A South American history expert said that on the forum Wari/Tiwanaku were Chanka ancestors and Chankas make more sense because they have more history recorded and they can cover Wari/Tiwanaku. The Anasazi don’t want to be included in video games. Teotihuacan might be too early for the timeframe and Aztecs consider them their predecessors. Thanks for your feedback, more American civs will be considered on my map.
Thanks for your suggestions. Flemish is Burgundians in the game. Jolofs don’t have enough history recorded unfortunately. Pechenegs, Avars, Afghans and Azerbaijanis will be considered. My friend said that Telugus can be covered by Kannadigas. Gokturks are on the map. Kurds never had an independent kingdom apparently. Shans might make sense. Laos can be covered by Thais.
Chanka are descended of Wari and Tiwanaku just in the same sense that… everybody else in the region descend of Wari and Tiwanaku, they marked the politics and culture of the region to a degree where everybody else just took after them. If anything you have a stronger case for the Aymara being more directly descended from Tiwanaku or, even more accurately, the uro people.
Same with Teotihuacan, there’s a thousand-year difference between Teotihuacan and the Aztecs, the Aztecs claim descendance from them just as everybody else in the region who are not called Mayans. The people who would become the Aztecs didn’t even live in the region when Teotihuacan existed, and, come on, if Goths and Huns can be civs, then Teotihuacan definitely fits the setting.
As for the Anasazi, that story came from Civilization (as in, the game), what actually happened is not that the Anasazi don’t want to be shown in a videogame (although depending on the group they may say so, these are always touchy subjects among indigenous peoples in North America) the problem was specifically having Popé as the Civ leader, otherwise there shouldn’t be much of a drama in that respect.
Ah, yeah, I somehow missed Gokturks since the Khitans are in the spot were I would have placed them.
From what I could gather, quite a few Kurdish dynasties managed to raise to power during the 10th century before being all conquered by the Sejuq during the 11th or 12th centuries. You can look at the Shaddadids, Rawarids, Hasanwayhids, Annazids and Marwanids. Admitedly, they existed during a short time period, though.
I guess the Telugus could be covered by the Kannadigas as they are both Dravidian peoples with a focus on mainland activity, but I’m pretty sure the two cultures were already different enough in the Middle Ages for both to ultimately appear as separate entities in a distant future, assuming we have unimited time to wait and no shortage of civ bonus and mechanics before we reach this point (which we don’t, but I guess no matter what development will stop at some point before we get everything already on the map, one way or another). But I guess they could work as a two-civ umbrella at least for some time, it would still be better than having all Dravidian peoples as one single civ.
Both Shans and Laos are Thai people to be honest, so I think either we have a Thai umbrella or we get the Siamese, Shans and Laos all at the same time… Not sure if having two of them but not the third would really make sense.
Flemish are covered by Burgundians because the duchy of Burgundy conquered most of the Low Countries in the last decades before it ceased to exist, but I think both could (and maybe should) appear separately. They both come from quite different German people and had a separate history for most of the Middle Ages (at least as much as neighboring Western European states can have separate history). Admitedly though, maybe Burgundians would look even out of place if they lose the Burgundian Low Countries.
i mean no offence to the map but clearly it has a fair few biases.
if we claim things like aragon, croatia and venice isn’t in the game then by the same logic dosens of other factions just within europe also arent represented. internationally probably the same, tho i dont pretend to be an expert on every country that ever existed.
There is one thing we have to take into consideration. Every aoe2 should have enough AI names and a possible campaign and civs like Wari/Tiwanaku/Teotihuancan might lack that.
There’s no way you can argue for an Aragonese civ separated from the Spanish that already exist and then claim that Shan, Thais and Lao are somehow splitting hairs too thin. We’re not even arguing for the many other kingdoms in the area, such as Lanna, who are just as valid as an inclusion.
As for Teotihuacan, we totally can get enough names just from the Tikal stela alone, let’s not pretend like the mayan language hasn’t been translated.
If Aragonese and Venetians are “not in the game”, then neither are the earlier Korean kingdoms like Silla, Goguryeo, Baekje (since Koreans are based on Choson). I’m not sure what you’d call them, though, since they were also Koreans.
