Mughals wouldn’t be the variant of the Delhi Sultanate because the Mughals were an enemy of the Delhi Sultanate. While both of them are represented by the AoE2 umbrella civ, Hindustanis (since that civ represents Northern India), it still doesn’t make sense for the Mughals to be a variant of the Delhi Sultanate. Not to mention, the majority of the Mughal timeframe won’t fit into that of AoE4. Also, the Zamburak would be a unique unit of the Persians.
Regarding the period of the Variants, forget any reference in your minds.
Just look at what was done in the last DLC.
There are 2 variants focused only on the 15th century and to make matters worse, they were focused on very few years :
- Order of the Dragon - focused on the 15th century, only 29 years of history
- Joan of Arc - focused on the 15th century, only 19 years of history.
Remember that AoE4 is focused on a period that begins further ahead than what was seen in AoE2 and goes further than AoE2. Remember that AoE2 has campaigns from the 16th century but lacks a lot of 16th century weaponry, but in AoE4 we can already see many modern weapons compared to AoE2.
It is obvious that it is possible to make a variant focused on the 16th century, with historical content inspired by invasions and conquests of a certain region.
It is likely that at some point we will see some 16th century variant. Now, which variant it will be, I have no idea.
Bengal Sultanate as a variant of Delhi Sultanate?
Personally i think the ones who would bring the most “uniqueness” to the game, because they have very different cultures from the civ already in games, are:
-Vikings (Danes?)
-Khmer
These are also quite large empire of AoE4 time (1000-1400).
Aztects would also fit well this definition, but Aztects are a bit later (1500) so some could argue that they don’t really fit. But i’d be happy with them anyway.
Khmers are a bit unknown but they are probably the largest empires of the 1200 that isn’t in the game yet. They covered pretty much all of South-East asia.
Vikings are just a classic for their conquests and raidings. They would probably need to be called Norsemen or Danes or Scandinavians. They were also not Christians at the time of their conquests, but became christians a bit later on, but not on the scale as England and France were. Maybe they could do a bit like Japan and when aging up to age 3 you choose between pagan or christian, i think that could be interesting.
Spain and Italy (Should be named Venice) are suggested a lot, but I think they would be quite similar to already existing civs. Same for Persians and other civs with large influence from either euro-christians or islam influence civs. So i’d rather have new civs that are neither of those, at least before they cover all the important ones.
As for variants, if they decide to do another Hero civ, it HAS to be Genghis Khan, no other civ would work well with a hero other than Genghis Khan in my opinion.
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The Bengal Sultanate cannot be a variant. I would put it as a new civilization for India.
Reason for this choice: Different architecture and they have their own war stories and territories.
There was an old topic on this forum, which discussed how many unique architectures there could be for Indian culture in AoE4. And the number was between 3 or 4 architectures, being more plausible for the developers to make a maximum of 3 unique architectures for India.
The variants to differentiate themselves from the standard civilization, would only have different Landmarks, Monuments and unique units, but nothing prevents them from adding a bonus, making the castles different as well.
The developers have already promised to revisit India once again (so it will be the second visit, so far without a date for this to happen).
So I’m hoping that South India will be reintroduced as a new standard civilization, for the second visit to the Indian region. (I’m not counting the possible variant, since this will use the architecture of the chosen default civilization).
And perhaps in the distant future, if they decide to revisit India for the third time, then we could have the third unique architecture that would fit as the Sultanate of Bengal.
Of course, these are suggestions from that time on the forum. So we’ll just have to wait and see what the developers decide.
The Mayans were already a shadow by the 11th century…Aztecs would be better since they are a civilization from the 14th to the 16th century…then Norse or Vikings are fine…
Yes, I think that in this next DLC they will put variants for the English, Rus, Mongols and Delhi:
English: Angevins (1154-1212): It has Richard I or Henry II as a UU hero; it is a mix between English landmarks and French UU and techs…
Rus: Novgorod/Moscow (1283-1547): Unique technologies from the Rus campaign
Mongols: Tatars/Timurids (1370-1507): Landmarks based on Timur and Ulug Beg
Delhi: Viyanagara (1336-1646): Like Delhi but more focused on southern India (Dravidians)…
And then the next DLC will put variants for the DLC civs:Malians, Ottomans, Byzantines and Japanese:
Malians: Ghana/Soninke (350-1240): Like Malians but more archaic (the other would be Songhai) (1464-1591): Malians but with more gunpowder units
Ottomans: Seljuks (1037-1194): Like the Ottomans but without gunpowder (No Janissaries, War Galleys or Great Bombards)
Byzantines: Latin Empire (1204-1261): Similar to the Angevins, it is a mix between Byzantine landmarks and French UU and techs
Japanese: Oda Nobun4g4 (1568-1582): Similar to Joan of Arc… The usual Japanese, but also with Portuguese units and with Nobun4g4 as a hero…
Yes, the game’s chronology goes from 750 to 1650 (and in the campaign from 1066 to 1552)…
Yes, the Mughals are very late, they are already the Indians of AoE 3…
Yes, that’s a good one…
Mosques with Vijayanagar 
They would have to be Hindu temples, but yes, it would be strange to see mosques, although not unlikely…
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Most Delhi Sultanate buildings have domes over it. How many buildings will you change. Entire Architecture will get modified.
