Greetings fellow Empire-builders.
The recent installment of the Lords of the West, introducing 2 new civs and 3 new campaigns have certainly heightened debate and apprehension among many AoE2 gamers on the future of this beloved game that we all love.
Discussion ranges from “It is good to add new civs?” to “No more civs!” to “We need new content! It keeps the game going!”…you get the idea.
This Post will be outlining my idea on how Age of Empires 2: DE should proceed in my humble opinion. I encourage all to add your thoughts and comments below (please be civil about it!) as, as always, I am curious to know what my fellow gamers think.
The Question of New Civs
Looking back at the 22 years of AoE2 history, it is quite extraordinary to notice how much this game has grown in number of civs: originally 13 civs were in the game…now there are 37. The excitement for new civs have certainly have encouraged many players to scream and beg the AoE2 developers to bring more into the game…
But…
…this game may sooner or later reach it’s saturation point.
In other words, it gets so big, that it gets over-ly complicated, with too much content for players to memorize, too many bugs/glitches springing up, overburdening the devs and annoying the gamers, and constant frustrating in all the balancing required in managing all the civs. Do not get me wrong: I for one enjoy the new DLC Lords of the West and the two new civs, Burgundians and Sicilians albeit more tweaking and balancing needs to be administered. But my fear is that new civs will just keep coming and coming…leading to the issues that I have outlined above.
Of course, many players who advocate for the inclusion of more civs into AoE2 claim that there are other civilizations that are not represented, and ought to be added into AoE2.
I am a historian, and am very passionate about history. In fact, Age of Empires partly led me into loving history and making me desire to pursue it as a hobby and as a career. (I never heard about Joan of Arc or Saladin before playing AoE2)
The historian in me feels curious to see what new civs can be added into AoE2. But the gamer in me is worried about new civs detracting rather than adding, to the gaming experience of AoE2.
If new civs are to be added into AoE2, I strongly believe that certain requirements must be met:
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The Civ needs to fit well into the medieval-theme that AoE2 permeates. You cannot throw in a Ancient civilization into AoE2 much like how you cannot throw in a Medieval civ into AoE1. That is why AoE1 covers ancient history, AoE2 covers medieval history (and some elements of early Imperial history, going into the Early Modern Era), and AoE3 covers Early Modern Era.
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The Civ needs to have an adequate and historically real architecture style that can include big structures such as Castle, Market, Town Center, and Wonder. Example: peoples that have remained in hunter-gatherer societies and have lacked any significant building construction in their time will not work.
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The Civ must have a reasonably balanced tech tree and military unit composition that makes historical sense. (The Civ must have enough historical evidence to grant them a proper Navy tech tree. A hunter-gatherer peoples who did nothing more than build fishing boats will not cut it)
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The Civ must be unique enough from all the other civs linguistically to warrent their own civ creation Example: while Mongols as a civ technically represents the Tartars…adding a Tartars as their own civ in the Khans’ Expansion was totally fine, because the Tartars were more Turkic than Mongolic in blood and in speech.
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The Civ must have an “empire-like” history period (This point is debatable…and I personally think that fulfilling the requirements of the 4 points are enough qualification for a “new civ”. However, it is argued by some AoE2 gamers, that civs need to have been in a position in history to have been an “empire” in some form or another. So I thought to put this point down to mention that)
Civs that could work:
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The Mississippian peoples of North America (Illinois basin located in modern day U.S.A.) This civilization can work, as I have seen from a few other AoE2 gamers who have posted some sketches of Mississippian earth mound “buildings” that can work in creating a Norther American native “Castle”, “Market”, “Town Center” and “Wonder”. Plus, I for one can easily see a Mississippian civ being like the Meso-American civs, in having Eagle Warriors and also including the Iroquois Warrior as a trainable unit (either from the Barracks or the Castle)
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Sudanese of East Africa These peoples were in contact with the medieval Arabs (Saracens) and the Ethiopians (1 of 3 African civs already in AoE2), and there is evidence that they did have building construction of their own. They can certainly be added as a new civ bec
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Mughals (or “Moguls”) of India This civ, while yes being related to the Turkic-Mongol peoples of Afghanistan (Turks and Mongols already are included in AoE2), there might be some merit to add them into the game. They were a significant civilization of northern India, with a ruling class that originated from foreign lands outside of India. While the argument could be made that the Indians civ already represents the Mughals, the Mughals could certainly be added as the 2nd ever civ that shares the South Asian (Indian) architecture style, thereby not having Indians be the only civ with that particular architectural style. Also: adding the Mughals can give the devs the excuse for another elephant unit.
Civs that cannot work:
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Scots, Irish, and Welsh (as separate civs). The Celts already adequately represents the Scots and Irish and Welsh nicely. And the “Britons” also represents the medieval Welsh somewhat (though that is very debatable. Some Welshmen might take offense at being associated with the English.
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Poles (or the Polish The Poles are already represented by the Slavs civ. Plus, the “cousins” of the Poles, the Lithuanians, are in the game as their own civ. It would also be hard to justify adding another Paladin civ in the game, as we just got the Burgundians, and there are a LOT of Paladin civs that are already good. (not including Paladin in the roster of a Polish tech tree would be an insult to the Polish national identity of their having powerful heavy cavalry)
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Finns (or Finnish) Despite being Finnish myself…the Finns were not very “civilized” during the medieval age, largely remaining a small, isolated communities until coming into contact with the Slavs in the south and east (Russian principalities) and the Swedish to the west. Technically, the Finns are already “represented” by the Vikings civ, as they were in close proximity with their Scandinavian neighbors, the Slavs civ (an even closer neighbor) and the Magyars civ (the Hungarian and the Finnish peoples share a similar Uralic language group).
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Flemish/Frisian/Medieval Dutch I did advocate for the inclusion of a Flemish civ to represent the medieval Dutch…but the Burgundians civ now represents them via their Flemish Pikeman unit.
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Many other South American, North American peoples, other African peoples, the Australian/Polynesian peoples and the Siberian peoples Many peoples of North/South America, many African peoples (with a few exceptions) and the Siberian peoples (except those who were part of the Mongol Empire) were largely simple hunter-gather societies. And why you could argue the case for the Pueblo, Anasazi peoples of Southwest America (in North America) that they did build castle-like structures (I know because I have see the structures with my own eyes during a vacation), it would be difficult to create a civ for themselves, as we really do not know much about those civilizations other than they were simple craftsmen, farmers, and herders that lived in small, tight-knit communities.
The Australian peoples and Polynesians peoples also were underdeveloped civilizations, living in simple communities. Though the Polynesians were impressive ship and boat builders, their ships were largely for travel of people, goods, and domesticated animals, and paled in comparison in size to the Galleons of the Europeans and Asian peoples.
Future DLCs?
The debate of new civs aside, I am in favor of the devs adding new DLCs in the future, even if they are only just new campaigns instead of adding new campaigns AND new civs. One of the things I think this videogame should never tire over is adding new campaigns representing real historical events, because it helps inspire gamers who know nothing–or little–of history to feel more interested in learning history themselves, and that is why this game is so cool and amazing: you learn about history that you may have never heard of before, and you can also reenact the history for yourself!
The only thing that I would ask the AoE2 devs is to keep DLCs reasonably affordable for the value that each DLC has in its package contents. As much as I love this game, I would hate to see it devolve into a pay-to-win horror fest. I have played other videogames that have been ruined by the developers’ greed for more and more money, so I am acutely aware of the dangers.
With that said, I understand the need for more funds for a game that continues to grow and develop and fine-tune itself (bug fixes and balance changes will always be an ongoing affair).
