Just how many more European civs should they add, if any?

The general consensus is that the game is now oversaturated with European civs, and the devs should focus more on other parts of the world, in particular Africa, the Americas, East Asia and South East Asia. I agree with this, and they could easily get a whole ton of DLCs out of these regions. At least two DLCs for Africa and the Americas, and who knows how many more for Asia?

However, when it comes to Europe, do people think there should still be one or two more DLCs? I do think there should definitely be a (final) Slavs split, which would involve giving them a name to confirm that they are now ā€œthe Russian civā€, with Rus or Ruthenians being popular suggestions, adding a couple of Balkans civs that they still cover (Croats and Serbs), and while not Slavic, also giving us the Vlachs which would mean the Dracula campaign finally gets its own civ, one with a lot of history during the time period the game takes place in.

I also think every civ should have their own campaign eventually, and if they continue to follow the trend of adding pre-existing civ campaigns to DLCs with new civs, there is the question surrounding the Vikings and Magyars. For the Magyars, they could shoehorn them into a steppe themed DLC given their origins (even if the campaign may focus on a figure like Nagy Lajos or Stephen I, long after the Magyars had settled in the Carpathian Basin), with my choice for the two new civs being Khazars and Gokturks.

But as for the Vikings? Iā€™m not sure what they would fit into given Northern/Central Europe has been long covered. If I really had to, Iā€™d say pair them up with the Dutch and Swiss even though the addition of those civs would probably cause controversy among the playerbase. Some people have suggested splitting them into Danes, Swedes and Norwegians but honestly, they should leave the original AoK civs alone. Others have suggested adding the Venetians as a European civ, but the Italians are HUGELY based on the Venetians anyway.

Your thoughts?

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1 or 2 more civs from Scandinavia is about all I think there should be for Europe now. Mostly because I think such areas would yield more interesting civ design, due to wider differences from the rest of Europe, and the current ā€œVikingsā€ is a bit of a daft civ idea and should get a re-name.

Anything else is just splitting hairs in an area that already has plenty of those. And if we are getting down into mild differences between European states, then the question arises ā€œWhy is the rest of the world not treated the same?ā€. Why not add more Indo civs? You could add about 5 more from South East Asia. etc etc

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Nah, thatā€™s just a loud minority saying that game is oversaturated with European civs. There are lots of people wanting European civs as seen by recent polls.

Funny thing is, there are 2 types of people:

  • Those who want an European civ.
  • Those who argue whether the next civs should be in Africa, Asia or America.
    So another European DLC would satisfy most number of people.

Yes, I do think there should be a final Slavs split. Itā€™s very weird to have Poles, Bulgarians, Bohemians and Slavs.

And yes for a Balkan DLC with Romanians, Serbs and Croats.

Vikings & Magyars campaigns could well be added in an European DLC. The Slav rework needs a slavic campaign & a Romanian campaign already exists. Possibly a Serb campaign and there is 1 spot for Magyars or Vikings. Or maybe have this DLC have 4 campaigns if the devs are feeling generous.

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Are you sure about that?

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Yes.

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The ā€˜Noā€™ option is winning

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The question is ā€œShould the next DLC be a Slavs rework with Croats, Serbs and Romanians as new civs?ā€.

So 61% want something else as the next DLC: either Africa, Asia or America.
And 39% want the European DLC as the next DLC.

Which is exactly what I said previously:
Funny thing is, there are 2 types of people:

  • Those who want an European civ.
  • Those who argue whether the next civs should be in Africa, Asia or America.

So another European DLC would satisfy most number of people.

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Ah, II understand. You say that the people who want Africa is less rhan people who want Europe, people who want Asia is less than people who wnat Europe and so on. Did I understand correctly?

You have to take into account how many people wanting Africa would buy an Asian pack vs how many people.wanting Africa would buy another Euro pack, and so on

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I would settle for a soft rework of the Italians, like the hindustanis, persians, spanish and portoghese, and the you can better represent the venetians.

They are quite bland and one of the weakest online, yet they didnā€™t get any serious changes in yearsā€¦

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I would say right now or at least for the next two DLCs none.

Later or letā€™s say if theyā€™re planning to add a lot more civs, I think the most sensible addition is Vlachs because they already have a campaign but no civ.

The Balkan area is the only region inside Europe remaining which has relatively few civs, though thereā€™s still Magyars, Byzantines, Bulgarians, Cumans, Turks and Teutons (in the form of Austrians) in the area.

