Putting the whole civ requests in an appropriate scope.
I’m well aware that Italy hasn’t been unified for the vast majority of their history. Though once you take the approach of adding single cities, what’s the reason for somebody else not to ask for every single city in the HRE? Or French cities etc.
No offense, but in my opinion the scope of AOE2 is a bit bigger than just single city states which had a certain glorious time period. We already have some amalgamations of city states in the form of the Maya, the Burgundians, the Italians and probably some more I’m forgetting though that’s the closest to city states we should get IMO.
Especially when the devs show no sign of adding more architecture sets I find it honestly inappropriate to ask for single cities to be added while simultaneously complaining about the overuse of existing architecture sets, a thing which if I recall correctly you also agree on. Especially when we have great candidates everywhere using underused sets. I’d as an example much prefer Sogdians over Venetians, not only by the fact that they’d represent a bigger scope of people, but also because it would give much needed needed love for the Central Asian set e.g.
I know it might be a bit rude to express it this way, though to be honest, seeing it pop up frequently and considering the comment I made (original idea by @CanineCrown7153 ) is a direct way to express disapproval of the idea while not having to list the same points over and over again. Considering it got quite a considerable amount of likes, it seems like that at least parts of the regularly active community here agrees on that.
It’s not like we didn’t have Italian content in the form of Sicilians and Romans in the last few years., both civs I would have never expected to join the AOE2 roster to be honest. My excitment for a Venetians/Vlach DLC would be literally zero, no joke.
Yeah ngl I don’t think we should have city states as independent civs in the game. I get many of the Italian cities were by themselves regional movers and shakers but still there’s plenty of large cultures that haven’t been touched and the umbrella Italian civ, while granted not perfect, is serviceable to cover those city states.
Though unlike Szaladon I would love to see a Vlachs/Serbs with Magyar or Turks campaign as well DLC at some point, but Africa and E. Asia are higher on my priority list personally.
I agree that a pure Magyar and a rework of the Vlach campaign would most likely come alongside a DLC adding some Balkan civs which have regional importance if the devs are willing to touch the powder keg which is the addition of Balkan civs which were formerly part of Yugoslavia.
I am willing to see them if we get a Balkan set and after the addition of more African/American civs, though not now and not in the next DLC.
To summarize:
I am not against more European civs, I’m against them right now before an America/Africa DLC and without new architecture sets
I agree i’d rather see Africa & E. Asia prioritized first (and maybe Americas, but tbh other than a Mississippian civ i’m not super focused on the Americas), though ngl the main reason I want a Serbs civ is A. we need more South Slavs and Serbs have a rich history at that point in time, and B. one of the most legendary pro players in the game is Serbian and i’d like to see a Serbs civ for that sake.
Yeah but this is about sizes and dimensions and I don’t wanna repeat the same joke again…
Hre duchies? Some of them would make sense like Frisians, Swabians etc (even Swiss).
French cities is a bad example and makes me think you don’t know the difference between late medieval France (mostly a national state except for Brittany, Burgundy and something else) and Italy which was so disintegrated that even the national anthem goes something like “since centuries we’re taken fun of because we’re a not a people, because we’re divided”. I mean the national anthem lol.
Also Romans are not Italians in the late medieval / modern sense of the word because the same anthem refer to Italy as being “from slave of Romans, God created it” so Romans are not an Italian split and Sicilian being a split is debatable too since as I said Sicily was not considered part of Italy but rather land of conquer (Muslims, vandals, byzantines, the same Sicilians civ is partially Norman).
Of course nowadays it’s common sense to say Romans are Italians but that’s not ancient (aoe1) or neither late Romans (aoe2) but rather Roman people living in Rome (which Dante disliked btw). Same argument for Sicilians, they were often not considered Italy until Italy was a thing. To not speak about Sardinia…
So I really hate to be the Italian nerd here but things are very complex when you look deeper into them as they are when you look into Mali or of course into India or China.
And my point is not let’s add all of them but rather informing, after you know something (and I swear I’m not even that much into Italian history so go figure what an expert would think of Italians in aoe2) then you can give an opinion that makes sense. I think only Venetians are actually very important and I’d make current Italians a more inland civ like Tuscans (who seems to be the ones who started the whole Italian national thing). Anyway I don’t consider it a priority, I’m just speaking what I know to inform people. As I said I’m very much into late antiquity and since the Italian thing is mostly a late medieval and Renaissance thing I know very little and have very little interest in it. But truth is truth and must be spoken, specially when you see ignorance (sometimes even aggressive) around a subject.
Again I don’t have prejudices. To me the more stuff the better but I’m a campaign maker rather than a competitive one so I can see people not agreeing with too many civs.
Still if you can find 10 AI names, a wonder, a castle, UU, UT, bonuses, signs of warfare and politics, a campaign hero or enough non legendary material to fill 5 or 6 scenarii I don’t even care if they didn’t use metals like Polinesia or build anything like Mapuche. If they’re cool or have a cool character and check these boxes just add them, even if it’s a Maya city state.
