I have been thinking since I saw the official trailer for AOE II DE, what other civilization could be added to make the AOE III DE experience more fun. When I saw the trailer I noticed buildings with pirate flags being quickly shown. Now I know this is from the campaign but what if we had a pirate civilization?
These are just some really rough draft ideas at the moment on how this civilization could work:
Military:
Is heavily focused on mercenaries, (perhaps mercenaries are cheaper than other nations), navies and assault troops.
Some type of looting/capturing can occur on enemy resources, buildings, settlers, and naval ships. *Perhaps the pirates can have some type of conversion ability like the monks (having a ship admiral instead of a monk to capture units) in AOE II? Or perhaps when pirate troops out number the enemies unit(s).
*Perhaps looting can occur in this example: As pirates burn down a Dutch bank, they receive the coin that is being produced while being destroyed. Instead of the Dutch receiving the coin, the pirates do. Likewise with mills, plantations, and other buildings.
*Land troops could include all the units from all the civilizations (as pirates came from all over).
*Have some cheap type of buccaneer with low hp and ap but are used for looting/capturing.
*Can climb walls with ladders or ropes? (just an idea lol)
Defenses:
Lacks Stone Walls but has unique wood wall defenses and towers different from other nations.
Economy:
*Settlers would be pirates and have more hitpoints/attack points (especially)
*Fishing boats and gold mining boats gather more quickly than other nations while depleting less of that resource in that area
*Docks are cheaper to build
*Ships may be cheaper to build?
*Houses and buildings can look like the they are from the Island of Tortuga
*Ships can provide some population increase.
Explorer:
*Can have a fowl companion (with hp) like a parrot that soars overhead and scouts an area or it can be an ability like the spyglass showing a parrot flying around but disappears as soon as the ability times out. Has no hp. (maybe for x amount of time, then it has to reload for y amount of time?)(think spyglass ability amount of time)
*Apart from building a Town Center, can build watch towers.
I really like The Napoleonic Era mod (even the mod creator is working on the development of AoE 3 DE). Among other things, I would like to see Sandy Petersen’s idea of an expansion on the African continent with the Ghana, Songhai, Ethiopia, and Kongo civilizations come to fruition. Although I would like to see more Native American civilizations as major civilization (such as the Shuar), I think that with the addition of the Incas in AoE 3 DE it is enough to no longer saturate the game with Native American civilizations (also considering that in the Inca civilization, according to the videos shown, Amazonian warriors and naval kingdoms have been added), however I would like to see many more minor civilizations in the AoE 3, especially from the American continent.
Imo if we are gonna get anymore civs then one of them has to be Italy. Why? Well Italy like Sweden was meant to be a playable civ and a lot of its units and files are left over in the game. Other then that the only other European civs i would want would be Denmark-Norway and may Poland-Lithuania the latter of which could be really unique and we could get the famed winged hussars. Native American wise i think we are good with the addition of the Incas. For Asia I really dont know, maybe a southeast Asian civ or Indonesian one.
I totally agree with you. It would be awesome to have African maps with its corresponding tribes. Perhaps even Belgium could be included. I’m also fine with more Native American tribes too. I mean the pirate faction would probably be behind (in terms of priority) Italy and African Civs.
Nah Belgium should not be included. They only formed in 1830 which is well at the end of aoe3 timeline. Many more European powers should be prioritized instead of them, like the Danes, and Polish.
Threads like these do make me wonder about the future of Wars of Liberty. The context is that WoL, along with Napoleonic Era, was one of the best mods ever made for the game. Check them out here:
In particular, I’m interested to see whether or not the developers of those mods port their work over to DE. This doesn’t not pertain to OP’s question as to adding the pirate civilization to AoE3, but I felt it was relevant because these mods are so good they are basically standalone new games. I’m not sure about NE but the WoL one does have a community behind it.
Edit: I actually checked and it appears that WOL will not be ported to DE for the foreseeable future.
Although I think it would be interesting to see the WoL mod in the DE, I think it is the right decision. WoL must polish the balance of its civilizations, avoid elements of fantasy and have much more historical rigor. It is also obvious that it has yet to add many more important and well-known Native American civilizations.
