Rename Ages upgrades to prosperity levels.
I understand that this would mean changing a basic thing that many are accustomed to and this is very unlikely to happen. However, I will state my position:
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I don’t understand why the feudal age and the castle age are two different ones. In reality, feudal lords often lived in castles.
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I don’t understand why the imperial age and the castle age are two different ones. In reality, emperors often lived in castles.
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Moreover, in real history, imperialism and feudalism often coexisted. The capital was an empire or even a city-state, and the provinces were ruled by feudal lords.
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Not all nations developed from feudalism to empire. Georgia and Armenia, on the contrary, fell apart from empires into fragmentation and then were absorbed by the Ottomans for a long time. Kievan Rus was a de facto empire in the 10th century, but later fell into principalities.
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Not all nations even had a castle age. Cumans, Huns and steppe peoples had nothing like that.
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Not all nations had an empire. The Vikings transformed into the Swedes and Danes before they gained empire. The Burgundians never had an empire (or a country at all). Many states were only republics or even colonies. Some became empires later than AoE 2 period.
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The feudal age is completely devoid of activities; combat operations in it are almost impossible. Its only purpose in the game is to skip it as quickly as possible. But in reality, the era of feudalism was just rich in events and active conflicts. That is, the gaming feudal age absolutely does not live up to its name.
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THE MOST important argument. I don’t understand why in campaigns I can go through 1-2 epochs during the lifetime of one commander. And then in the next mission have this progress reset.
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If a DLC is released dedicated only to the Dark Ages (before the year 1000), then in it the Imperial Age will still be located inside the Dark Age.
To summarize. The name of these 4 stages is of course a gaming convention, but it is SO big that it hits you in the teeth. It doesn’t make any sense.
Personally, I would remove stage 1 from the game altogether, it is not needed. And ages 2, 3, 4 would be renamed to wealth or prosperity levels 1, 2, 3. Thus, there are no more questions about why you jump between eras in the campaign, etc.
In addition, I would rename the countdown of the Wonders of the World from years to days.
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It’s a video game. I don’t personally want or need it to be a history simulator, mirror, or re-enactment. Don’t want it requiring someone with a Ph.D in History to be consulted any and every time devs want to update the game, or any time any of us ask for an update. Let’s let video games be video games.
You should maybe want these civs removed, then, since the game is called “Age of Empires”, after all. Or maybe rename AoE franchise altogether to “Ages of Prosperities” so they can fit in?
I’ve never wondered, worried, fretted, been flabbergasted, or felt sad about the “Ages”. I’ve always liked them, and never once felt discontent about them. I just accepted them as part of the awesome video game I was playing. And now that you mention this ‘issue’, I will still continue to accept them without worry or aggravation.
Only thing I’d want are more Ages added (1 or 2) – one earlier, and one later – and maybe a few sub-Ages to level up between certain ages. Unlike you, I enjoy the first age where you focus mainly on economy and building up from nothing. That’s why I’d want an age before the first age, to go back in time even more so the arc from nothingness to big empire feels even more profound.
I appreciate your knowledge and care on the topic, I really do. It’s much more than I could ever know. And you probably just scratched the surface of your historical knowledge. But I’m sorry that I don’t feel the same way. I’ve worried somewhat about video games and movies becoming harder for artists to create, and potentially less enjoyment resulting, because of all the experts on every topic that needs to be consulted before and during (and sometimes after) production. Attention to detail is great, but in this respect, I’m okay with a somewhat fuzzy gray area existing in Age of Empires’ portrayal of history.
I don’t progress to “Castle Age” and think to myself, “Ugh! Why couldn’t I build a castle in the Feudal Age! This is so historically inaccurate! ALT+F4 quit”
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In the East there is a saying: “It’s easy to draw a demon, but it’s difficult to draw a tiger.” Because no one knows what a demon looks like, but a tiger must look like a real tiger.
In fact, for me, a dream game is a game about another planet. And if I created such a thing, they wouldn’t be able to point out much to me as edits. But here the authors took on a big task - creating a game about history. And they, apparently, succeeded in this more than anyone else. But in this case, it is absolutely natural that they begin to be asked to be even more truthful. Because this is a game about Earth, about real history, it is not fantasy or even historical fiction (for the most part). Therefore, such comments were, are and will be.
But thank you for appreciating my knowledge of history.
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I always understood AoE (especially in Skirmish and Multiplayer) as a what-if kind of thing, not as a super serious history simulator. We’ve got other games for this such as the Grand Strategy games by Paradox.
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I will not discuss the arguments. Just going to drop my idea, because just naming it with numbers is awful and anti-inmersion.
