- The problem is that they’re not even doing skins and renames.
- This is a live game, gameplay changes are expected as the game is constantly being rebalanced.
- The American civs desperately require rebalancing anyways.
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If their play rate is so low, then isn’t a rework a good idea? They’re extremely underplayed. Reworking them could do nothing but good for the playerbase if it means increasing the playrate of some of the oldest civs in the game.
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I am left with the question of whether they consulted some descendant of the Aztecs or Incas to find out their opinion about the fire pit or simply assumed that what the Lakotas thought was also thought by the Aztecs and Incas.
For me, the fire pit was more visually appealing than the community plaza. though if historical accuracy was what they were looking for, then the Aztecs should have had a sacrificial altar (aesthetically it would have potential.).
To give meaning to the community plaza, I imagine that people are discussing the options that the Aztec people have to face the new adversities.
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Personally, I could not care less if the Aztecs get the Fire Pit back. I am not Mesoamerican, and my thoughts as a Lakota have absolutely nothing to do with the Aztecs.
Frankly, they need to be a different cultural region than the Lakota + Hauds are. There is no reason cultures from different continents should be sharing a faction.
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One solution is to have optional skins for units and buildings, so everyone will see what they like. If someone wants to avoid getting confused, an option can be added so that only the original skins or skins that he has approved appear on his screen (for example, if someone does not like having an astronaut wielding a lightsaber in the renaissance era or a bear leading the Russian army.).
That would have the possibility of having events that unlock new skins or skins that are unlocked with the level of the capital.
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I don’t think wanting more accurate content is an unacceptable discussion, but I do think criticizing the devs for not being able to do so goes far. They could make DE directly according to the original content without providing any improvement, even the superficial improvement of changing the fire pit to the plaza.
Given the developer’s enthusiasm for improving accuracy, I think an update to Native Americans is already on the devs’ plans. However, I also think that even if the devs release many related updates by then, they will still be criticized and complained by her for not being able to satisfy her. It impressed me deeply that she said “It’s not enough. It’s so little, it might as well not be done.” Such a very typical case of Nirvana fallacy.
I don’t know if, in the end, it’s a waste of time to have community discussions for more accurate content. For me, no, because as long as there is improvement, no matter how little, it is a better result driven by discussion. But maybe for her, the answer is yes, because even if the devs try, in their opinion, their best efforts, it may still be 0 for her.
Ironically, she thinks why some people may be annoyed is her push for Native American accuracy, though most of the people who have or had disagreed with her ideas are also people who support getting more accurate content.
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Yes, how dare I hold the devs to the same standard as the European civs. How dare I ask that they put in the same level of work for the Natives as they did for the Europeans.
The Europeans got a massive variety of reskins meant to reflect history and Europe now has more maps than any other region in the game.
The Natives have one historical unit and four vaguely historically-skinned units and still use magical powers to keep up with other civs.
How dare I ask that they be brought up to the same level of care as the Europeans.
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Grouping Meso Americans with North Americans is not the best idea the same ways grouping India with East Asians.
There are multiple threads pushing for the idea of adding the Temple as a new building to Aztec and Inca instead of the Community Plaza.
For the Haudenosaunee a similar role could be played by a big Longhouse.
Those buildings could also house the Imperial Age technologies.
Also adding mercenaries and outlaws to the Native Embassy is kind of an ugly solution. Every civilisation should get a dedicated mercenary building.
Most people don’t enjoy playing Native American civs because their gameplay is either not authentic or to gimmicky.
In AoE2 on the other hand Aztecs and Mayans always have been some of the most popular civilisations.
In some ways it might be better to sacrifice some of their uniqueness.
Yes Aztecs didn’t have cannons but is giving them Archers that have magic super long range building destroying arrows much more realistic?
European maps are visually the last unique though.
Every region (North America, South America, Africa, Asia) has a lot of unique terrain, animals, trees, etc. while Europe mostly recycles stuff from the other regions.
Like 1 new set of trees, no new terrain that I can think of, the only really new thing are the treasures.
North America is the more diverse continent in regards to nature in the game while also having the most minor civilisations.
Europe has by far the most civilisations though even if you count minor civilisations.
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Well nerfing aztecs and incas patch after patch without explanations dont help.
In treaty Hauds and Lakota have very strong economies but nobody wants to cowboom with their farms or play lakota with their poor siege at range.
The continous add ons for everyone else dont help neither. Why do you would play a civ without lategame (wood) resources when you can play europeans who get 2 factories asap in IV? Natives are going to be different per se despite the changes you want to add and they will keep being underplayed
For example, aztec “rework” its a meme compared with northern ones, with random cards.
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I had a further look into it and, from what I can tell, the NA units seem to have some connection to history (like archer, horse archer, etc being part of Lakota combat). I’m guessing most of the unit names are just generic terms derived from their weapons and stance. Like the Bow Rider is just a horse rider using a bow. It seems similar to me to the generic names of crossbowman or pikeman (except these are real names). I’m not sure why the devs used those names, but if there is a more accurate name/model the devs can use then it will be nice to see it implemented.
The fire in the fire pits also changed color depending on whether the dance was to benefit the economy (blue) or combat (red), and that color was visible to all players too. This visual wasn’t translated into the community plazas. It would be nice if they could though, maybe add a small fire to a corner of the plaza or find some other way to re-add it.
