Dear dev, I’m really grateful to have such an opportunity to play the Age of empires 4 test server on steam. It was really a fun experience with all my friends and I have played this game since Age of empires 2, so I really wonder will you bring back the Khmer civilization in this Age of empires 4?
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I doubt they will answer this. Even if they have plans, if they commit now and then never get around to do it, people will call them liers. I would say, we might get them if we ever have a South/South-East Asia expansion. But that might be a long road ahead.
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Yeah they f Up with that native indian civilisation promise. Now they are forced to do it for them indians who will not even buy the game probably.
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They didn’t screw up when they promised a native Indian civ. They screwed up right at the start when they chose Delhi Sultanate. Indians don’t care for DS. At all. Foreigners also don’t care for DS. It is a civ that no one wanted, except apparently the misguided people on their team that chose that civ. DS made no sense from both a representative as well as monetary perspective.
Personally speaking it is also the most boring civ to play out of the 6 we’ve seen so far. Maybe others like their mechanic.
Vijayanagara Empire should have been the choice right from the start. The architecture and the entire culture would have been distinctive and fresh. Architecturally, we didn’t need DS when we already have Abbasid.
I would even go so far as to say that as an Indian I would rather have preferred Khmer as a starting civ than the abomination that is Delhi Sultanate.
I agree that native Indians would be more interesting than another Muslim civ but Its also true that Delhi Sultanate was major power in India at that time unlike rest of them kingdoms.
So only reason to pick another Indian civ instead would theoretically be monetary reasons but even that doesn’t work because despite India being gigantic country no one will buy AoE 4 there for European release prices. So historical importance has precedence in this situation.
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Vijayanagara was a major power in the world, let alone just India, my friend. Europeans don’t know much about them because there wasn’t much interaction, if any at all, between them and the European powers, and so it’s natural to not realise how important they were.
Delhi Sultanate had around 25 million subjects in the north. Vijayanagara Empire had around 18 million subjects in the south. England had around 2 million subjects at the time, to give an idea for comparison. Do not be misled by India’s present economic status. India was probably the richest region in the world at that time, so you can imagine that an empire of 18 million subjects in India was definitely a lot more important than England in that era.
And because Vijayanagara were based in the peninsula, they also had naval experience, unlike the DS who were in the plains up north.
Even the Cholas would have been a great choice. Maybe better than even Vijayanagara.
Poland Lithuania, Hungary, Naples each had more subjects than England in that era. But we have England as a starting civ despite that. So there was no reason why they couldn’t have chosen Vijayanagara instead of Delhi Sultanate despite the lower population. And just to reiterate, this “lower population” is still 18 million!
Relic/World’s Edge shot themselves in the foot because they had myopic/misguided people among their history consultants who lacked critical thinking skills, and who figured that since 25 million is a bigger number than 18 million (but ignored the fact that England was only 2 million), let’s just close our eyes and choose Delhi Sultanate, and let’s not even bother to ask actual historians and cultural experts if they even agree with that utterly simplistic line of thinking.
So now that their folly stands exposed, and it was too late to change Delhi Sultanate to Vijayanagara or Cholas, they had to issue a mea culpa and admit that they need to rectify the mistake by adding an Indian civ that is actually acceptable to the people who care about an Indian civ. Hopefully they’ve fired the history ‘experts’ that they relied on at the start and we won’t have such dumb decisions when they decide on the expansions.
I do agree with you that presently the game doesn’t sell as well in India as it does in the west, and monetary considerations are important. But to be fair, this promise of a native civ should be looked at through the prism of the folly of the selection of DS, and an attempt to make up for the inclusion of a civ that no one cares for. Microsoft has enough money that perhaps they don’t look at this from a financial perspective at all.
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Pakistanis care about DS no?
But I agree that for me outsider who is not really interested in India’s history Hindu civ would be more interesting.
