The community plaza makes a very small amount of sense, if you take it to represent the logistical effort that goes into maintaining weaponry or training people or supporting a highly specialized unit. It’s not great, but it works just as well as how every other building in AoE doesn’t need people in them in order to work.
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The ultimate banner of “this reply is not worth reading”:
“tHiS iS a GaMe NoT a HiStOrY sImUlAtoR”.
Man out of 100 name/model changes at the release of DE and 100x that came after them, some people still choose to hate only a few of them just because they were made to become less offensive or stereotypical.
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if AoE3 were a historical simulation, native american civs would be completely under-represented and perpetually shoved to the side by and in favour of fully industrialized european nations.
… Wait
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It’s not history simulator but you still don’t give the samurai to Aztecs or call the units space marines.
The game is not a history simulator. It’s not a reality simulator either. It’s not a fantasy simulator either. It’s not a history violator either. It’s not a space mission control system either.
That is the perfect embodiment of “true and useless”. When people begin with something like that it usually means they don’t have any better argument.
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Related: with the high density of maps and minor civs in Europe, I’d say there’s substantial room for more of both in both NA and SA, and Central America could be considered its own area.
I’ll make a new topic addressing that specifically, but I’ve definitely got some ideas for new maps and map adjustments to NA, as well as a handful of new minor civs and adjustments to existing ones that might help make them more historical.
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I believe that Native American civilizations require a complete rework. An interesting option could be to divide them into two main groups, following examples from other games like Europa Universalis. It’s undeniable that these civilizations haven’t been very popular since their introduction in TWC. Sometimes I think that these civilizations were added more as a kind of “Token” and as a way to explore U.S. history in campaigns.
I think the developers are trying hard to achieving a more historically accurate representation of Native American civilizations using tools like unique units and cards. However, from my perspective, trying to fix something that was fundamentally misconceived might be too complex and costly. In my opinion, the simplest, right, and viable option would be to perform a “demolition and reconstruction from scratch”.
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The real, uncomfortable question the forum posters here mostly are ignoring is “well i don’t like it so to hell with those who do” attitude wont lead to anything othet than the devs trading 1 pissed iff group for another. Ideally, as some did identify with why the plaza is appealing, you need not to just change but keep a civ engaging. The top 2 civs consistently in popularity are china, ahisotrical af, and the weirdness that is brits. Clearly history while important isnt the end all, the civ has to be both fun and appealing for many reasons. Infact haudes popularity declines the more the devs steal its identity of “beefy long range skirm” with all their op DE stuff. Why play haude when you get age2 cassaprowlers as usa in age2 plus the eco?
Play rates in 1v1 isnt the end all. Azzies and lakota far more popular in those modes. Then there’s the usually silent single player/co cop types who rarely post but do vote with their wallets/time. The forums here dont represent a quroum but can generate ideas. When they demand a civ to die to be reborn, its not always resulting in globally better civ engagement.
Then the other really uncomfortable truths is why these civs are played less. The most.popular civs are.correlated with the playbase demographics a good deal and there return of investment for kotm was almost better than the prior 3 dlc alone.
Now i want some non euro content now we got 1 year of finally euros getting some depth after thr mostly non euro updates the first 1.5 to 2 years of DE. But whining, straight up accusing devs of eurocentrism, denying any other factors like how demand devs put their jobs and careers on line for risky use of time, why yall cry for free, this only can result in at best a either or outcome where you or the players content as is loose
Or maybe just for once this forum doesnt devolve into drama and accusations and we work to identify what works, what could replace, and what isnt worth changing. OP I’ve seen put alot of good ideas forward in prior posts, and even if this thread is more venting i think we can productively discuss things. Im naive, but can hope
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I’m strongly against the inclusion of a necessary “gimmicks” for new civs - the lack of players for the African and Native civs shows that high-micro gimmicks work against civ playability, not for. Both civs require high input and micro on the player’s side to manage Influence and the Plaza.
