The game’s logic seems to be that Eastern Romans are always Byzantines even as early as the first Alaric scenario when the two were still (sort of) one. Not that they couldn’t break it for Belisarius.
Suebians/Swabians and Alemans could be the same yeah only problem is that Alemans could also mean Swiss maybe but Swiss could be their own civ instead.
I think if you give Romans a campaign and some other civ to fight against they will make much more sense.
New architecture sets :
Roman style : Romans, Goths, Vandals, arguably Saxons
Looks like heavily damaged late-roman architecture in feudal age. It gets properly repaired in castle age, and buildings with an imperial age upgrade get more ornate
Western steppe : Huns, Alans, Cumans
Use a lot of tents in feudal age, while in castle and imperial it looks closer from the hunnic castle, wood construction rebuilding ruined stone foundations.
Byzantine architecture : Byzantines Bulgarians Armenians Georgians
Medieval byzantine architecture, would fit them better than the current italian one.
Suebi and maybe Saxons would keep the central european style. For Saxons it depends if you focus more on Anglo-Saxons (who would try keeping roman buildings for a while) or mainland Saxons.
It’s also possible to keep the Goths as it is, which is easier 
I agree that their +10 pop bonus is a relic from the Age of Kings. It should be a percentage boost instead, and 8% looks ideal.
Yes, I agree. Roman influence on the Saxons was minimal. They were even pagans up to Charlemagne. I think they could have the Central European one.
The only question I have is how to make the Roman and Byzantine architectures distinct. In my opinion they could perfectly share architecture (the only problems is that many civs would have it).
We’ve had the Goths since CD AOK (insignificant after the early 700s, there isn’t enough meat with Crimea), the Franks taking some from the invasion period (throwing axeman, which I’m not sure if they still used them by the time of Charlemagne…), Persians mostly based on the Sassanids and heroes like Belisarius in the editor, while The Conquerors added the Huns with a full campaign for them. So the invasion period has always been on the table.
It’s very weird for a civ whose main kingdoms were knocked out in the 500s and 700s to get gunpowder, invented 2 centuries later in China and only developped in Europe in the 1300s.
Yeah, but losing Hand Cannoneers and Bombard Cannons without proper compensation would be a huge blow to the Goths.
As a major civ crafter I can easily
Surmise a very regional unit crossroad for rhe Alans the way I cannot for Vandals. Alans arent just Vandal followers thry also have land in the Caucuses in the steppes and they are almost Persiatic
I gotta do everything in my power to make this civ worthy of mule cart steppe lancer and possibly even Savar see the light of day
Exactly. The Vandals and Alans walked very different paths for most of their existence, so they should be separate civs with very different gameplay styles. Combining them together just because one group was allied with the Vandals is highly myopic. Like, the Alans would have Fortified Churches and the Vandals would not, and the Vandals would have some kind of University bonus. The two versions in this post just lack any sauce. Everything is extremely generic and non-distinct.
The premise of this situation is an assumption I mentioned at about the beginning of the reply:
There are only one civ, and if that civ is the Vandals, can it also have something from Alanis as there won’t be another civ. And I think it can. That’s it. This civ might also have something Caucasus and steppe, like Fortified Churches and steppe Lancers, in addition to have something Vandals-like, such as looting, navy and University bonuses, in order to represent both the Alanis and Vandals as decently as possible.
I don’t really object the Alanis to be their own civ. I even suggested that the Alani civ could have the Alaunt dog a their one of UUs. Just that having a co-civ with the Alanis and Vandals would be fairly possibly the choice of the devs, based on my understanding of them.
Mule Cart is actually very specific to a region of Georgia. Even the Armenians should not have it, nor the Alanis should.
Mules have existed for eons before Georgia and in more places than it. They’ve been pack animals all over Eurasia and even into Africa
Yeah if you just simply mean carts pulled by mules, you can say every non-American civ can have access to Mule Cart.
What I mean is, there is a mountainous region of Georgia (Kakheti, I guess) has been famous with heavily usage of mule carts or donkey carts, as far as I learn. That might be why the devs specially adapted the idea of Mule Cart when they were developing the Caucasus DLC. I’d say the Mule Cart could or should be a unique thing to the Georgian civ for the cultural meaningfulness.
Yeah as much as I like Alans it’s unlikely they’re gonna be added with Vandals as separate civs. They don’t have a famous and brilliant ruler as Gaiseric (who along with Attila is arguably the guy giving the western empire its death blow, there are theories about the two being allied at one point) and they’re poorly recorded if you compare them to other dark age civs.
Just for the kingdom of Alania alone they deserve a spot (similar to Khazars) but I doubt it’s a Devs priority.
Maybe not, but they still have Goar. And the end of the campaign could provide yet another perspective on the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains.
Yeah I know him, to me everything related to late antiquity is fascinating (to me 3k timeframe is not much of a problem in that sense) but realistically I can’t see them adding Alans although there are Cumans so maybe…
But I could see Vandals and Saxons as more relevant, I mean Vandals and especially Saxons are definitely extremely relevant to the middle ages.
About the Saxons, I have a better idea now that I thought more about it. Forgive me for being greedy.
The Central European style starts being quite empty so let’s at least move the Bohemians (fully part of the HRE) to it, if not the Magyars and Poles too.
As for the Roman and Byzantine styles, there would be similarities but the Romans would be from an earlier period, with an idea of reversing the decline, based on 4th and 5th century Western Europe (as it would be civs knocked out very quickly). While the Byzantines would be mostly based on the Balkans and Anatolia from the Byzantine period, evolving in their own direction in later centuries. The roman style may feel more austere while the byzantine style would be more ornate, with more eastern touches (which would indeed be copied by muslims)
An easy difference for the walls, compare Aurelian’s Walls in Rome to the Theodosian Walls in Constantinople. Monasteries, compare a roman basilica to a byzantine domed church.
This is a great topic as certain late antiquity civs make much more sense than Italians, Spanish and Portugeuse. Other civs like Burgundians should also have a unit from their germanic identity like the Franks throwing axeman. Bulgarians i always thought should be Bulgars as the Magyars are not called Hungarians.
I don’t think than Burgundians should have a unit from their germanic identity because ingame the Burgundians are based on the late Middle Age duchy. In french we have two names for them, we call the late antiquity/early middle age Burgundians : Burgondes. Royaume des Burgondes (Burgundians kingdom). And for the the Middle Age duchy we call the Burgundians : Bourguignons. Duché de Bourgogne (Duchy of Burgundy).
For the late antiquity/early middle age Burgundians it’s better to pick the Goths with their huskarl or the Franks with their axe thrower or any upcoming civilization featuring the vandal or the suebi.
Also I think making the Suebi a late middle age gunpowder civilization are not good for a migration period DLC.
Yes though they have a couple of AI names referring to their early Kingdom.
This describes a lot of civs in the game. Celts are especially bad about this.