Medieval Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) architecture AOE2

That is indeed a good potential factor! I personally like AOE2 more because I feel it makes a good balance of “Easy to play, hard to master” as opposed to AOE1 which is “easy to play, easy to master” or AOE3 which is “hard to play, hard to master” due to its complex mechanics.

Thank you for the sources! Much obliged. The Mann&Fields “August 1142” findings I pulled from were made in 1997, and the “August 18 909” date I mentioned was published in 2013. The main reason I would perhaps trust them more than the other 1700s/1800s sources is due their recentness.

You could still have a point when it comes to bias. Native Americans mostly claim earlier dates, and Caucasians mostly claim later dates. Who knows.

What we do know, is that by the time the Europeans show up in the late 1500s and early 1600s, the Innu, Algonquin, and all other ethnic groups in the area are fleeing in terror from the Iroquois early on. (I mainly refer to the ventures of New France).

I think it’s a pretty safe bet to settle on a medieval date. Even if you wouldn’t just go off of them, the archaeological record shows that the Iroquois as a people are around throughout medieval times. Even if they’re just separate ethnic groups, based on the effort and engineering it takes to make a pre-contact settlement like the CapitalCity/Wonder seen above before European contact, they’re still powerful and coordinated in the Middle Ages.

This is news to me lol - Hadn’t heard that before

Of course, the same aoe 3 seems hard, but it is not so much once you get used to its mechanics … I play it since its launch and never consider it a hard game, maybe yes complex for people who are not used to playing more modern RTS…

Of course, that is, perhaps they are medieval native peoples, but there are no reliable records that can locate them from what we know as the medieval period per se… We only know of them from records after 1600…

Yes, colonial issues I suppose… the Iroquois allied themselves with the English and their enemies the Algonquins allied themselves with the French and killed each other throughout the seventeenth century… For something many Iroquois allied with the British, both in the American War of Independence (1775-1783), and in the War of 1812 (1812-1815)…

I’d say AoE3 is easiest to actually play. However, there’s a lot of concepts to learn right off the start that are a bit of a barrier to getting to that point. But once you do it’s the most streamlined gameplay.

I personally find the upgrade card-home city system, upgrade-revolution system, and the multiplicity of counter-units to be much more complicated and specific than AOE2

May I ask what you think is harder to learn for a newcomer about AOE2?

AoE2 is not harder to learn, it’s harder to play. It’s way less streamlined than AoE3. You have to intensively micro every mundane aspect of your eco. AoE3 skips all that nonsense with more natural resources, no drop offs, infinite farms, and crates to speed things up. You also don’t have to build a million production buildings to build up a big army. It cuts out using half your APM on dull repetitive eco tasks and let’s you actually play the game.

This is what prevents most people getting into it, but it’s also something that makes the game infinitely customizable and unique. The deck system takes a lot of prior knowledge and learning to set up properly before you even get into the game. So there’s a huge barrier to starting off, but once you get that figured out it’s actually an easier and more fun game to play.

90% of games don’t see a revolution happen so it’s not a major factor in the game.

It’s actually dead simple and far more intuitive than AoE2. The counters actually align with real life and aren’t arbitrary and forced like AoE2 (javelins shouldn’t beat archers). The whole counter system is basically covered by one picture:

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@Zartusht Another important thing when playing [Age of Empires 3] is to be open-minded about it. Don’t judge the game from an [Age of Empires 2] perspective, see it with new eyes. By doing so you will see more clearly for what the game wants to be and possibly appreciate its identity.

It is fine if the game isn’t to your liking, we all have our own different tastes for what we like or not. Just don’t hate on the game because it deviates from the formula of the previous two games, which is something that some nostalgists do and that is a petty reason.

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Of course, besides that the economy is more simplified…With the mills you have infinite food, with the haciendas you have infinite gold / coins and with the factories you have infinite wood…

Now it is easier, since in the 3 DE all the cards are unlocked from the beginning, and the points to level up are now only used to unlock cosmetics in the home city…and revolutions would be like an alternative imperial age…

It can be the height and ballistics, in addition to the deposits of resources or ultimately greater macro and micro in general…In AoE 3 the macro is more simplified, but the abilities increase the micro…

Of course in short, cavalry beats artillery, artillery to infantry, light infantry to heavy infantry and heavy infantry to cavalry…ready…

Of course, I wouldn’t have said it better… The same goes for AoE 4…

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AOE2 does a pretty terrible job at showing how counters work, AOE3 straight up gives you the numbers, even if you cant read the language you can learn AOE3s system.

the economy was also somewhat simplified in AOE3, still complex by most RTS standards but deff easier to get into than AOE2.

the things that makes AOE3 more complicated is: unit variety, esp between factions, and the homecity system, in most other aspects its similar or easier.

