There is no significant evidence of direct contact between medieval Malays, Indonesians, and Polynesians, even though they appear geographically close and all placed great importance on navigation.
Of course, their connection to North America is also at a stage of insufficient evidence. Grouping them together is mainly because they are both the most mysterious, unknown, and almost nonexistent regions in AoE2. Mesoamerica and the Andes region could form another DLC, while the Malay split is more likely to become part of another Southeast Asia DLC.
I know the Algonquins and Iroquois had at least several centuries of conflict, but do we need to consider them before the Purepecha (Aztecsā rivals) and the Chimu (Incasā rivals) are introduced?
As for the Mississippians, I know many people have mentioned them, but in my opinion, Iām not sure they would be a stronger civ choice than the Tupis. They might be better than the Tupis, but perhaps still about the same. Clearly, most of their references would come almost entirely from Hernando de Sotoās accounts.
Besides, those civs would be challenged by people, for example, on whether there are feasible and sufficiently numerous references for contents of their campaigns, AI leaders, and distinctive civ design. They might ultimately meet the conditions, but clearly the Khitans and Tanguts can satisfy the conditions and prove themselves more easily. Thatās why, in my view, the North American tribes are relatively more likely or appropriate to serve under a single umbrella if compared with the Khitanguts.
If we want to go for an umbrella for eastern North America, why not just go Algonquins then? They can cover the whole eastern seaboard, and even tangentally Skraelings, as well as even getting into the Great Plains a bit, and they would have interacted with the Mississippians to give both of those two civs a partner in campaigns and such.
(I know you speak to this, but I still personally prefer just Mississippians, Algonquins, and Taino for non-Meso north America, leaving Pueblos out because from my understanding their successor peoples want them left out, otherwise Pueblos would be a great shout too)
I do certainly also want at least one more Mesoamerican DLC (you might be able to stretch to two) but in that Purepechas are priority number 1. As for Chimu, if there was a time to add them, it would be with our current S. American DLC. At this point the only way I think Chimu get added is if at the very end of AOE 2ās dev support they do a Forgotten 2 DLC, because with their regionally thematic DLCs, Iām not sure they do anything else in South America except Chimu (I guess maaaaaybe Aymaras).
I am admittedly biased though. I live in the USA. Iām Euro-American, not native American, but I still want my corner of the world represented.
Of cource we can. Personally I donāt really mind who are the one. Either Iroquoies or Algonquins are fine, while the former might be more famous since they are also a civ in AoE3.
I think a DLC including the Purepecha and Chimu together could be fine. The Mississippians might be a candidate for the third if there are three slots as they were relatively closer to the Mexico and it is the Spanish too who had engaged with them.
Iām an Asian, living in Asia. I donāt have strong preference to any native American groups. My opinions are not based on bias, just saying.
Yes, I would add Babur (1497-1527) in Dynasties of India, Ismail (1499-1524) in The Mountain Royals, and now these three campaigns in The Last Chieftains, which will occur between all the campaigns you mentioned (1490-1567)ā¦
Yes, thatās why they appear in AoE 3 tooā¦in AoE 2 the Britons are basically England (927-1606) and the Spanish are the Christian kingdoms of the Reconquista (711-1492)ā¦
Yes, itās said that the Caribs practiced cannibalism, but that was probably Spanish propagandaā¦
Yes, basically because the Middle Ages had already ended in Europe by then and they didnāt want to advance beyond thatā¦ after the Hundred Yearsā War (Joan of Arcās last mission) and the fall of Constantinople in 1453 (Fetih in VaV), Europe began the Renaissance with a restructuring of nation-statesā¦ England, greatly weakened by the war with France, fell in the Wars of the Roses (1455-1485) (play the Edward IV custom campaign, or the Battle of Townton in AoE 4 for more context) and was isolated until the Tudor era (1485-1603); Spain unified and was formed in 1469 and then went to war against Portugal in the War of the Castilian Succession (aka the Battle of Toro in 1476 in Almeidaās first mission) and then the conquest of Granada in 1492; France and the HRE divided Burgundy in 1477 after the death of Charles the Bold, and his daughter married the future emperor Maximilian I in 1477; in Italy, the status quo left by Sforza brought a precarious peace until the Italian Wars (1494-1559); in the Balkans, you have Dracula against the Ottomans after Fetih (1448-1477); and in Eastern Europe, in Age of Empires 4, the Rusā campaign shows that after defeating the Tatars at the Ugra River in 1480, Moscow began its expansion northward (Novgorod in 1478), westward (Lithuania in 1514), and southward (Kazan in 1552)ā¦ post-1492 already enters the territory of Age of Empires 3 (Italian Wars, Eighty Yearsā War, Thirty Yearsā War, etc etc etc)ā¦
Deganawida, Tadodaho and a few others, but we hadnāt thought of that yetā¦
The Incas were already important as early as 1238, as the kingdom of Cuscoā¦
Yes, theyāre a good optionā¦although weāre missing 10 more AIsā¦
Yes, those would be the most certain onesā¦you could even make 3 DLCs: Andean (Chimu, Wari), Mesoamerican (Purepecha and Caribs) and North American (Anasazi/Puebloans and Mississippians and as a last resort weāll leave out the Hauds because we donāt know any more AIs)ā¦
Puru civi has a similar count.Realistically you only need 7 AIs as you will be one player no name needed and 7 names so all of them dont repeat the same name.
