Names of Civilizations and the Abbasid Dynasty

I want to share 2 things that bother me in AOE IV. It might seem a little nitpicky because they are related to historical accuracy but I think these details are important. First thing is the naming convention of civs. Why are some civs named after ethnicities (English, French,…) while others as the name of the empire (HRE) or the dynasty (Abbasid Dynasty)?

I understand that sometimes empires and dynasties span more than one ethnicity like the holy roman empire included Germany, North Italy, Burgundy and Bohemia, but then why not use the same naming convention for the rest like Abbasid Caliphate, Kingdom of England, Kingdom of France, Mongol Empire,…? Same thing to be said about choosing the dynasty with the Abbasid but not the others, even though you have very relevant dynasties for the civs named after ethnicities like the Norman, Angevin, Plantagenet (English), Capetian (French), Habsburg (HRE) and so on.

My suggestion is to ditch naming after the dynasty because (in my opinion), while dynasties have important roles in the political climate of empires, many times they were not really in charge, also, many times the dynasty would be of a foreign ethnicity than the ones inhabiting the lands like the Normans with England.

This last point is connected to the second thing which is the Abbasid dynasty. The info page about them describes their reign from 750 till 1517 AD which is correct however, the Abbasid caliphs started losing their de facto authority as early as the 10th century. The ones controlling the lands were buyids and then the seljuks (and their vassals). Moreover, after the sack of Baghdad in 1258 AD and the reinstatement of the Abbasid caliphate in Egypt in 1261 AD, the caliph didn’t have any real authority over Egypt, it was the mamluk sultan. I know that the info page mentions the mamluks as part of the Abbasid dynasty but personally, it undermines the mamluk sultanate and its influence during that time as well as other states like the seljuk empire and sultanate of Rum.

So in conclusion, if the developers choose to continue with ethnicities then replace HRE with Germans (since they were the largest component), Ottomans with Turks (to include their other empires with the seljuks) and Abbasid Dynasty with Egyptians (spanning from 969 AD, the year Cairo was built as the capital of the fatimids till Selim invasion of Egypt in 1517 AD)

I want to hear people’s opinions on this. Thank you for reading all that.

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As always, AOE2DE’s civ names are way better.
And I don’t wanna to write this, but I have to because until now “Jean Darc and OOTD” really ruined the civilization naming method.

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I don’t think the simplification of names is done to annoy anyone.

I also don’t believe that there are ethnic names. Many names are simplifications of larger ones, or of a country that currently exists and from which it derives:

  • England → Kingdom of England, and now is England, the country.
  • French → French Kingdom, and now France.

I guess it has more to do with the “Civ Name Finder”:

If they named England “Kingdom of England”, and in the future they followed that line, we would have:

  • Kingdom of England
  • Kingdom of French
  • Kingdoms of Spain
  • Kingdoms of Rajputs
  • Kingdom of etc N°1
  • Kingdom of etc N°2

And it’s going to be a pain to find the civ you want among so many compound names. On the other hand, “Abbasid Dynasty” has the advantage that “Dynasty” comes after, and Abbasid First, so it is very easy to find.

Delhi Sultanate is another good example. They have “Delhi”, before “Sultanate”, easy to find.


If you mean historical reasons, at least in the case of Abbasid, I think there could be I chose “Abbasid Caliphate” instead of dynasty, to represent the period where they remained only caliphs during the Mamluk Sultanate, and to explain why they had bombards or handcannoners.

But well, it could also be on purpose to differentiate the Caliphate from the Dynasty.The caliphs were also a “dynasty of caliphs” in the long run.

The same is not true of England: England is England, the civ always referred to the English kingdoms, and the very description of the civ on the official website says that They represent the Anglo-Saxons, the Normans, the Kingdom of England and in the post-imperial Tudor period. There is no confusion.

I don’t think it’s a reasonable conclusion, and I don’t think it’s a friendly one.

Many people like the name “Holy Roman Empire”. The name has meaning due to the political entity it represents. Historically, it was a conglomeration of kingdoms, duchies and principalities, but under the rule of an emperor, descendant of one of Charlemagne’s sons. As he had to reign in an area where *“there was no ethnic unity” *, each noble and tribal leader of an area was given the task of ruling his own kingdom.

Considering the TERRIBLE number of names that kingdom has had, that is the best. We would have problems if we called it:

  • Eastern France.- They would have problems with the pick when confusing it with France
  • Carolingian Kingdom.- They would also confuse it with France
  • Holy Empire.- Very short, could be confused with Papel States.
  • Holy Roman Empire.- It’s okay
  • Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.- Too long, and the German part is problematic to translate to other languajes.