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Yes? It’s easy to learn AOE2 mechanics like lumber camps and hard to master them by micro-ing. Agreed I think the AOE3 resource drop mechanic helps economic efficiency and gameplay.

But, when it comes to learning curve I know at least half a dozen people who felt AOE2 was more inviting because of it and were deliberately turned away from AOE3 because of how complicated the counters are. The Rock-Paper-Scissors method of AOE2 has allowed the 60 year old moms and dads of several friends learn how to play from scratch when they’d never seen the game before. AOE3 mechanics are a mountain of intimidation, suited to people who already have an acquired taste or can stomach making one. Out of those half dozen people I’ve gotten to try AOE3, none of them wanted to buy or play any more of it.

Yes it does, sadly. luckily, most people I introduce to it personally have an easy time jumping in when you compare infantry, ranged units, and cavalry to rock-paper-scissors.

Yea, AOE3 feels like you’ve got to learn Magic The Gathering or DND for the first time to achieve that customizability, it turns your average person away. I find it fun, personally, but I’ll never be able to get my AOE2 friends or any other average Joe I know to join

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy was most likely founded in the 15th century. A better fit for the timeline would be Mississippian culture, which flourished between 800 CE and 1600 CE.

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Mississippians would be pretty awesome!

I’d love to reenact the battle of Mabila, or play as the kingdom of Spiro or Cahokia in general.

Even if you take the stance of the Iroquois being founded in the 1400s, their historic relevance/notability in the AOE2 timeline is still comparable to the Portuguese or Koreans

Before 1600, the Haudenosaunee are conquering and absorbing the Saint Lawrence Iroquois and all but exterminating other tribes like the Innu.

And, even if we’re not counting the start-date of the Confederacy, and considering the Iroquois as a people (which includes Huron and Cherokee), they’re still very active:

Cherokee are trading with and living like Mississippians

Historians like Louis F. Burns has concluded, based on archaeology, the early Haudenosaunee violently expanded into modern Ohio and Kentucky, dispelling thousands of Sioux speaking peoples to the west.

Iroquois, like the Huron, innovated farming with the Three Sisters Technique, producing so much more food than the surrounding peoples that the Algonquin would often refer to them “The storehouse of grain”.

Wasn’t this after the arrival of Europeans and entirely a result of Europeans displacing the Algonquin speaking peoples westwards?

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This just isn’t accurate. AoE3 counters are simpler and more intuitive than AoE2. Every counter is historical and far more logical than javelins beating longbows. And all of the stats are plain to see with no hidden bonus nonsense.

Every single RTS out there has rock-paper-scissors counters, that isn’t some special AoE2 thing. The only thing that makes AoE2 counters easier to handle is the fact that there is an order of magnitude fewer units in AoE2. With so many unique units it’s a bit harder to identify what everything is without some familiarity with AoE3.

I’m not saying it’s unique or accurate. AOE3 is far better there. I’m just saying it’s much easier for your average person to learn, and in my practical experience, getting people I know in person into the games works much more with AOE2 because the mechanics ares more accessible. I’ve gotten about 11 people to become permanent AOE2 players. I’ve tried and failed getting 6 people into AOE3, and every time the hurdle is the learning curve.

These are the results from my personal amateur impromptu ‘survey experiment’ lol.