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the whole idea is to combine known and lesser known conflicts. The 100 years war is one of the most known, the DS fights and Rise of Moscow count as lesser known. But they were still great conflicts and quite interesting
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Oh yeah, I have absolutely no issues with English being in the game. I love the civ, they’re a very influential one and I can’t imagine an AOE without the English. I did not mean to imply that the English are not a good choice.
I was just attempting to convey that like the English civ of the medieval era have great influence in present day England, the Cholas and Vijayanagara had much greater influence in present day India than the Delhi Sultanate did. One just needs to look around England or India to know that.
Well if the devs had stated that the Delhi civ was meant to cater to Pakistanis, then yeah. Catering to them would mean explicitly condoning their current support of the Taliban because that is historically the type of civ that they love. We don’t need to pretend otherwise. History buffs like us know that far too well.
The devs explicitly made it clear that they intended to create an Indian civ, and made a mistake with their choice there, so it is Indian considerations that are relevant there.
Again, to reiterate, this is not national chauvinism at play. I would have no issues if Khmer replaced Delhi Sultanate. It is not my stance that there needs to be an Indian civ. We Indians would still love AOE without an Indian civ. We loved AOE 1, 2 and 3, and none of them had Indians as a base civ.
All we Indians ask is that if the devs have decided that they do want an Indian civ, then it is only right that it be a proper Indian civ that actually is relevant to us.
There is a simple solution for the Indian civi problem.Name the civi to indians and give monuments from north and south as options to age up based on what you select the civi gets renamed.
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so basically you were arguing that england is a good fit and better than DS, I understand.
I also didnt mean to imply you have issues with the english.
My point was rather that Only a few ppl know or care about the DS, exccatly as you stated - as indians (for example) dont really care about DS.
And I (personally) believe, thats exactly the point. they anted to have some campaigns which everyone knows about (like 100 years war and the british one) and some campaigns many people wouldnt really know or care about, although they were interesting (like the rus).
I am nut entirely sure in which campaign DS will be set, as I never heard of it before age4 - and thats exactly the point they will probably try to bring across here. Give us some fresh, lesser knon civs and (hi)stories.
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They did halt the mongol expansion in to india and conquered most of the indian subcontinent too.
The Delhi Sultanate defence against the Mongol invasions was largely supportive and attritional. Genghis Khan was not halted by the Delhi Sultanate. He had more pressing matters to deal with in China, and chasing down the defeated and fleeing Jalal-U-Din was the least of his concerns at that moment. It was the Chinese who distracted Genghis Khan from his Indian invasions and caused him to change plans and return from India.
Later Mongol incursions into India were a pale imitation of Genghis’s planned invasion, again, courtesy of the Chinese. Delhi Sultanate had great luck on their side.
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I agree if the mongols really wanted to conquer India they would have done so.India was always easy picking for invaders from outside.south india survived due to the distance enemies had to travel and vise versa.
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I agree, mongols could have easily conquered the Delhi sultanate. The sultanate was extremely lucky that the Chinese rebellion happened when it did.
South India had a huge coastline. Distance was never an excuse. South India needed the Europeans to sail in to be completely conquered (as opposed to the piecemeal invasions of the northerners) because unlike the northern invaders the Europeans were not a one trick pony with just cavalry (pun intended hahaha). They had a proper navy. The south also did not have the advantage that the northerners had of contact with Europe and China. Their geography failed them, otherwise they were the greatest civilisation of India as evident from their architecture, culture and patronage of the arts and literature. At the least they did not burn libraries like the Sultanate did, which shows the difference in how civilised they were in comparison.
The reason northern India was invaded repeatedly was because the invaders had access to both Chinese and European technologies and trade via the silk route. Northern India was technologically limited on account of being boxed in on all sides and isolated from that crucial contact with Europe and China. Access to technology is what decided the course of history, and this was entirely fortuitous for the invaders, not something of their own design.
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That’s even worse . Not gonna lie
My next 4 civs to be added are: Incas, Malians, Khmer and Japanese.
yeah I hope it all comes out
You have a better solution?