[poll] Another Future Chronicles Civilisations Poll

I made a poll before the release of the first Chronicles DLC [poll] Future Chronicles Civs over a year ago, but now 2 Chronicles DLC have been released and some of the civs on the Poll have been added since.

What Romea ad Bellum (Rome at War) civilisations do you want to see in Chronicles?

Athenians, Spartans, Persians, Macedonians and Thracians removed from the list since they are already added.
None of the Indian civs were removed though because Puru are different from all of them.

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Well some are so obvious I didn’t vote them like Rome or Carthage… some others pertain more to aoe2 like Guptas and Picts (both from 300 AD on). I hope they don’t recycle Huns and Goths.

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I left in all Rome at War civs for completion purposes (unless there are already in Chronicles).

Civs like Goths and Huns were only in Return of Rome because it was an AoE2 mod and those civs were mostly unchanged compared to base AoE2 in the mod.

Though it will be interesting to see how Chronicles will develop once it starts overlapping with the beginning of the AoE2 timeline. AoE1 and AoE2 already had some overlap. At what point will the Late Empire be AoE2 and not Chronicles anymore? Also the end of the Han Dynasty was already the setting of the 3 Kingdoms DLC.

I think the cut point is around 300 AD except for the 3 kingdoms I guess but the 3rd century will in part always overlap because of Palmyrans in aoe1 (kinda pointless addition, like the 3k) and Sasanians and Goths being around since 220ish but those are the only exceptions. Late Romans start with Diocletian (according to Wikipedia) and Byzantines of course with the foundation of Constantinople (330). Huns are even later… In any case I’d say the whole 4th century is definitely within the aoe2 timeframe. Ideally I think the last chronicle should cover the 3rd century crisis (Palmyrans/Syrians, Gauls and imperial Romans)… and they could bring the 3k there while they’re at it.

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There is an overlap between AoE1 and AoE2 as well as between AoE2 and AoE3, but that is ok.

Different parts of the world also developed differently so the fall of the Roman Empire is not really that important for India or China for example.

But looking at the Romans in AoE2 they are a 300 AD onward civilisation so the Roman Empire in Chronicles should probably only represent the Romans until Diocletian or Constantine the Great. This also marks the point when they become Christian. After that point they shouldn’t have a pagan Priestess anymore.

I really wonder if Chronicles will ever include base game civs like the Goths, Huns or Celts in any of their campaigns. An on reverse if we will ever see any Chronicles civs in any AoE2 campaigns like the Scythians for example.

There is definitely an overlap between aoe2 and aoe3 (1400 to 1600 is present in both) but when you think of aoe1 it ends with iron age, barely covering classical antiquity (chronicles field) and definitely not covering late antiquity with Palmyrans as the only civ from that time for some reason (and in that game if you look at AI names Palmyrans seem to be a weird amalgamation of Roman enemies like Pontus, Armenians, Numidians…). To find a civ before Palmyrans in aoe1 you need to go back to Carthage and Macedonians so a very weird outlier, again pretty much like 3k.

That’s why I cherish the addition of Goths, Huns and even (late) Romans to aoe2, because without them there would basically be a gap between aoe1 and aoe2 between 300 and 500 AD. Yes there was the coming of the Huns scenario (373 I think?) but it’s so remote that they had to use some weird shitt like Assyrians/Palmyrans for Goths or Yamato/Hittytes for Huns and the game wasn’t equipped in any way for that era apart from having cavalry archers, specially when it didn’t have any Celtic or Germanic civ.

Yeah that’s another reason why I wouldn’t use the fall of Rome as something relevant to Eurasia. It was relevant of course in some way but in global history how would you define the middle ages? I’d say: monotheisms, migrations and climatic changes can be common characters shared among Eurasia. Those happens around the end of the 2nd century/3rd century at the earliest, later on the slow replacement of ethnic religions happens (Christianity in Europe, Islam in the middle East, Buddhism happens earlier but it is still spreading at this point) and migrations are consequences of climatic changes, both in Asia (China and India) and in “Europe” (more like the Mediterranean world) migrations first fragmented the old empires and then replaced the ruling class.

