Hot take: Teutons and Italians shouldn't be split

Individual duchies of the Empire and the city states from the Peninsula weren’t different enough from each other to be worthy of different civilizations.

Bonus: ingame Teutons are not the Teutonic Order, but the Holy Roman German Empire.

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Teutons already got a split and more of italy is now covered with sicilians

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That’s because the Bohemians had a clear gameplay reason of being included (the Hussites), while the norman kingdom of Sicily was very different from city-states from the north.

Indeed, AOE2 is not a grand strategy game in which you can copypaste factions at will, there would be no point in splitting them. Especially with the civ cap in the engine (still at 48 ?)

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As for the Teutons representing all medieval Germans (after the barbarian invasions then being chistianised by Charlemagne, before that is the territory of the Goths) :

  • Teuton is cognate with the german word “deutsch”, which means “german”. Same root
  • the medieval latin name for the kingdom of Germany is Regnum Teutonicum
  • as a result, Teutonic Knights simply mean German Knights, “Teutons” being a medieval name used for Germans (just like Saracens meant Muslims). A logical name, most teutonic knights came from Germany. Due to some rules of the Teutonic Order, of questionable long-term viability, sworn knights couldn’t marry, this made the Order dependant on a constant flow of new recruits from Germany, typically second (or higher) sons who wouldn’t heritate much anyway. The Order is NOT a different civ from the HRE, it’s its military offshoot to defend its northeastern border, and in that case offence is the best defence.
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disagree on italians. Lombards (based on the Comunes of Lombards League) in italy are clearly different than Venetians/Sea Republics (based of Venetia, Genoa, Pisa…) and in game they could have totally different playstiles. there could even be Longbards (the enemy of the franks in early middle ages)

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No. I get the rest of the argument but this isnt true

Mainly because the current civ we have already is based off a Lombard state but are already a water, archer and gunpowder civ

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this because italians are an umbrella and a awful mashup of different cultures, styles, and even historical times in a span of centuries. Lombards would be based on the XI century comunes and could be a infantry + siege civ, or infantry + cav civ, with a very unique unit like the “Carroccio of the Comune”, while “Sea Republics/Venetians” would be closer to the actual italians we already have with archer and naval focus. two totally different stiles.

one could also throw The Romans in there representing the papal state with a civ focused on monk and heavy cav (since they obviously had the pope and some of the most important aristocratic families of the peninsula) for another different playstile

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Not really. They pretty much just represent the northern Italy city states.

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And you’re absolutely, 100% without a doubt certain, with no room for any possibilities to the contrary that there is not a way to design them differently from this and still hold true not only to accuracy, but unique gameplay as well? Or are you implying that since it hasn’t been done, it can’t be?

Not trying to be rude here, just genuinely asking.

It doesnt mash any culture, its just the Genovese, and the Genovese can represent both the sea Republics and lombards for obvious reasons. Dividing the Lombards would be unnecessary and the only way to do what you want is to treat these guys like India, which doesnt really feel necessary nor that fair since Italians already are based on an specific state and are pretty accurate

Theres plenty of civilizations that do that and it should be an accepted consecuence of the long timespan of the game.

I think that the missing civ (Venice) would be impossible to not be an Italian/Portuguese clone

Just like Siclians and Burgundians are French clones.

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That’s not a hot take, that’s the truth.

I wish for entirely new civs instead of splitting more, of course Dynasties of India opened that can of worms for some people who think that we need more splits which personally Indians are the only ones who deserved it the most.

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what obvious reason? genoa and other nother italy cities were totally different. there is no obvious reason genoa should represent sea republics and lombards comunes as well, since the way comunes fought is basically nowhere near how italians are playd in the game

they would be much more different than burgundians and french, for example, with two totally different playstile, nothing related to archery, or sea, but infantry and siege

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You cant have two diferent civs based off the same ethnicity (because it would be a total mess if we applied this everywhere, we would end up with three Mayan civs or something like that) and we already have a Lombard civ based off Genoa. You cant just add a second Lombard civ and adding Venice would be pointless since their gameplay is already represented.

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point is, they are not even the same culture. ethnicity is a whole different thing cause then a lot of civs would be the same ethnicity of another civ but they still are in the game.

genoa does not represents lombards, period. they are absolutely different both in culture, in how they saw each other, in how they perceived themself to be, and in the playstile they would reflect into the game. it would not be a “second lombard civ” since genoa is not lombard even. genoa is closer to venice and infact they should be grouped into Sea republics, but lombards are totally a different story

This is a cold take.

The game has already wasted many civilization slots with Goths, Huns, Celts, Sicilians and Burgundians.

Adding more Italians and Teutons would be terrible for this game. I must agree with your “hot” take.

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I correct this, they mustn’t

I just see Teutons as HRE, Italy as Kingdom Of Genoa. Tech tree and culturally it represents that mostly. I also think Burgundians and Franks shouldn’t have split either. They barely share any indifferent culture.

Alot of southern italy was in the hands of the normans(sicilains) byzantines, french or spanish during the middle ages and nothern italy is well represented by the current italian faction. (Pavaise archers representing genoa and strong navy represnting genoa and venice etc)

The only major italian player not properly represented is the Papal states. I think the devs could do 1 split there because then we could get the swiss pikemen UU in game as well without actually having a swiss civ

Dont really think the Papal states was a strong naval faction with uber archers. It was more a land orientated defensive, pike and monk faction.

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As i see it italy got alot of the resemblement of hre and sicilly is more like italy but to be fair hre manifested alot into italy also the 3 upper states to the alps are more hre well and ofc the genoe mercanary status thats fitting

Thats why i think italy shouldt be split