Ideas for other Caucasus civilizations

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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In alphabetical order:

Alans: They’d represent both the Western and Eastern Alans, as well as the Sarmatians, but their Wonder and architecture would be firmly Caucasian, representing the Kingdom of Alania in that way. Their campaign would be Goar, the Alan general who helped some Roman usurpers in the last days of the empire.

Azeris: They’d represent the people of Azerbaijan, but this one is more of a stretch, since they were mainly subjugated and neither resisted nor conquered anyone to my knowledge. Their architecture would be Central Asian.

Circassians: They’d represent the people of Circassia both before and after their unification. Their campaign would be Inal the Great, the ruler who unified all the Circassian tribes. This one might be challenging in terms of AI player names, though.

Durdzuks: They’d represent the Vainakh people in the parts of the North Caucasus that weren’t occupied by the Alans, like the kingdom of Simsir and the regions of Chechnya and Ingushetia. Their campaign would be Khour II, or Gayur-Khan, a commander who opposed Timur during the invasion of the Caucasus.

Khazars: These guys need no introduction. They’re the most natural fit for the game out of any of the ones I mentioned, as they had an actual empire with actual power. They, like the Azeris, would have the Central Asian architecture. Their campaign would be Tong Yaghu Khagan, a Gokturk general who worked with the Khazars to beat the Persians during the Third Perso-Turkic War.

Well, what do you think? Are these good choices? Do you have any more? Let me know!

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The Safavids were Azeris. I believe Qara Qoyunlu and Aq Qoyunlu also are built by Azeris

I honestly dont see much of an appeal for these two

And in general, a bit soon to start talking about the Caucasus again

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If it was up to me i would add only Khazars to represent north Caucasus, for the campaign i would focus on Arab-Khazar wars and also i would have them as defensive civ with good cav archers (i belive we don’t have this combo, so it should be pretty unique) with some trade/market bonus. I need to find some ttime to research them more and create my own civ proposal…

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IMO the Khazars would be very tricky. Aoe2, even though they’re called civilizations, has always featured races of people for their civilizations. We don’t have the Safavids, we have the Persians. We don’t have the Ming or the Tang, we have the Chinese. We don’t have the Ottomans we have the Turks.

Khazars were a nomadic of people of the Pontic Caspian Steppe, however their Khaganate (Khanate is closer in English but in the original Turkic the “g” is like a subtle “y” sound), actually most Khaganates of the Steppe, were actually loose tribal confederations, typically formed of a lead tribe, and inner and outer tribes.

Basically the lead tribe was team captain, the inner tribes were first string, and the outer tribes was the rest of the team.

So then when the Pechenegs overthrew the Khazars, it was more like the changing of team captains. In most meaninful ways, little had changed. More or less the same thing when the Cumans took over from the Pechenegs.

So historically speaking Khazars weren’t as dis-similar from Cumans as you’d think. That’s in large part why Cumans also represent the Khazars and Pechenegs.

I don’t think it’s impossible to design a civ from them, but the set of facts that’d inform civ design are largely the same as for the Cumans, so making a civ that seemed both true to the Khazars AND not too similar to the Cumans I think would be a challenge.

For those reasons I wouldn’t consider Khazars, Pechenegs, or Kazakhs. the Kyrgyz similarly as well are pretty similar to most of the other mongolia area khaganates.

Tangent Start:
Uyghurs tho I think you could make an exception, though that is largely due to their resettlement into the Tarim Basin and their successor kingdoms and subsequent chinese influence. and considering the Tarim Basin was such an important leg of the silk road, I think it’d be very easy to justify an emphasis on trade. So as a civ it’d be approximately 1/3 East Asian Steppe (Mongol/Turk/Tatar), 1/3 Middle East (Persian or Saracen for their trade influence) and 1/3 Chinese.
Tangent End:

In regards to the Azeris, so it’s a bit roundabout, but I think if you added the turkomans as part of the influence for an azeri civ then it could be an umbrella for non “turk” oghuz turks. I think on paper it’d make more sense to call them the turkomans, and pull in the azeris, but then you’d have turks and turkomans in the game as two civs seems like it’d cause confusion, so I’d called the civ azeris, based 75% on turkomans and 25% on azeris. uu would be the qizilbash presumably. It’d have a…cool ability presumably,then build the civ around that. Maybe a ratha-like CA/SL hybrid with a toned down attack but can attack while moving. What’d be some extra 200 IQ design is if Azeris and Persians would be really good allies in a team game.

The others I honestly don’t know enough about to have any informed opinion.

