would need something similar – i.e. a new architecture set and probably more than two new civs – especially if it includes South American civs.
Weird flex, and also completely unverifiable. Not sure what point you’re trying to make here.
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I think I disagree on a fundamental level since to me if you can make a good historical civ is always better than having others represent it instead. But I like campaigns, creating scenarios and single player in general so I’m that kind of person. I’m not too bothered by things being op because I often don’t notice and I prefer variety over linearity and sameness.
Still having Turks as a civ (to name one) for example is non sense to me like Indian was. There were so many different Turkish people in different eras and with different histories.
Also by your own reasoning you probably won’t ever add Tatars because Mongols are there and not even Cumans I guess.
It seems to me that in aoe2 people are initially against new stuff almost by default (or at least suspecting) but they become accustomed with it eventually, like with Romans. There was much of a backlash against Romans before Ror and now it has become normal. It’s the conservative mindset I think, I’m a bit conservative myself at times and I know how it ##### ### sometimes it’s just irrational indeed when something becomes “normal” people with conservative mindsets get mad at the next new thing.
That said anyone is entitled to their taste and opinion, I’m sure someone was angry back then when they introduced Portuguese and Berbers because Spanish and Saracens existed already or even before with Huns because they are an ancient civ etc etc but eventually things change and people change their opinion about them.
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Can’ t think of a Caucasian expansion without Eldiguzids or so-called Azerbaijanis with Shia unique tech and maybe with qizilbash unique unit. It would be ideal to rework Persians with it to represent more of Sassanids at the same time.
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The rulers of those khanates of the Mongols were typical Mongols in the early days, while the Turkic armies subject to them were represented by Tatars. When those Mongol rulers in Central Asia were finally Turkified, their representation passed from Mongols to Tatars.
The introduction of the Tatars is mainly to serve the Turco-Mongol rulers such as Tamerlane and their Turkic forces, and technically provides an option other than Mongols for the Central Asian campaigns. The Tatars have both Turkic bases and Mongol influences. They are neither equivalent to the Mongols who stayed in East Asia, nor to the Turkic peoples in other regions. I might not actively want them at the time, but I didn’t and don’t see any problem with them.
I agree that you can pursue variety endlessly without noticing to the effort and cost involved in creating and maintaining the variety.
However, if you want to make all the groups like Avars, Kazars, Alans, Kazars, Pechenegs, Gokturks, etc. be new civs, rather than allow umbrellas to exist and work, then by such the standard of yours, the game would be face a large number of Asian nomadic civs, which is very likely a difficult and complex situation. I may not expect that in this case, we can see good qualities of historical civs.
So there are the Tatars and Cumans for the Turkic peoples in the Central Asia and north of Caucasus respectively, and now the Turks can cover just the Turkic peoples in the West Asia.
I suppose we may only need Gokturks now to represent the Turkic peoples in East Asia before the rise of Mongols.
Honestly, this is not persuading people of different positions with reason, but asking people of different stances to swallow it, using “you will swallow it sooner or later anyway” as the reason.
While the people will accept the status quo, it’s not a pretty good reason to argue against conservative mindsets. Sometimes people’s acceptance doesn’t mean finally they sincerely agree, regardless of whether you think the disagreement is reasonable or not.
Isnt azerbaijan a modern thing?
It is indeed. However if you consider that a civ which is called as ‘Hindustanis’ to represent Northern Indians (Muslim part), Pakistan and Afghanistan, I see no harm to call a new civ with a region name too.
Tatars in game are also same, they do not represent real Tatars but instead they speak Chagatai which is closer today’s Uyghur language. So they represent Medieval Kara-Khanids or more like Karluks which can be tied with today’s Uzbeks.
If a region name Azerbaijan doesnt sound good to you, Civ name; Turkmens is also something that can be considered.
Azererbaijanis can also be called Azeris, and it seems they were also referred as Ajam at the time to diferenciate them from other Turcik people. Afaik the Azeri identity was already quite distinct from other Oghuz Turks by the time of the Aq Qoyunlu and the Qara Qoyunlu. Then again, their territory was wide enough to not be necessarily associated with the Caucasus (same thing could be said about the Kazars tbh).
Was Caucasian Albania part of modern day Azerbaijan or its own thing rather?
I feel the exact the same way. The last DLCs have felt kind of empty. “Take, 2 new civs and 3 campaings. Have fun”.
The India DLC should have been a huge event of new music tracks, new editor items, maps, and an event bigger than just a wallpaper and a couple of “”“challenges”“”.
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Geographically it almost overlaps perfectly (at least if you only count the independant country of Azerbaijan and not the Iranian part), but it was an entirely different culture.
This would be the best compromise.
It has become “normal” because the damage is already done. They’re not going to remove a recently added thing.
And if you ask those who complained before, most of them would still say that Romans shouldn’t have been added
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