Yes that’s huge, bigger change in culture than the fall of Rome I’d argue. Didn’t make sense in aoe1, wouldn’t make sense in chronicles either.

I can see it happening, specially if they really make a 3rd century chronicle, they would definitely need aoe2 Persians and Goths.

Scythians disappeared between the 3rd and 1st century BC, then you have Sarmatians in Europe and Sakas in northern India (until the 5th century AD in both cases) and later only Alans. If you referred to the Attila’s campaign they’re probably meant to be Sarmatians or Alans (Romans just called Scythians everyone coming from the eastern steppes and the og devs simply repeated the error) but I guess Scythians would work better than Mongols at least.

Of the 6 civs they added till now maybe only Thracians could feature in early middle ages scenario or at least Thracian units in early Byzantine armies. I can think of emperor Phocas for example described as a Thraco Roman centurion. Not sure about Purus since they’re very specific but some indo greek kingdom lingered on until the 4th century so maybe? Their units yes arguably. Achememid set would work better for Sassanids? Not sure. Spartans, Athenians and Macedonians for Alaric 2 could kinda work honestly, although maybe more about the architecture than the units themselves that are Roman Christians and look ok in aoe2.

If they add Gauls maybe they could use them in Attila 5, Tours or other scenarios set before Charlemagne (but aoe2 Romans would probably look better since Gauls added in chronicles will arguably still be the tribal pre Roman Gauls), Numidians/Egyptians/Carthaginians for pre Muslim Berbers? Britons for post Roman and pre Welsh people in Britain? They’re all stretches honestly, Romans or Celts work quite well for those people imo.

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I want to see more civis/factions use the currently once used buildings more. eg Magadhans using the Indian set dacians illarians use thracian set.

You forget Yamato, their campaign goes beyond 700 AD which is very clearly AoE2 timeframe.

Also the Coming of the Huns scenario is pretty much the same as the Catalaunian Fields scenario from the Attila campaign.

But the same way AoE1 and AoE2 are bad at depicting the Late Antiquity, both AoE2 and AoE3 are bad at depicting the Early Modern timeframe from around the 30 Years War.

That is the big missing thing in AoE1, besides India.

Now we got a little bit of India in Chronicles so I’m mostly looking forward to Celtic and Germanic civs.

The Sarmatians and Scythains are related to each other and I think it would be reasonable to combine them into one civilisation. Chronicles is a little more historic so they will probably call them Sarmatians.

The new Persian architecture is also only used by one civ. Maybe we will get something like the Sassanides or Parthians in the future that will use the same set.

The Indian set definitely has a very long list of potential civs.

I love both of the new sets.

Oh yeah Yamato, maybe they thought there wasn’t much to work with Japanese in proper antiquity. When Rome fell they were still in their proto historical phase iirc.

Only the remake for DE was made to be a sort of aoe1 version of the catalaunian fields of aoe2 even though I seem to remember the historical notes saying it was 373 AD so it didn’t make much sense. I guess it was more of an Easter egg.

I’d say it could be worse, there are Franks, Romans, Goths, Huns, Celts, Persians… I mean there is something, they could make a DLC about it one day to round it up but maybe the game lacks more in the proper dark age part, there’s a big hole in terms of campaigns between Alaric/Attila and Tariq/Tours. Not much dark age in this game yet, 75% of the scenarios are set after year 1000, only v&v added some.

I’d still prefer Scythians over Sarmatians in chronicles because they’re a bigger umbrella you can use for Sakas and other Iranian steppe people. Units are already there, they appear a lot in Alexander, in fact I think it was a close call between them and Thracians for the devs.

