Both Swahilis and Kongolese are better candidates from South Africa than Zimbabweans because their history is more recorded, but I would include all of them in the same DLC. The reason I am saying this is that South Africa is a completely ignored region that would require a new architecture set and a regional scout.
Another DLC would be Nubians, Kanembu and Somalis.
A third would be Songhai, Hausa and Mossi or Beninese.
Oh, yeah, I didnāt think about that! Looks like a perfect candidate for a trash camels UT x)
Yeah Iām perfectly fine with that if itās specifically in service to improving a mostly historically rooted story, a pretty major example of this in AOE2 is in the Byzantine campaign having the main characters of the story be a fictional Noble family that did stuff in Bari, this I consider a good choice as it adds a very relatable framing device for the 200 yearish (last I checked) period of the city the campaign is trying to depict that could be otherwise very dry (You can see how not adding such a thing can be an issue with the AOE4 campaigns, which has no relatable framing devices).
Having a story be completely fictional however cuts at the inherent historically inspired core of Age of Empires that many people like the franchise for, the AOE3 initial Circle of Ossus campaign was one of the reasons that an otherwise good game had such a luke-warm reception.
Iām okay with somewhat fictional campaigns, but the Bari campaigns deprived us of a Belisarius one and for this I will scream at the sky forever.
Honestly Iām a fan of the Bariās campaign unique take on campaign storytelling by having the narrative centerpiece be a specific region over a few hundred years rather than a specific characterās life, but I perfectly sympathise with the blight of Belisauriusā fans
Although the period of time covered is far shorter, this is also the case for the Great Dukes of the West campaign. The Hauteville is sort of similar for the dynastic aspect of the campaign, though itās far less geographically limited. All in all, I think the same thing you praise the Bari campaign for could have been done with a more historical campaign.
Not exactly you ping-pong around various parts of Eastern France/Germany and the Mediterranean for the two campaigns, whereas the Bari campaign is centered around specifically just Appulia over a 200-year period of which the city of Bari is the capital of. I just praised the dynastic aspect as just a way of framing the hyper-specific nature of the previously mentioned thing, rather than being the main draw which it is in the LoTW campaign (atleast with Sicillians). If they had managed to achieve the exact same effect using a completely different narrative pull I would be saying much the same thing
Actuallyā¦
So, a Lithuanian winged hussar, as a point of comparison, has these stats:
80 food
100 hp
11 attack, +14 monks, +4 gunpowder
4/6 armor
1.65 speed
1.9 ROF
10 LOS
conversion resistance
A non-heavy camel rider missing bloodlines, husbandry and the last armor and attack upgrades (compensated for the infantry through some sort of unique tech) with its gold cost replaced by food has the following stats:
115 food
100 hp
8 attack, +9 cavalry, +5 camels, +5 ships, +5 fishing ships
2/2 armor
1.45 speed
2.0 ROF
4 LOS
Its only advantage there is the clearly better unit types it gets an attack bonus to. Honestly, trash camels with these stats may be underwhelming if anything. Even against cavalry they barely do 1.5 times the damage of the winged hussars, EDIT: nope, I should account for armor, they do a lot more damage vs cavalry /EDIT with weaker defenses and an almost 1.5 times higher cost. And if the rest of the civ is focused on foot units anyway (edit: okay, that may not be entirely true for the concept Temudhun posted), the devs have all the room in the world to add and remove cavalry upgradesā¦
I think Somalians could be a real candidate for trash camels, thus completing the holy trinity of an early game version, a post-imp teamgame version and a post-imp 1v1 version of the unit.
The āmore camelsā platform is officially in favor of this concept.
Yeah and I know that Byzantines are better at trash, but at the same time Byzantines have to wait until imperial age to use their own eco bonus. I think they should be at the very least stronger than Italians
I still really would like to see the Shona, even if they might not get a whole campaign due to the relative paucity of knowledge about their medieval history. But you make a fair point that Swahili and Kongo would be easier to implement.
One thing I wonder is whether southern African civilizations would get any cavalry. I donāt think horses ever made it past the tsetse belt in equatorial Africa. So they might play similarly to Native American factions in that respect.
But tbh I could give them something extra. Any ideas?
The only thing I could find about Mutapa is that they conquered 5 kingdoms. It is a nice achievement and would fit a campaign, however, I have not found a site that had detailed information about these conquests.
If you want to add economy bonus, I suggest giving them Huntables do not need Mill to drop off Food or Huntables last 40% longer or Mills can make Sheep.
Fire Ships could cost 20% less in Imperial Age to match Vikings (not needed)
Trash Bonus should be 33% because it would overlap Vietnamese less and their Halbs miss Blast Furnace.
Probably a Camel bonus would be decent because Somalia had the most wild camels but not needed all.
Thatās a valid question, I actually have no idea. The Swahili traded slaves and received new crops through the Indian ocean, so maybe they also got horses through this way, but itās a big maybe and even if it were the case I donāt know if the horses would have survived the climate. If they didnāt have access to cavalry, it may make them the navy/trade cavless faction.
Eh I cant use that for their halbs. Best I could do is make it something like āSkirmishers and spearmen +10/15 hitpointsā
That sounds strong for a civ with cheaper castle age
Youāre right. They didnāt use horses because of the tsetse fly. Europeans tried to bring in horses several times, but they died too quickly. Thatās why subequatorial Africans specialized in infantry: the spearman line was really fast and the militia line delivered devastating blows.
Much of what I wrote for Kongo is true for the Shona as well: Light infantry is the bulk of the army (maybe a regional unit created in Barracks), fast foot scouts (like eagles or a skirmisher scout), no supplies, a lot of poison in arrows, war canoes (maybe a dragonboat that shoots arrows), and early adoption of gunpowder (a bonus or hand cannoneer in Castle Age).
Well, I found these images and some info about Zimbabwe/Mutapa. I think we can be inspired by the models they made, as they were based on the Kondrikthus concept. My sources so far are the UNESCO General History of Africa series for all civs, War in the Atlantic Africa by John Thornton for Kongo and this site for the Shona. The site historum.com has a lot of information and images, we just need to know how to look for it.
Wouldnāt that require moving Chemistry as a tech into the Castle Age?
This is already done for bohemians so would be redundant unless a new unit that can replace the HC is added similar to the Inca slingers.
Probably. I had suggested here and on Discord to unlink some techs that are requirements from others (eg Heavy Plow being Crop Rotation requirement) because either they donāt make sense or because certain civs used one but didnāt use the other. But tbh I donāt think everyone would agree with that, so we better make a bonus for gunpowder units.
Edit: Nevermind. Mahazona is right
Maybe the uu can be a gunner to represent early use of guns?
Thank you! This is the far most helpful site for those who want to learn African history.