Russians, like Burmese, Japanese, Malay, Vietnamese, Persians, etc. We have caused enough problems with the old way of calling them Franks or Britons or Saracens. Time to use their proper umbrella terms.
The issue with that is that the Kievans were not the Russians. Back then, Rus did not mean Russian.
Not going into modern military conflicts, but the Kievan Rus was a tribe of Rus. Which did not mean Russian but Eastern Slav. Thus not including Poles, Slovaks but including Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians.
Back then there were more than 3 types of East Slavs, the Rus. When Muscowy was formed that would later be called Russia (from Rus; this is why they named the country Russia in fact) they would promote the idea that they were the kingdom of all Rus. But the other Rus disagreed.
Simply yet confusingly put: Not all Rus were Russians.
Muscowy was not a successor of the Kievan Rus more than Spain was the succesor of the Roman Empire. There were many Rus tribes out of which the Muscovites were one of them. In fact, this comparison, doesnât even hold because the Rus were far more different between themselves than the Romans in Rome and Romans in Spain were.
The Ukrainian/Belarusian national identities didnât spawn in the 20th century.
The Kievan Rus, was in the broadest sense, the East Slavs from Kiev.
2 Likes
Which is my point. We shouldnât be having what we see in AOE4 in AOE2DE. Shoehorning civs into strict boxes like the Abbasid Dynasty instead of going for âArabsâ instead.
2 Likes
The Abbasid Caliphate extended way further than just where ethnic Arabs are located and non-Arabs played important roles in its history.
Someone like Saladin wasnât even an Arab.
If anything, âArabsâ would be more strict than Abbasid Dynasty.
It was a fundamentally an Arab conquest empire (same as Umayyads), albeit with Persian and later Turkish influences. Saladin was a Kurd yes, but they would just be represented by Turks, Arabs or Persians in the game as no one will give them a separate civilisation. Thatâs what umbrella civilisations mean.
1 Like
We got to keep the naming consistent. Itsâ called âcivsâ not âcountriesâ, you play as âthe Italiansâ not âItaliaâ. As such, I think itâs better to call them âArabsâ than Abbasid Dynasty.
4 Likes
Ruthenians is the appropiate medieval term that covered for all Eastern Slavs. Itâs an exonym, although it wouldnât be the only one in the game
6 Likes
Either that or (Kievan) Rusâ.
1 Like
I believe if we look at what the description of the Slavs is on the age of forgotten empires website.
https://www.forgottenempires.net/age-of-empires-ii-definitive-edition/civilizations/slavs.
They basically mention 4 nations within the umbrella of slavs.
Bulgarians, Kievan Rus, Great Moravia, and Poles.
Bulgarians and Poles are now in the game. Which leaves Kievan Rus and Great Moravia. It could be said that Bohemians represent Great Moravia. However they are separate, and represent different time periods. plus Great Moravia represents a key historical moment when the first writing and introduction of Christianity began.
All their bonuses are based on these nations
Farm bonus- poles
Druzina- Great Moravia
Boyar-Kievan Rus
Siege -not sure? Bohemians?
Orthodoxy-all eastern europe basically
So they should rename Slavs to Kievan Rusâ.
1 Like
Yes, but they really should be reworked since the bonuses donât really make sense anymore besides boyar and orthodoxy.
Also they should probably add Great Moravia.
The Slavs lack a proper campaign. It would be better to specify a nation and make one like they did for the others.
No one is a Kievan Rusâ. Letâs stick to the convention of naming civilizations after groups of peoples and not specific states.
If they get renamed, they should be called simply Rus, or Ruthenian. I prefer the first one since the relation with the Kievan Rusâ is clearer and it can also be more easily linked with modern day Russia and Belarus.
3 Likes
Indeed, Moravia and Bohemia are disctinct political entities belonging to different periods. But consider that in order to âpaint the mapâ more effectively, and considering that civilizations are named after groups of peoples and not specific nations/sates, the Bohemians civ can be understood as an umbrella term for all the Czech-Slovak peoples. The same way Poles can represent the lechitic west slav peoples and Lithuanians the baltic peoples.
Theyâre given the name of the most prominent group for recognizability reasons.
2 Likes
I think base them on Kievan Rus but probably name them Rus or something similar.(ruthenians however could be confusing with modern day ruthenians).
I am disappointed this poll did not include Great Moravia. Great Moravia would actually be a more appropriate umbrella civ for western Slavs since they were the precursor. However Bohemia had a more well recorded history and lasted much longer (campaign is also awesome).
It wouldnât hurt though to have more nations set in the earlier middle ages, since there is I think an âage creepâ that tends to happen when adding new civs.
2 Likes
As much as I would like more European civs, what should be privileged are those nations that had long-lasting states or at least some clear continuity. An example of the latter would be the current Magyars, or the possible Vlachs/Wallachians.
1 Like
Vikings already covers Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians (Norse).
Albanians are covered by Slavs/Byzantines/Italians/Sicilians (Norman invasions in the region).
Teutons already cover Saxons, Bavarians, Westphalians, Hapsburgs/Austrians. If your split the Teutons up, then that means we can do the same to Britons⊠Do you really want to have Britons split into Lancastrians, Yorkists, Londoners, Northrumbrians? No?.. too many civs it would be?.. Exactly! âŠI did not think so.
I can go on and on⊠but for me personally, I think that Europe is fine as is, but that Georgians and Serb/Croatian/Bosnian are two new European civs that can be legitimately added to this videogame.
Italians should not be split. Despite people crying that the Venetians and Genoese ought to be separated, there were several Italian republics, duchies, and counties that would be left out. Same goes with if you split the Teutons: too many German states to find representation for.
It is better to keep a single civ representing a grand region, regardless of how divided politically it is, than try to attempt 5, 10, 20 civs to cover that same region where 1 single civ can do the job.
Same goes for Turks and Persians: you want to split up Ghazids, Seljuks, and Ottomans? Iranians, Persians, Medians? TOO MUCH WORK.
This videogame is best if it is kept as simple as possible.
6 Likes
How are they not covered by Slavs already?
1 Like
In some ways âSlavsâ the civ in-game do already cover them.
However⊠a few things to note is that the Bosnians experienced some settling of Frankish nobles in the Middle Ages (as a consequence of the Crusades) and got realigned as more of a âWestern Europeanâ people, i.e. Catholic instead of a âEastern Europeanâ people, i.e. Greek/Byzantine Orthodox. The same thing happened to the Bohemians and Poles, though not with French/Franks but with German/Teutons which therefore shifted the Bohemians, Poles and the Bosnians away from their âoriginal Slavicâ brethren.
Culturally, the Bohemians, Poles, and Bosnians had knights and other social, ruling class customs that were not shared with the East Slavs, who instead had Boyars.
To be fair⊠if NO Bosnian civ is added to Age II, it will not be the end of the world for this videogame.
âSlavsâ already is a perfect umbrella-civ.
Though it was appropriate to add Bulgarians, Poles and Bohemians as their own civs. I wonder if perhaps Bosnians, Croatians, and/or Serbs might get the treatment.
However, as I have been saying all along: Age II is not, and should not be a âUnited Nationsâ videogame. You cannot include all peoples in the game, it would be too complicated! Already is complicated!!!
5 Likes
The thing is a lot of people dislike all of these cases of single in-game civs that represent multiple real life civilizations. Just because youâre fine with them doesnât mean other peopleâs opinions should be disregarded.