Maps and Minor Civs imbalance by region

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
21

Hey everyone! Interesting topic. I’d like to provide some insight how the picks for maps and natives came to be. :slight_smile: Obviously the big majority of maps and natives was inherited from ES/BHG. With the limited time I do think they overall made a good job of picking relevant people for minor civs. However, we’re aware they’re far from perfect and that certain continents are underrepresented. That has several reasons!

  • The big amount of American maps can be easily explained with the base game as well as the first expansion The Warchiefs having an American setting.
  • More specifically what the 1st expansion did was add 2 civilizations from North America and 1 from Central America, which is why I’d assume there was no particular focus on South America.
  • Asia and Africa each had “only” one expansion to cover 2 entire continents. That, obviously, is quite the challenge within the limited given dev time. As you could hopefully see in the current African Royals event we’re still releasing new African maps to improve that situation!
  • With the release of Age3DE we tried to relocate a good amount of the new maps to Asia and South America and will continue to do that if we get the opportunity.
  • Generally speaking a good minor civilization is one that can be used on multiple maps. There are limited resources to create content, which is why minors are spread as much as possible to ensure players get to see and use them often enough. That naturally leads to inaccuracies and in several cases also (over)stretches things. However, so called “one-map natives” just aren’t sustainable as they can’t get enough exposure, even if they’d make a single map more accurate.
  • The current minimum of appearances per minor civ is 3 maps, which is not a good value (although it is only 2 civs) and one we hope to raise. 5-6 appearances on the hand can be considered solid. Fortunately that is a threshold all African and (by now) also all Asian minors have reached or surpassed by now.
18 Likes
22

I proposed to add ‘The Guianas’ in a new forum. The Amazon is huge and should be subdivided into many more maps.

The north of the Andes has an endless number of natives.
Another map that I would like you to add is ‘Guajira Peninsula’ with the Wayuu as hosts. (It would be interesting because the British were in this peninsula)

I also proposed a map called ‘high Andean páramos’.

All this makes me think that this game has not exploited its full potential and that is why I have created a new forum in which I cover this problem and others already considered by yous.

23

Agreed with most of your thoughts, though I don’t really like the Jiangnan region you proposed. Historically the name “Jiangnan” only referred to the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang (and maybe parts of Jiangxi and Fujian), but not really to places like Hunan, Guangdong, and Hainan.

IMO the region of Southern China can be sub-divided into at least five or six maps, if you really want to keep the historical narrative. We can have for instance, Sichuan (or Bashu if you wanna sound more historical), Yungui, Lingnan (Guangdong + Guangxi + Hainan), Huguang (Hubei + Hunan), and Jiangnan. If you wanna keep things simple, you can basically divide it into two maps, Coastal Southern China and Inland Southern China (or more aptly named Southern China Karst).

24

Yes, I definitely agree that Asia, South America, and Africa should have more minor native civs. However, since I’m not that familiar with the history and cultures of South America and Africa, I’ll focus on Asia. Here’s a map that I made based on JadenJames03’s map about the plausible new maps that we could add (sorry for my bad handwriting).

ASIA
ASIA594×532 124 KB

For those who cannot see my handwriting clearly, here’re the additional maps (will present them following the order from north to south and from east to west):

Yakutia, Yenisei, Baikal, Eurasian Steppe, Ryukyu, Formosa, Jiangnan, Huguang, Bashu, Lingnan, Yungui, Micronesia, Filipinas, Siam, and Andaman.

As for the natives of each map/region, here’re my suggestions:

Kamchatka: Koryaks, with a possible unit being the Koryak Bowman, a bowman with a short range though a lot of pierce and melee armor, as they had the tradition to wear heavy lamellar armors.

Yakutia: Yakuts, Evenks

Yenisei: Nganasans, Kets

Baikal: Buryats, Mongols

Eurasian Steppe: Kazakhs, Dzungars. A possible unit for the Dzungars would be the Camel Gun, a light cannon installed on the back of a camel.

