So, I’m not completely sure, but if I’m not mistaken there will be only 8 civs (anyway that’s the most likely number…).
So we have:
Britons
Indians
Chinese
Mongols
My predictions:
Charlemagne HRE, so a civs that will include the franks, normans, and german states and such… (including like the later HRE, like the one of barbarossa).
ERE/Byzantines, because it was a bridge between the west and the east.
Arabs, with a sistem similar to the chinese dynasties to represent different caliphates.
Norsemen, considering that they interacted with several cultures and civilization, like english, franks and byzantines.
I’m basing my predictions after the pattern that we can see with what is announced already.
To me, it seems like they are trying to introduce factions that would historically fight each other at first. It makes sense for immersion, and it makes sense for campaigns.
Right now we have three Eastern civs that could historically and geographically meet, so let’s start with Europe.
-Franks. We have Britons, and think because of that and the Normand campaign, Franks are a given.
-Vikings. They fit the theatre, being natural opponents to both the Britons and Franks, and the origin of the Normand. I’m sure they’re also very interesting to work on gameplay wise. I think they’ll be renamed as Norse though.
That leaves us with two more civs, and for these I think we’ll see the gap filled between Europe and Asia.
-Rus. What the Slavs are currently in AoE2. The old kingdom of Russia. They fought the Mongols and the Vikings extensively.
-Turks or Saracens. Again, they’re natural opponents to the Franks and Briton’s crusades while also having fought the Mongols and traded with the Indians.
Anyway, that’s my guess for the initial roster, with campaigns for the Franks (normands), the Saracen (repelling Crusades), the Mongols (uniting and invading everything), and the Rus (uniting against the Viking and Mongol threats).
They won’t be “franks” in my opinion, too specific seeing the other civs. Probably more like the HRE, so more generic, and you can decide then to focus more on the franks, normans or germans, like the Chinese.
Turks may be, as another nomadic civs, but not at the release in my opinion.
I don’t think they will be at the release. Maybe they can be added at the expense of the vikings, or with them, but not at the expense of another civ like byzantines.
Yeah they interacted with vikings and mongols a bit, but other civs will simply had a more central role and interacted with more cultures. Their battles too aren’t that spread in the general depicture.
As a DLC they may be added though…
Too specific, with few big civs, you probably want an arab civ that can both fight the byzantine and persians at the early expansion, and the crusaders later on…
The case of Franks is not being too specific. The problem is naming. It’s obvious we’re going to have France, but calling them “French’” is weird. And looking at how they name every other civs after the people rather than the nation, there aren’t many options other than “Franks”. But if they stray from that rule the way they did it with the Delhi Sultanate, then I’m expecting them to be called the Kingdom of France.
Saracens are the one big Arab civ that has been there since the beginning, with Saladin’s campaign. They have nothing very specific, on the contrary, and represent the broad Arabic states.
I don’t know, even kingdom of France seems too much limited…
I personally think that they would call them HRE, the problem is that people tend to identify that with the later HRE, the ones of barbarossa for example.
I’m not an expert of Islamic culture, but if I’m not mistaken saracens aren’t properly the civ from the early expansion, the ones that conquered Middle East and Egypt.
I’d like Turks to be added with an Empire System .
They would be nomadic at the beginning of the game much like the Mongols but later on they can choose 4 different empires much like the Chinese . They can choose to be
Götürks (nomadic with a Chinese influence) , Kuman-Qipchaks (nomadic with a European influence)
Seljuks (sedentary with a focus on cav.Archers)
Ottomans (sedentary with a focus on gunpowder)
Nice idea right there. A Civ that changes how you play every game you play as them, and a great way to get the Seljuk and the Ottoman turks into 1 civ.
(Which I think is a good thing, as we’re definitely not getting a large number of civs in age4.)
I think HRE/Franks/Germany is a strong bet. Something central Europe, but broad enough to cover that whole vibe. Even just “Normans” is a decent one here, but I suppose English basically are already that. Its tricky because with only 8 civs total, you run the risk of over-representing Europe, and I think everyone wants variety from across the world.
Some Nordic thing also makes sense, as we see hints of that in the trailer for campaigns (viking long ships).
Some mediteranian thing to flesh out the lower half of Europe, Byzantines are a good bet here.
Something from Africa, Ethiopians perhaps.
Something from Americas, Aztecs or Inca. (This might be the first expansion though, and they’d low key add in spanish at the same time here, mimicing the Conqourers expansion from age 2, but its just good story telling so why not.)
I’d be very surprised if Aztec/Inca wasn’t in the original release unless there were significant plans already in place for expansions. Given all the research put into Age3 native revamping I’d also be surprised to not see that come forth in interesting gameplay changes here too.
I don’t think adding Mexica or other American civs is a really good idea in the core game since they had very limited interaction with other civs .
I’d say they would stick with Eurasia since out of the 4 civs we know , 2 are Asian , 1 Indian and 1 Europe so it’d better to have civs that had good interaction with the revealed 4 for better scope in campaigns and custom scenarios .
My bets are
•Franks
•Vikings
•Romans
•Arabs
I’d like Turks to be in core game rather than Romans but we all know that the Developers tend to be Eurocentric
Turks , American , African , Indian civs are definitely Expansion material.
