Which of the major Great Steppe nations do you think is the best contender for a new faction in AoE3? Of course, it would be ideal to have them all, but realistically, if any new faction from this region were to appear at all, we could only choose one. So the question is, which one do you think best represents the Great Steppe region in the game’s timeline and would be the most iconic representative of steppe culture in this era?
1. TATARS - Umbrella civ: Crimean, Kazanian, Siberian etc. mixed
1A. Tatars - Crimean Khanate focused (Devlet I Giray)
1B. Tatars - Kazan Khanate focused (Söyembikä)
1C. Tatars - Sibir Khanate focused (Kuchum Khan)
2. MONGOLS - Umbrella civ: Khalkha, Oirat, Chahar etc. mixed
Historically, the crimean khanate should be the most significant bc. of its involvement in european politics as the game is somewhat eurocentric (ofc., most of the history of that time has been written down by/bc. of europeans).
However, in a game point of view, the only possibility in getting a Tatar civ would be to make it a “collection-civ”, like they did with the “Germans” which, historically, would have been many german States (Austria, Prussia, Bavaria etc.)
What would make sense is having them choose which hordes they want to “include” for aging up - there, one could impliment the different khanates (in my opinion, the most important ones would be the crimean, nogai, dzungar, khazan, sibir)…
Uzbeks would be a good pairing with Persia so they’re probably the the only really likely contender for a step civ. Oirats (Dzungars) were probably the most powerful steppe civ and the Chinese influence/interaction would make them a bit more unique. Kazakhs are more of the pure steppe civ and their central location made them rivals of the other ones so they’d be a good pairing with any of the rest. Tatars (including the heirs of Golden Hord but probably mostly focused on Crimea) would have a bit of European influence to set them apart but I don’t think they’d add much that Kazakhs don’t already. Europe has also been done to death so to add them any time soon is kinda scraping the bottom of the barrel to add more European stuff.
Yes, we already have Tatars in the game (in Chuvash Cape HB), so it’s most likely that the second civilization will be Uzbeks (or Afghans if it encompasses more than the Durrani Empire)…
Legitimately difficult question.
Kazakhs sort of have an advantage that they have a decently famous country nowadays, voice line-wise they’d probably be the easiest to source, maybe second easiest next to mongols.
Tatars have that AoE2 nostalgia factor baked in, although any way to approach the civ would be a jumbled mess just from how vague the term is, considering it encompasses like three completely unrelated ethnic groups.
Uzbeks have that advantage of being very intertwinned with Iran historically so that’d make it easy for a double release.
Mongols have both that name recognition and nostalgia factor that makes them very strong contenders as well, but then again, they’d need to be disentangled from the chinese civilization which heavily includes them.
I don’t really see Manchu being a real possibility unless all Asian civs get reworked and we get China split into several civs.
Yes, knowing the devs, the Tatars from AoE 3 would use the same voices as AoE 2, which are based on the Chagatai Khanate (1227-1680)… the only thing would be finding about 20 UUs for them (10 base UUs and the other 10 through Wonders and HomeCity)…
However, many people dislike wild mixes of everything associated with a given culture name and prefer to focus on regional variants (often very different from each other), even demanding the splitting of existing ones (see the proliferating threads about splitting Germans into Austrians and Prussians…).
Therefore, I’ve added some more specific sub-options so everyone can vote closest to their own vision, for example, a “Tatars” faction that emphasizes European/Ottoman influences (Crimean Tatars variant) rather than a more Asian/indigenous ones (Siberian Tatars variant).
However, the umbrella civ options remain the main ones (see numbering), as there are already many similar factions in the game (Germans, Italians, Indians, Chinese, etc.).
I’m not sure we really need a playable steppe civ, but I’d definitely welcome introducing some mercenaries from them to represent their faction first. A Dzungar Camel as a really tanky Zamburak-type mercenary would probably be pretty cool.
I voted, but honestly, you couldn’t add any of these which I wouldn’t be glad to see.
I’d love to see a couple of nomadic factions get added with age-ups which take them from being, for example, a generic “Tatar” to a specific “Crimean/Kazanian/Siberian Tatar” with techs/units/etc for replayability. Kinda like how a handful of the revolutions are like alternate endgames.
I’d also like to see their uprising and short-lived Kazakh Khanate 19th century state as a Russian revolution option too.
I think the Crimean Khanate would be a nice choice (they had some nice unique unit potential), however I think the Polish>Cossack Hetmanate route, in terms of a pretty unique revolution with bespoke units, would work well for them as an Ottoman revolt. This is from the mindset of someone who wanted a sole non-revolt Cossack Hetmanate civ - if the Devs use that same effort for that, for a Crimean Khanate Age III revolt Civ for the Ottomans, I think that would work fine.
Personally, I think an umbrella civ for Tatars is too broad. It’s covering some quite different Tatar cultures with one brush. It would be like making a single umbrella Cossack civ, when actually the Zaporizhan, Don, Ural, Terek, Siberian, Orenburg groups (Hosts) have their own cultures and favoured methods of combat and economy. The Cossack rev is a good example of a specific group - it’s through and through Zaporozhian Cossack.
I have love for them, however I think China is akin to other civs - it’s the same region and the same commoners - just different rulers. I don’t think having umbrella civs for China works - especially when dynasties proceed other dynasties. It would be like having a Georgian British and a Cromwellian British.
For China, I’d love to see more effort to show the evolving trail of dynasties in unit upgrades, unit models, names and additional Merc/native units.
