If the new DLC focuses on the northern regions of China during the Song Dynasty, then there should be at least four civs: Khitan, Uyghur, Tangut, and Jurchen, as these four civilizations have strong connections with each other.
Ideally, Dali and Tubo should be added. But if a DLC cannot add so many civs, the first four are also the minimum.
If this DLC only has two new civs, it is definitely a waste of this theme.
Uyghur and Tibetans are not going to get added with the current political landscape.
As a Chinese, I also know some friends who do cultural censorship in the government.
In fact, cultural censorship in China is not as sensitive as many people describe. The Chinese government has always acknowledged the existence of the Tibetan Empire and the Uyghur Khaganate, and this knowledge has also been included in middle school history textbooks.
So, as long as there is no narrative that clearly violates the Chinese historical view, adding Uyghur and Tibetans is completely feasible.
Yes the Chinese government acknowledge the existence of the ethnic minorities. Chinese banknote feature 5 languages : Mandarin, Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur , and Zhuang.
For the Uyghur there is even a Uyghur faction in the first scenario of the Genghis campaign, they are played by the tatars.
For the tibetan we can play them with the Tangut. This is not the same people but they speak language of the same family.
But if we want a tibetan civilization it’s better to create an original civilization in a future DLC because the period of the next DLC (Song dynasty 960-1279) is to late for the Tibetan empire ( 629 – 877)
With the tangut and the jurchen we can replace them in the Genghis campaign and the Temujin scenario because now they are played by the chinese civilization. The best thing is to include also the Kithan who appear in two scenario of the Genghis campaign.
These two empires existed along with almost the whole medieval Chinese dynasties (Tang and Song). These two dynasties last for 600+ years.
I would expect 3 new civs plus a reworked China similar to what happened to India but maybe we are actually getting more this time.
We have already seen 5 new units:
So it’s very unlikely that it’s only 2 new civs since there is only one civ in the game with 3 unique units.
Unless one or more of those units are regional units or new units for old civs.
Not sure what I would like more. More civs with less unique units or more unique/regional units for less civs.
I would take one interesting civ over 2 boring civs.
Microsoft has enough lawyers to figure that stuff out themselves.
We as a community don’t need to enforce Chinas censorship by shutting down any conversations about those civilisations!
I guess that to cross the line, it would need being a campaign similar to the Vietnamese Le Loi one, fighting a liberation war against the Chinese occupation ?
One limitation though would be the campaigns. Original chinese don’t have one. So if it’s 4 civ split then it should be 4 campaigns to design.
Dynasties of India already had the indian campaign done in the forgotten expansion for hd i think.
My bet is 3 civ split : new chinese, 2 new civs.
This way they only have to design 3 campaigns
Perhaps its 3 new civs, one slightly redesigned and 4 new campaigns for 20 dollars
Good to see someone from mainland China here to make clarification on censorship, for a long time misinformation has been propagated by uneducated people in this community on the topic of adding Civs like Tibetans.
While I’m not from China, I have played a lot of Chinese gacha games over the years and despite the laws on Censorship regarding s3xual content, these games have maternal that can be likened to soft core p0rn, take a game like Azur Lane for example.
From what I’ve seen in this space, censorship is only a concern when it’s directly reported to officials en mass, otherwise the CCP turns a blind eye to these matters.
All that being said I agree that this DLC should have at least 3 if not 4 civs. I can definitely see a small rework for the current Chinese civ and then 3 or 4 other civs for this expansion.
So far, it clearly looks as if we see another classic 2 new civs DLC (Jurchens & Tanguts), plausibly with 3 campaigns (+ Chinese) or 4 if they add a Korean one (Hwacha being added hints at some care for Korea).
This post seems accurate: https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/1ij5ay4/dlc_units_identified/
If the Chinese get reworked, it won’t be split like the Indians. It’d be reworked in a sort of similar fashion to the Persians.
Likely. Maybe they rename China to Song though, which was the name of China in the Alpha versions of AoE2.
India as a country didn’t exist in the Middle Ages, China on the other hand did, at last for some of the time between 500 and 1500 AD.
It makes little sense to rename the civ after one dynasty (and not even the most powerful of the Middle Ages, it would be either the earlier Tang or the later Ming). Renaming them to Han, maybe as it’s the dominant ethnic group. I also can see names like Cathayans as Cathay was a medieval european exonym for China, not the first civ that would have an exonym (Byzantines Saracens Vikings…), but the move would make little sense
But most likely they will keep the name Chinese with the understanding it’s now the Han core provinces. It’s indeed different to the Indians as India wasn’t anywhere near being united, contrary to China who always reunited itself (at least the core provinces, with various spread outside).
The Chinese were named Shang in AoE1.
It’s just speculation.
And they changed their mind while developping AOE2.
It’s a different team mow then it was 25 years ago.
But we don’t need another civ split because that’s going to add more civs in AoE2 and there’s already a lot of civs (In fact, more civs than any other titles in the series).
But yes, we need it.
Nope. No need for more civ splits.