Persia, Oman, Siam, Burma, or Vietnam. For Americas, Mapuche and Hawaii or Samoa (technically pacific islander but they had knife dances that fit could with the American fire dance). Kongo, Ghana, Songhai, and Ethiopia for Africa. I think Europe is good for now but this is my dream list.
I consider the time period 1500-1850:
European:
Poles or Denmark, while the power of Poland deteriorated with time and eventually the Country even vanished for 123 years in 1795. But 16th century Poland was one of the strongest countries in Europe. TBH, Poland didn’t have colonies, maybe this is the reason for Denmark.
Asian:
Persian or Vietnam. A lot of requests already, so I won’t repeat. Koreans too, maybe.
Americans:
USA, Mexico. USA especially is missing in the game taking place in US mostly. Mexico also can be reasonable civ, especially for 18th century.
Natives:
Comanches. This is gonna be surprising for most of You guys, but after my research (Empire of summer moon, The Comanche Empire - Pekka Hamalainen) it turns out that Comanches were the biggest powerhouse of all plains natives in US history, especially towards 18th century. I’d be even for replacing Sioux with them, as Sioux uprising is not comparable to over 150 years of fending off Spanish, Mexicans, Texans and US Army by Comanches. It seems that they are the main reason why Spanish stopped their expansion into North America and they were the reason why Apaches lived in deserts and hills (Comanches utterly destroyed them on plains wars during 18th century and fending off to the deserts). They were basically a dominant force of southern plains, regulating trade routes and fending off enemies, slowing down expansion. Being a famous raiders and considered the most skillful native cavalrymen, they should rely mostly on horsemen, even to more extinct than Sioux. Maybe the 2nd half of XIXth century was not as spectacular for them (diseases hit them much more than Sioux, approx 80% of population vanished), they also fiercely fought back and this game is focused on a bit earlier period than late XIXth century - I know there’s a campaign specific for Sioux, nevertheless, Comanches should also be playable)
Africans:
It’s a shame we don’t have a separate african expansion, Malians and so on should be included (like 3 civs).
Overall, besides of Africa, devs seem to cover well the most cultures, my only complaints are mentioned Africans and missing USA and Comanche civ - much more empire-like than Sioux confederation it seems. I also saw Comanches concept arts from early AoE3 days (before warchiefs) and it seems that devs considered them playing bigger role at the beginning.
By Indonesian/South East Asian civ., I believe it should either be Kingdom of Majapahit or Sriwijaya, as they were known to have conquered most part of the Southeast Asia region.
The possibility of new content depends on when AoEIV releases. If AoEIV comes out next year I doubt we’ll get more content but if it launches in 2022? maybe.
It is encouraging to see us fans advocate for more civs though. I hope the devs are taking notes.
if you asked me to make a list of factions i still want to see:
for Europe:
Denmark-Norway, leader Christian 4. the only colonial power of the periode not in the game, by the start of the periode the Swedes had just left the Kalmar union but Denmark would still be the leading northern nation for the next 150 years or so. Denmark maintained a strong economy throughout the periode, based esp. off of trade, but was let down by its leadership.
Poland, Poland was a rather poor country in this time periode, and completely ceased to exist about a 100 or so years before the game ends; fractured by infighting and a poor geological situation Poland never stood a chance. however Poland is famous for some things of the periode most notably their winged hussars.
Austria, leader Maria Theresa. Austria was for a long time a leading continental power, and a major player in German politics until the 2nd war of German unification (sometimes known as the “brothers war”). Austria would be focused more on an old school style of warfare with musketeers and heavy cavalry as oppose to current Germany’s focus on skirmishers.
for Asia (i know a lot less here sorry):
Indonesia, Indonesia is a chain of islands and different cultures, for us i think the faction we should focus on is Java, Rich in spice.
Siam, or Thailand as it is known today, 1 of the few states to keep out the colonial powers. i would guess they should have some elephant’s but again i dont know much about this place.