Again, I like AOE3, it just doesn’t have the scale and accessibility of AOE2

  • It is clear that you have made up your mind, and I have mine. After this, I will no longer respond to AOE3-AOE2 mechanics posts/comments here as they are not the focus of this forum topic.
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That is partly true, AoE 3 input has a wall or a mountain of difficulty for new players, but it is not that it is difficult to overcome, that is if I with 8 years without ever having played an RTS before, I could play AoE 3 in its day when it came out, anyone can…in fact 2 years ago during the pandemic I taught my younger brother to play that well he was already 16, but he had never been a pc player and at 2 hours he already felt like a fish in the classroom playing AoE 3, then I showed him the other AoE and after having played all the aoe games, I asked him which one he was staying with and he told me AoE 3…

It is that in part it is…Since the decks of the homecity are based on the decks of Might and Magic 3…

Of course, I think it’s a better choice…

Yes and we would even have a campaign and everything…

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Yes, it can be…

After contact with the Europeans, especially the French and Dutch, the Algonquin nations became active in the fur trade. This led them to fight against the powerful Iroquois, whose confederacy was based in present-day New York. In 1570, the Algonquins formed an alliance with the Innu (Montagnais) to the east, whose territory extended to the ocean. Culturally, Omàmìwininì (Algonquin) and the Michi Saagiig (Mississaugas) were not part of the Ojibwe–Odawa–Potawatomi alliance known as the Council of Three Fires, though they did maintain close ties. Omàmìwininìwak (Algonquins) maintained stronger cultural ties with the Wendat, Abenaki, Atikamekw and Cree, along with the Innu (Montagnais), as related above.

I couldn’t have said it better…

Yes, because it takes time…in AoE 3 you have to have patience, even a lot of patience to go shelling it little by little and go with an open mind, but it is impossible that you can appreciate it and enjoy it as it should … imagine that I have been only in the 3 DE for more than 1125 hours and counting and I have only played mainly with 4 civs (not counting the ones I have tried during the challenges events),5 counting Italy since the day before yesterday…

Yes, let’s leave it in that each of the games is accessible and different in its own way, because otherwise it is a debate that will never end and all the arguments are valid in one way or another…

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No, according to historian Louis F. Burns, it would’ve occurred before 1200 A.D.

Additionally, historians like Diana Muir Applebaum have concluded that the Iroquois were an imperialist and expansionist power long before European contact (partially thanks to their agriculture innovations).

Yes, it varies depending on the historian you ask…The lack of data prior to the arrival of the Europeans is what complicates the events narrated, I think they could include the Iroquois but only based on data between 1142 and 1570…in aoe 2 you could see its origins… besides, it’s just adding the iroquois warrior as a unique unit, two unique technologies one for castle age (Wampum - Ranged infantry get +10% attack) and the other for imperial age (Haudenosaunee Morning Wars - Gives you 1 Iroquois Warrior-they are similar to the Frankish Axeman Thrower- for every 2 minutes the game has passed, up to 30 minutes,in total 15 Iroquois Warrior) and giving it the technological tree of the meso civs (this is more or less the case in aoe 3), the campaign would be Deganawida narrated by Hiawatha about how they defeat Tadadaho and create the Confederation in 1570 (Hiawatha’s song) and already in aoe 3 you would see them at their zenith fighting against the Europeans…

Narrative of the Deganawida campaign (1529/1531-1570) (narrated by Hiawatha in his song):

Prologue of the first mission:

  1. The Migration and Separation of the People (pre-history of the area) (maybe in 1142 or 1451 with the solar eclipse)
  2. The Birth and Growth of Deganawida (in the 1500s-1510s)

First mission (similar to the first Genghis Khan and Moctezuma mission):

  1. The Journey to the Mohawks, the Situation, and the Mission Explained
  2. The Mother of Nations Accepts Deganawida’s Message
  3. The Cannibal Converts (with your monks or maybe with Deganawida and Jigonhsasee itself)
  4. The Prophets Prove Their Power (maybe in the end of 1520s-begin of 1530s)

Second mission (the presentation of the antagonist of the campaign and the exile of Hiawatha how happens in Judith and Sundiata first missions campaigns)

  1. Tadadaho the Wizard Prevents Peace
  2. Hiawatha’s Relatives (maybe his parents) are killed by Tadadaho´s troops and maybe Frankish/French allies (this mission happens c.1534 for the French records of Jacques Cartier first voyage)
  3. Hiawatha Mourns and Quits Onondaga (Hiawatha flees Onondaga as a boy with a few troops to join Deganawida avoiding Tadadaho’s patrols)

Third mission (Deganawida and Jigonhsasee adopts Hiawatha and allies between them)

