That proves my point more… the warchiefs added native americans hence villagers as they didnt settle their homeland where they already lived. Same for the Asians. If it wasnt about colonization the Europeans wouldnt have had settlers but villagers. Also if you really doubt the Europeans colonial based the literal text you got when starting a game is “your homecity has send supplies to help your colony” or something in this way, but colony is named.
No that undermines your points more.
That “settler” can be easily renamed to “villager” without any impact on the gameplay.
If the game is built merely to represent colonization, “settler” should be an integral part of the game mechanics and something that can never be changed both in the name and the design.
But it turns out they are exactly the same as any other villager in the game or even in the series.
If there is an incoming expansion that adds European maps, they can easily rename settlers to villagers/citizens and covered wagons to town wagons, and literally nothing is changed. I even doubt they would do that because the game is never that polished (French still have native American scouts on Asian maps).
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The European architecture is entirely based on colonial style it isnt just names.
Carolean can be renamed to space marine and nothing would change, doesnt mean they should.
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That destroys your point even further.
Renaming carolean to space marine still does not change the game into a warhammer game.
Renaming settler to villager instantly erases someone’s perfect “colonial” theme.
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This:
You can always argue about the fact that most things could be renamed and a logic can be thought of to explain shipments sent in Europe, but the architecture definitively would not fit.
There is obviously a sense of What If in this game, so we can imagine that Ottomans would have tried to colonize America or Asia. But with European maps we are looking at:
- Russians establishing a colony in Spain?
- Ottomans colonizing Great Britain?
I’ll concede that we do have the weird situation of Natives civ coming to Asia right now, but this is mostly the fault of the Devs wanting to explore Asia after they created the Natives civs.
Also, why do people want European maps exactly? You can technically make an infinite number of maps with America, Asia, Africa and Oceania if needed.
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We already have Russians colonizing New England and the Pampas region, so it is on the same line.
Lakota vs Chinese on the Fertile Crescent? Never happened, but it does in game.
Napoleon and other leaders making sense, new European civs, European Minor Settlements…
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Strange. The “what if” statement applies to Ottomans colonizing China, India or Japan, but cannot apply to Europe.
In fact, India and East Asia were so densely populated (even more than Europe) that the “colonists” rarely build “colonies” from scratch, but subjugated or directly occupied existing cities and ports.
They are not mutually exclusive.
That basically implies the game should only focus on Americas, right?
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I’ll tell you what I told the boys on Reddit. Knowing Forgotten Empires, the two mystery civs are probably the Visigoths and the Soviet Union.
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Besides beng out of timeframe, both make more sense than the USA, which was already in the game, in the first place!
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That’s trivial. Aztecs, Lakota and Iroquois were already in the game as well.
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There is a difference between Colonizing a territory and Conquering it. It might be subtle tough.
But let me put 3 scenarios (1 per continent) and see if one of them feels weird:
- Some British come to Virginia. They build a small town and start trading with the local population.
- A Portuguese expedition start establish a fort in Cannanore, India. Trade is establish with various local leaders.
- An Ottoman expedition land in Sussex, England. They build a fort and start having trade with the local British.
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They did it in Budapest, and Romania, Hungary, Albania, Greece…
In fact, the Ottomans were the one people that can be said started Modern Colonialism entirely. The Europeans were pushed to it, because of Ottoman encroachment and tade monopoly.
Not at all different from traditional 16th century Colonialism.
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Actually, India and East Asia were very densely populated. The “colonists” rarely “build a small town”. They subjugated or occupied already existing cities.
What you said basically wrecks not only this game but the entire series. Since AOE1, every single nation, wherever the map is located, starts with a small town.
Even in major battles (which lasted only a few days) like Catalaunian Plains or Yorktown, you still need to build a small town.
The “building a small town” part of the game is not based on the “colonial” theme because it is how every old-school RTS works.
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It was considered. Ensemble Studios said that one of the reason they focused on the “New World” theme is that they felt it would be odd to build a new town in a big empty field in Europe right next to a rival power during the 16th century.
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Pretty much. The colonial period only started because the Europeans were cut off from land trade with Asia by the Ottomans, so they started relying on naval trade.
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China and India were even more densely populated. And you can still find a big empty field in the game to “build a new town”.
That “new town” in reality is basically any infrastructure that you need to build an army. It can be a real “town”. It can be a military base. It can be even a temporal encampment.
As I’ve mentioned, Battle of Catalaunian Plains or Yorktown, which were pitch battles/sieges that lasted only a few days, still require you to build a new town in the game.
And I would not wonder if the game has Battle of Waterloo you may still start with building a new town.
Not to mention almost non of the important battles in history are won by burning down an enemy “town”, building a wonder, collecting a few relics or building several trade routes.
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Ensemble Studios also went down in flames, and did not even handle the franchise long enough to develop The Asian Dynasties.
The game failed and people went back to AoE2, because Ensemble really had no clue what to do with AoE3.
Not to mention that the Ottomans attempted several times to colonize portions of Europe with their own population, the attempts just failed.
Yeah yeah I agree. I’m just the messenger. I have no issue with adding a map with a big empty field in the middle of modern Germany. I’d prefer if they kept in the Americas (outside of campaigns) simply because I personally prefer colonial and Atlantic history, not because I think European maps are unacceptable from any logical point of view.
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You can always play American maps only. They were even kind enough to add an option of “random American maps” when they introduced TAD.
But the game itself needs to expanded. It cannot rely on a few veteran players playing the same few factions as in the time of Warcraft 3. Esports for RTS is a distant past now. That’s even more important for a historical game.
(Nowadays even for fantasy games like total war warhammer people are asking for more factions).
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Those territories were integrated to the Empire as provinces. The Ottomans were not trying to establish trade relations with the local population. Those countries were integral parts of the Empire and their inhabitants, tax payers like anywhere in the Empire.
You could always argue for a looser definition of colonialism, but someone should still give us any reason why European map would be good for the game.
From a gameplay perspective, I do not see anything that would not be reproductible in one of the settings we already have (America or Asia).
For custom scenarios, the land assets we have could easily reproduce anything needed for Europe.
So how having Europeans maps would help the game in any shape of form?