[Poll] How many Europeans should the game have?

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
1

How many European civilisations should the game have?

This includes Everything from Portugal to Russia.

  • More than 50%
  • Around 50%
  • Less than 50%

0 voters

What part of the world didn’t get enough attention in previous games?

This is mostly about Age of Empires 2 and Age of Empires 3.
To a lesser degree the games with an ancient setting like the original Age of Empires, Age of Mythology or Age of Empires Online because the world looked very different back than.

  • North America (Including Central America)
  • South America
  • Africa
  • Central and Western Asia (Middle East)
  • Northern and Eastern Asia
  • Southern and Southeastern Asia
  • Oceania (Including Australia)
  • None

0 voters

So far we have:
2 North+Eastern Asians (China and Mongols)
1 South Asian (Delhi Sultanate)
1 West Asian (Abbasid Dynasty)

There are a lot of discussions on this topic but it’s hard to tell who is the majority and who is just a loud minority.

We also have to take into account that his community here in the forum is mostly English speaking and a lot of people might ne be able to participate because of language barriers.
People from Europe and especially North America are more likely to be able understand English compared to people from Asia for example.

A survey here can never be representative for all of the community.

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Yes and they are also more likely to buy the game at full price.

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People act as if they haven’t introduced other civilizations outside of Europe into this game. And I like to think if it fits the timeline and is an important civilization I don’t care from where it comes from as long as they add diversity to the game when being added and not just for the sake of adding a famous civilization.

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4

Apparently this is a very Eurocentric forum.

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5

The average income in Korea and Japan isn’t lower than Europe.
Both very big markets.
For RTS especially Korea.

I posted this thread at a very Eurocentric time because I’m European. I wonder how it will develop.
People might be more likely to do a survey than actually write a reply if they struggle with English.

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I didn’t mean your thread in particular, I meant just what I’ve seen on the forum. I also live in Europe.

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I was kind of surprised how narrow minded people can be that claim to be interested in history.
And how much they want to feel superior for something that happened 500 or more years ago.
This 19th century mentality of seeing everyone outside of Europe as underdeveloped.

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Im glad more polls are appearing around.
:smiley: glad to participate.

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I’d say in most recent updates, Africa seems to be getting the most love.
Which is great.

I do think Aoe 2 somehow manages to represent (through factions and campaigns) a surprisingly diverse spread of people’s.

Though i’d say Oceania is probably the least represented.

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9

People who voted for more than 50% European civs should get some other games like Europa Universalis and leave AOE alone.

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Its the classic

Claims to like history
yet only ever talks about rome.

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11

That is true but is also by far the least populated.

I voted for South America because it only ever got the Inca (and 3 minor civilisations in AoE3) so it is less represented than Africa that has 4 civilisations (3 in AoE2 and 2 in AoE3 but the Ethiopians twice) and 6 minor civilisations.

That would be the wrong game though. It might be called Europa Universalis but it’s very international. Every country in the world (As in 1444-1821) can be played and a lot of none Europeans have unique flashed out mechanics including Native Americans, Africans and since recently even Aboriginals.

But than they ignore basic facts, like that their most important province was in Egypt and in general all the African and especially the Middle Eastern provinces where more important than anything north of Italy.

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12

Yeah maybe it’s a bad example, I haven’t played it myself, just popped in my mind when I think of a game about Europe exclusively. But anyway I guess you all get what I meant

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13

But honestly, how many more South American peoples can you include which would be reasonably competitive? I find the Marajoara culture in particular fascinating, but how exactly would a fight between them and the Eurasian forces go?

The period covered in the game doesn’t exactly favor the New World. I’m not European nor North American, before anyone assumes I’m Eurocentric.

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14

Oceanian representation would be really nice in AoE. Something like the Maori or Indonesians.

You can only have so many Europeans in a game about civilizations as a whole.

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15

I think it’s actually the opposite.
This is the best period to include Native Americans.
For earlier Periods we don’t have enough evidence. It would be very hard to make the Olmecs for an Ancient time game.

And later time periods are also harder. AoE3 is just anachronistic.
The Aztecs and Inca are form the time period of AoE2/4 not AoE3.

Native Americans don’t just exist to fight against Europeans, that is stupid. They have enough history themselves of conflicts between each other.

In Mexico we could have the Mixtec, Zapotec and Tlaxcala (the ones that actually defeated the Aztecs with Spanish help not the other way round) next to the Aztecs.
They all had different styles of warfare more so than different Europeans.

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You mean those guys that weren’t able to do anything against Aztecs, so they allied themselves with new force. And after that they followed spanish orders and at every step they needed spanish help to be able to fight against Aztecs and their tributaries?

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Absolutely not, but I’m reminded of something. This is a very Eurocentric game at its core. And I’m not sure there’s fixing it.

I skipped AoE3 myself, but I know it’ll be challenging to include New World civs in AoE4 in a more cohesive manner than before. Doable, but challenging. I’m all for it, but I suspect it’d be nearly impossible to apply well established concepts (siege at age III, gunpowder at age IV) in terms of gameplay without introducing insane levels of asymmetry, considering this game’s approach to differentiate civs.

If they can pull it off, I’m all for it! But I do find it concerning.

BTW my previous post regarded South American peoples exclusively.

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18

Yes and they are now living and functioning state in Mexico while Aztecs their oppressors are no more.

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I don’t have a strong feeling about the total number, rather I generally hope for:

  • Less commonly represented civs, even if they are EU: I feel like we often see the same few EU civs in games.
  • The focus remains on making a fun civ and not trying to force one in just because it’s not EU.

EDIT:

As an example, I don’t recall ever learning about the history between Poland and Lithuania in school here in the US, so including that in the new AoE2 DLC was still neat for me even though it was more EU content.

Had that been the point where the English were added, it probably wouldn’t have been as interesting since our history is far more tied to English history.

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20

The Inca Empire only conquered the area very shortly before the European arrival.
So the Ayamara or the Chimu would both the possible civilisations.
Especially the Chimu are widely known and were only conquered after the Byzantines which will likely be added to the game.

I don’t know how Poland could be ignored for so long.
Poland was a sizable kingdom in the middle ages comparable with England.
Poland-Lithuania was very important in the late Middle Ages till early Modern time period. Must have civilisation for AoE3 too.

But I’m happy we got the Rus, they are a good choice for an European Civilisation that isn’t just Western European.

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