[poll] Should any Americans have Horses in AoMR? (Not Mesoamericans!)

Age of Mythology: Retold Discussion
1

How do they get horses?

Atlanteans have horses and llamas so there is a good explanation of how horses could have gotten there.
It would be kinda surprising if a civilisation that is based in the Atlantic and has a long ocean going tradition would not be able to reach the Americas.

Aztecs, Maya, Inca

I think we can all agree that those civilisations should not get horses.

No one want’s to give Mesoamerican civilisation horse. This poll is not about Mesoamerican civilisations!

Should any American civilisations have horses?
  • Yes, some of them
  • Yes, but only in very rare cases
  • No, none of them
  • No to Native Americans in general
0 voters

Who could have horses?

  • Lakota
  • Mapuche
  • Navajo
  • Apache
  • Other tribes of the Great Planes or Patagonia
2

I have played the Return of The Gods mod in AoMEE that adds Aztec civilizations, and let me be honest, it wasn’t a great experience because lack of cavalry. They didn’t have horses so it was hard to remember what unit counters what and since unit models were similar, it wasn’t easy to tell the units apart either. Even siege engines were foot soldiers.

If not horses, then at least wagons pulled by some kind of other animal or in worst case, have them ride anacondas or pigs. As long as it isn’t uninteresting foot soldier only garbage.

5

Interesting that you voted “in very rare cases” which is kinda the opposite of what you’re saying in this text.

I’m pretty sure Aztecs with Horses would not have many fans and Anti Archer Infantry is already a working solution for the Norse and the Aztecs in AoE2 and AoE3.

You have the same issues with the Aztec and Inca in AoE3DE or is the mod just not that good at making different looking units?

I never had a problem with those civs not having any cavalry.

1 Like
6

Im a fan of Alternative History scenarios like Americans with horses, but i don’t think that ots necessary here. Against ranged units they can have speciallist ranged or melee infantry, faster infantry or something similar. It is also interesting to have a civ with a very large deficiency that must start in other ways.

7

I should maybe add my opinion to the topic.
I think that some civilisations would work a lot better with horses since they have mythology connected to horses.
For many Native Americans the horse arrived before the European colonist. Horses escaped from captivity and quickly spread though the open plains since the ecological niece was empty. Horses went extinct in North America only after the arrival of the first humans and Europeans just reintroduced them.

So it would be nice to tie in this arrival of the horse into some of the civilisations.
Lakota or Mapuche seem to be good candidates for North and South America.
They could unlock cavalry in Heroic or even just Mythical Age.

I think other civilisations like Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) or Cree should not have horses.
Aztecs, Maya and Inca should certainly not have horses. But I don’t think there was ever a chance seeing them with horses in the game anyway.

8

I’m of the opinion that you can just supplement the missing unit roles that’d normally go to cavalry with more myth units.

3 Likes
9

It’s not really the question if civs without cavalry can work, since we know they do work in AoE2/3 already.
Also there is no way that civilisations like the Aztecs will get cavalry anyway.

The question is more if other civilisations like Lakota can even work without Cavalry. It’s a core part of their identity and removing that would feel pretty wrong.

10

Oh now that’s a really different and hard question to answer.

Thing is if you go with their precolombine, historic selves that’d fit the setting better they’d look so different from any preconceived notion people have about Plains Nations they’d be completely irrecognizable.

Yet if you make them as horse people in an 18-19th century setting they’d stick out immensely compared to all the other factions that are medieval-to-classical-to-dawn of civilization in their depiction.

There’s no real winning in that situation.

11

AoE2 is different because all civs play 90% of same units (40% of their roster is generic Infantry/Archer with no considerable damage bonuses), and they have access to less unit types in general, so its easier to remember what counters what. I do not want Aztecs in AoM to be something annoying to learn.

Do not forget that mesocivs in AoE2 have only 5 units (Champ, Halb, Eagle, Skirm, Archer). Pretty boring stuff.

12

This is such a bad idea. No, if they add the Aztecs or any meso civ they should not have horses. They don’t have horses in aoe2, if they did it would ruin their identity.

13

Try converting enemy stables with Aztecs or Incas.

14

That’s why I asked about AoE3DE too. In that game Aztecs and Inca have an almost completely unique unit roster.
But maybe you haven’t played AoE3DE enough to have an opinion on that.