Mongolia: Mongols, Dzungars. Mongols should be a minor civ in their homeland, and a possible unit would be the Mangudai.

Manchuria: Of course the Manchus, and there’s already a unit named Manchu in the game, suitable as their unique unit. A possible secondary unique unit would be the Manchu Heavy Cavalry, which is a heavy melee cavalry clad in lamellar armors and is good against infantry. Alternatively, they could have the Dunche or Shield Cart, basically a cart or wheelbarrow pushed by manpower and mounted with wooden planks on its front and sides, and the soldiers inside could shoot out with their muskets or arquebus. Should be a unit with a lot of pierce armor.

Hokkaido: the Ainu should be a minor civ on this map, and a possible unit would be Ainu Bowman or Ainu Horse Archer.

Korea: the Koreans should be a minor civ here. A possible unit would be the Joseon Musketeer, a cheaper and weaker version of Musketeers.

Central Plains, Yellow River, Jiangnan, and all other maps within the territory of China Proper: a non-religious minor civ would be the Weisuo, basically militia garrisons established by the Ming Dynasty. The soldiers inside a Weisuo were farmers most of the times, but were also trained to use basic weapons to a certain extent. In case of war they would be recruited en masse. A possible unit would be Chinese Hand Cannoneer, a cheap, weak, short-ranged infantry that fires in quick successions, similar to a Chu Ko Nu.

Central Plains, Yellow River, Silk Road: another non-religious minor civ, but this time specifically for these three maps, would be Northwest Rebels. A possible unit would be Mianjia Jun, a melee cavalry wearing layered cotton armors thus having high pierce armor, good against ranged infantry.

Central Plains, Jiangnan, Lingnan, Korea, Honshu, and Ryukyu: Wokou, it should be a minor civ on these maps. Possible units include Wokou Ronin, Wokou Monk, etc.

Lingnan, Yungui, Indo China: a possible minor civ to add in these regions would be Yao/Zhuang, and a possible unit for them would be Lang Bing or Wolf Troop. It’s a shock infantry armed with a V-shaped shield and a sword or a short spear. Alternatively, they could have the Poison Crossbowman, which deals a similar effect as the Jungle Bowman of the Inca civ.

Bashu, Huguang, Parallel Rivers, Yungui, Indo China: Miao/Hmong as a minor civ, and a possible unit would be Tu Bing, a heavily-armored javelin thrower.

Huguang: Wutang as a minor civ, and a possible unit would be the Wutang Monk, which can heal friendly units and deals bonus damage to treasure guardians and enemy explorers.

Formosa: Formosan Natives, possible unit Seediq Warrior

Ryukyu: Ryukyuan, possible unit Ryukyu Samurai, similar to the Japanese one but slightly faster and is armed with a shield (due to Chinese influences handheld shield was more prevalent among the Ryukyuan army than among the Japanese). An alternative or secondary unit would be the Ryukyu Hand Cannoneer, due to close ties with Ming China the Ryukyuans would import hand cannons from China.

Micronesia: Chamorro

Filipinas: possibilities are many, including Aeta, Visayans, Ilocano, Moros, etc. Maybe a unit wielding the Kali sticks?

Borneo: Dayak people, a possible unit would be the Dayak Headhunter.

Malaysia: possibilities are many, Jehai, Batak, Orang Asli, etc. A possible unit would be the Jehai Blowgunner.

Indonesia: Javanese, Acehnese, Moluccans, etc. Could have a naval unit.

Siam: Siamese/Tai peoples, an elephant unit for them most likely, alternatively they could also have a unit wielding twin swords, such a technique is called Daab Song Mue in Thai martial arts.

Andaman: Andamanese, a possible unit would be the Andamanese Bowman, fast and high attack, though has a rather low HP, best used for hit-n-run tactics.

