With the new Armenians/Georgians we now have E I G H T civs using this set, the other six being Italians, Romans, Spanish, Portuguese, Sicillians and Byzantines. Keep in mind that whwn this architecture set was originally made in The Forgotten it was for exclusively the Italians (Spanish, Byzantines had other architecture sets). All the other current Architecture Sets have only 3-6 Civs that share them
24 Likes
Also, the set now represents south europe in general since Georgians arent mediterranean
Although TBH Portugal isnt mwditerranean but theycare culturally mediterranean imo
6 Likes
I would expect to get at least Orthodox priest/monastery model to differentiate some of these civs since developers are too lazy or cheap to give us a new architecture set.
7 Likes
I hope they introduce equal number of civs to other architecture sets as well.
2 Likes
Im not sure I agree, we just reached a point in which we could do a 8 player game with all diferent south european arvhitecture cuvs which is just ridiculous and dull
2 Likes
Problem simply is that Devs are too lazy to add a new architecture set because this was the occasion more than anything before.
Southern Europe or Mediterranean set is off for byzantines, Armenians, Georgians and Romans.
Just give them a “late Roman, early Christian orthodox” set and you have 4 and 4, very simple.
The set would take inspiration from hagia Sophia, late Roman civil basilica like the one of massentius, paleo Christian art, specially in Ravenna but also early Constantinople, the Balkans, Gelati monastery (change the central European one to something more in line with Teutons or Vikings) etc. It may look like I’m throwing random stuff but there’s a common aesthetic between all these landmarks.
The current Mediterranean set fits better later Catholic (key word for western) south European civs like Portugal, Spain, Italy and Sicilians… all coming after year 1000 when the shift between them and orthodox Christianity consumed.
They already wasted two occasions for this set, after Romans and now…
13 Likes
They should create a new architecture set for the Byzantines, Armenians and Georgians.
10 Likes
Maxentius basilica in Rome (early 4th century).
Galerius mausoleum, then a church in Thessaloniki (late 3rd, early 4th century).
San Vitale in Ravenna, 5th century.
Galla placidia mausoleum, 5th century (tell me it wouldn’t fit byzantines and Caucasus)
Gelati monastery.
Hagia Sophia before ottoman conquest.
See the trend? Now Devs please make your work worthy of 15 bucks lol (15 without counting RoR…)
Edit: of course I can see the argument of giving Romans and Georgians the same set a stretch but always better than 8 civs spanning hundreds of years and miles away in the same spot!
6 Likes
Mediterranean Architecture Set already has as many as 8 civs. I see the need to divide it into as many as 4-5 Architecture Sets:
- Balkan / or Byzantine - Bulgarians and Byzantines + Serbians
- Caucasian - Armenians and Georgians
- Iberian - Portuguese and Spanish + Aragonese
- Italian (current Mediterranean Architecture Set) - Italians, Romans and Sicilians + Venetians and Croatians
- Roman*** - optionally unique Architecture Set for Romans
3 Likes
I am also in favor of this direction, that the Mediterranean architecture set should now be divided into at least 2 architecture sets with the arrival of the Armenians and Georgians.
Western south european Set:
Portugal, Spain, Italy, Rome, Sicily
Eastern south european and or Caucasian Set:
Byzantium, Armenia, Georgia
I would like to pay 20 dollar for such a cosmetic architecture DLC, to be honest.
6 Likes
I would be personally be happy with unique monastery for Byzantines and romans, and one shared by Armenians and Georgians.
1 Like
Lazyness is a strange accusation (and it sounds a bit entitled to me), every dev team is divided by tasks and those who would actually have to work on designing new architecture are most likely not the ones to decide what they will work on.
Cheap, I don’t know as I have no idea how much it would cost. I guess destruction animations alone means if they want to do new sets they would need to hire someone to work full time on the new architecture sets? Anyway, once again the one working on this would not be the one to decide the budget.
6 Likes
If you sum up all the DLCs it’s a total of 60 bucks which is what you normally spend for a full game or even more. Not even a single architecture set added since then? Come on…
This is the only thing I expect, the rest is kinda subjective like not splitting Persians or campaigns not always being original or good.
But this is the con of getting DLCs from time to time against one full game, that they can sell you things at small doses giving you the impression that you’re getting very little content yes but you aren’t paying that much after all… but if you sum it all up the content probably doesn’t equal a full game (the price you paid). Now they even increased from 10 to 15.
I haven’t seen consumers having crazy expectations till now given how many people are working on aoe2 and all get payed for it (differently from losers like modders, theorycrafters and campaign creators eheh it’s always said they keep the game fresh and alive with their inventions and ideas given for free but are never recognised) and anyway always better to be a mindful consumer than a mindless one (I dislike the word consumer and fan already enough lol).
But that’s just my opinion.