Did you even read the topic?
I clearly said that giving Aztecs and similar civilisation horses is not even up for debate. It’s not even an option in the poll.
This thread is about other civilisations like Lakota or Mapuche and if those should have horses.

15

Did any of you play the Divine Edition?

Try that out. I simulate the Lakota history of going from the Dog Days (no horses, no nomadism) to having a full cavalry in the Mythic Age. As you age up, you become more and more nomadic, with access to more and more cavalry units.

But as with the early days of getting the horse, there’s no guns, no firearms. Those didn’t come along in any number until the mid-late 1800’s - the general timeline of how I made the Lakota for the Divine Edition is approximately the 1350’s → 1750’s, prior to any notable contact with Europeans (there was contact with Lewis and Clark’s expedition, but that’s essentially it.)

I would rather have done it differently, looking back, but the foundation is a good place to start for what it represents.

1 Like
16

They have siege weapons in AoE2 tho, so there goes your “identity”

17

Most people probably didn’t.

Every civilisation has siege weapons and Castles in AoE despite not having them in real life.
A lot of inaccuracies.

AoE3 does that a lot better. In AoM the Norse have Ballistas for some reason. Not very accurate either and also every civ has a “castle” but at last that is different between the civs.

1 Like
18

I’m tryna see if anyone around here did or not. Try it out, see if you like the way the Lakota are played there.

It’s an active attempt at exactly what this question is asking.

19

This depend on what civilization.

Aztec or Maya : definitely not because they did not use and in popular culture they are without horses, and this work well in other Age of game.

Lakota : definitely yes because they use it and it was important part of their culture and in popular culture they are with horses.

Inca : they don’t use horse but instead of horse they can use : llama cavalry

Also we can find alternative to horse, in the old world we ride : donkey, horse, camel (both arabian and bactrian) and there are even buffalo race in Indonesia.

In the new world we can look at prehistoric animal because most of them lived alongside humans.

For example imagine a Mapuche civilization, they must have mounted unit with spear, bow and bolas. But we can replace the horse by a prehistoric animal who lived in South America, the macrauchenia and for represent them not using modern representation without trunk but older one with trunk.

Imagine a mapuche rider with bolas who charge but instead of a horse he ride this : File:Macrauchenia.jpg - Wikipedia

Also if they put a Celtic mythology the celts will be use horse but like the egyptians who use horse, camel and elephant they can use another animal in addition : Irish elk, also named Megaloceros (there are depiction on this on internet, search with the words : Megaloceros rider) This animal was depicted in lord of the ring ( Thranduil ride a megaloceros in the movie The battle of the five army : https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/lotr/images/8/8e/Thranduil_in_Elk.png/revision/latest?cb=20190711135508 ) and also their is a chariot pulled by a megaloceros in the game Paraworld : https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/paraworld/images/b/bf/Norseman_Chariot.png . (This unit was in a norse themed faction who have also mammoth and wooly rhino unit)

So a celtic cavalry can use a mix of horse and megaloceros.

For a slavic mythology they will also use horse because this civilization must have a bogatyr unit this heroes use horse (there are nice XIX th century painting of them on Wikipedia). But for this mythology we can also use animal tamed to the cold because Russia is a very cold country, part of their cavalry can be reindeer (maybe with sled) and mammoth ( the word mammoth come from Russia).

For a mesopotamian mythology initially they don’t have horse and use onager. So we can put a heavy charriot pulled by onager like this : File:Ur chariot.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
For them a mix between onager (heavy cavalry) and arabian camel (light cavalry).

For a subsaharian african civ they use horse in the Sahel and have nice war cavalry, we can use them but better : with zebra instead of horse and maybe a rhino cavalry.

1 Like
20

It think it’s really strange to let some civilisations use other animals as cavalry despite those animals never being domesticated or those animals being long extinct.

Like what do Norse, Greeks and Egyptian uses horses but other civilisations that totally used horses historically suddenly use random extinct animals?

If it was part of their mythology then it somewhat makes sense, at last for a myth unit, but extinct animals are not part of mythology.

21

Sorry if I sound rude but, this is a game about mythology, not fantasy.

1 Like
22

I like the idea. Atlanteans are fantasy, dwarves are mythology and fantasy so why not prehistoric mounts I think that would be cool. Like a mythological, grounded version of warhammer fantasy.

Also I agree that most native Americans shouldn’t have horses/mounts but I am scared this gets a bit boring cause if less variety or the infantry must be insanely good and versatile