Is winrate actually the most accurate measure of civ strength though? If you’re playing an OP civ you’ll just get your Elo inflated until you’re at a skill level where your winrate is pushed back to 50%. The same in reverse for an underpowered civ. The spread in Elo between a player trying different civs would be a lot more indicative of strength. In theory, winrate should reflect strength as most people will switch civs to some degree, but it’ll exclude people that main only 1 civ (which people jumping in the OP civ bandwagon will do).
If you have anything to back up what you’re saying you’re welcome to share it.
My point is we don’t have data that conclusively says what you’re saying it says. You might be right, and I’m sure there’s some correlation, but it’s just hinting at that at best. And ultimately, the perception of civ strength is what’s impacting what people play and that may not even match up with the actual strength. Plus all the other factors like how fun a civ is to play, how easy it is to learn, cultural biases towards a certain civ, whether it is a DLC or default civ everyone has, etc that impact what people play as.
Anecdotally, I wanted Ethiopia very much, but the fact it isn’t fun to play makes me not play it. The way you’re trying to spin the data is saying that means I didn’t want the civ in the first place.
So go dig into those if you want to. At the end of the day you have to explain why USA and Mexico are more popular than all other DE civs, and why if no one wanted them in the first place why did more people try them and continue playing them?
My argument is simple, people wanted them and we can tell because when they got them they played them.
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I’m not saying you’re wrong about people wanting them, I’m saying using this data to back up your claim is a stretch. Do you think Ottoman are the most desired civ because people love Turkey? Or is it because they’re stupidly OP?
There’s competitive people who will play with stupid shit like a cubes for trees mod just to win and don’t care what historical veneer is slapped on their game of clicking buttons. Those people couldn’t care less if a civ was Mexico or Ethiopia and just play whatever is stronger.
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Do you think the reason that Mexico and USA are played the most out of all DE civs is because they are stupidly OP?
I don’t know why it’s so hard to admit that lots of people did want USA and Mexico added and we can tell because lots of people play them.
Yes, that is one of the more significant factors contributing to their playtime. Though I’d say they’re more solidly powerful than necessarily stupidly OP.
But there’s other factors like how USA was free for a time and the fact that both are reasonably enjoyable to play while the same can’t be said about Ethiopia.
In the hypothetical scenario where people have no prior knowledge of how a civ plays before buying it, I would not expect people to favour Mexico over Ethiopia. But that’s not the world we live in. People see that Ethiopia is weak and not fun and Mexico is fun and OP before they ever buy a DLC, and that colours which one they pick.
This is potentially true.
But this does not follow from your first point.
How do you propose we determine what people want without looking at what they actually do? By the way, Hausa currently has a higher winrate than both USA and Mexico.
We don’t need to determine what people wanted. To answer that question you’d have to survey a bunch of players and that’s not worth anyone’s time to do.
People didn’t know they wanted Mexico and USA until they realized they’re stupidly op imo. Just anecdotal, don’t you dare ask me to provide evidence to back my claim.
People playing civs that are strong and fun more than civs that are weak tedious is such an unexpected result. They must be doing that only because of the historical veneer slapped on.
AOE3 would have been ‘complete’ after Fanes and Poles.
Denmark was the last colonial power not in the game and Poland was kept being asked for.
While AR and KoM brought new minor civs…all that was really missing in an expansion that had denmark would be inuits. Which should probably have been in there anyway.
Getting Auks as huntables should also be a grim reminder of extinction events too,
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I’m not sure how that would imply the game would be complete other than “every euro civ that isn’t scrapping the bottom of the barrel is represented” and even that isn’t completely true as you’d still have people complaining about Prussia or Austria or whichever anyways.
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The current ‘Germans’ civ represents both Prussia and Austria
But I suppose a special revolution option for germans to revolt to prussia (representing the silesian wars) that later goes into becoming German Empire much like how revolutionary France works. That would likely be the best compromise.
Speaking of Revolts; Norway is an obvious choice for Danes and they could also give it to Swedes since swedes only have finland and usa. another I guess would be Iceland.
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Clearly only Europeans can be colonial powers. Just don’t look too close at countries like Oman.
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Europe* would
There’s still interesting civs in Asia, Africa, Oceania and America missing.
Malta is the only one right now that is scrapping the bottom of the barrel rather than Poland and Denmark which fit the game much more.
Scrapping the bottom of the barrel with more Euro civs would be Swiss and Balkan civs since they’re portrayed perfectly as mercenaries/outlaws/current royal houses and have no need to be full civs.
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I mean, there has been a couple dosen surveys made by the community over the last few years, using different methods etc.
I have made a couple of surveys on this forum and on the subreddit, and so have others, i never saw anyone say mexico before it happened.
there was this post i made around the launch of mexico:
IDK i think 36% for europe, 30% for Asia and just 9% for new world nation seems to me like it indicates average person probably want asian or european DLC more.
Before the, now cancelled, DLC had its factions revealed i made another poll:
The poll shifted a bit after the faction reveal but it is still relatively similar to how it looked before hand. Now obviously people where asked what they beleived it would be, but most took it as what they wanted it to be.
Again we see massive demand for European and Asian civs, and again about a 9% wish rate for new world nations.
Then there is this poll made before Mexican and TAR DLC was announced:
I really don’t see anyone asking for Mexico.
On reddit it was from what i recall a similar story, a poll i made asking specifically about civs:
https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe3/comments/texolp/what_civilization_do_you_want_to_be_next/
Obviously i do get power over what options are added but i still think it reasonably shows a pattern - Italy, Poland and Denmark gets 40% of the votes. Korea and Persians get 33% of the votes.
There is this poll someone else made that shows more vote for Argentina and Brazil:
https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe3/comments/ws280y/from_the_following_wich_civs_would_you_like_to_be/
But it still marks below Poland combo and Asian options.
A perhaps interesting poll is this in regards to canada:
https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe3/comments/rag28e/how_would_you_react_to_the_next_civ_being_canada/
The way i would read it is that a lot of people aren’t too picky with the civs and would be happy with whatever they get. This is the sort of poll i could point to as an explanation for the US and Mexicos popularity - because no one when asked to prioritise usually says Canada, and yet a lot of people still said they would be fine with it.
Maybe there are some polls out there you could point to with vastly different conclusions but i just haven’t seen them. I would hazard a guess that south american civs are more popular in south america, but well i dont speak spanish so i cant say a lot about it.
Will point out though that if there was ever a popular place to say you want Canada then it is the steam forums, though even there most people will tell you that you are silly.
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I don’t know about Tatars, but I don’t think Moroccans were controlled by any other power during the game’s time (unless you want to extend the timeline until the Scramble for Africa?). Who would they revolt from?
Edit: yeah, way too outside the time period.
i wouldn’t dare doubt you
ig part of OPness with USA and Mexico is actually the deck and age ups combo being as flexible as it is, you can pull just about any strategy off very smoothly, and lets not mention the combo strategies like semi fast fortress straight into fast industrial with USA
Indonesia is independent from 1945,but they still be the rev in AOE3 