there’s something to be said for getting some level of coverage until an area can be revisited in further depth
I fundamentally disagree with you there, I think it’s better to add just one civ from a region than some absurd umbrella, but each to there own.
This kind of moralizing talk is just kind of silly, to say nothing of having been done with many civs before.
Morals are not “silly”. It is obviously wrong to represent the Slavic regions with 4 separate civs but then say that the (more diverse) Bantu regions can be grouped together as one. The only reasoning behind it seems to be that the Slavs are European whereas the Bantu are African, and that’s wrong. I also object to a Slavs umbrella ever being added in the first place (should’ve just been Rus), although that was at a different time when there wasn’t thought to be a hope of getting further expansions. Regardless, something wrong being done in the past doesn’t mean the right thing can’t be done in the future.
I sincerely think that no-one with any serious knowledge of medieval sub-Saharan Africa could believe that the widely diverse Bantu cultures could be grouped together under one civilisation.
Bringing up the idea of a common Bantu civilization doesn’t mean I think they’re all the same, nor does it mean we want to insult them. I don’t like being accused like this.
I believe I’ve made it clear that I don’t think the developers have to make a common Bantu civilization, but the reality is that there are still some advantages to doing it, and those are just the issues I think are important to the dev and the game. I think the points I made are very realistic, from the distribution of civilization slots, the sales of DLC, the effectiveness of coverage, and so on. Not to mention that there are many potential civilizations outside of Africa that are significantly better candidates in terms of historical records and market visibility.
I think I articulate a relatively objective point of view, so I want to be viewed objectively too instead of “It’s insulting, discriminatory, Eurocentrism to not do like this, just because I think they’re unique, very Awesome” and the like.
That’s very ambitious. Last DLC brought almost 4 new civs though. But the more civ we have, the harder it will be to add higher number of civs in a DLC as game balance will suffer a lot.
Obviously I would prefer for civs to be differentiated, I say this mainly for logistical reasons. It’s a tradeoff between getting some representation in the near future, or waiting around forever for the devs to focus on fleshing out each of the civs you want (which may never happen). For example, I would prefer a DLC with the Haudenosaunee, Miꞌkmaq, Caribs and Mississipians, but I would be okay with a Mississipian-focused umbrella civ that shares attributes of some of the others, until the area can be focused further. Your point that civs shouldn’t be lumped together excessively is valid, but when the alternative is having nothing for decades, I’ll take my chances on a few umbrella civs. Like right now the closest thing in the game to Miꞌkmaqs/“Skraelings” is Aztecs, which is a complete joke as far as coverage.
I agree, my issue is more with you ascribing enormous moral valence to decisions made about how to represent civs in a game, especially when dev time is a huge constraint. There are plenty of things “wrong” with the game historically and in terms of representation, but mostly people just see it as a game and don’t get all hot and bothered about it and turn it into some kind of weird virtue-signaling crusade.
This argument is way worse than all the silly suggestions that come around in this community. A huge portion of Africa is mostly either uninhabitable or didn’t have a big civilization that could be added to the game. This is like saying we should add a bunch of siberian tribes to the game because Siberia is huge and much bigger than other regions that are in the game.
People here tend to forget this is a game before everything else.
To be honest, even the three most commonly proposed civs would probably be used as umbrella. The Kongolese would most certainly be used as a catch-all term for all western Bantu civs such as Ambundu, Luba, Lunda, etc., Nyasa may be hidden behind the Shona, the Swahili would most probably include the Kikuyu, not mentioning the various people around Lake Victoria such as Ganda, Nyoro or the Rwanda-Rundi, which would probably covered by nobody and everybody at the same time.
At this point, being a little umbrella-ish is inevitable, but having a single civ to represent all Bantu people would just be ridiculous.
Kanem-Bornu, Songhai, Nubians, Somalis, Hausa, Edo, Kongolese, Swahili and Shonas were all more advanced than any of South America, including the Andeans.
Regarding the Bantu umbrealla: the game doesn’t need any umbrella civs, Dravidians are already ridiculous, Bantus would be even more.
Please be objective instead of resorting to personal attacks. Thank you.
I personally don’t care that much about being “advanced”. I just feel like the Incas shouldn’t be grouped together with ~meso~ civs and that’s pretty much the only reason I give them preference. As for East Asia, I think China is too big of a deal to leave its dinasties out. Apart from that, all future civs could be from Africa or anywhere else, for all I care.
You were being insulting saying I was silly. Forgive me if I give it back for saying I’m way worse than other people!
Oh and before you say you were attacking my ideas, we as people are the sun of our ideas to a degree.
In any case growth should NEVER stop so options growing and growing? Fun times.
I didn’t say you are “way worse than other people” (whatever that means). I’m saying using Africa’s pure size as an argument why it should have more civs makes no sense because not all of its size (actually a lot of it is not) was used by implementable civilizations, apart from ignoring every other aspect that contributes to why a civ should be in the game in favor of the size of the region the civ is from (not even the size of its territory).
I don’t see how you taking issue with me attacking your ideas in a discussion forum equates with you attacking me personally without even coming close to my arguments.
Why does every argument border on personal attacks and name calling? Can’t talk reasonably?
I think Africa’s size and moral arguments unnecessary. It’s a game, and a war game on top of that (that is, even if it were a simulation game it wouldn’t be possible to put all the peoples of the world in it).
That said, I think putting bantu into a single civ would be a bad choice. They are different in history and gameplay. Easier to make two Africa dlcs with one bantu civ (Kongo and Zimbabwe imo) in each, with maybe three civs per dlc.
As @Temudhun said, the bantu (and other proposed civs) would already be umbrellas for other smaller and lesser-known civs. I made a map to illustrate:
Note: The map excludes the kingdoms of the Great Lakes region (I confess I don’t know enough about them yet) and makes Malians a big umbrella for all West African civs (Ghana, Songhay, Mossi etc) for simplicity ssake.
Edit:
• Red: civs already included;
• Orange: possible umbrella civs;
• Yellow: civs covered by orange civs.
Edit 2: I forgot to erase the numbers. They are the origin date of each kingdom
That happens every time people talk about a potential DLC which I prefer avoiding since the community is very divided and alienated to each other with their personal wishes (Africa, East Asia, Caucasus, East Europe etc…), I personally prefer civs from mixed locations instead of forcing more than 3/4 to each continent. A Conquerors/Forgotten-styled one.
And those people are as bad as the ones who want over 30 non-European civs just to “fill empty continents” and call anyone who disagrees with them EuRoCeNtRiC…Afrocentrism is just as bad as Eurocentrism so trying to prove that your opinion is superior than others with personal attacks won’t make you right.
This community didn’t deserve a single DLC with this toxic attitude. Even the AoE3 community doesn’t pull their hair out when talking about certain civs.