The one big problem is that you really have to do a lot to differentiate any new European from preexisting ones. Iā€™d argue that some of the latest Euro additions donā€™t have a as distinct identity as the ones outside of it we got. The Croatians concept I saw made them Viking like, the Serbs concept felt like a variant of Magyars with a Light Cav focus and I still didnā€™t see a Vlach concept which made them feel unique enough to warrant inclusion as an example. And I have a hard time to see the necessity for Teutons/Spanish/Celts/Vikings split which wouldnā€™t just make them a slight variant of the mother civ.

Not to mention that they are probably going to reuse preexisting architecture makes the prospect of new European civs for me personally not that enticing.

If weā€™re approaching the end of new civs though, Iā€™d want literally none any more. The next 4 civs should be African/American IMHO. I and many others have been waiting for so long for new African/American content, itā€™s long overdue.

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Well, it depends on what part of the game adding new civs are causing this oversaturation issue. Is it from a skirmish or Multiplayer issue, or is it a singleplayer campaign issue?

As a player 90% of what I play are the singleplayer campaigns and I find them significantly more interesting when set in Europe. A huge reason for this is interest but also it cripples the immersion when playing as Aztecs, Bengalis, etc when you have European looking pikemen and Crossbowmen.

But personally iā€™d buy DLCs that just offered new campaigns instead of new civs, including doubling up campaigns for civs that already have them. Maybe that could reduce the oversaturation of adding new civs for multiplayer that some players might feel.

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I think nili said it best: Iā€™d prefer removing 5 civs to adding another one

You can decideā€¦

Historical Population vs Civilization Count Comparision

Year 1000AD 1500AD 1600AD 1700AD Average Civilizations Representation
East Asia/Southeast Asia 88 166 223 216 8
33% 38% 40% 36% 37% 18% -19%
South Asia 75 110 135 165 4
28% 25% 24% 27% 26% 9% -17%
Europe 40 78 112 127 21
15% 18% 20% 21% 19% 47% 28%
West Asia 20 18 21 21 6
7% 3% 3% 3% 4% 13% 9%
Africa 32 47 55 61 3
12% 11% 10% 10% 11% 7% -4%
Central/South America 11 18 9 12 3
4% 4% 2% 2% 3% 7% 4%
North America 1 2 2 1 0
0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
Oceania 0.4 0.6 0.6 0.6 0
0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
Summary

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimates_of_historical_world_population#By_world_region

Year
East Asia / Southeast Asia Burmese Chinese Japanese Khmer Koreans Malay Mongols Vietnamese
South Asia Bengalis Dravidians Gurjaras Hindustanis
Europe Bohemians Britons Bulgarians Burgundians Celts Franks Goths Huns Italians Lithuanians Magyars Poles Portuguese Romans Sicilians Slavs Spanish Teutons Vikings Cumans Georgians
West Asia Armenians Byzantines Persians Saracens Turks Tatars
Africa Berbers Ethiopians Malians
Central/South America Aztecs Incas Mayans
North America
Oceania
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this is interesting, but I donā€™t think itā€™s a fair comparison:
eg a single chinese (or han chinese) civ represents way more people than a ā€œWestern Europeansā€ civ would represent. but it still makes more sense to have Franks, Spanish, Britains and maybe a few more. The civs should represent the political situation as much as raw population numbers

(this also makes a good point why we should probably never get a north american or oceanian civ, seeing as basically nobody lived there)

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Thereā€™s been 22 civs for Europe. Iā€™m sure that we can get at least 1-2 civ for each region. Iā€™m not asking for 20 Oceanian civs either.

And Precolumbian population estimates are a hotly debated topic anyway, especially because of the demographic development post contact.

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What I am getting out of this is we need way more civs for East Asia & South East Asia and more for South Asia. Not opposed to any of that.

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I think we just have too many civs in general. I kind of stopped playing because I no longer know what techs my opponent has and what all the UU do

itā€™s called age of ā€œempiresā€, not age of duchies or age of tribes

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Right now we donā€™t need more European civs, for the next 3-4 DLCs they should focus on other regions of the world.

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I am actually surprised by the relatively low population of West Asia.

The article says the population of Europe includes the former USSR, so you should count the Cumans and Georgians as Europeans while maybe the Tatars and Armenians as half-European/half-West Asia

However, I donā€™t really think population should be the primary reasoning for adding new civs.

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If you ask me, Europe is already basically complete. Maybe a couple of civs for the Balkans in the far future. I would like to see DLCs for Africa, the Sinosphere, the Americas from now on.

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