I propose change ages by urban “size”.
Dark age > Settlement
Feudal age > Village
Castle Age > City State
Imperial Age > Metropoli
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Same here, but what does take away immersion is when you are in a Jan Zizka-type campaign and it points out that you are in IMPERIAL AGE; I’d personally change it to something more flexible like Renaissance Age.
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What are some examples you would recommend/want? And would it change from civ to civ based on each civ’s unique history?
Martinurello listed some interesting ideas based on size, and I’m curious what you had envisioned based on prosperity levels
Would you also want it for every match inlcuding Ranked, or just for campaigns?
I don’t play campaigns typically, but will try more at some point. After seeing Martinurello’s revised names, I could see your idea maybe working fairly well in campaigns, where there is hyper focus on each unique civ. Even though the Ages are just names, renaming them depending on each civ might bring a nice added level of immersion while playing the campaign
Not bad actually, but just for skirmish.
The problem is - there are missions where you don’t have a base at all. Also in some missions you have highly developed base but is definitely not a metropoli or a city-state in terms of story.
If we want to go that far, then I will repeat the example that I already spoke about in my concept of Ukraine:
- Black Sea Slavs
- Kievan Rus
- Cossackhood
- Ukraine
And similar stages can be imagined for many nations. But it will be a lot of extra work for nothing. And again, this will not work within a campaign when this status changes during the life of one commander. Naming these stages is an idea only for Skirmish. I propose to do it simply: prosperity level 1, 2, 3. And that’s it.
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Well, the game is always going to be focused on Western Europe. That being said, it is a a fun thinking exercise to rename the ages to better reflect global (old world) realities of the time. Here are my suggestions:
Years 450-750: Migration Age
- Five Barbarians (Wu Hu) raised havoc in Northern China.
- Germans and Steppe tribes collapsed the Western Roman Empire.
- Hephthalites regularly incurred into Sassanian territories.
- The Muslims fought against the Sassanids, the Eastern Roman Empire, and the Tang. (They were really busy back then.)
Years 750-1100: Dominion Age
- Carolingian Renaissance and creation of HRE; recognition of the Papal authority in Europe.
- Islamic Golden Age.
- Technological and cultural development under Tang and Northern Song Dynasty (ignoring An Lushan).
Years 1100-1400: Commerce Age
- Stabilization of Silk Route and Spice Route due to the rise of “Commerce Empires”, i.e. Western Xia, Khwarazm, Majapahit, Mali, Chola, Venetian State of the Sea, etc.
- Pax Mongolica (ignoring the conquest phase).
Years 1400-1600: Gunpowder Age
- Proliferation and development of handgonne, arquebus, etc.
- Cannons!
Notice the lack of knights, feudalism, or castles. Really puts things into perspective. In any case, I am totally fine with the current age names. (“Commerce Age” just does not have the same ring as “Castle Age”.) The proposed names are just for fun.
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Bruh this a game where a villager throwing down a bunch of logs and beating it with a hammer 2 times can stop 20 knights dead in their tracks
Do some suspending of belief
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just no. there is literally no point discussing such changes that are not going to be implemented because they would replace an iconic part of the game
you can just make a mod that changes the names of these
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I don’t know how to make mods. But if someone here knows, I’d be glad to see.
All language files are stored inside the game folder. This is for example the folder for the English text:
AoE2DE\resources\en\strings\key-value
The corresponding file is called key-value-strings-utf8.txt.
Just search for the Age names and fix them to something you prefer and you just modded the game for yourself.
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Swords should lop limbs off! Its only realistic and wpunds should fester with diseases spreading if you don’t heal that unit to full with limited practically garbage tier medical techniques
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I’m still waiting for at least one drop of water to rain down from the sky. The weather is always sunny in AoE and that’s not very realistic either
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Would love a climate DLC with rain and snowstorms etc.
Asthetics only, no effect on game
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Imagine you can change something like this 25 YEARS after the release of the game… No, people already are used to this naming convention, it’s not something small like changing Arbalest to Arbalester or Camel to Camel Rider, it’s too big to change now
Yep, exactly. I desire the same here (aesthetics only). I’d like to throw in “time of day” options into that DLC, too, if that’s okay (e.g., sunrise, afternoon, evening/sunset… twilight, if possible)
This is exactly the type of DLC I’ve been waiting years for, instead of new civs/campaigns every time. How many civs do we have now? 40?
Hopefully this aesthetic DLC can be created before the 50th or 75th anniversary of the release of AoE2. We’ll probably be up to 150 civs by then, when all I’ve wanted are weather, time of day, waterfalls, rainbows, and other decorative touches in my Skirmish matches for a while 
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