And don’t even think about saying the word Teutonic. You don’t know all the problems this civ has caused in AoE2, with the Teutonic Order kingdom existing as an independent entity at the same time that the HRE historically existed, but which unfortunately makes The name is meant to represent two different civs. A mistake that should not be repeated.

The subject of names is too complex to generalize all cases, or to suggest generalizations like the ones you suggested.

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I understand you. It’s more a problem with the beginnings of the game.

When the game came out it wanted to REPRESENT civs that started from the High Middle Ages (476-800) to the beginning of the Modern Age (1550-1600).

However, the reality is that some civs only lasted less than 100 years, and others even 200. And others even only appeared around 1200 or 1300 and not before. How to represent them?

In the case of Abbasid, one of the first civs in the game, they wanted them to be there no matter what, so they gave them a date that was older than the actual end of their dynasty’s rule in 1258.

To do this they made the excuse that they represented the Abbasid period, even from 900 to 1258, where technically they continued to exist as a minor power (But legally the name was still theirs), and the Mamluk Sultanate from 1258 to 1517, where they ruled in the religious aspect as Caliphs, but without the political-military control of a king.

In the long run, for balance: The game does represent the Abbasid army in its glorious years, and the rest of the game, post-imperial, is already after the Mamluk Sultanate, when it obtains cannons for a fee, but in reality it cannot improve further because its history ended there and the power of the Caliph is limited, or only borrowed from the Mamluk Sultanate.

That’s why there’s the House of Knowledge, the sign of the Abbasids, until it was burned by the Mongols in 1258.

As it’s a minimalist, simulated battle game, technically if you were to fight the Mongols, maybe your House of Knowledge would burn and you would always lose, but as it’s a game, and you can show off your commander skills, you can beat them and save your house. That’s pretty much it.

I feel like in the end, Abbasid is more of a date issue than a name issue, when the game was just starting out. Otherwise, they could also change the name to “Abbasid Caliphate”, and they’d be right.


Same problems happen with the Delhi Sultanate (AD 879-1526), but IN THE OTHER WAY AROUND (very early date):

  • It claims to represent the Ghurids (so that its date starts before the year 1000), but in practice since the 2nd age, they have landmarks of the first Delhi Sultanate, after the year 1100, and they do not have horse archers, a Ghurid unit. This can be justified because these archers were Turkish allies in their first battles, or because during the Delhi Caliphate, their employment was lost a lot, and instead Tower Elephants were used.

Proposed solutions:

Recently: with the first expansion with Ottomans (AD 990-1566) in Season 3, there were now civs that could start very late or finish very late (Their Wonder is from 1617) and with the Sultan Ascend DLC, they dared to show even more realistic dates: Joan (AD 1412-1431), Order of the Dragon (AD 1408-1437).

In the future, I suppose they will continue to better represent the dates of the civilizations.

It’s complicated, but it’s more a matter of “political terminology,” and politics is always complicated.

The detail is that the leader of the Islamic religion should in theory be “the Caliph.” However, because Muhammad did not leave a guide on how the succession of leaders should be after his death, there was a civil war within Islam itself. Hence the division of Shiites and Sunnis. In the end, the caliphate that lasted the longest and remained in power was the Abbasid one, because people from the Abbasid clan and their descendants were the ones who put one of them on the throne of the Caliph.

However, there was also no guide on how to be a caliph or what the division was between "military leader" and "religious leader." Some were military leaders, but others dedicated themselves only to urban planning, proselytism or intellectual life, and left the military part to generals.

The thing is that in 1258, after the fall of Baghdad, the surviving Abbasids had to escape to the Mamluk Sultanate. In order not to damage the faith of the faithful, who saw the continuation of the line of Abbasid Caliphs as something sacred, their position within the Mamluk Sultanate was preserved, but in exchange for not intervening in the “military, economic or urban planning policies” of the de facto government.

It could also be that the devs were wrong to put Abbasid Dynasty instead of Caliphate.

I know, I was just reading what the game’s page says:

But, if I wanted to be critical: The game really does NOT represent the Norman period that much, and even less the Anglo-Saxon period. Maybe it does play in the Dark Ages (I) but who plays in that age?

I suspect that at first, it was going to be like the Campaign: The English were not going to have long-range archers, like at the first levels, and they would only unlock “Longbows” in Castle Age, "when they historically conquered the Gauls and obtained this technology.

However, I suppose that for balance, and to be able to show off those long-range archers early, you create them in Feudal Age.

And the Tudor period was not developed so well either… a symptom of the BEGINNING of the game and the Beta, where OUT OF FEAR that putting more than 2 or 3 unique units per civ would be too broken, or that they could not control the balance, they never put them in, and instead the Wynguard Palace created the “normal” English units in groups.

