Just because most didn’t colonize doesn’t mean “colonial age” doesn’t fit. Many were still subject to colonialism whether that be resisting it or participating. At that time Omanis and Moroccans were colonizing Africa, the Maoris were colonizing New Zealand, China was conquering the Dzungars, and the Ottomans were expanding in all directions.
The Europeans are also still themed after their colonies even if there are now European maps.
I did not respond in a offensive way bro.
Sorry if it sounded like that 
Of course but it feels out of place with other civ names. I’m not saying it’s a bad name but definitely not a really good one. I actually thought it as a hindrance for adding European maps back in 2006.
Considering the age in the game is more of a “development phase” thing than an actual historical age, the original concept is clear. You “discovered” a new piece of land. You establish a “colony”. You then “fortify” it. Then it develops local “industry”.
This is a theme that only fits a colony in a newly discovered land. Ottoman expansion is not the same thing.
Now if the theme expands to anything beyond that, the “colonial age” is the one that looks out of place.
BTW expansion is not the exact same thing as colonization.
Colonial age fits better than the “Dark Ages” which is still used in AOE2 and AOE4, when that term has fallen out of popular use in academia and never really made sense for much of the non-dark world at the time which includes half of the AOE2 civs.
If people prefer the name change from colonial to commerce as being more “accurate” that is absolutely fine. To each their own and a mere name isn’t a big deal anyway. But that certainly wasn’t FE’s motivation in changing it.
Yes, but the the examples I gave were all colonization.
That’s the natural conflict between gameplay vs reality. Only AOE1 had “ages” that really make sense.
You always have to make the player start with a small village with only club boys. Even if the game setting starts at say 500ad where there were actually huge cities and advanced military technologies, you still have to treat it like stone age.
And combined with the AOE tradition of naming “phases” or “tiers” with “ages”, you got this weird result. You can only get access to:
A small backward village in 500ad
A small town with minimal military in 1000ad
A town with castle and can afford knights in 1200ad
A huge city with advanced military in 1400ad
If you want to play a huge city with advanced military in 500ad, like those of Sassanids or Byzantines or Chinese. Sorry you can’t.
Now what name fits the medieval theme and sounds backward? “Dark age”.
Same with AOE3. You cannot combine your thirty years war musketeers with artillery like in history.
One way to get out of it is to decouple “development phase of your base” with “ages” like in Rise of Nations, where you need to climb technology trees to get advanced units in each age. But again in RON ages are real ages but not in AOE.
But dark age is really a bad name I agree.
I would not say the same for Ottoman expansions though. Yes there were mass murders and even genocides, but that’s more like a direct conquest or subjugation. The strict definition of colonialism would be to remove the indigenous population and send settlers to it. Assigning officials and ruling classes feels different.
Russians conquering Siberia is colonization.
Russians establishing St Petersberg is somewhat colonization.
Russians occupying Poland I guess not.
BTW that reminds me of something. On European maps “settlers” have also become a stupid name. Maybe change that for European maps just like how different regions have different trade posts and native embassies.
I’m not sure where these people came from if Ottomans weren’t colonial:
Turkish communities in the former Ottoman Empire - Wikipedia.
By that definition the British didn’t colonize India and the Spanish didn’t colonize most of Mexico or Peru.
Migration always happen in occupied territories of course.
But there should be a reason why Ottoman conquests are not usually called colonization. I actually do not know.
By your definition every conquest can be called colonization. But Greeks occupying Sicily is colonization while Roman occupying Gaul or Britain is usually called “conquest”. I don’t know. I guess it depends more on whether the migration is an intended act encouraged by the ruling class to gain control over the region, or just happens naturally.
I think colonialism means something very different than basic colonization. “Colonialism” as an abstract “ism” necessarily encapsulates the negatives of colonization whereas colonization itself can be benign and victimless like the colonization of the Azores, Quebec or Mars.
Colonization in itself is just migration only you take your laws with you.
Yes colonialism would be the word to discuss here.
“Colonization” is a phenomenon or result. “Colonialism” is the political movement or ideology.
Indeed, but I don’t think the distinction is as obvious as it should be to most people, in my experience.
Well not everyone is a native speaker. And there are cases where two nouns have the same root but refer to very different or even unrelated things. I thought “colonization” is “the practice of colonialism” but it is actually not.
So speaking of the “colonial age”, it should refer more to “the age when colonialism is widely practiced” not “the age when colonization happens”. The latter would be the entire human history.
It’s a fuzzy line between colonialism and imperialism. The modern connotation of colonialism seems to be just imperialism by white people but it’s obviously more complicated than that. The Ottomans undoubtedly did more colonization in their territories than the Americans in the Philippines, but it’s the Philippines that gets labeled as a colony and not the Ottoman lands.
Maybe “being overseas” is another condition here.
The Qing definitely colonized the Dzungar lands and the Russians were all about overland colonization.
I think it’s more just a politically charged label that people use inconsistently to fit their own narratives. And that would be why they scrapped the name.
The definitions of most of the words they censored are in the same boat. “Plantations” don’t have any more to do with slaves than “Estates”. “Medicine Man” isn’t an offense term, it’s the proper name for native “Healers”.
What about Japan, Ethiopia, Hausa? And soon Malta and Italy?
Well I wonder who is manipulating the narrative for ancient Romans.
And there are words that become inevitably associated with parts of the history even though the meaning itself is neutral. That’s undeniable. Most words that we consider offensive today did not start being offensive. They were just used in a historical period where discrimination happened.
What about them?
Japan colonized Hokkaido during the “colonial age”. Ethiopia and Hausa both fought against colonizers. Half of the colonial explorers were Italian. And Malta is a joke… but it did have Caribbean colonies.
It is considered Ottomans did not meet the ‘colonialist’ definition because they limited their control over their provinces to pure administration: they did not send settlers with the aim of populating these areas, did not try to assimilate these populations nor heavily exploited their resources, but only enforced tax collection and required allegiance to be pledged.
Moreoever, Ottoman laws integrated and encompassed all citizens of the Empire, contrary to other European colonies that usually excluded local populations.
This decentralization was so strong that at times, several provinces acted quite autonomously to the point of behaving against the Sublime Porte’s interest: like the Regency of Algiers, Mehmet Ali’s Khedivate of Egypt, Ali Pacha of Yanya…
Thus, the Ottomans were definitely an imperialist entity, but not a colonialist one.
Best,
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/colonialism/
https://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_RHMC_602_0127--the-ottoman-empire-seen-through-the-lens.htm