At times the community is too disregarding of this issue, that from the start of the original game, civs can be ethnicities but also empires, sometimes occupations, can also be religious groups, or language groups, and now even duchies or fractions. Even overlapping. Ultimately there’s no coherent reasoning about what constitutes a civ for this game and what doesn’t - claiming there is always means ignoring the exceptions which are quite a few at this point.
If it was me I’d say a good practice would be not breaking up existing/classical civs in order to justify new ones. Luckily this only happened once
Aaw thank you, yeah that’s my problem with the internet.
We wouldn’t probably agree on 3k being civs but we don’t have to. I think more or less apart from them the base reasoning for a civ is ethnicity but as I said that may not always be the best option for a medieval game.
If they potentially release 5 civs every year, we will have 100 civs by 2036. Thats a lot, YES, but what is the Problem? It generates a lot of content for the sorts of spirit of the law, and also gives the option of many great innovative strategies such as the phosphoru or Matze ones. A certain new bonus/uu/ hero can be used in a specific fascinating way and everbody loves that. Variety is a great thing and there is no limit to that
So let me guess, you are that guy that loves everything to be stale and nothing else to add. You will hate the next DLCs and you will always play the game like you would in AOK.
why are they actively breaking original promises? Here is what they said about “The Last Khans”:
These civs were arrived at because we were wondering ‘what’s left?’. We were trying to find a period in history which still fit the general time scope that Age II occupies. We’ve covered so much of the world now in terms of that period that, after a lot of discussions, we finally fell on to telling the stories of the fallout of the Mongol empire, which is what The Last Khans is all about.
At this point, I think we’re done adding civilisations to Age II. I do not foresee us adding any more civs to the game. I think we’ll add more content, campaigns, new game modes - all those kinds of things we’ll explore, but even our pro players are kind of saying ‘we’re done, we have enough civs at this point to last us forever’.
It’s a lot to hold in your head, and I think that they would love to get comfortable with the game rather than trying to push into even more civs. There comes a saturation point, and I think we’re there.
since then they have added 15 civs + Hindustanis. about to be 18.
They even say themselves why adding more civs isn’t a great thing:
pro players are saying that there are enough civs
getting comfortable with the game instead of having to keep learning new civs
there’s a saturation point
I would add to that:
many of the new civs are janky and weird to play
the new civs aren’t true to the spirit of the game (heroes, really? and bullet dodging? oh and let’s give charge attacks to every unit and their mother in law)
they are running out of ideas
more civs makes each civ less distinctive (even unique features stop being unique. Huskarl used to be the only anti-archer infantry; Coustillier were unique with their charge attack, etc)
I was watching some KotD, and it’s so often that commentators say he’s playing as civ X, which is basically just Y, but worse/better.
Spirit of the law hasn’t even done civ overviews for Wu, Shu, Wei. I don’t think he needs more DLC to make content.
Phosphoru’s strategy works with any civ that has a strong UU, doesn’t need new civs either. He has been doing it with Turks, Malians, Burmese, and Porto
If anything this shows that FC->UU can work with most civs, and civ variety is kinda pointless if they all play out the same anyway.
did you just mention heroes positively?
Variety only works if the civs are still distinctive enough. At the same time variety has a price:
more mental load
this game relies heavily on nostalgia, it’s moving away from that with more civs. Just watch how casters react when it’s a purely aok-aoc matchup vs how they react to something like Romans-Shu
tournament maps get harder to create
but more importantly, maybe I just want to play the game I bought, not a game that keeps constantly changing. It’s not like i can reasonably opt out of these changes. Aoe2 doesn’t allow you to go back to previous versions of the game (which is basically industry standard)
not at all, i’ve been advocating for lots of new changes:
allow more players in one game (eg 5v5, 10 player ffa, campaigns missions with more than 8 factions)
add more campaigns
add more game modes
better and more varied AI
improved mod support
improved spectating
improved in-game stats
better colour picker
that’s to be determined. I liked Dawn of the Dukes, it had some of the best campaigns. I don’t hate all DLC, just bad ones (looking at steam reviews, lots of people seem to dislike most main-game DLC since DoI)
I wish I could. but they are actively changing existing civs to make that impossible. Celts, Japanese, Chinese, Saracens, Vikings have all been infected with gimmicky bullshit. (auras, charge attacks, resources on kill)
Of course this game heavily relies on nostalgia. it’s a remaster of a remaster. But it is not nostalgia bait.