In theory the Landmark Tudor Palace should create Yeoman Guard, Demi-Lancers, and … the Rangers are fine, but the Wynguard Footman does not make sense, also a result of the BETA of the game, where this unit was created using parts from campaign units, and not a new design from some post-imperial English royal troop.

In Hero Company 1, you can command either the Wehrmacht or the Panzer Elite, which is obviously an elite unit of the Wehrmacht or SS. Relics of traditional techniques.

I also LOVED the way they made the Chinese. In fact their model could be applied to several civs.

Curiously, I plan to do it for one of my concepts like the Sultanate of Morocco, with 4 of its best dynasties (Almoravides → Almohad → Marinid → Saadi)

Another civ that follows a similar model of evolving with age is the Japanese:

  • Their Town Centers evolve based on the history of medieval Japan: From Daimyo Manor, to Daimyo Palace, and to Shogunate Castle. Representing that the power accumulated by the daimyos was so much that they even aspired to be the Shogun.

  • Samurai starts with naginata (from the Heian and Kamakura era), and evolves it to Odachi (Ashikaga and Sengoku period).

  • Spearsman only get the Nagae Yari in Imperial Age (IV) to represent the Sengoku Era.

I understand your point, that’s why I want to share a theory I have that explains “Why” it feels like some civs have a historical development in stages (Chinese, Rus), and others not so much, or that they focus more on a certain era (English).

The game in its Beta version

When the game came out, the presentation of the civs included that they considered several historical stages, in the case of the English the Anglo-Saxons and then the Normans, in the Delhi Sultanate it says that it starts from the Ghurids.

Now, the reality is that in Architecture and Language, they fulfilled this in part (it changes according to age), but in the composition of the Army not always. Here are some reasons why

  • Unique Units limited to less than 3.- When the game came out there was fear of imbalance, therefore to balance it, only 1 to 3 unique units were given per civ, and no more. For the sake of completeness, even “Early Units” counted as unique units. This limited the way you could build civilizations quite a bit.

  • Early units and Unique units in Feudal Age:
    People had to be allowed to use unique units from the Feudal Age, or at least each civ had to feel different from the 2nd age, to become an improvement of Aoe2 (where every civ has the same roster in feudal), so similar to AoE3, early units and unique units apear in aoe iV.

  • Units that historically didn’t stand the pass of time:
    Certain units that were in the historical roster from the early stages of the civ, had to be discarded because they didn’t last long or were discontinued in later periods. This is the case of the Frankish Axe Thrower (700-900) or the Norman Vikings (1000-1100).

  • PROMOTION: The Primordial Eight:
    Just to make each of the first 8 civs feel different, it wasn’t enough just to have the bonuses and landmarks. The roster was conditioned so that each civ of the first eight had a unique look, HRE was infantry, English Archers, French Cavalry, Abbasid “Camels”, Mongols: Nomads, Chinese: Gunpowder, Delhi: Elephants, Rus: Hybrid Archer+Cavalry. This aspect is very important, it greatly limited some civs.

  • Game balance, Landmarks + IV Ages + balance + Historicity.
    It’s not easy to balance the game, and even less 4 factors.

  • Ideas that were not implemented at the time:
    There are too many examples: Springald being not antisiege (S0), the naval rework (S3), walls that are well positioned between forests and even mines, etc (S6), or unique units without limits (Japanese, S6).


Applied to English

In the case of the English, we see a lot of those points:

  • PROMOTION OF THE GAME: The Primordial Eight: Archers
    To represent their civ, the English ended up having the longbowman in the Feudal Age, although they should unlock it in the Castle Age (after the conquest of the Gauls); or in feudal as a unique technology to improve archers.

  • Unique Units limited to less than 3
    The English would be: The “villager-archers”, Vanguard men-at-arm (I), and longbowman. This limited them to not having unique units from the Tudor Age (IV), or Viking Raiders from the Anglo-Saxon and Norman era (I).

  • Units that historically didn’t stand the pass of time:
    The Danish Raider of the Campaign (1000-1100), didn´t survive for long. Most English armies discarded the Danish axe in favor of swords and lances. It was a type of unit that did not stand the test of time.

HOW TO FIX IT?

  • Ideas that were not implemented at the time:

  • Unit Improvement (Season9)
    The thing is that when the game came out, the recent Mali innovation had not yet been implemented: “Digi-evolution… I mean Unit Evolution”, which means that a unit can be evolved into a better version (Mansa Unit in Farimba Garrison). That is what could have been done, with the English Archer:

  • Evolve the Archer to Longbowman Archer, with a technology from the Feudal age. In fact, I am going to suggest this idea on the forum, it will be great, it is NOW possible.