On the other hand, the Asian civs have too little input - a healthy balance somewhere between the effort that Influence requires and the lack of input that Export requires would be a good place to look for.
That’s why I gave the idea that Tortuamerica civs gain three subfactions - One based on wood, one based on food, and one based on coin. Each subfaction gains “Furs” (name is a placeholder for now) as they collect the natural variant of their primary resource and has a method for indefinitely producing said natural resource.
The Eastern Woodlands natives would gain the Too’te Lodge (or similar), a defensive building that produces trees over time.
The Prairie natives would gain the Buffalo Pound that produces bison throughout a game.
The PNW natives would gain… I’m not entirely sure, the gold variant needs a lot of work and thought that I haven’t put into them yet.
But the general idea is to give them a fourth resource they need to balance alongside their normal resources that allows them to “trade” for upgrades and units that they wouldn’t normally have on their own. It would require more micro than Export, but less than Influence, and it would give the Tortuamerican civs a solid identity to lean into that emphasizes the trade networks that ran criss-cross North America.
(And at a later point, maybe the introduction of a fourth, harder-to-play subfaction based on the Desert natives, like the Navajo, Apache, and Hopi, that gains Furs from all three natural resources and has to card/upgrade/age up in specific ways to increase their Fur income from specific natural resources.)
However you put it, the Plaza is clearly not engaging, and the clear lack of care into the Native civs makes them less interesting to play overall when compared to other civs. Why would a new player want to play a civ that has minimal effort put into it when the Euro civs give new skins and named units all over the place?
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Great ideas in general with the furs resources, but I absolutely love the ideas around replenishing natural resources as a gimmick! I think it could lead to some really interesting economic team gameplay. Plus it could be a really unique way to allow macro economic flexibility and late game economic superiority.
As an adjunct to the concept, maybe like with export you could have options on how aggressive vs sustainable you want your global gathering to be? e.g. if you set your villagers to be aggressive then they chop trees 2x as fast but they decay the trees at 4x, while if you set them to sustainable they chop at 0.5x but they decay the trees 0.25x?
And then as you mentioned with the special buildings, the different civs would have the power to replenish their thematic natural resources. You would definitely want that to be done in such a way so that it doesn’t end up like the annoying micro of euro livestock and be more like the auto livestock of the Mexican hacienda.
I suppose the player would have to just learn the number of vills they can assign to the regenerating forest (or bison, or coin, etc.) around the lodge/pound/etc. before they end up depleting the resources faster than they can spawn. I guess that might get annoying with allies cutting your trees or with upgrades changing the ratios as the game progresses.
Maybe it could be automated some way where villagers tasked to the lodge will “plant” trees (generate resources) automatically until a certain number of ready resources are generated, and will then switch to harvesting until the number falls to a limit, before going back to planting.
So that way you build a lodge near a forest, assign 5 vills, and the 5 vills switch between planting and harvesting to keep the forest at a level. If upgrades or allies or additional vills chopping trees cause the forest to diminish faster, the vills tasked on the lodge will spend more (eventually all) of their time planting instead of harvesting.
Also maybe these building work a lot faster the more natural resources are nearby? So if you build a lodge in a remote place with no trees, it can’t do much, but if you build it in a dense forest it works really fast. Same with the Pound for hunts or whatever becomes the coin building with mines. That way the map natural resource distribution is still important.
Plus, because the buildings get more powerful at generating resources the more that are nearby, you could maybe have a snowballing econ for the late game by building up a massive forest or herd or coin farm by generating more than you harvest in the early/mid game in order to have a huge, sustainable economic base for the late game.
Very cool I think!
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I hadn’t thought about any of this, but I am absolutely loving your take on this. This would closely match and mirror the Haudenosaunee and Lakota ways of life.