  1. Hiawatha Invents Wampum (he grown and become general of Deganawida between 1530s and 1560s)
  2. Hiawatha Gives the Mohawks Lessons in Protocol (maybe a stealth mission against the Tadadaho´s troops, who patrol and control the area with an iron fist, as happens in Sundiata’s campaign against the sosso of Sumanguru) (perhaps we will meet again with Jaques Cartier establishing Charl3sbourg Royal in 1541 and helping him defend the colony from the attack of Tadadaho’s troops in exchange for European technology for your Iroquois warriors)
  3. Deganawida Consoles Hiawatha (In the end of the mission, Hiawatha is ambushed by Tadadaho and his troops and flees in pursuit while his men stay behind to stop Tadadaho as they fall in groups…Hiawatha reunites with Deganawida and Jigonhsasee and Deganawida comforts him by telling him not to blame himself and that he does not give up and that the final battle would take time to arrive)

Fourth mission (searching allies for the final battle,circa 1569):

  1. Scouts Travel to Tadadaho (you send a scout to Tadadaho and he gives you 1 hour to get allies or he will attack with all his troops)
  2. Deganawida and Hiawatha Join Oneidas, Cayugas, and Senecas to Mohawks (it`s how the four mission of Prithviraj campaign in 2 DE)

Fifth and last mission (c.1570):

  1. The Four Nations (Mohawks,Cayugas,Senecas and Oneidas) March to Tadadaho`s Onondagas base, Singing the Peace Hymn
  2. Deganawida and Hiawatha Transform Tadadaho (Deganawida as monk converts Tadadaho and with this finish the campaign)

Constitution of the Confederacy and social order of the member peoples (the epilogue cinematics of the fifth and last mission of the campaign)

  1. Deganawida and Hiawatha Establish Iroquois Unity and Law (the Great Law of Peace picture of above)
  2. Deganawida and Hiawatha Establish League Chiefs and Council Polity (The Haudenosaunee Confederacy of Five Nations) (the six and last Nation,the Tuscarora Nation only joins to the Confederacy in 1722 after the Tuscarora War against the British colonies of the Carolinas between 1711 and 1715,but that is already aoe 3 timeline that here not matters)
  3. The Confederacy Takes Symbolic Images (the Hiawatha belt and the Haudenosaunee flag)
  4. The League Declares Its Sovereignty (the Constitutional laws of the Confederacy)

Ceremony

  1. The Condolence Maintains the Confederacy (a sequence of ceremonies for grieving over a deceased chief and appointing a new one) (the death of Deganawida and the appointing of Hiawatha how the new leader of the Confederacy in 1570)
  2. Deganawida Departs (the funeral of Deganawida and the lessons he gives to Hiawatha to face the new challenges of a world that is about to change forever as the image of a French explorer (Samuel de Champlain) emerges in the final cinematic)

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An absolutely fantastic template!

You don’t have to eat too much coconut, just be a fan of the history and try to make everything fit into the saga…xd

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mississippians
Monastery and monks available in feudal age.

Unique Unit: warrior priest Unit with ability to heal allied and own units. Instead of convert ability it has melee attack. Conversation resistant.

unique technologies

Age of castles: heals allied and own units that are close to the monastery. Imperial age: warrior priest restores his health (HP) when killing enemy unit.

Iroquois

Iroquois Single unit: mantlet: hybrid infantry and siege unit. with attack bonus against buildings and archers. With high anti-piercing armor. Semi-distant melee attack, with a double fire rate (with a short interval between shots). Throwing axes.

Unique Building: long house or big house: building available to Iroquois civilization and its allies, capable of training unique units from all teams that are allied with the Iroquois and vice versa.

Unique technology:
Age of castles: ???
Imperial age: contact with the new world: enables (unlocks) gunpowder units: hand cannonner and bombard cannon (but these should have characteristics of native american peoples like american monks.

Mapuches

mapuche South American civilization. I would give them: Two units found in AoE3: DE Two unique units:

Ironwood clubman: infantry unit carrying a large club, whose special ability would be area damage, with a strong and powerful attack, but slow to execute the next blow.
Bolas warrior: infantry unit similar to the slingshot of the Incas (distance attack), but armed with a bola, which when launched had the ability to “cut” the movement for a few seconds. This unit must have attack bonus against cavalry.

Unique technology:

Age of Castles: Horse Stealing: Enables training mounted unit on horseback after destroying an enemy stable.
Imperial age: toqui, special units gain more HP and more attack strength.

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