Screenshots of a literal Tangut fortress. A fortress that is attributed to nobody else.
If they showed a Khitan one and people thought it was a Tangut one, then yes, that’s on us. But this isn’t what happened. We saw multiple Tangut elements that are not possible to mistake. What else are we supposed to expect?
I don’t believe the devs intentionally did the research about the Tanguts, then teased Tanguts explicitly, then made the choice to merge it into Khitan. They could spend the efforts researching Khitan instead and there are actually quite a few good choices that are more fitting than Tangut units and castles.
If the screenshot showed some very generic-looking units, I’d also say people over-hyped themselves. But those things are very specific, in fact more specific than any other Khitan unique stuff.
It is very likely WE interfered and forced them to “make that choice” and they had to do damage controls by downplaying the result as much as possible from the public.
It’s mostly WE’s fault, but it still sucks anyway.
or if it had been a scenario/campaign thing only. that’d have sucked, but yeah on us.
It’s like showing off a samurai, the the himeji castle, but actually they add those to a filippino civ.
I’d be less annoyed if that campaign really existed.
Screenshots of a literal Tangut fortress. A fortress that is attributed to nobody else.
My personal experiance is that incompitence is always far more likely than malice, it could also just be that they did poor research or they used a building that was “close” to what they wanted. This isn’t the first castle that didn’t belong to the right civ. (the malian castle is based on Almoravid designs, saracen castle is from italy, teuton castle is still british).
The Saracen one is from Cairo (a citadel of Saladin)
I’m actually FAR more lenient about the OG castles. it’s 1999 and the monitor resolution was 800x600. Nice and all to be historically accurate, but picking out designs that stand out from each other was also a large consideration then.
That’s not really a problem these days. so I can’t imagine what happened with the khitangut castle, but the teuton castle doesn’t bother me given the circumstances.
I tried to tell you the biggest difference here but you still don’t get it. Let me break this down:
It’s FAR more impossible giving a very specific model to the wrong civ, than a generic or stereotypical one.
The OG castles look like normal castles in everyone’s perspective. They were the stereotypes of “castles”, easy to find, and looking very generic to most people. You search “medieval European/Middle Eastern castle”. Most of the images look like them.
The “Khitan” one, is based on the Khara-Khoto, a very specific Tangut site where only hardcored historians or history fans would even know. You google “Khitan castle”, that will NEVER come out. Or if it really does, there should be a huge “Tangut” in the title.
It is very difficult to make that mistake. It’s like the getting ALL of the true or false questions wrong rather than a random guess.
Then combined with the exact same type of mistake with the camel trebuchet (a very odd and specific one that most people never heard of, unless you research Tangut military), the probability is even lower.
See the difference?
Edit: and I didn’t say malice either. But a Tangut civ was definitely planned. Someone did the research. Those were concepts designed for them. Then the management interfered and forced them to scrap it.
Its also posibke that turbing them into the Khitans was a relatively late decision
After all, the Khitan are more well known in the AoE2 conmujity
That ones on me, I wrote a longer responce and trimed it too far.
First off, I’d point out that is still subjective of what is “generic” or steriotypical. The average person typically doesn’t have a good understanding of what building might belong to what culture especially if that culture isn’t one they themselves are a part of (hince, why the european castles are considered “generic” by a prodominantly european or western audiance). Theres a none zero chance that players just havent heard of the Tanguts on mass (a thing that was discussed on the podcast as one of the deciding factors of civ choice) and maybe they think the castle looks “generic” for that region.
In any case:
It does not have to be a mistake, They could have willingly chosen to use a castle from Tangut to try and be more inclusive (for better or worse). That would make more sense if they weren’t planning on adding Tanguts as a stand alone civ at any given point in the near future.
The Celts are a good example of this in practice. The Castle is now distinctly an Irish one, the Unique unit is distinctly a pict, and the civ name references the celts which is a very nebulous term. The Celts also use a variety of AI player names (the names assigned at random to the AI player when you play single player skirmishes) which include Welsh, Scots, Irish, and a King from Britany (Modern day upper left corner of France).
Id actually be extreamly curious to see if that was the same case here regarding the ai player names. I’d expect to see a mix of Tangut and Khitan heads of state/generals, as well as potentially some from other “close enough to count” cultures.
Thats a choice made to try and cover more area with less civ. Obviously an older one by todays standards, but similar situations have occured with more recent civs.
So yes, I understand it’s less likely they made a mistake (though I still wouldn’t rule that out), but disagree that its hard evidence that a Tangut civ was ever being worked on.
I am not sure if erasing part of the culture of a people that suffered a near complete extermination of their real life culture is “inclusive”.
I think AoE2 wiki already has them. They did for the Wei when I looked earlier for something.
If the alternative is not being in the game at all? Again, not saying I didn’t want to see them as their own stand alone civ either. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than nothing.
Better that than butchering their culture.
I wouldn’t be so pleased if someone took my culture and hybridised it with a totally unrelated group of people.
Also I checked the list of ai Khitan names. All of them are Khitan, no Tanguts there.
THE BIGGEST APRIL FOOLS JOKE. I LOVE IT /S.
I will correct my statement to say that its a poor attempt at inclusivity even if it may have been well intended.
in any case, many reasons that the tanguts may have never been planed from the start but elements of them have been included in some capacity. could be gameplay, could be culture, could be poor reserch, could be a concious choice.
Also I checked the list of ai Khitan names. All of them are Khitan, no Tanguts there.
I did check that. It lines up with how the Jurchen name selection seems to be which is that they are all members of the Liao dynasty (and the Jurchens from the Jin dynasty respectively). This also tracks with the 3 kingdoms civs (though notably they have a few of the associated legendary heroes/generals tied in).
so the use is consistent, if not supportive of any possible (and again: poor) attempt to include some Tangut references. I definately would not mind hearing the dev side explination for the castle choice, but having worked in that industry before (and especially when its a company of a company of a company of a company) The amount of red tape to get cut to provide an answer directly is normally pretty difficult. Maybe a good question for the next podcast.
Okay that is not impossible.
But it is still a very whacky outcome. It seemed very forced and counter-intuitive. That’s why it stirred speculations. Like, Burgundians having Flemish reference is acceptable, but Aztecs having Maya reference is strange.
And we know last minute changes happened in this series.
Well they have a castle model and UU one just sitting there ready to be used for the Tanguts. I think as a suitable apology for butchering these two civs together, they could promise to deliver the Tanguts at a later date.
Okay that is not impossible.
But it is still a very whacky outcome. It seemed very forced and counter-intuitive. That’s why it stirred speculations. Like, Burgundians having Flemish reference is acceptable, but Aztecs having Maya reference is strange.
All very valid points. I know text doesn’t always carry tone well but I want to point out that you absolutely could be right. It is possible the devs started work on the Tanguts and just had to cut them for some reason.
I’m just trying to point out that there are more possibilities and we can’t know with 100% certainty that the Tanguts were always planed.
Well they have a castle model and UU one just sitting there ready to be used for the Tanguts. I think as a suitable apology for butchering these two civs together, they could promise to deliver the Tanguts at a later date.
Sure! and I absoutely hope that they’ll take on feedback and look into that as a possible option. I’ve never known game devs not to be down to do more game stuff baring burnout. (unless we’re talking shovelware peddlers), it will always come down to costs and red tape from management.