There is this guy on Reddit who keeps posting about changing Persians to Central Asian Architecture because it is more historically accurate. I disagree.
When I see my opponent has Central Asian architecture, I know they have Steppe Lancers, they don’t have gunpowder, and they lack Redemption. Lots of players like me use the architecture to guess what units we are potentially facing. (Ok. Tatars do get Elite Cannon Galleons but the important thing is they don’t get hand cannons and bombard cannons). Persians do get hand cannons, bombard cannons, and elite cannon galleons. They also don’t get steppe lancers.
When you see a new civ with the South American architecture, you know they can build Champi Warriors but don’t have Champions. If you see a new civ with the Norse architecture, you know they can build Varangian Guards. If you see a civ with Middle Eastern or African architecture, you know they can build camels.
Nobody, not even Hera or Viper, has memorized the tech trees of every civ. We use the architecture to guess what units our opponent might potentially be able to make. The Central Asian architecture came in with DE in 2019 and I associate it with Steppe Lancers. Even if other civs get Steppe Lancers like Mongols, Khitans, Jurchens, I know for sure that if I see Central Asian architecture then I might be facing steppe lancers.
As the devs add more and more civs, it is absolutely necessary to give players a visual short hand for understanding the tech tree. If there were 13 civs nobody would care about architecture that much because everybody would just memorize the regional units. But there aren’t 13 civs anymore.
Yes but if you see a civ with central asian architecture, you know they have steppe lancers.
If you see a civ with Norse architecture, you know they have Varangian Guards. The same goes with Meso-American architecture and Eagle Warriors or Southeast Asian and Battle Elephants.
The Central Asian set is literally based on Sassanid Persian architecture in Feudal and on later Iranian and Persianate architecture in Castle and Imperial. It IS dedicated to them.
Interesting; lots of converse errors in the replies here.
That said, I don’t find the argument convincing, because architecture set really doesn’t work like this with any generality. When I see my opponent has Western European Architecture, I know I’m going to be facing infantry or archers or cavalry or siege weapons or some combination of those; when I see my opponent has Central European Architecture, I know I’m going to be facing infantry or cavalry or cavalry archers, and that they have really strong defences or some of the weakest defences in the game; when I see my opponent has East Asian Architecture, I know I’m going to be facing foot archers or cavalry archers or elephants or infantry or heavy cavalry or steppe lancers or gunpowder units, and that they have really good trebuchets or generic trebuchets or no trebuchets at all; etc.
Well then why don’t you find the same style when searching for Sassanid Persian architecture images and Central Asian architecture ?
It’s definitly not “the set is based on sassanid” but rather “the people in central asia based their style on the sassanid one”.
I definitly see the diffrence between the Central Asian architecture style and Persian (which does not only include Iran area but also old Babylon area) style.
Yes they are pretty similar to each other, but the Central Asian set is not right for Persian. The key difference, I’d say, would be that Central Asian was more about Turquoise usage where Persia was more about Lapis Lazulis usage, one is teal the other is blue, and maybe the “stone” type from CEA is brighter than the sandish persia stone what so ever.
So in my opinion, it’s still the same, if Persian should someday get a new set, it should be a new one, not the Central Asian one.
Timurid style is part of the CEA inspiration, which was used in Iran. That I agree with.
Great Seljuk is one other part of the CEA inspiration, which was used in iraq, iran, and other parts of the world yes.
Abbasid style is the ORIE main inspiration, which also include usage in Iraq and Iran.
Umayyad style has that triangular things we tend to associate with Persia, which is also part foteh ORIE inspiration, also used in Iran and Iraq, but also in Central Asia lower part and north africa.
Fatimid style also got those triangular things we associate with Persia, which was mainly used in the levant. and is also aprt of inspiration for the ORIE style.
Sassanid style uses arch drop (roman style), which is the main key difference between the style on Central Asia which used some arch lancet (pointy like the gothic), which was used in iraq and iran, and is also part of the ORIE inspiration.
Conclusion:
ORIE set is a very generic set to cover north african, levant, and persia too, with a very wide timeframe coverage.
CEA set is a very specific set to cover a high-middle age timeframe.
As Persia civ is meant to cover a long timeperiod, it can’t be limited to that high-middle age CEA style only, because CEA style is only one PART of Persia history style.