Yeah, Alexander the Good would work. His picture looks like one of those collectable cards from old Harry Potter games.
Listen, Bosniaks weren’t a thing in the middle ages, yes there was a Bosnian state, but that was state populated by Serbs. It was common for a people to have multiple states, even war with each other (look at for example Germany or France before unifications). So you can drop at least one civ.
This is not some nationalistic rant, just pointing out facts. If you don’t believe me look it up for yourselves.
The Kingdom of Bosnia with its own identity and cultural heritage was a thing though. I would recommend you to check out the following sources:
An introductory read:
For further info on the region during the Middle Ages I highly recommend following books, which synthesize Serbocroatian sources from all regions, mentioning controversies from different strands of scholarship:
Calling the inhabitants of the Banate of Bosnia resp. later Kingdom of Bosnia Serbians is simply incorrect, especially when looking at the fact that Bosnia at this point in time was quite isolated from both the Catholic Church and the Eastern Roman Empire at this time. Probably due to the weak implementations of both churches in this mountainous region, Islam was adopted fast.
You can find both books on the Internet archive:
I was talking specifically about ethnicity, Bosniak ethnicity didn’t exist until Yugoslav wars in the 1990’s. Even Ottomans called them Muslim Serbs in most cases, that is one of the reasons why later union of south Slavs was called Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, there are no mention of Bosniaks ethnicity.
To make myself clear, Bosnians did exists, as nationals of kingdom of Bosnia, and they had Bosnian culture, even Bosnian church for a while, but their ethnicity wasn’t Bosniak, they were mostly Serbs and in part Croats.
I can also refer you to a book from Valentin Vasilievic Sedov about early Slavs, where there’s no mention of Bosniak ethnicity, no Bosniak tribe
Which means they appeared later, that’s what i am saying! Even on Wikipedia (which is unreliable source nowadays) says there were no Bosniaks in medieval Balkans:
And the reason you mention why was Islam adopted fast is incorrect. It was adopted fast because they saw what happened with Christian nations who defied Islam when Ottomans conquered Balkans, and Bosnians were given a choice and incentive to adopt Islam, initially all those who adopted it were rewarded which in turn sped up the process significantly.
So again, Bosnian kingdom did exist, Bosnians nationals did exist, Bosnian culture did exist, Bosniak ethnicity did not.
We can debate this topic via personal messages, let’s not bog down this thread with it.
And listen, if people want Bosnian civ, fine i won’t object, i just wanted to point something out.
There were so many smaller kingdoms throughout Europe but most of them weren’t ethnically diverse, if you want civ out of all of them, fine i guess.
Im confused about this statement,if there are nationals with a unique culture how are they not a ethnicity?
Eg if there is a person from sri lanka with his own culture and nationality living in serbia does that make him serbian by your logic?or am I understanding this wrong?
I don’t want that every little European duchy and kingdom gets a civ until the rest of the world gets fair treatment. I just don’t want that the right of existence of a whole nation is just simply dismissed, as it reminds me way too much of the current geopolitical discussions around Bosnia and Hercegovina nowadays as well. The whole situation with the Bosnian Church and Bogomilism during the time period justifies a proper Bosnian identity during the time period this game depicts. They’re not Serbs nor Croats, they’re Bosnians.With the fringes of the region being inhabited probably by Serbs and Croats during the time period probably, as I’m not an expert on the past demographic distribution of those three people back then.
The identities back then were forming as well which does not have to be neglected. Back then, even more than nowadays, religion played a very important in the formation of identity. Believing in the “wrong way” was considered a sin, which is why Byzantium tried to exterminate Christian “Heresies” in the provinces of their empire, which weakened the ties to Constantinople which was considered tyrannical, opening up the way for the spread of Islam, especially considering that the both superpowers in the Middle East, Byzantium and the Persian Empire, were weakened by a long and costly conflict around the time of the Islamic Conquest. I went on a tangent here, sorry.
