By telling from the civs they picked so far, it seems that Age of Empires IV is much more focused on a period within the SECOND half of the Middle Ages (from A.D. 1000 to A.D. 1250), known as High Middle Ages.
Therefore, it wouldn’t make sense to have these early germanic tribes that invaded the Western Roman Empire more than 500 years earlier, at the end of Late Antiquity and the beginning of the Early Middle Ages (A.D. 476 to A.D. 1000), in the game.
They’ve already made that “mistake” in Age of Empires 2, when they included civs that simply did not coexist within a time frame of about 1,000 years which comprises the whole of the Middle Ages.
You just can’t have Goths together with the Spanish or the Italians, for example.
If they are going for what they seem to be going for – a more specific time period within the Middle Ages (which makes much more sense) – they can’t have the Saxons with the English or the Franks with the French.
They are completely different concepts.
The first were tribes from the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the second represent a concept of nation in a process of unification that was happening half a millennium later, a much more complex process (not restricted to a single tribe or ethnic group).
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All this hair splitting about civs and still everyone avoids the fact we haven’t gotten a proper gameplay showcase, not just in-engine footage with no UI, and without a display of how civs actually work and how the match goes uninterrupted by editing cuts and camera work.
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By telling from the civs they picked so far, it seems that Age of Empires IV is much more focused on a period within the SECOND half of the Middle Ages (from A.D. 1000 to A.D. 1250), known as High Middle Ages.
So I don’t see a problem with the time frame. All the civs picked seem to have coexisted between the period of A.D. 1000 to A.D. 1250.
So they got that right!
What wouldn’t make sense is to have those early germanic tribes that invaded the Western Roman Empire more than 500 years earlier, at the end of Late Antiquity and the beginning of the Early Middle Ages (A.D. 476 to A.D. 1000), in the game together with the civs chosen so far.
They’ve already made that “mistake” in Age of Empires 2, when they included civs that simply did not coexist within a time frame of about 1,000 years which comprises the whole of the Middle Ages.
You just can’t have the Goths together with the Spanish or the Italians, for example.
If they are going for what they seem to be going for – a more specific time period within the Middle Ages (which makes much more sense) – they can’t have the Saxons with the English or the Franks with the French.
They are completely different concepts.
The first were tribes from the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the second represent a concept of nation in a process of unification that was happening half a millennium later, a much more complex process (not restricted to a single tribe or ethnic group).
I don’t see anything wrong with the choices made so far.
As long as they stick to the pattern and the time frame (1000 AD to 1250 AD).
All good so far!!
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I do not have a problem with that to be honest. I honestly quite like those “illogical” or “ahistorical” match ups. If I want real history, I just pick a history book for that 
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Fair enough. 
But you can still make a good game and keep some extent of historical accuracy.
One thing doesn’t cancel the other.
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Sure, and I think the Age game we had did a good job at this in my opinion.
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