3 Likes
25

You can see the Northern China just be filled by few maps, no mention the Indian Subcontinent and the traditional land of Japan (Ezochi is not included). Perhaps your broad knowledges about China may make it imbalance in another way.

I seriously regard the Southern China may not be allowed to divide into over 3 parts, using the name “Jiangnan” to represent the rest region of the mainland Han China there is a pretty good matter of expediency. You also can notice that I divide Honshu into only Kanto and Kansai instead of the detailed separation into such like Kyusyu, Setouchi, Kinki, Tokai, Oshu, etc.

BTW, “Sichuan” is a better name for this internationally renowned region than “Bashu” in my opinion, more iconic and still accurate historically. In another hand, Yungui also worthy to be introduced for its complex number of ethnic groups.

The name “Tien Shan” would be more iconic and easier to develop a special map with the oasis and snow mountains for me.
Kazakhs are still available in the Tian Shan and Mongolia with quit accuracy.

Mongols and Manchus are the people of Qing Dynasty so they are not suitable in my opinion.
For the similar reason, the native settlement of Iroquois, Sioux, Aztecs and Incas had been removed from the maps after they were introduced as a civ, and there are no Hindus, Han, Japanese village or facility as a semi-civ.

That is why I support the Tibetan Buddhism as a semi-civ. It is the main religion in Manchuria, Mongolia and Himalayas and the religion is actually a good solution to deal the problem above.

About Dzungars and Wokou, they should just be the mercenary units. I noticed that the unofficial military troops, illegal gangs, rebelling forces and the iconic foes of the empire are usually be designed as the outlaw and mercenary units. For this, there are also many potential units like Maratha Light Infantry, Saika-Shu, LiuKou, MaZei, etc.

A historical mistake. The name “Formosan Warrior” is enough indeed, no mention who Europeans contacted mainly are the Siraya people rather than Seediq people.
Until the 20th century, The aborigines of Taiwan had not been seriously researched, recognized and classified in detail. The word “Formosans”, used by the Dutch and other Western people since 17th Century, can make a general reference to all of them.
Don’t be influenced by just one film.

1 Like
26

Nice post, since devs are adding more maps hope they address this.

Also would like to point about that, both Mexico and Yucatan regions could be further exploited as Japan and many others.

Mexico has different climates from deserts in the north, arid in the center, jungle in different parts, forest and so on. Not to mention that natives assign to this are not completely correct.

27

How about Maroons? They’d easily fit into 8 current maps (many with the worst inaccuracies) as well as the upcoming Panama and Guianas and potentially many more.

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28

I like your idea but Matagis are completely unrelated to Ainus. They should be a separate minor civ, if they were added to the game. I’d also turn Mongols and Tatars into minor civs, maybe Koreans too if people really think they’re too irrelevant for a full civ.

There could also be maps based on Kuril and Sakhalin, as more justification for Ainus being added in.

Edit: I’d also add Cerrado and Caatinga maps, maybe Atlantic Forest and Pantanal too.

29

The culture of the Matagi is related to Ainu people surely.
Ainu people had lived in the Tohoku region of Japan in the middle ages.

In my opinion, I would like to make Manchu become Chinese own unit and introduce the Mongol as a new mercenary to replace the Manchu, rather than being the semi-civ.

Basing on the rebellion of the Mongolian people (the Chahars) against Qing, their situation may be pretty similar to Koxinga’s Iron Troops.

This large Far East map does not reach the Aral Sea so I didn’t consider about Tatars. The most western semi-civ of this large map is Kazakh nomads maybe.

30

I think you are all misunderstanding why the original developers added Holy Sites in The Asian Dynasties and specific units available there (mostly that were not “their” army) instead of making more and more tribes like in Vanilla and TWC.

:roll_eyes: :roll_eyes: :roll_eyes: :roll_eyes:

31

The number of the religions is lower than the ethnic groups and could cover more regions. It is a clever choice without a doubt but the current 6 religions obviously still have some culturally discordant mistakes there. For example, the Japanese Mahayana Buddhism (Zen) is clearly pretty far from the Theravada Buddhism in Ceylon and the elephants do not exist in Mongolia definitely.