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if we knew more about them, Caucasian Albanians/Aghvans(?) (supposedly ancestors of the modern day Udi people)

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None of these should be added.

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Not even the Khazars or Alans? Wow, you’re harsh.

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Yes you heard it right baby.

Thanks.

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Im not harsh just giving my opinion.we already have enough horse peoples and others like many others said no one knows about them.

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No, that has nothing to do with it. I said that because the Alans and Khazars are the two most popular of the ones that I mentioned, so I do not typically see people say they don’t want either of them.

I really wish you wouldn’t make me out to be a villain. I am never the aggressor in our interactions; your behavior towards me is entirely uncalled for.

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Qara and Aq Qoyunlu were definitely Azeris, and the laters conquered Persia so I think the civ has some potential.
As for the Safavids, they started their conquests from Azerbaijan but they were ethnically Kurds before getting persianized if I’m not mistaken.

I’ve started thinking more and more that Turkomans could cover the Great Seljuk Empire and other Oghuz people from Turkmenistan, Iran and the Levant such as the Zengids, while the current Turks would be renamed Anatolians and represent those who settled in modern day Turkey. So the Ottomans, but also the Sultanate of Rum and the various beyliks that appeared between those two. To that you could add the Azeris and Pechenegs to have all the Oghuz Turks covered.

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I support the addition of Azeris. Initially I thought they have been added in the DLC as Qizilbash were shown in screenshots. Bus Alas it was just for show. :sob:

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Personally, I wouldn’t mind adding them but seriously, we JUST had a Caucasus DLC. Maybe in like 6 years it would be a good time to add new Caucasus content. You were even asking for an Armenian split.

I want Alans and Kazhars not because they are from the Caucasus, but because for Alans, I like late antiquity and for Kazhars, I like nomadic civs.

Furthermore, let’s discover the rest of the world first if popularity is so important

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Qara and Aq Qoyunlu were definitely Azeris, and the laters conquered Persia so I think the civ has some potential.

Correction: their campaigns have some potential.

Also, until Soviet Union imposed an ‘Azeri’ identity on that region, Turks there never identified as ‘Azeri’, but firstly as Turkomans, secondly by their tribal affiliation, thirdly by Muslim Sect. Azari or ‘Azeri’ actually referred to the native Persian/Farsi (not Talysh etc) speakers of the Eastern Caucasus, whose dialect eventually went extict after repeated Turkoman migrations.

It’s really reaching from a gameplay POV to include any more Cavalry Archer / Light Cav civilisations, and reaching even more to add any more Turkic civs (Turks, Tatars, Cumans, probably Huns).

Actually if you really want to drive that point home, you could argue that Bulgarians (Bulgars), Saracens (Mamluks were Turkic slaves) and Hindustanis (same for Ghulam) are semi-Turkic civs.

Also, AoE2 civ logic has always been to include as new civs only distinct ethnicities, not merely political polities.
‘Burgundians’ arguably cross that line but in AoE2 they also represent Langue d’OC / Occitanians as well. Cumans/Pechenegs and Tatars arguably violate that line as well but at least they’re strongly separated by geography.

Material for a Circassian/Alan /Vainakh/Chechen civ in AoE2’s time period is just too thin imo, but I guess they’re still much better than Congo or Swahili like some people suggest.

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Having the Circassians in the game would be an excellent PR move, considering around 97% of their population was exterminated or expelled in the mid-1800s. It would demonstrate that someone cares about them.

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We got the two big ones in the forms of Armenians and Georgians. Maybe later down the road we’ll get Khazars which I’ve seen been requested already. I don’t think Circassians have much chance to come into the game. I’ve seen barely anybody requesting them.

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I feel sad for them, but there can’t be that many people in the world who really want them in the game

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I hard disagree. It is impossible to make any civ as similar to existing civ as Slavs-Bulgarians are. Devs managed to make Burgundians different enough from Franks which are probably just as close as Cumans-Kazars (I could be wrong).

Also Cumans have one very unique aspect that is impossible to copy or make similar imho. You guessed it right. Of course it is Feudal TC.

They will be another cav archer civ for sure. But I will take a CA civ over another European civ that can open knight at Castle Age 5 seconds before Franks, with 1 more farmers than Teutons, and with 25 more food than Slavs.

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I’m not opposed to other CA civs, in fact i’m theory crafting some of my own. Jurchens, Khitans, Uyghurs, Uzbeks. I just don’t see much value in splitting an existing CA civ, especially Cumans.

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It almost seems like the Qizilbash are the remnant of what was supposed to be a third civilization, which was then scrapped and its features folded into the Persians.