Umayyads Andalus + Vikings + Dark age DLC like Rome + Carthage + Greece + Nabataeans + Babylon + pharaoh Egypt … etc
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The Ghorids would be the variant of the Delhi Sultanate. Having a South Indian empire be as a variant of the Delhi Sultanate wouldn’t make sense. I don’t expect Seljuks to be a variant of the Ottomans because of how drastically different the Seljuks functioned from the Ottomans. Angevins being a variant of the English is a good idea but having them use French UU and techs shouldn’t be available to them.
Yes, at most changing the architecture to something more Hindu…
Yes, I had also thought about the Ghurids (786-1215)… they could have Muhammad of Ghor as their hero and it could be a mix between Delhi and Ayyubids…
I personally want vikings,aztecs,mayans and spanish.Also 3 free any real civs.
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I’ve been thinking, and you’re right. In fact, I see the Persian roster, and well, according to the history books I’ve consulted, the Timurid Empire’s army was mainly “a Chagatai Mongol Horde + Levy of conquered peoples”, so it would be strange for them to be Persian variants without sharing any units, let alone the roster.
In fact, yes, the Timurids would be good as a Mongol variant, just with more unique units, other ####### and different architecture for certain buildings: sedentary buildings (houses, towncenter) and landmarks with Timurid-Persian architecture, but Mongol barracks, shooting galleries and stables and mobile ones. Oh, and they stopped being sedentary, in part.
I can also think of the “Skull Tower” as a 4th age building, or else as a special unique building, but I’m still thinking about how to justify the building material (Skulls as a 5th unique resource? hehe, it could be)
Well, it’s true that the Mughals were actually… Persianized Turkish-Mongols since the Timurid peace period. If I’m honest, the only reason for being a variant would be that they also spoke Persian and would share war elephants, but lately I see that it’s just that “Persian was very popular in Asia in those days.”
Aside from that, I think we should consider whether War Elephants and Tower Elephant could become common among various future civs (Rajastan, Viyajanagara, Burmese, etc), let’s stop considering have elephants as a “constant” to consider Variants. The Mughals for example, would not share “scholars” with Delhi, and by the “Mobile Court” mechanic they would have another architecture for military buildings and town centers.
About the timeframe.- With civs like Order of the Dragon (1408-1437) or Joan of Arc (AD 1412-1431), I now understand that as long as the civ doesn’t start in say 1600 or 1700, it’s normal. They could represent the miserable state the Timurids were in since Babur was expelled from Persia, and he only had a few soldiers and then he grew until he managed to amass an army large enough to invade India and that until Akbar1, when they would start to be disparagingly called “Mughals”. On the other hand, they were the ones who caused the definitive end of the Delhi Sultanate, so technically they would be their arch enemy, same as there are “French and English” or Ottomans vs Byzantines.
Landmarck difference.- Oh, and the wonder of Delhi (The Great Palace of Agra), which was a palace of the Delhi Sultanate, the Badalgarh, was actually dismantled by the Mughals, rebuilt with red bricks and added turrets to create the Agra Fort. It could even be a 4th Age Landmark. In fact its Wonder could be the Taj Mahal.
Persian as a language.- “Persian was very popular in Asia in those days.”
Civs that used Persian as an administrative language in the Middle Ages and Early Modern:
- Persianates (Buyida, Saffarid, Samanid, Khwarazmian, Saffavida)
- Seljuk Empire
- Timurid Empire
- Mughal Empire
Well, there is something that the devs will save by making these civs without them necessarily being variants.
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Indeed, the War Elephant could become a shared unit for civs that historically used military elephants. The same can be said about the Horse Archer, in which that it also be shared as well as it would be shared among civs that historically deployed archers on horseback. A new ranged elephant that would be shared among the civs using the elephant would be introduced and is called “Elephant Archer” and the difference between the Elephant Archer and the Tower Elephant is that the Elephant Archer has one man in the howdah and doesn’t change weaponry as it would use only the bow and arrow (hence the name “Elephant Archer”) while the Tower Elephant has two men in the howdah.
The Horse Archer and War Elephant overall both, need to become shared units among civs that historically used them and some of these civs would get access to both of them (i.e., Persians, Vietnamese).
Just to contextualize the Mughals and their emergence.
Image below re-presents the period of 1510 to 1600 (only covering the 16th century… if something is done for AoE4).
It could certainly be a variant civilization… but I don’t know the name, it could be Mughal or perhaps the name of a hero, or something to symbolize their invasion and conquest of northern India.
If they are really introduced, we will find out the name chosen by the developers and the years chosen to be re-presented.
When exactly new Civs/ new DLC will be announced? Late 2024? Can we get new DLC every 6 months?
Average of 1 year.
If the developers can keep DLC releases every 1 year or 1 year and a half, it would be perfect. But always bringing at least 2 or 3 unique civilizations and some variants.
No idea.
In fact, a topic was recently made to discuss that.
When next DLC?
Summarizing a bit:
- Among the recent patch notes, it was said that in Spring 2025 in the northern hemisphere (March) we would have something totally new, so it is speculated that it could be another DLC.
- People were hoping that they would announce something at gamescon, but it didn’t happen.
- There is probably no news about Age 4 until November so as not to overshadow the release of 2 new games in the franchise: AoM:Retold (September) and AoE:Mobile (October)
- Medic reminded me that October 25th was the annual anniversary of the franchise. Maybe they will announce something there, to generate early Hype as it happened with Sultans Ascen (it was 4 months of intense Hype, I remember), if not in December.
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Beasty : I mean more games more games