Even if there is the dev member explained the reason, I still think these problems really awkward. We may not able to deal them with such the limited resources recently but we have to be aware of them. For someday the chance coming, adding new religion sites or native tribes may not be a bad idea.

2 Likes
32

I still don’t think Ainus and Matagis are related, but even if they are that doesn’t mean they need to be a single faction in-game. That’s like saying Tatars didn’t deserve to be a separate civ in AoE2 because there’s already a Turk civ (which could totally be renamed since by now it seems to only represent Ottomans).

About Mongolia, it’s probably big enough to be represented by multiple maps like it was suggested for Amazonia, Japan and Siberia. Then, there would be justification for natives specific to those regions.

Otherwise, they could make region-specific units for natives that appear in completely-different regions.

33

Maybe Bedouins could be a minor civ too?

They could show up on both African and Asian maps, especially if we get a middle east DLC. And they’re already represented by one unit in the Moroccan civ from the Historical Battles.

(Also, if we do get a middle east DLC, I hope they’re divided by countries instead of there being a single “Arabian” civ)

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34

“I seriously regard the Southern China may not be allowed to divide into over 3 parts, using the name “Jiangnan” to represent the rest region of the mainland Han China there is a pretty good matter of expediency. You also can notice that I divide Honshu into only Kanto and Kansai instead of the detailed separation into such like Kyusyu, Setouchi, Kinki, Tokai, Oshu, etc.”

Then you’d have to rename your “Jiangnan region” as “Southern Hills” or something along the lines of that if you wanna be more inclusive, since Jiangnan had a specific reference; it only referred to Jiangsu and Zhejiang, whereas the rest of Southern China had other names historically, such as “Huguang” or “Lingnan”. And if you really wanna emphasize on Jiangnan, then you probably have to carve out Jiangsu and Zhejiang from the rest and name them as Jiangnan, and name the rest as Southern Hills (or a similar name referring to a geographical feature).

And “Han China” or “Han Chinese” is an anachronistic term to use here. “Han Chinese” was a geopolitical pseudo ethnic group created by late Qing / early Republican revolutionaries some 100 years ago, which is outside of the scope of AOE 3. Historically speaking, the term “Hanren” was used, but it had a completely different meaning and connotation; it only referred to peoples living in the Yellow River region.

“BTW, “Sichuan” is a better name for this internationally renowned region than “Bashu” in my opinion, more iconic and still accurate historically. In another hand, Yungui also worthy to be introduced for its complex number of ethnic groups.”

Agreed. “Sichuan” is probably indeed a better term than “Bashu” due to it being more well-known. And also agree with Yungui.

35

How worse did you regard my knowledge about the Chinese geography? Haha.
To be honest, it is not such an important problem in the game.

Look at the other maps, there are also some without geographically high accuracy, covering the regions it should not include, like Sonora before Mexico introduced, Himalayas, Honshu, Mongolia, Deccan, etc.

I don’t mean we should believe this way of division is correct but we can not ask 100% fit the definition. It is impractical. The best solution is taking the name of its core part. That is how the game work currently and why I suggest the term Jiangnan.

I have totally known the issue you wanna state about. But actually Nobody here care.
We use this kind of “modern” terms for let each others understand which ethnic group of people we discussing about, no matter how they had been called centuries ago.
And, it is off-topic.

36

“How worse did you regard my knowledge about the Chinese geography? Haha.
To be honest, it is not such an important problem in the game.”

Well, I understand that 100% historical accuracy isn’t the purpose of the game, but at least some historical accuracy is required. The other names aren’t randomly placed either. And Jiangnan wasn’t simply a geographical term. Maybe at first it started off as such a term, but by the time of Ming and Qing (or maybe even earlier) it came to refer specifically to the region of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, their cultures and their peoples.