The only notable thing I would add is that, in my own mods, I have generally made the natural resources created by these civs contain very few resources compared to their naturally spawning varieties - To prevent allies from pushing in and making use of the continually natural resources, I gave the Lakota + Haud unique market upgrades that sacrificed speed of gather in favor of yield gathered. The Lakota made up for this by having unique villagers (something I think needs to be part of the civ, for a wide variety of reasons) with higher-than-normal base hunting gather rates, and the Hauds did so by having four wood-related cards.
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The PNW natives would gain… I’m not entirely sure, the gold variant needs a lot of work and thought that I haven’t put into them yet.
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Okay, yeah, fair enough. That should have been obvious.
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I’m not even gonna bother reading that wall of text. I’ll just say, if European civs can get reworked/reskinned to be more historically accurate, so can everyone else. The difference in treatment is downright offensive.
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Fwiw the close by tlingit had some of the most advanced metallurgy in the americas including silver, copper primarily, and i think at times gold. And they traded(and war’d) with the haida constantly so there would be plenty of room for inca/aztec approach to coin eco for haida given how they were intergrated into the tlingit trade networks
Tbh i think the tlingit would make more sense sinxe they not only dominated local tribes, but actually fought and won a few times vs europeans. But thats neither here nor there, just my 2cents
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I’ve been asking for ages for the Tupi Animal Lore to be replaced since it’s no different from war chiefs being able to convert animal treasure guardians, and the only change made to it was in cost.
I even suggested replacing it with a tech that gives you a hero unit now that the Nootka Warchief was reworked.
I’ve also suggested adding more maps to South America and Mesoamerica (especially to Mesoamerica) and removing Mayas and Zapotecs from Andea and Orinoco as they never lived in South America, and also adding more minor unit variety to those regions (we only get four if you ignore those two unfitting ones).
There’s also the fact the Aztecs in Age of Empires 2 and 3 speak a completely made up language and the devs left that completely unchanged.
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I’m failing to see the treatment difference. The original European civs tend to use more generic shared units and only had ~3 unique units each, whereas the other civs tend to have ~9 unique units or more. All the recent reskins are bringing the European civs up to the standard of the other civs. The other civs aren’t being ignored either and usually receive some sort of update in the patches. While I can agree the European civs are getting more attention currently, the Native American civs did receive a lot more attention from the Devs back when DE first released too.
In saying that, I would welcome further changes. For example, removing animal guardians from the War Chief’s ability has rendered that ability useless on half the maps; and adding the Berserk Attack just makes it feel similar to the European explorers. In this case I’d like to see the 2 abilities replaced with a new unique ability, although I don’t have any in mind atm. The fur trade building is also a building/mechanic I’d like to see expanded on. Perhaps finding a way to combine the fur trade with estates. Maybe fur trades have an age 3 upgrade to remove the “build next to coin mine” restriction. And for removing Lakota farms, perhaps they could be replaced with a building similar to the Mongol’s sheep spawning pastures in AoE4?
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Lemme draw some comparisons for you that outline just how differently the Native and Euro civs are created, in terms of treatment.
The European civs started, from legacy, on a baseline of units that were accurate enough to European civs that people could argue over whether or not Organ Guns belonged to Portugal or not. The new update has doubled down on that to the point where there are threads on this forum discussing the accuracy of a Musketeer’s tricorn hat in a specific age.
The Native civs, across 19 cultural representations in North America, have one unit that is accurate to history - the Tokala Soldier. Of the 40-odd other units represented in North America, I believe 4 more are based loosely on some historical aspect and given improper names.
Every other unit is complete fiction.
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The updates are bringing the European civs up to the standard of the DE civs. The Asian and NA civs are still poorly designed.
Again, the Aztecs speak a completely made up language, and Indian, Bhakti and Udasi units all speak Hindi despite the region having dozens if not hundreds of languages, but the devs went out of their way to record completely new voice lines for most of the new KotM units.
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it’s a history game made by history nerds for history nerds. A game which has been getting tons of HISTORICAL ACCURACY updates to existing civs in the last year.
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A thing is a reskin, not changing their gameplay