Well, I am a CN player and I have been playing age of mythology since I was very young. I really like the Age series of games. Ever since I played Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, I have been looking forward to the launch of the Definitive Edition of age of mythology. Although age of mythology has five civilizations that can be played, including Greece, Egypt, Northern Europe, Titan and China. But Tale of the Dragon is too bad. There are many bugs, and the modeling is very inferior. Many models are modified by copying the models of the old units. After playing, I only felt that the production team was full of prejudice and stereotypes about Chinese culture, and even discriminated against Orientals. I am very disappointed. But another surprise to me is the launch of Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, which evokes memories of my childhood. I especially hope that age of mythology: Definitive Edition can do better than before. I hope that the production team will add the following civilizations: ancient Babylonian civilization, ancient Indian civilization, and perhaps the ancient Hebrew civilization? Maybe age of mythology: Definitive Edition can remake Chinese civilization?
I typed part of the text above, and part of it was translated through translation software. It was a challenge for me to type so long English, and because of the differences in culture, language and thinking, the content I typed may be It does not conform to the grammatical specifications of non-CN players, and the translation software may not necessarily translate the specific vocabulary of Age of Empires. The CN community has long been separated from the Age of Empires community. The wishes of many CN players cannot be reflected in the production team and the community, so I also want to express my thoughts so that everyone can hear the voices of CN players.
I would love some Celts, Mayans and Hindus, for AoM.
Would like something Mesopotamian and Mesoamerican. Maybe Hindu as well.
I don’t mean any disrespect but I don’t quite understand how they did any of these:“full of prejudice and stereotypes about Chinese culture, and even discriminated against Orientals”
I feel that these words are getting used a lot out of their real context. The Gods in Tale of the Dragon, were based on the stories from Journey to the West, and I feel that they did a decent enough job with their research. Chinese in aom are a technology based civilization, and they are actually quite strong. I don’t quite understand how they are discriminated? What happens in Tale of the Dragon that discriminates anyone?
I read the blog posts about God portraits in the past, and I am not really seeing their arguments. (Not liking an art work is fine, but misusing words like prejudice and discrimination is never really ok) Building models and re-used assets were criticized in the past, and it’s a fair criticism.
As for the other civilizations, I feel like Age of mythology is the under-appreciated middle child, we always get less content than the other Age of games. I don’t think that any new civs will come with the DE, but I am hoping that I am wrong. DLC are of course possible.
They did a decent research with the mythology aspect, but the units and buildings are uninspired and full of redundancies.
Chinese only has 1 Melee Infantry unit, but 4 Melee Cavalry units?
What is the point of having Immortals and Monks at the same time, when they do the same job (counterv Myth units and collecy Relics)?
Why do Chinese have a General, that never gets used?
Then there are the ugly buildings and unit textures.
Obviously they cut corners on buildings and unit textures.
Most of the stories of Journey to the West took place in the Tang Dynasty (From AD 618 to AD 907). This time happened to be the stage of Chinese civilization in Age of Empires 2. The emperor of the Tang Dynasty was Li Shimin, One of the random AIs in Age of Empires 2, and most of the stories told by AOM happened in BC, even though they are all fictitious. The Monkey King appeared in the game, just like Belisarius of Byzantine returned to the classical Age and helped the Greeks defeat the Trojans, which is a bit ridiculous. The campaigns of Tale of the Dragon took place around the 22nd century BC, if according to real history. That is a very remote thing.
In fact, the period of campaigns of Tale of the Dragon is closer to another Chinese mythical novel called “Feng Shen Yanyi” (also called “Creation of the gods”), which is roughly close to the period of campaign, which is Xia-Shang- Zhou Chronology. However, this work, like Journey to the West, was also created by the Ming Dynasty thousands of years later.
Ancient China did not form a complete mythological system like ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and ancient Rome. Many myths were sorted out by later people. Many Chinese people are also working hard to sort out Chinese mythological stories. Many foreigners can also know that the Chinese myth is not only “Journey to the West”, but also other interesting myths.
I tried my best to express the meaning through translation software, but it was so bad that translating the content I typed would cause misunderstanding.
Which raises another prevalent issue, taht all the Chinese units look Medieval, not Ancient, like the other civs.
Their visual aspects and Tech Tree, do not fit the rest of the game.
But none of these are discriminating anyone? If you are feeling that the time period is as wrong then the word you are looking for is “anachronistic”. But the Viking Edda’s area also from 11th and 14th century so the argument is not entirely fair. Do they discriminate the Norsemen by using stories which were compiled around the 11th and 14th centuries?
Also the Egyptian Gods in AOM are from Ptolemaic dynasty and most of them are using their Greek names, does that discriminate the old Egyptian pantheon? They could have used much older gods, which were from the Upper Egypt, does that discriminate the upper Egyptians somehow?
I honestly feel that people are over-thinking it. 3 Major Gods they picked go waaay back. They are appropriate for the time frame chosen for the game. Even the the other gods such as Chang’e has her origins in the Zhou dynasty.
There are things to criticize in terms of gameplay, but I am not really convinced about the offensive content. The first 4 civs in AOM all felt extremely unique, and I get that but the Chinese DLC, had a smaller budget and they couldn’t really do much with the game engine at this point. I agree that if they ever use the Chinese for the Definitive edition, I guess they should heavily modify it.
Well, you have succeeded in persuading me. It seems that the meaning of “discriminating” has been misused by me. Thank you for your reminding. It seems that “anachronistic” is more accurate. It seems that I have to continue to strengthen my English study, 11.
But, in AOM, the pictures of Monkey King and Chang’e are not as good as expected. Monkey King is not very much like a monkey, and Chang’e’s picture looks more like wearing kimonos than ancient Chinese costumes, and it seems that some gods are squinty eyes. Maybe it’s hard for some people to distinguish between Chinese culture and Japanese culture?
I can’t agree with you more.
Okay that’s a fair argument to make. I don’t really know much about the costumes worn in that era. If you feel that Gods in the game look more Japanese, that would be a very fair criticism. I personally didn’t like the picture of Chang’e either. The center of focus in that image is more on the Jade rabbit than Chang’e, which is a bit odd. I enjoyed reading the backstories of the minor gods and the technologies.
I would like to see these that we have now + Aztec, Hindu and Slavic
They can add new mythology civilizations to the game but having the basic old ones from the first game is a MUST according to me. Age of Mythology IS the Greeks, The Egyptians & The Norse.
In fact, China in AOM is mixed with many elements, such as zombies, whose costumes are from the Qing Dynasty. In this way, it seems that China in AOM has spanned at least 5000 years, which is a bit of a hodgepodge.
However, the architectural style of AOM is at least in line with that period, almost the architectural style before Qin and Han Dynasties, which is much better than aoe2. Aoe2’s Chinese architectural style is more like Japanese architecture than Chinese architecture, and Asian civilizations such as Korea, Mongolia and Vietnam all adopt this Japanese architectural style, which has been criticized by CN players all the time. Therefore, if there are civilized architectural modules, players will be willing to replace them.
In a word, China seems to be all embracing. If we look at it in practice, there are still quite a lot of problems.