As for Sarmatians they can just come with Alans in aoe2 honestly, both didn’t do much but Alans are a bit more relevant I think. Basically Sarmatians could just be represented by Scythians in chronicles and Alans in aoe2.

Honestly all AoE1 civs fill kinda the same. They all have the same units after all. 0 unique or regional units.

Guess what, I made a Migration Perriod DLC concept a while ago.

Sometimes they don’t even disable gunpowder units in Late Antiquity scenarios like in the Xie An scenario that takes part in 383 AD and you get attacked by Fire Lances and Rocket Carts.

I agree, just making the guess that they will call them Sarmatians.

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I tried to focus on not-so-popular cultures (Scythians, Numidians, Nubians, Gupta). I would love to have Gupta content, either for Return of Rome or Chronicles.

Etruscans is missing option in the poll in my opinion.

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Tbh I think there should be a seperate just “Rome” option for folks that don’t want the Empire and the Republic as seperate civs. I get they were in the mod, but I think they can be combined for Chronicles personally…

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May sound stupid, but I dont like when civilizations have myltiple words in their name

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It is interesting that Rome got a lot less votes compared to the last poll.

Also interesting that Seleucids got very little votes despite so many people wanting Diadochi as the setting for the next Chronicles.

I copied the civilisation list from the Rome at War mod. There are a lot of potential civilisations missing, especially in Asia, Africa and the entirety of the Americas.

That’s why I added an “other” option to the poll.

I thought about adding a Combined Rome but if I start with that, then shouldn’t I also add all the other missing civs? You could also argue that Athens and Sparta should be one civ or Achaemenids and Parthians.

I’m not really too concerned about civilisation or unit names. They are just little texts in the UI after all.

But yeah it’s going to be hard to find 2 new names for Romans that aren’t “Romans” because that is already taken. The Achaemenids were called “Persians” in the Mod but that name is already taken now that they exist next to AoE2 civs.

Parthians were not exactly Persians though like Seleucids weren’t. I guess maybe you could combine Achemenids and Sasanians as Persians although I wouldn’t since chronicles is more specific than aoe2. In the logic of chronicles Roman Republic and empire makes sense or they could come up with something novel like a civ that when selected opens a new tab where you select government/dynasty… something like that. They could do that for Persians too or some other big civ with multiple incarnations through history. Not saying it’s necessarily a good idea. Even having just “Romans” evolving through ages from monarchy to Republic to principate (no dominate I guess cause that’s aoe2 Romans) could be interesting.

The Latins (the republic) and the Julio-Claudians (?)

I would prefer just a single Latin civ tho

Maybe the uniqueness about Rome could be that they have six unique techs, with the imp techs depending on wheter you choose the republican or imperial institutions in castle age

Maybe Latins and Caesarians or Imperials. The Empire was lead by an Emperor who was always called Caesar. SPQR is also an option but not really a civilisation name. Though neither are the 3 Kingdoms. And technically the Inca are also just the rulers and not the people.

But I personally wouldn’t mind the much simpler 2 word civ names “Roman Republic” and “Roman Empire”.

I made a concept for the Romans that has both the Republic and the Empire as separate civs but also as combined civ that even includes the Kingdom.

Chronicles: Roman civilisation concepts

I should update the concept a little and add some more interesting mechanics like a Senate.

Tbh I took the logic that someone else did, that Rome and Carthage were basically givens so vote for more niche stuff. Also, the limit of 5 options you can select kinda makes it tough to really fully vote in this poll tbh.

Ngl, while I get why they did what they did, I do kinda wish they had just done one Greeks civ, because representing any Greeks outside of those two cities feels kinda awkward now honestly.

This one I disagree with though, they are two very different peoples, with even more different fighting styles, at quite different times.

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Just call them Romans, they’ll have a different ensign from aoe2 anyway. All other names are super off, Latins were not only Romans, spqr is actually better but if they’re gonna be 2 civs call them Roman Republic and Roman Empire. Lac Viet already exists if introducing two words for a civ would be that much of a bother.