It would help if you would show a few screenshots comparing indian and south east asian architectures, so people could immediately compare and decide about it
In my opinion, the wood and thatched look of historical Malay architecture (based on the Independent Architecture mod from HD) lends itself far better to the Southeast Asian architecture, which looks especially appropriate during the Feudal Age. I also don’t think the Southeast Asian civilizations’ Castle/Imperial architecture is completely inappropriate, as the Malay empires were not purely Hindu; many Buddhists lived there as well. On top of that, Southeast Asia as a whole was heavily influenced by India, aside from the sinicized Dai Viet, so changing Malay to the South Asian set isn’t really any more fitting on the level that they were Indianized.
Prambanan looks very Southeast Asian in the same way the Khmer architecture is Southeast Asian. Those buildings may be gray rather than gold-colored, but they still fit the general aesthetic.
The South Asian architecture should just go to an additional Tamils or Bengals civilization, whose architecture more directly resembles the Indian set and which are actually from the South Asian subcontinent.
It doesn’t seem like the devs want to add a final expansion pack, but I think there would be a little more closure to Age 2 if they added a second South Asian civilization, the Georgians, the Tibetans (if they’re not afraid of a China ban), the Wends, and a Lithuanian campaign. Whatever the case, that’s the best possible solution to having more than one civilization use the Southeast Asian set. Personally, I think they could easily just add the Tamils and Georgians as DLC, since both of those are already represented in the campaign mode (the Tamils appear in Suryavarman, while the Georgians are in Tamerlane), as those seem to be the two most requested without being risky like the Tibetans, and would also save more room for a Lithuanian campaign.
Looks like Indians used a lot more stone in their buildings and Malay used mostly wood. I gotta say I am getting more of an East Asian vibe from these pictures alone.
Search for Javanese/Balinese rather than Malay because that’s what Malays are meant to represent in-game. I wonder if you guys even played the campaigns or know any background about the Majapahits/Srivijaya/Mataram
Alright I see what you mean now. These look a lot more similar. I gotta say I never played the campaigns I only play online. I think you might be onto something here. Here are the pictures for anyone else wondering. (very beautiful architecture btw)
true I also loved it.
I was actually playing the malay campaigns (Gajah mada) these days. Indian set blends perfectly in the campaigns as far as I have tested in my mod
This thread made me wonder tho: is there someone who designed a specific harbour skin for all civs? Because if I remember well non-Malay harbours will look like normal docks, I guess it’s not cool for scenario designers.
In HD version RedKirby had created harbor skins for all civs. Nothing like that in DE yet.
You are right we don’t have architectural variants for the Malay Harbor and the Portuguese Fietoria for other architecture sets. Wish the devs added them though. They will such a good scenario editor unit.
Do you have the link to RedKirby’s mod for harbours? There were good Malay, Burmese, Mongol and Vietnamese building mods. If only they could be made by the developers for AOE2DE
I think you should ask RedKirby directly, he did not publish it(the custom harbor graphics he created for all civs) on public.
You can convert some architecture for DE from HD(ofcourse it won’t have proper destruction animation) Here is some conversions of my personal favorite architecture set by Omar_gg for DE:
Wish the devs added them though. They will such a good scenario editor unit.
