How would you name these (hypothetical) new civs?

Wether you think a name is more historically accurate, makes the civiliization cover a wider/more specific group of people, or just because it sounds cooler. What name would you choose for:

A south asian civ

  • Tamils
  • Dravidians
  • Other/none of those

0 voters

A thai civ

  • Thai
  • Siamese
  • Other/none of those

0 voters

A civ for swahilis, other for kongolese or a bantu umbrella

  • Kongolese
  • Bantu umbrella
  • Other/none of those

0 voters

  • Swahili
  • Bantu umbrella
  • Other/none of those

0 voters

A jurchen civ

  • Jurchen
  • Manchu
  • Other/none of those

0 voters

A romanian civ

  • Romanians
  • Vlachs
  • Other/none of those

0 voters

1 Like

Bantu is a stupid civ name considering it’s covering like several hundred ethnies. We don’t have Indogermans either.

BTW Kongolese not equal to Swahili. Two completely different cultures.

5 Likes

I agree, having a Bantu civilisation would be almost as underwelming as having an Indo-European one. By the way, I would love to have access to the Shona civ in addition to Swahili and Kongolese. Africa is quite empty at the moment.

6 Likes

My opinion: Always use endonyms (or sth endonym-similar), never (too stranger) exonyms, if possible.
And not just in AoE, but everywhere in life

Does that matter? Probably yes. A Swahili civ would must have a trade bonus, while Kongolese might not necessarily

Those are not really endonyms vs exonyms choices, but rather umbrella vs specific (Thai encompass the Shan people in addition to the Siamese, and there are many Drividian and Bantu subdivisions outside those few, not mentioning Kongolese itself is quite umbrella-ish) or historical vs anachronic (the Jurchen people started calling themselves Manchu in the XVIIth century, and the name Romanian was adopted progressively between the XVIth and XIXth century, so outside of the game’s timeframe in both case)

What about Dacians for Romanians, was that name still used in the Middle Ages by the local inhabitants ?

When using exonyms you can find a lot of crazy things, for example the Greeks still call the French “Gauls”. Though a lot are used ingame : Saracens, Chinese, Japanese, Vikings, Byzantines…

I like the idea of Jurchen as a civ, partly because you can have the Iron Pagoda Heavy cavalry, which was basically the most powerful heavy cavalry other than elephants ever deployed in East Asia, or even most of Asia in general. They would also be deployed in groups of generally between 3-6 thousand troops at once, which was larger than most European armies up until the 15th century, and even beyond. They were also just the Vanguard for a even larger force, so I think that Jurchen could be an option. I basically did some research a while back to look at making a more historically accurate earth map with altered civs, and the Iron Pagoda Heavy Cavalry was something that I found quite interesting. They are kind of like the equivalent of something between Boyars/Paladins and Cataphracts as far as the civs in the game go. I would also have something more specific than Bantu as well, partly because I have studied the Apartheid era in history, and even though it’s unrelated, it always makes me think of historical oppression, even if they were an indigenous people who just got bullied by Europe. I don’t have a problem with having Swahili or other African civs added, it would certainly be better than another European civ. I really don’t get why people feel the need to try and add something like the Aragonese, or the Swiss. We have enough European civs already, and AoE2 isn’t meant to include every single faction.

4 Likes

The Swiss can indeed be covered by the Burgundians, the Burgundians having had modern-day Switzerland (it even was the first part of the Roman Empire that they got), and the flemish militia being reasonably close from the Swiss tradition of armed militias. As for Aragon, indeed if only there was already one existing civ that could cover it, possibly with a mounted hand cannoneer as UU.

I guess some think civs should be like playable realms in a grand strategy game instead of a broader culture group.

The Jurchen also were the Chinese Jin dynasty (that annoying yellow player in Genghis Khan 3 that builds a wonder on his island) and were a troublesome neighbour for Korea, so adding them would be a nice opportunity to see more of these underused civs.

3 Likes

How can you represent both as same faction when they fought eachother?

1 Like

Because it’s easy. Also, probably better than adding another European civ in my opinion.

1 Like

Regarding Aragon, it was more relevant in this time period than Portugal who rose to prominence in the last few centuries of the game. I honestly think Portuguese shouldn’t have been included in the African Kingdoms, especially when you consider all native African civs who were ignored in their favor.

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They can because civs are not necessarily separate kingdoms on the map. Which civ never fought itself ?

The Spanish do not only cover Castille & Leon despite using its coat of arms. Plus Castille & Aragon got united when Isabella and Ferdinand married each other.

Portugal allowed seeing more of Africa and India thanks to its trade empire and is heavily focused on ships. But I also think that the potentially large Brazilian market was considered, after all it was the sole reason why the Koreans were added in The Conquerors despite mostly chilling within their natural borders : Starcraft was a huge success in Korea

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Military structure is different for both factions so would it be correct to show as one?

The Swiss are close enough.

What’s the difference between Swiss pikemen and Flemish pikemen ? In both cases the people took up arms and armours to form a strong anti-cavalry block that rebelled against their feudal overlords. The Burgundian strong economy can also apply to the Swiss, sure the Swiss aren’t known for their wines but they also had manufacturing, a large textile industry in Flanders.

Yeah, but during the Middle Ages “Spanish” is mostly an umbrella term for Christians living in Iberia, just like Moors is pretty much the same for Muslims no matter wether they are Berbers, Arabians and sometimes Mozarabs. And the union of the crowns happens so late in the game that it’s almost outside of the time period.

Still, what would be the gameplay differences between Castille & Leon and Aragon ? Given the number of civs existing and left to add, you’d really need some solid blueprints to split an existing civ.

1 Like

I think that for a romanian civ vlachs are the best option bc:

  • everyone heard of them (more than moldavs and transsylvanians which even if they are somewhat known, again vlad tepes was and still is the most known figure)
  • there wasnt even the idea of Romania back than, even after the middle ages and into the early ages of the holy league and ottoman advance into europe, when michael the brave unified the three principalities the nation was still wallachia but again, he had other bigger problems.
    -u could make the argument for wallachians but i personnaly think vlachs sounds better
1 Like