“I have totally known the issue you wanna state about. But actually Nobody here care.”

Well, you can’t represent everybody, maybe you don’t care but there’re people who care, such as myself. Please at least be respectful towards me and the others who do care.

I believe that for a game like AOE 3, a certain level of historical accuracy is required. And you cannot randomly apply modern terms to denote past peoples or concepts. The use of the term “Hanren” was strongly associated with the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, and for them “Hanren” referred to the inhabitants of the Yellow River region, and weren’t just limited to Sinitic people. Descendants of Khitans and Jurchens who lived in the Yellow River region were also called “Hanren”. However they never applied this term to people from Southern China, calling them “Nanren” (or the more derogatory term “Manzi” or “Mangi”) instead.

37

SO?
How would you argue other maps by this standard?
Honshu = Honshu + Sikoku + Kyushu,
Mongolia = Mongolia + Tarim Basin + Tian Shan + Junggar Basin,
But Jiangnan can not be Jiangnan + other neighbor regions?
Sorry, you state you understand but seem to have not get the point.

I had studied those knowledge when I was a high school student but I just told you those are totally off topic, no mention this term “Han” is already close to the modern definition in even the Qing Dynasty, the era of AoE3.

Such the detail of this term is already irrelevant to the content of the game. If you really regard people will seriously care about it in the discussion in the thread, welcome to try to post this statement on other Chinese-using forum of AoE series.

38

“SO?
How would you argue other maps by this standard?
Honshu = Honshu + Sikoku + Kyushu,
Mongolia = Mongolia + Tarim Basin + Tian Shan + Junggar Basin,
But Jiangnan can not be Jiangnan + other neighbor regions?
Sorry, you state you understand but seem to have not get the point.”

The other maps aren’t without their problems, but they’ve been like that ever since the release of AOE 3 more than a decade ago so I don’t really think they need to be changed. However for any new maps I hope they would at least follow some historical accuracy. Again, if you really wanna be inclusive, then name the region as “Southern Hills” or “Southern Karst” instead.

"I had studied those knowledge when I was a high school student but I just told you those are totally off topic, no mention this term “Han” is already close to the modern definition in even the Qing Dynasty, the era of AoE3.

Such the detail of this term is already irrelevant to the content of the game. If you really regard people will seriously care about it in the discussion in the thread, welcome to try to post this statement on other Chinese-using forum of AoE series."

It isn’t off-topic since it relates to China, which is one of the major civs in AOE 3. And if you think it’s off-topic, then why you brought up the term “Han Chinese” in the first place?

Even during much of the Qing period the term “Han” wasn’t that commonly used. It was only in the late Qing and early Republican period that the modern term “Han” was created, in part influenced by western ideologies of nationalism, in another part fueled by racist anti-Manchu sentiments.

Nothing suggests that I cannot post on this forum, as long as I obey the rules here and respect other users. You have no right to interfere with my freedom, I can post anywhere I like. Please be respectful, I can sense an air of arrogance in your words.

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39

The dev could choose to never change anything about the South America by this reason.

I used this term to aim to the place they live.

This term here is completely nothing about the period so I don’t know why you have insisted on such the off-topic definition about the period.
Officially it is called this. You can figure it out by the concept of “漢地18省”. The usage of the modern definition of “漢地” can be look back upon the Yuan Dynasty.

Sure you can keep post your idea on this forum. I am just really interested to how the people who mostly are the Han think about what you insist on in such the thread about the new maps. Will they also insist on it or not? That is why I mentioned other forums.

40

Have you had the blessing of math in school?

26 maps : 13 = 1 native per 2 maps.

This is for North America. South America has 8 maps : 4 (you didnt include Carib) = 1 native per 2 maps.

Both have equel distribution.

Asian maps however have a lack of natives and are most underrepresented. Unlike your opinion for the South America.

19 maps : 6 = 1 native per ~3 maps

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