I guess they can always add some more legendary figures missing from Wikipedia. They had native consultants for AOE3 DE already, so they can reach out again and ask whether there are some other historical or mythical people who lived during the gameās timeframe recorded in oral history.
(Thisāll probably be easier for the Haudenosaunee and other Iroquoian peoples who still exist as nations and tribes with elders, doing a Mississippian list will be trickier as most of their descendants formed other communities with identities distinct from their moundbuilding ancestors, but I assume itāll still be enough to fill the leader list.)
Wikipedia says Pacanchique is a folklore character, a step further from Yodit who I think you can sort of prove she at least existed. But they didnāt hide it since they clearly stated that this time itās a mix of āfolklore and historyā.
Folklore is alright in cases they didnāt have written history. At least in theory it couldāve occured, unlike the ahistorical Three Kingdoms campaign endings that we are 100% of certain they didnāt occur (we have historical records telling us that Cao Cao didnāt unite China or Sun Quan didnāt betray Liu Bei at Red Cliffs)
Montezuma, Bariā¦ Though I wouldnāt use this as an excuse to go down this path, specially after the 3k. That said if the campaign is good itās ok, I just donāt think Muisca lacked more realistic characters to pick so itās a deliberate choice cause they wanted to remake el Dorado probably.
I think they went with Pacanchique as some sort of āhistorically neutral" character for the Muisca campaign since they wanted to give the player the option of siding either with the historical chief of the northern Muisca (Quemuenchatocha) or with the historical chief of the southern Muisca (Nemequene)
Yes, theyāll probably use AI versions of characters from that era, and even use names of later characters from the 18th or 19th centuries like Tanacharison, Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant) or Tecumseh (even though it would be anachronistic for the gameās time period)ā¦
Yes, for the Mississippians theyāll use Mississippian names, and if thereās one missing theyāll add Cherokee names (who are descended from the Mississippians)ā¦
Yes, they were removed from DE because they never existed, so the Minoans only use 9 AI names in DE and Return of Romeā¦
Yes, it has a certain feelā¦ the Mississippians, like the other Mesoamerican civilizations in the game (Aztecs, Mayans, Muiscas, Incas), were in the Bronze Age at least by 1500 CEā¦ had they continued to exist, they would surely have reached feudalism or the Renaissance by the 1800s, and industrialization by the 20th centuryā¦
Of course, in theory, historically, Pacanchique followed Quemuenchatocha, since he had Pacanchiqueās wife prisoner and Pacanchique had to serve him to get his wife backā¦ but after killing his wife, Pacanchique probably allied himself with Nemequene to kill Quemuenchatocha and avenge his wifeā¦
Cherokee and many more nations and tribes belonged to the Mississippian culture, IIRC most descendants belong to Muskogean or Siouan language families. (Edit: also Caddoan)
I guess if thereās no budget for field work (rummaging through libraries looking for recorded legends or asking tribal elders about the stories reaching back to the mound building period), the very least devs could do would be to check wikis for descendant nations and look up whoās the earliest recorded leader of each.
Of course, they have to go little by littleā¦ have 5 AI names (the 5 they put above are good to start with), then go looking for another 5 AI names more or less located in the time of the civilization and finally leave it there or look for another 5 broader AI names from more modern times to build the list of 15 AI namesā¦ letās remember that the Teutons have Emperor Leopold I as their AI, who was the emperor during the siege of Vienna in 1683ā¦
In theory, the existance of Pacanchique is not verified, thereās no proof of him being a historical person, since the accounts of him are mostly legends passed from generation to generation and compiled by scholars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. On the other hand, the existance of Nemequene and Quemeunchatocha dates back to the 16th century chronicles written by the early Spanish colonists, priests and conquistadors. However, they described those events under their ethnocentric European point of view and the biases they brought over from their Medieval Castilian cultural background. Thatās why the game clearly states that the campaigns are a mix of history and folklore, if they went by strictly historical, anthropological or archeological data, the campaigns would end up being rather boring, tbh
I mean, it really isnāt a problem, in my opinion, they are mixing both history and folklore in the campaigns and thatās fine. Oral history and stories should also count, especially when dealing with the indigenous peoples of the Americas in the āmedievalā period