For Central America, south of the Maya I would include the Chorotega or Chibcha groups in Costa Rica and Nicaragua. The Chorotega were a latter group who migrated from Mexico and there are languanges still spoken you can use for voicelines, figurines to model warriors off of. Shamaness and warriors figure frequently in the art. Campaigns would be a bit harder, but you can do something from the Spanish contact period.
Mississippians could potentially be split to reflect Cahokia or Etowah and Moundville. Or a Natchez kingdom if you want a later group.
In the Amazon you could show Kuhikugu, made by the Kuikuro in the medieval period. Would be a good way to showcase an area beyond the Andes of South America.
Teotihuacan could be fun to make since it was a cosmopolitan city and would have a direct campaign with Spear Thrower Owl connecting with the Early Classic Maya kingdoms of the 400s. Aztecs were totally different from Teotihuacan, they admired it cause of its legendary grandness of its time. They said the same of the Toltecs. It’s like how many people claim to be successors of Rome in Europe. While we don’t know who the exact locals were we do know Mayan and Zapotec were spoken there, possibly Nahua and Otomi. So you can use either a mix of these which would reflect its multiethnic inhabitants or maybe use Otomi?
A case can also be made for the Huastecs in the Gulf coast. There are plenty of campaign ideas set during the Aztec invasions or even use one when during the fall of the Toltecs, since they are sometimes featured in those stories.
Since you have there the Mixtecs and Zapotecs there’s some good potential for campaigns. Mixtecs were more prominent in the later period of the 1100s-1500s. You can do a campaign either on the queen 6 Monkey, or on 8 Deer Jaguar Claw. Both of them having conquering narratives based on codices. With the Zapotecs while they were more prominent in the earlier Classic period, I would argue to make a campaign based on their later period. During the reign of Cosijoeza, he defended his kingdom from the Aztec invasions of Ahuizotl. There was a long siege of Guiengola and it ended with him marrying Ahuizotls daughter.
I think Shan, Thais, Laos, and Lanna can all be covered under the Siamese umbrella, since their languages and cultures are very similar to one another.
Shan, Laos, and Thais all belong to the Southwestern branch of the Tai-Kradai family, whereas Italians belong to the Eastern Romance branch and Spanish/Portuguese belong to the Western Romance branch.
And in terms of religion, Shan, Laos, and Thais are all Theravada Buddhists.
I see no reason to create 3 separate civs for them, a Siamese civ can cover them all.
Most other branches of Tai-Kradai are found in Southern China. These cannot be covered by the Siamese civ though, since they are part of the Sinosphere and not the Indosphere. And their languages are more distinct due to 1. belonging to a branch other than the Southwestern branch hence longer time of divergence with speakers of the Southwestern branch and 2. a larger amount of Chinese loanwords.
If the Italians are already there, I do not think they put the Venetians, although maybe they will put them in AoE 4 …in fact I proposed a Venetian campaign from 997 to Lepanto in 1571…
Yes, I think that eventually the Thai and the Mons will get in…
In every scenario with Venetians (either campaign scenario or historical battle) the devs have chosen not to represent them as Italians. It suggests they think the Venetians should ultimately be outside of the umbrella.
I’m not sure Aragonese should be removed from the list. They have their own language and were a naval and trade power focused on the Mediterranean and especially Italy and the islands during most of the Middle Ages while the Castilians were more busy with fighting the Moors on land. Arguably the Spanish could be split into Castilians and Aragonese.
That is in the end not the case, Filthydelphia the designer of Sforza, the Italian campaign mentioned that is boring to have every scenario an Italian mirror match, so for diversity he made the Venetians Portuguese because he thought the Venetians are an advance Italian city state that also could easily also make Organ Guns and to give the anti gun power Condottiero unit another chance to shine.
They’re also Byzantines in Barbarossa’s fourth mission “the Lombard League”, despite almost all other Italian factions in this scenario and the previous one, Pope and Antipope, having been turned into Italians with the DE. The only exception are Verona and the River Guard, which are Franks for some reason.
And as previously mentioned, Lepanto should be a Venetian or at least Italian scenario.
I wasn’t actually pushing for that, sorry if it came off that way. I think it’s reasonable to include civs that aren’t very well represented as well as civs that aren’t in the game at all – although if Aragon was mostly a naval and trade power, it sounds to me like it is represented well by Spanish. (Also it’s your map, you can do whatever you like with it.)