12 Likes
Either case the truth is that compared to stuff like AOE3 gets a lot of effort devoted to new graphics wgile AoE2 gets very little. Heck, we get 25% less campaigns with each 15$ DLC and they are almost always 5 scenarios long
Now Im not sure how complex is the method devs use for destruction animatiobs but considering most AOE3 civs get plenty of new buildings and a very high ammount of new unir graphics while AOE2 gets little. It may be a budget issue, but even then I think calling them lazy isnt being that entitled
4 Likes
If the devs would have made an American, an African and a Central Asian one instead of LotW, DotD and RoR, we wouldn’t even have this problem.
TBH for a while it seemed like I was the only one complaining on that but I was told that I was an “Eurohater” or some other things.
The bloat now is just a consequence of the fact that they got away with it several times now. It started with the 5th “Italian split” (what a weird world we live in) but really culminated with DotD where they added 2 civs on a set which had already 4 civs. Complaints about architecture distribution got shot down from members of the community themselves, further indicating to the devs that they really don’t have to focus on that. Not even complementing the old civs with unique castles which they seemingly only introduced to not make it too blatantly clear that new graphical assets were going to be a rarity from now on.
Now you’ll have to deal with it.
9 Likes
I get that it’s kind of BM, but it’s a crude but effective shorthand for consistently having a low bar in terms of new content. We can call it something that sounds nicer, and is probably more accurate, like “insufficient allocation of resources,” or blame a soulless entity like the corporations that manage the game, but ultimately players want to feel like they can hold someone accountable for low volume and sometimes low quality output, instead of just shouting into the void.
It’s a weird feeling when a team of unpaid amateurs produces better content than the official devs. Probably the best example of this is Rome at War vs. Return of Rome, although there are others. Amateurs tend to go the extra mile just to get noticed, whereas sometimes it feels like the dev team is resting on their laurels and taking an unnecessarily minimalist approach. Or that they’ve lost the passion that once motivated the FE team. So while it’s probably not fair to say it’s lazy, someone is making the decision to leave a lot on the table. And it’s a poor decision.
That said, while I wish for more, I am glad to be getting new civs with at least a few new assets.
12 Likes
Look, Italians split 5 times and they’re still just Italians… but of course it’s a matter of Europeans Vs the world as Always. This train of thought is in line with the world war is exploding right now irl after all. There is always someone against someone, there’s no space for all civs so we gotta make selections, Europeans got too much so it’s a fault etc…
Thanks God, you said it! Probably because you’re a designer yourself iirc and you get that frustrated feeling of having passion and no money.
Probably for most people here 15 bucks are nothing but for me it’s either a poorly payed terrible job where I get constantly harassed or either asking them to my mom…
In the end very valuable things always come from passion and despite money but unfortunately despite what TV ad says the world doesn’t work with passion, it just drains it to create value (thanks Marx!)
But in the end we’re just old men screaming at clouds so it’s pointless to lament and then buy the next product…
Edit: also bugs. Most custom designers correct bugs in their campaigns in a matter of days. Just look at how much time Devs take to fix bugs, specially if scenario editor related (I think it’s been 6 months since when the replace object hp bug has been reported) and they get payed for it. That’s proof that in the end it’s not money that makes things valuable but somehow here we are…
2 Likes
Example outcome (just an example):
[NEW] Late Roman: Byzantines, Goths, Huns, Bulgarians, Romans, Armenians, Georgians
Mediterranean: Italians, Portuguese, Sicilians, [NEW CIV] Aragonese
West European: Britons, Franks, Celts, Burgundians, [renamed] Castilians
Central European: Teutons, Vikings, [moved] Bohemians, [NEW CIV] Swiss
In summary:
- The Late Roman set is also used by Goths and Huns;
- Bohemians moved to CE set;
- With the addition of Aragonese, the “Spanish” renamed Castilians and reverted to WE set.
The current Mediterranean Fortified Wall hybridizes Walls of Constantinople with Italian “swallowtail” merlons. Two new designs are needed: a Late Roman FW that is plainly WoC without the merlons, and a Mediterranean FW not based on WoC.
You’re resolving an issue while creating another one: in this way it’s the late Roman set who becomes overcrowded… it works for Romans, goths, maybe Huns and byzantines but the others become a bit of a stretch. Fact is that they should have divided the Mediterranean set when adding Romans (grouped with goths and Huns) and again with Caucasian civs (grouped with byzantines and Bulgarians, maybe Magyars too?) but that’s clearly not on the horizon…
Also the central European set is ugly and represents only (barely) Teutons and Bohemians. Huns? Goths? Vikings? What the heck is that?
But more than anything are you arguing about adding European civs?!?!? There’s a non written law here which states:
We have too much euro civs but Devs keep making them so buy them because after all you like the game but keep lamenting because that’s easy, like a baby who eats his own meal and tell you it’s buuu. And do not ever be constructive about it like proposing African campaigns or civ built or split or whatever… no just lament about Europe under the secret assumption that if you can’t give Africa any better you need to make Europe look worse like that friend of yours that dislike the fact you’re not as bald as him so instead of doing something for himself he dreams of you becoming bald. Aka destructive criticism.
Rather than make a completely new building set from scratch just take the route of western and central european set,same base buildings with different roof colors and few buildings changed.