In some ways yes but also no. Seeing the Middle Ages as an isolated time period from Antiquity and Modernity is kinda wrong for Europe too and also kinda right for other parts of the world. The Middle East in particular has almost the same concept of the Middle Ages as Europe, maybe even more clearly with the spread of Islam at the beginning and the rise of the Ottoman Empire at the end.
East Asia is absolutely a popular setting. There are more people from East Asia on the Internet and on Steam then from Europe nowadays so that is also a huge market. There is as much if not more written history from that time Period from East Asia alone. Southern Asia too.
Of course Sub Sahara Africa and the Americas is less well documented and they didn’t really have “Middle Ages” there.
Despite Africa and America needing Regional Skins the most I think Asia and the Middle East would benefit the most. The generic unit rosters logically already makes a lot of sense for those regions it just looks visually out of place.
Currently the victory with Mapuche has 1.2% while victory with Varangians is still only at 0.5%. We will see how much that will change in the coming months.
The idea is not to have or not middle age. The concept is born in Europe to describe a period of European history.
Then, historian started to mitigate this notion with late antiquity, as well as the transition between middle age and early modern, as well as periods inside the middle age itself.
Finally, came obviously the question of outside Europe. Some historians tries to adapt this notion elsewhere, like in Japan, but it’s if course not the same and a bit artificial.
But obviously, it’s interesting to have non European civs (they existed at the same time after all and sometimes meet with Europeans), but they are not medieval per se.
AoE2 always included none European civs and was never a Europe only game, unlike AoE3 which actually only had European civs at release. The cover of the game (which is your profile picture) already included a Samurai.
So I don’t think that was ever a major issue.
AoE1 had barely and European civs but yet a lot of the generic units looked Greek. Though some clearly look Egyptian (Chariots) or even Asian (Composite Bowman). AoE2 released with most generic units looking European with the exception of Cavalry Archers and Camel Riders.
Of course there are many people that primarily think of Knights and Castles when they hear Middle Ages but the world is not just Europe, neither back then nor now. Many people from Asia has a completely different idea what Middle Ages are to them. Also people from the West are a lot more interested in Asian history then they were 25 years ago when the game released. Settings like Japan or China have massively increased in popularity.
None. There’s no one complaining about it across any of the DLCs or even base game reviews. The reason why TLC sold less is because there’s simply not as much interest in that content with the general audience.
Essentially. But it really doesn’t matter. AoE is a series of games that, imo, depict a specific time period, rather than a historiographic periodization of a certain region.
Late 4th century until late 16th century is the period to depict.
I just don’t like playing the civs that much.
There’s the broken immersion, and also the Guecha Warrior is too weak for its cost and supposed anti-archer role. I have not played that much with Konas, but they also feel weak. Tupi are fine only if I’m using UU’s or regional units.
I love the Champis, both in visuals and in gameplay.
On the first week after release I saw a player using Muisca Arbalesters and Pikemen with Trebuchets. They were winning, that’s great, but that’s not Muisca at all.
Not complaining doesn’t equal to being happy about something.
A think like unfitting units is more of a subconscious thing. I played AoE2 for decades not thinking about regional skins but somehow it always felt worse to play as a none European civs. After AoE2DE came out the graphics of the game got a lot more detailed which made the units more clearly European looking then before so it started looking out of place for me.
It doesn’t help when units have bonuses for units that look out of place. Mayans and Aztecs of course belong to that group too. Malians and Ethiopians are big offenders of this too.
I opened the game for the first time since august, and I see my main menu is still TLC. It there an official Viking Sagas main menu mod? I can’t find it… And i would like my menu to be up to date
Nah, nah, nah, call it what it is. This is your pet issue, and you’re actively overblowing it by saying people subconsciously don’t like it and just aren’t aware of it.
That’s not why Last Chieftains didn’t sell. It didn’t sell because the average customer doesn’t know squat about these people.
I never claimed I know how big the impact of it is. It evidently annoys me and some other people on this forum, while it evidently is not an issue for others here. So both groups of people exist. But no one knows which group is bigger in the great scheme of things. 99% of players are not posting here, like I don’t post in 95% of forums of games I play.
The even harder question to answer is how many people are subconsciously aware of it but never actively thought about it. And then how many people don’t mind the current state of things but would end up being happy with the change. Similar to Elite Unique Unit skins. Only a few people were asking for it but in the end most people liked the change overall. Most complaints I heard were for a few specific skins that got a little too much Gold, but almost everyone was happy with the overall change.
And yet AoE 3 was planned to have Chinese and Japanese civs at launch, but they scrapped it due to lack of time (and because they moved the setting from Eurasia to America in 2004) and left it for The Asian Dynasties in 2007…
The Chinese and the Japanese were designed to be playable civilizations in the vanilla game, since there are references to the flags of these civilizations in the texture files of the vanilla game (flag_china.ddt and flag_japan.ddt). However, they were cut off at a very early stage of development and reappeared later in The Asian Dynasties.
The good thing is that both China and Japan have always been present in the saga since AoE 1 (like Shang and Yamato)…