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Except this isn’t how the militaries of the plains worked in the first place. Trying to represent the warrior societies of the prairie nations in a game like this is near impossible, as they were more akin to fraternities/sororities that upkept specific parts of camp life.
The Crow Owners would scout out new hunting grounds, favored the color black, and were expected be both the vanguard and the rear guard when it came to battle.
The Stronghearts were expected to care for the elderly, widowed, and injured, whether by simply providing compionship for those alone or hunting for those without, and they were expected to be strong supportive warriors whose main job was to look out for the others in battle.
The Warpath Badgers were uniquely war-oriented and would be created out of the other societies when wartime came, and they would wield lances wrapped in otterfur that had shard of mirrors embedded into it, both to blind their enemy and to scrape them up with glass.
These simply aren’t roles that can be portrayed in a game like this. Warriors weren’t organized by what weapon they wielded, they were organized by what duties they carried out. Every warrior was expected to have a high competency with warclubs, lances, bows, and rifles, and they would carry other weapons they liked with them, such as heavy shields, knives, or javelins.
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I don’t think the native american civs need vast reworks right now. What continues to grind my gear is the tribal marketplace, despite it finally being made free. This makes even less sense than the community platza but that doesn’t stop me from regularly playing Lakota. The reasons people don’t play these is because the euro civs finally got the content depth they deserved and they need to be fully explored. Lakota got their rework, I’ll assume hauds will get it further down the line when the time comes. Until then, it is all the usual buffs and nerfs game trying to balance things. It is fine that some civs are niche. The game has over 20 asymmetrical civs right now, trying to get them all to be equally represented is statistics is madness. The mare fact that all civs are viable is a great achievement from game design perspective, and the devs should be given more credit for that.
The game needs better content for south africa, soth america, middle east, australia.
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Literally not one part of anything I have ever said has been This needs to be done now.
I do not care when it gets done. I only care that it is in line.
Please do not base your comments on what needs priority because this topic is not about that.
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I think your mastery of English is good enough to understand that “right now” wasn’t supposed to mean
in that context 
You are the one who opened the discussion on a public forum, it is not up to you to decide who gets to post 
I know it is easy to become very adamant about the things you like.
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It is a common comment that ends up on every single post I make and every single time I have to address that no part of these discussions is asking for high priority on a Native rework, only that it be in line.
It gets extremely frustrating to have to devote large amounts of time to people who’s only argument against the discussions is “There are more important things to do right now,” when that isn’t even part of the initial post in the first place.
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That’s just not true. Russia is an asian country but gets lumped with a protestant european architecture, the turks are an asian muslim steppe people but their architecture doesn’t reflect any of this. Chinese kong fu monks weren’t even allowed to kill animals due to buddhism, yet they massacre everyone on the battlefield with bare fists. Maybe you should take a step back and realise that EVERY civ in this game is misrepresented. Even malta enjoyers complain 11
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But that applies to other warriors/soldiers in other parts of the world too.
A Landsknecht or Samurai was skilled in multiple weapons and they usually carried more then one. Swords were just backup weapons in most cases because they are easy to carry.
But this is an RTS, it’s hard to make a unit that can just switch between all kinds of weapons because the game has to be balanced.
It’s ok to do that in some limited capacity but you can’t have a civilisation where all units can just have all weapons.
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Meh, the standard for civs has increased which is good, and in the past, let’s be blunt the european civs couldn’t compete with the natives which couldn’t compete with the asians, which is an issue of scale infaltion and or evolution of the design ethos. In regards to flavour and quality.
We are only now getting to a point were it is at the stage of a DE in regards to polish for the europeans and as has been argued not yet there even for europeans. Cue Pickelhaube discussions on units that are not in the imperial age as the silly, the severe of course being basically confronted with a “germany” supposedly representing the HRE and not actually doing so. No seriously, where’s the czechs beyond wagon? No infantry? Imperial army? The emperors army? Italian condotieri since italy was part of the HRE missing? What do you mean we get a skip from the 15 - 18 and 19th century in units despite one of the blodiest wars with mass innovation happening inbetween in the HRE. The only thing that even refers to this is Tillys Discipline.
NVM the Asians which still aged better than the middle release, the natives, which to be fair have with the incas atleast one decent showing in south america.
But then again more time more polish.
If they want to stick with the community plaza gimmick, atleast let the Aztecs have a pyramid for their priests, that’d be an easy add imo.
Also, you don’t want to get too historically accurate aswell. Unless of course you want swiss pikemen to pray 5 ave marias on their knees with spread out arms before you can order them around.
Really, Cze ck is censored? WTF.
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But Russia always wanted (and still does to this day) to be an European country. At least their version of it. Much of the economic power of Russia was in the European part of the country, so for all intents and purposes, except the land mass of Siberia, Russia is an European country.
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It is a common element because it is a valid element. If you don’t like it, you need to come up with a better argument than “stop posting”. A better argument would be to give exact ideas on how to make those civs better in the late game where they suffer the most, while maintaining their identity. The devs are known to listen to ideas. So lakota was good at hunting bison, that’s already captured with infinite bison shipment. How about hauds killing trees? Should we maybe have an infinite shipment of trees? That would be unique as well. In all seriousness, the devs did try to capture that with the latest patch. Can they do a better job? maybe. But you need to be specific.
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