That’s a Devs problem, not a problem with Mediterranean architecture itself. The current Mediterranean set is basically an Italian+ thing, it fits other late medieval civs like Portuguese and Spanish but barely anything else. Sicilians have a very unique architecture mixing islamic and Christian influence (maybe they could share an “Iberian” set?) And of course byzantines and other eastern orthodox Christians like recent Georgians don’t fit well. Oh and don’t let me start on Romans, I’d put them with byzantines and co before current Mediterranean. So you could derive at least two sets from the current Mediterranean.
That’s subjective, I mean fine.
I know it got many likes, way more than my long and boring posts but I’m just trying to explain stuff people seem to ignore, not saying what I would prioritize or not. But sometimes a joke gets more views, we all know tiktok etc. In fact it’s quite common sense to say Africa is a priority, almost anyone would agree so sometimes I wonder who are you shouting to? To people peacefully discussing about European civs? They’re not doing anything wrong, almost none of them is against African civs.
So no doubt the community agrees with you, you’re not saying anything new, that was my point from the beginning: we all know Africa is barren since we all have eyes. It’s not that we have to constantly speak about that even in a non African civ thread.
Also iirc @CanineCrown7153 was initially one of the fiercest opponent to Romans in aoe2 but now he seems to actually enjoy having them (correct if I’m wrong), even going as far as to pay a modder for make legionaries in Alaric slides not look anachronistic. So I think in the end people on this forum are just very conservative and suspicious of what they don’t know yet but once it becomes a thing they just accept and even like it.
This calls for someone being a little more outspoken sometimes to push the community on a bit which means from my part informing.
As to prove my point look how in early middle ages (my favourite period) there were almost no independent provinces or city states in Italy.
But just look at high and late middle ages… Almost all of these states were actually independent.
Among the major states it puts Papal States, Florence / Tuscans, Milan, Naples, Sicily, Venetia, Genoa and in the late middle ages Savoy. So the ones that are actually mostly discussed here for a split.
A DLC centered around late antiquity western Mediterranean Sea.
Introduce the Suebi and the Vandal and the Lombards
The Vandal fight against the Roman, byzantine, suebi, wisigoth, berber during their long journey to Tunisia
The Suebi moving to Iberic peninsula and setting a kingdom here.
The Lombard conquering Italy
A last Roman campaign (Originally I proposed a byzantine campaign when Belisarius and Narses have conquered the ostrogoths and the vandals. But now we have the Roman civilization and he is better to put a romain campaign in this late antiquity DLC)
Renaissance DLC/ war of Italy DLC
(Originally I proposed a mountain DLC with Swiss and Georgian but now we have this last civilization)
Venetian (two obvious UU : galleass and stradioti. We can ever make a Skanderberg campaign)
Swiss (important player in late Middle Age and Renaissance)
Papal state
Charlemagne DLC
Introduce the Saxons and the Lombards
One campaign for Charlemagne and two for the other civ
I support the suggest in this context, to add an own architecture set for the European barbarians like Goths and Vandals.
Goths do not fit into the Central european set, It is better to separate them. And yes, adding Vandals would complete the sentence more.
The Huns are more suited to the Mongols, therefore I would be in favor of a common set for Huns and Mongols.
Yes, the recently added Romans should get an own campaign, defensive missions against the Barbarians from the East Germanic area would be a good choice.
Before Return of Rome I really didn’t like the idea of having Romans as a civ, separate from the Byzantines.
After it was announced, I said ‘well, it’s not like I can prevent this so I’ll just enjoy the ported Age of Empires 1 campaigns and the Roman campaign that will obviously come with Return of Rome’. Alas, neither was meant to be and I haven’t bought Return of Rome so I haven’t played with the Romans civ…
HOWEVER,
many years ago, I ported both Coming of the Huns, Rise of Rome and Definitive Edition, versions, first to AoE 2 HD and then to AoE 2 DE, with the player being Byzantines. When Romans came out, I updated them so now the players has both Byzantine and Roman tech tree.
The Alaric slides are unrelated to Return of Rome. Which reminds me, I have to go whip gently ask the slave guy I fairly paid.
Edit: I hope the Wars of Liberty reference didn’t go unnoticed
The fun thing here is you COULD squeeze in Alans filling simultaneously a Dark Age civ and a civ on the Steppes of Alania. Steppe lancers, camels, and depending how liberal with the idea of them being Iranic… other regionals as well
Skanderbeg and stradioti would work better for an Albanian civ since Venetians could have so many other more properly “Venetian” options it would be a waste… A similar waste to the one of Armenians I guess.
I can get behind a decent number of these, and I get the attraction to Venetians, they are in some ways a bit of a different case than the other Italian civs, but i’m still not sure.
Yeah, that’s another option I can get behind, because i’m not super enthused with the Mongols being E. Asian, especially the heavily Japanese inspired E. Asian we have now, but I was trying to keep new architecture sets to a minimum because we aren’t likely to get many more I don’t think, sadly enough.
Could be interesting but I was trying to limit to more major power players and not get too in the weeds, so i’m not sure.
