Ornlu The Wolf, the renowned content maker of this game, was recently invited to give a university lecture on the history of AoE II.
In 58 minutes marks of this video https://youtu.be/hVlsK1DuSTE?t=3503, he dropped this info - Devs were originally going to add “Tanguts” but Microsoft stopped them as they are adjacent to Tibet and Microsoft doesn’t want to risk anything related to Tibet and upset the Chinese.
I guess this explains the current situation of “Khitans”
the lawyers… great. I guess then tibet will never come.
I actually had the feeling this was the case from the beginning and I think I even posted that quite shortly after the release as response to the heavy backlash that was coming towards the devs.
IDK IF this is true to this point. I hope the string of information hasn’t been broken at some point, but I think this indeed esplains a lot - hopefully - to why 3K wasn’t what many expected from the devs after the spoilers.
So Micro$oft outCCP-ed CCP 
Cowardly, greedy, AI-obsessed corporates didn’t even bother to ask the Chinese party censors what the criteria for banning the game are. Spoiler: medieval Tibet doesn’t get the game banned, CK3 and EU5 are doing fine in China.
No shade towards the devs, I believe they are doing their best but their hands are tied by the corpos. My deepest condolences towards Chinese fans who must be facepalming after having said multiple times that only a post-Qing independent Tibet gets games banned.
I wonder if a Nepal umbrella would be fine, but if even things that are related to Tibet are off limits, we will always have this empty space on the world map.
Make a Reddit thread, please. The issue needs more pushback, it is ridiculous. Let’s contact some media, Chinese embassies, and Tibet diaspora agencies, it’s mind-boggling how Microsoft has managed to wrong both Tibetans and the Chinese regime with false assumptions.
We need to get together and raise enough money to buy the rights to Age of Empires from Microsoft. It should become an indie franchise, because having corporate oversight is obviously causing a lot of problems.
How did he find this information exactly
He said in the video that he had talk to the devs. Don’t remember the exact minute but after that when he mentions why the Tanguts were out of the DLC, I was F… Micro$oft. It’s kind of understandable for Tibetans, but Tanguts too? Such a shame.
I can’t watch the video atm. But does he confirm it? I know he has had a theory that was the reason, but nothing concrete.
Not wanting to add Tibetans because of the Chinese gov’t is one thing, but Tanguts!?! That’s real dumb
Yeah. Tanguts are essentially extinct. What’s the potential offense Microslop are trying to avoid here?
I am shadowbanned by reddit and needs manual approval of mods. Someone whose posts are auto approved should post there.
Even the Chinese players want Tanguts so much…
He said Microsoft’s lawyer asked not to add Tanguts where devs were leading to.
That lawyer knows nothing and should be fired.
Sure about that?
Possibly some, but most of my Chinese contacts either wouldn’t really mind or in some cases would actually prefer NOT to have tanguts. And they have nothing against tanguts, quite frankly some of them might even be of tangut heritage. And I want to keep it at this here, please do NOT question the motivation for that here. It wouldn’t be helpful.
It’s a complicated topic and as I see it, if ever was planned to add Tanguts this would have been a very bold move, given the consideration that many chinese wouldn’t even have mind. The potential gains from that would have been minimal in comparison to the potential losses.
Or maybe he knows something more you don’t?
I also think it wasn’t even a lawyer decision, but more of a business decision, maybe with asking lawyers certain related questions. Ofc the last thing microsoft wants is to get into trouble in china because of aoe2. I don’t think the questions to ask would be if aoe2 would have been banned or whatever. I doubt that. But there are other aspects, forms of how certain things could come back to MS. And I also want to leave this like that.
I personally think it was a mistake from the beginning to make a China DLC. I said it here when it came up - and I stay with this. There is too much interest from different angles for this Chinese DLC and some coma from outside china and try to sell themselves as would they act in the interest of the Chinese People, whilst they definitely DON’T!
It was impossible to make it all interest groups right, because they have diametral different takes, opinions and agendas.
PS: I also want to state here, that if I here a chinese speaking about “lesser known aspects of their history” they for the most cases don’t speak about Tanguts. Some might, yes. But most speak more about stuff like the “uneven contracts” or aspects of the different dynasties that aren’t tought in the western world because, quite frankly, actually similar reasons why certain interest groups would liked to have Tanguts added…
There were Chinese players from Reddit and forum already post about this.
I don’t doubt that.
I just want to state that from the contacts I have with chinese this would be a small minority of Chinese people.
And possibly way more people from other parts of Asia.
Ah, yes, the nefarious outside interest groups of checks notes history enthusiasts.