  • Make a new unit named Housecal (I).- as Heavy infantry in dark age, and evolve them to “Men-at-arm” at feudal age with a technology. They would have more speed at the cost of less armor. The upgrade to man-at-arms is necessary to develop “clamp armor” in the castle age (so they would evolve to have more and more armor).

  • More unique units
    Like the Demi-lancer (IV)

  • Variants (Season6)
    – I haven’t done a full concept yet, but a previous one I had was a Tudor one. It would mainly focus on “Gunpowder”, the Anglican religion (no monasteries) and mercenaries.
    – I once wanted to do a Norman one, but it didn’t turn out very well. I still have trouble considering whether Sicily deserves a civ or not, because historically it was fought over by the Abbasids, English, French and Spanish Aragonese.

It’s more a problem that the game “is a historical game” but the story doesn’t always turn out the way we want it to. Unlike Christian kingdoms, during the Middle Ages many Muslim kingdoms “didn’t last” long enough to create a country identity, or they did so but through countless kingdoms (Similar to Rus).

Therefore, to represent only one only makes sense if its Army or some attribute of the same gives enough unique units for a civ of its own, but if not, better as you say, as an ethnic group or the country that currently most resembles them and from which they derive.

I recently made a concept of Al-Andalus( Al-Andalus Civilization Concept for AoE IV_By GoldenArmorX v1.02 (English)), precisely to represent the Muslim kingdoms of the peninsula Ibérica, but only those from Ibérica (Spain).

Those of the Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia) I would divide them into 2 variants:

  • Sultanate of Morocco (Almoravides, Almohads, Marinies, Saadi)
  • Sultanate of Ifriqiya (Kingdoms of Tunisia and Algeria: Haffsides)

It is a pity for the Zayanids or Temples of Algeria, but the reality is that during most of their existence, Algeria was part of either Morocco (1307-1359) or Tunisia (1401-1411), or a vassal state of the same (1423-1500) and even a vassal of Spain (1500-1556) and of Kingdom they only had the name.

You are not the only one. Many people when hearing about the variants, the first thing that was suggested was to make Mamluk Sultanate, so that they could finally have a unit called “Mamluk”, and that is well represented:

  • Mamluk: On horseback, such as horse archer or heavy cavalry or a hybrid, but on a horse.

Although currently the Abbasids and Ayyubid have Ghulam to represent Mamluks on foot, the unit we expect, from the Mamluk Sultanate, does not yet exist, and there are several reasons.

In fact, the Abbasids have a stigma, that of the camels, also a result of the theory of “The beta of the game” Do you want to hear it?

Abbasid in the Beta

  • Publicity Campaign: The Primordial Eight: Camels
    One of the key words of the civ. They had to put camels in, no matter what, to be the camel civ of the “primordial 8”. That’s why their build was largely conditioned by camels, and they didn’t have any other unique unit from the Rashidun or Abbasid Caliphate.

  • Unique Units limited to less than 3
    They could have given them only one camel, but they gave them two.
    And what was the third unit? The Imam, a supposedly unique unit without any unique ability or new stats, which, on top of that, if they had considered in advance that there would be future DLCs, they would have realized that Ottomans, Morocco, Mali, Kanem Borgu, Andalus, Morocco, Sultanate of Ifriquiya, all had Imams as a common religious unit. Yep, they made a mistake here.
    That’s why there were no “Mamelukes”, that’s the big truth.

On top of that, in order not to overshadow the camels (because if there were Mamluks as heavy cavalry they would be overshadowed) they were simply not included directly. We have to use suspension of disbelief to see the “Abbasid Lancers” as Mamluk soldiers, but without any special bonus or anything.

HOW DO WE FIX THIS?
Happily, the camel thing can be justified by the fact that they were troops from the Maghreb, the “Maghariba”. The Ghulam, in the game, added only in Season 5, are Mamluks on foot. They would also have more unique units of their respective era. Also, variant now are a possibility.

In the future, a 2nd variant for Abbasids can also be released: The Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt:

  • No House of Knowledge, but “Citadel Complex” (4 new wings)
  • Focus changes from “Camel” to “Cavalry”.
  • Unique Units: Mameluke Lancer, Mameluke Horse Archer, Camel Drummer, Counterweight Mangonel, Super-Trebushet (the one from Sultan Ascend level 7), Royal Mameluke or Sultan’s Mameluke.
    – Unique Camel Unit is Camel Drummer, support with a larger camel aura, but does no damage.
    – Unique Lancer with bonnus aggainst other heavy cavalry.
    – Unique Horse Archer with “Stationary Shot” ability, which improves when not moving.
    – Super-Trebushet as a unique building unlockable by the Citadel, to be built as a building, but it shoots like Trebushet, slowly but with a devastating range.