Nostalgia bait is using old ideas/themes/characters in otherwise independent media to garner attention and good will. But as long as the game calls itself aoe2, it has a duty to uphold its legacy. It would be downright deceptive if they had made aoe4 and called that aoe2DE, right? aoe2 should stick to its roots.
Innovative game concepts and massive overhauls belong in new games, not in remasters
Unlike shutting down any suggestion that ruins your nostalgia, huh.
Personally I hate how people treat everything from Ensemble times as perfect and immutable. This is what I’m criticizing. You can’t complain about 3K civs being fantasy while pretending a civ almost completely based on Braveheart isn’t problematic.
you can disagree with me, that’s fine. At no point am i telling people that they should not post at all.
i don’t think it’s perfect, and I am glad that they are fixing bugs, adding QoL and are doing some rebalancing. But what they have been doing with these complete reworks is not what I paid for when I bought a remaster.
The marketing for this game specifically mentioned that they “were done adding civs”. So all i want is to be able to play the game i paid for.
what a strawman argument.
My main argument is that the new civs don’t fit in the game. they add lots of mechanical bloat, and fundamentally erode civ identity.
Civs being ahistorical or anachronistic is the least of my problems.
exactly my point. it matters what you call things.
make age of empires 4 and call it aoe4 = honest. the game is its own thing with some inspiration from the other aoe games
make age of empires 4 and call it aoe2DE = dishonest. the game is too different
At this point aoe2DE is approaching the latter case. Look at how different aoe2DE is now from when it was released, and tell me that this is an honest way to treat a customer base. Especially after literally telling us “we are done making major changes”
Unless you want to imply people are never allowed to change their mind, this is a non-argument. I don’t think them adding more civs in general (especially the Indian split, which I think is something people wanted since The Forgotten) is as controversial as the 3K civs specifically.
Gameplay-wise Indians had a clear identity as the “camels and gunpowder civ”. I am not that bothered about “historical accuracy” in a game where you can fight as Aztecs against Huns with trebuchets.
Then again the change from Indians to Hindustanis is also probably one of the better things they have done in recent years, as Indians wasn’t a particularly fun civ to play as to begin with.
Anyway, you cannot honestly claim that selling a game with the promise of “we are done adding civs” and then turning around and forcing another 15+ civs in the game is in any way honest.
As I have said in other threads: All i want is an option to play the game without those civs, and without the major changes to the classic civs. then they can add 100 civs for all I care, including 100 splits of the HRE, Polynesians, Atlanteans, the EU, Martians and Jedi.
Again this is not an argument unless you think people are not allowed to ever change their minds.
Still not an argument.
This I don’t disagree with, but not adding any new content isn’t the only possible solution.
Ah yes, because a civ laser focused on infantry that only got named “Goths” for name recognition then was used to represent everything from Anglo-Saxons to Russians isn’t weird at all. Not to mention their UU is named after a term unrelated to Goths and they speak German despite Gothic language being well attested.
Edit: And on the topic of unique units sharing mechanics, trample damage was never unique to Cataphracts. War Elephants do it too.
You know the one. The not-a-whole-subcontinent one, the not-a-whole-subcontinent one, and the not-a-whole-subcontinent one. Only European civs are allowed to not represent an entire continent.
Clarified it a bit. I was referring to the territory of the Delhi Sultanate and Mughals being more based inland. Which is why cramming all of India together is a daft idea, as you end up with messes like the Indian civ.