I really wish Aztecs had Chinampas and Incas had Terrace Farms. It would be a lot more interesting than the standard Farm.
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Iâm finally at home, so I wanted to expand on this idea a bit.
Imagine the Aztecs have four Nobles - the Otomi, the Shorn Ones, the Eagles, and the Jaguars. Each of these needs to be trained alongside its servants; For the sake of quick names, letâs call them the Puma Spearmen, the Coyote Runners, the Serpent Slinger, and the Rabbit Runner. (We can argue about names later.)
The goal would be to be able to train the Puma, Coyote, Serpent, and Rabbit separately, by themselves, from the âWarhut,â in a normal fashion. Nothing different here, and they would be upgradeable here.
But the four Nobles - the Otomi, the Shorn Ones, the Eagles, and the Jaguars - would require training one of them alongside 3-4 lesser units, to be trainable in squads of 5 population. Each of the Nobles would be a 2-pop unit, but, because of this banner squad training setup, they have the freedom to be insanely cost-efficient, since they cannot be trained in batches and they can only be accessed in small numbers at any given point.
I imagine at least one of them, probably the Shorn One, would be a 3-pop unit on its own.
The cost-efficiency of the Nobles would be akin to if Hatamoto cost 2 pop instead of 4. The power budget would be there, since the only way to access masses of Nobles would be to delete 3/5 of your military population.
An interesting side-effect might be that Aztec military shipments also comprise of similar Nobles squads, but with a heavier skew towards Nobles - So an Age 3 shipment of Shorn Ones might be 2 Shorn Ones and 2 Serpent Slingers, or 3 Otomi and 3 Coyote Runners. It would make sense that the Colony has less Nobles available to them than the Home City, and that the Home City is more readily able to send Nobles.
Weâve had this discussion before, but thatâs simply not true. While not accurate by the measure of a phd thesis, their depiction is similar to other depictions of the natives from the last century contemporary american tradition, like the movie pocahontas. You canât blame the devs for what is essentially american tradition at this point.
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âTheir depictions are equally made-up as other depictions of Natives out there.â
âtheir depictions are as accurate as other depictions of natives out thereâ, more like it.
So⊠your defense is, âBecause everyone else makes up entirely fantastical depictions of Natives, itâs alright for us to do it here, too.â?
That⊠thatâs seriously what youâre going with?
Essentially (since you strawman me anyway), yes.
Idk what version of the game you play, but the natives in my version look like the natives on official united state flags. And unless you want to change the states, those are here to stay.
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Your whole argument sits on you pulling out stereotypes and racist depictions and calling them âaccurate.â
My whole point is these are, largely, awfully done. Just because theyâre recognizable doesnât mean theyâre good. Minstrel shows are also recognizable - but that doesnât mean theyâre good.
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Imagine someone whose view of other parts of the world was shaped and solidified by a few video games and movies decades ago, and spend so much mental effort neglecting any disruptions to itâŠ
As a continuation of the other thread because it was in slow mode, me in 2005 would be severely disappointed if he finds out that himself 18 years later still hold no more knowledge than what he learned from a 2005 game.
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2009 me is ecstatic that I can speak some Lakota and helped create a cool mod for AoM featuring the Lakota. Go play it! The Lakota over there are super cool and have some unique features I think would fit them here, as well.
AOM? Really?
I never heard of such a mod.
The Divine Edition mod for AoM. I helped the creators implement the Lakota as a new civ.
So, according to you, the state flags are racist?
Chu Ko Nu has been a symbol of the AoE Franchiseâs Chinese since the last century. Therefore, in AoE3, it is also the most basic unit of Chinese civilization. Many Chinese players accept this design, not because this kind of crossbow was a common weapon of the Chinese army (the truth is, it has never been mainstream), but because of respect for the style of game design. This is not only a Chinese civilization, but also a civilization of the game.
In my opinion, Plaza is a similar existence. Since 2006, this mechanics has been a symbol of Native civilization. It can change skins, change animations, change names, even change the ceremonies inside and tweak its mechanics, but in the end they will most likely not be removed in official. You donât like it, some people donât like it, but there are definitely people who do, at least Iâm one of them. As I stated, they are actually another important part of the community that supports the game, and finding ways to help them accept and adapt should also be important.
Even if your ideal is to remove it completely, I invite you here to think about what else you can do to make it better if the official says it wonât be removed.
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If they come out and say that it wonât be removed, then I will try and think of alternatives.
But until then, I see no point in encouraging the devs to think that including this mechanic is a possibility. It detracts from gameplay in every way possible and is almost the sole reason the Natives canât keep up in the late game. There is essentially no way to balance constantly being down 15 vils from other nations without breaking their baseline, and the ceremonies only bring the Native civs up to the normal level that other civs have permanently, without needing some silly mechanic to bounce back and forth on.
The Chu Ko Nu, while ahistorical, isnât negatively effecting the gameplay of China.
So in this topic I proposed a way to improve while reserving the Plaza.
I introduce âKnowledgeâ there, which is a free tech line that takes a lot of time to research. Those important effects, including training speed and attack power, can be changed from Ceremonies to Knowledges, so you can fully own them in the later game. And thereâs still another Knowledge that boosts the effects of Ceremonies so that effects that are still Ceremonies, such as trickling XP, are also worth 15 villagers.
Even reduce the maximum number of units on the Plaza, and thus increase the efficiency of each unit. But I have reservations about that for now.
This is a great mechanicâŠ
âŠfor the Aztecs and Inca.
Thereâs no point in preserving the Plaza, in its current form, for the Lakota + Hauds. While it makes them strong in the early game, it actively holds them back in the late-game, and short of making them absolutely OP in some weird ways, thereâs no way for them to compete with other civs because the Plaza is holding them back.
Knowledge would make an interesting mechanic for the Aztecs and other Mesoamerican civs, but I think the ###### need their own direction.
Lul these reletive threads always result in going around in circle. Somebody just cant accept a truth that THIS IS A GAME.
Every civs in this game are all misdescripted somewhere due to the gameplay or balancing issue and most people live in these civs accept it for a better game quality.
Removing ANY mechanic may cause unpredictably disater balance.
If you really want to promote your proud culture, you should be a textbook editor, a content creater, a influencer, not just canceling everything you dont like.
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Can we at the very least keep all the politcal buzzwords out of these threads? If I never hear from âPolitical Correctnessâ or âCancel Cultureâ again itâll be too soon.
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The play rate of the Lakota + a Hauds is about half of what it should be, the civs are only really played for specific rush strategies, and the Plaza is a problematic mechanic that dumpsters the late-game of the Native civs because they are permanently 15 villagers down from every other civ, just to maintain a baseline functionality that other civs get permanently with techs.
The Plaza is a poor mechanic. It serves no cultural representation purpose and it makes these civs impossible to balance past fortress age.
Get rid of it.