To return to the Balkans, there’s also the whole discussion about the Croats claiming that they both have Iranian origins, which were later slavicized. I was always talking about Bosnians. Bosniaks and Bosnians are two different things, the latter being islamized Bosnians, partly due then wanting to escape the Jizya, Islamic Head Tax. The fact that the Christian churches were weakly implemented helped though. Compare current Bosnia with Romania and Serbia which are orthodox, where the Orthodox Church had a strong foothold. A similar thing happened in Nubia by the way, which was Christian before the Arab conquest, isolating Ethiopia from the rest of the world. Fun fact, there were even calls for a crusade to help out their southern brethren against the progression of Islam. I can’t find the source anymore, but I find that quite fascinating.
I’ve made it clear in other threads that I don’t consider a Balkan DLC a priority, especially not without new architecture sets like post-DE main game DLCs apparently all are, but that’s my subjective opinion and you can disagree and want more than 8 civs using the same set. It just gets incredibly visually boring to look at for me.
I’ll treat the China DLC like any other DLC which bloated sets by the way, giving it a negative review, as I just find it incredibly lazy from the part of FE.
Let’s hope that if we get a Balkan DLC one day, that they’ll add at least a new set. If Serbs and Croats can be civs, Bosnians can as well. For me, they’re equal in terms of how much I want them in the game. They’re not a priority, but they’re basically the only civs which make sense to add within Europe for me, alongside Vlachs. I find it hard to justify other splits within Europe.
Sorry for the huge text. I was writing on the go.
I’d rather have someone earlier than Matthias Corvinus for Magyars.
His Hungary was known for its gunpowder, which Magyars lack in game.
Who? I tried to go with the most popular ruler in every country.
I wonder, would people of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia like an umbrella for these civs like Slavonians, Sklavini, Rascians?
I don’t think there would be such issues with an umbrella for Wallachians, Moldavians and Transylvanians given that Romania still exists today.
With Slavonians + Romanians you would complete the Balkans.
Yes, the matter is literal quite simple.
Give the western South Slavs (Yugoslavs) the “Slavonians” as a new civ, because from a linguistic point of view, Serbs, Bosnians and Croats are with this well covered.
Apparently, the devs want hold the name of the “Slavs” and are not willing to change it to the “Rus”. Then the name “Slavonians” for the western South Slavs as Yugoslavs would fit fine, as a Balkan extension… The Bulgarians as eastern South Slavs are already in the game, they represent a cultural mix with the Turkish speaking Volga Bulgarians.
Give the Romanians Latins the “Vlachs” as a new civ and we have covered the previous Vlad Draculea campaign with the appropriate civ.
At least, I do not think, that we need any more European duchies (Burgundians, Sicilians) in the game, but to make the Balkan people happy, the addition of the “Slavonians” and “Vlachs” would certainly be a good, realistic compromise.
Yes, that can work if they only put two civs, if they put 3 civs like Serbians, Croats and Vlacs and rename Slavs to Ruthenians it would be better…
Danube without Austrians?? no way
I mean it was a Balkan DLC, not a Danube DLC, But…My resistance to Austrians in the past has just been that by the time Austria really started to become its own power I think we’re already getting into AOE 3 timeframe. It’s probably the most viable option to split off of Teutons, but i’m still not that sure how viable it is as opposed to just leaving them under the Teuton umbrella
Hard No to Slavonians, no one ever used that term, Slavonia is a region in Croatia.
What would be a better term for a collective Croats + Bosniaks + Serbs in the middle ages?
To my knowledge, none. But I am not an expert, just to be clear. What I do know is that Yugoslavism (political-ideological current aiming at the unification of all South Slavic peoples) was only born in the 19th century.
West Balkans Slavs? But it doesn’t sound very well for AoE2…
The only alternative to Slavonians would be either Sclaveni or Yugoslavs but the last one is too 20th century.