No, no, 1000 times no lol. AoE2 was able to balance Meso civs without horses, and still having good ranged units so its not just infantry only, and they don’t have the benefit of myth units to lean on. If it can be done in AoE2, it can be done in AoM too.
No horses for American civs!
Did you read the post?
No one ever suggested horses for Meso civs.
Now I edited the thread to make it more obvious that we are not talking about civilisations like Aztecs, Mayans or Inca.
(I know Inca are absolutely not Mesoamerican but AoE2 players are used to call them Mesos too)
Ngl no sorry lol. I was in a hurry to get out the door and just said something based on the title.
And yeah as one of those AoE2 players I was counting Incas with Meso, even though they technically aren’t.
Historically, horses were not native to the Americas before European contact in the late 15th century. The Spanish brought horses to the New World, and their introduction dramatically changed the cultures and warfare of many indigenous peoples. Because of this, it makes sense that the Aztecs, Maya, and Inca wouldn’t have horses in the game if the goal is to maintain historical accuracy.
However, the Atlanteans having horses (and llamas) suggests a more mythological approach where some American civilizations could potentially have access to horses, especially if there’s an in-game explanation like trade or mythological intervention. If the game introduces a scenario where Atlanteans (or another advanced seafaring civilization) introduced horses to the Americas through exploration or trade, it could be justified within the game’s lore.
I don’t think you’d need to “justify” horses in any Native civ that uses them - just make cavalry later-game units for those civs and make them fight to earn them.
A civ like the Haida might only have access to cavalry in Heroic, and maybe only 1 unit entirely, relying instead on MUs to fill the hole.
I’d give a civ like the Lakota one cavalry unit per age, given through age-ups, and make their cavalry units stronger through the ages.
The game is meant to simulate cultures going through ages. That would include just giving them things they get later on anyway, we don’t need to “justify” giving them things.
For all Native civs that would have had access to horses, there would have been a significant period where they had horses but no contact with Europeans, due to the horse spreading across the continent much faster than the Europeans could explore.
I think it’s an interesting discussion over how to “categorize” North American Mythology.
The current civilisations are also relatively broad in what they represent.
Norse for example have elements from Iceland, Scandinavia, England and Germany in their units, technologies, mythology and so on.
You suggested Oceti Sakowin as a civ for AoM2 long ago, as far as I remember.
If we go back to 1000 AD the ancestors of the Lakota and Dakota were likely part of the Mississippian cultural complex.
I think for every civ we should go back in time as far as possible to the time to myths take part in.
But I think that detailed discussion needs a new thread.
AoMR will likely never even get close to the number of civilisations that AoE3 or AoE2 has so it is very unlikely to see multiple North American civilisations unless they are combined in one pantheon or something like that.
For AoE4. I’ve said before that no Native civ can be created in AoE2 with any sense of accuracy. The game is just too limiting to European standards.
The ancestors of the Dakota were Mississippian, the ancestors of the Lakota were likely from the Great Basin. But we also have zero surviving mythos from that era.
The Lakota, the Haida or Inuit, and the Haudenosaunee are the best route for Tortuamerican civs. The Lakota/Haudenosaunee already have a basis of being in AoE3, so it’s just a natural extension to add them as the Tortuamerican civs to Retold, while the Haida or Inuit are something entirely new, and both would offer a good water-based playstyle for a Tortuamerican civ to Retold that the Lakota and Haudenosaunee lack.
I personally think an absence of horses makes Native civilizations’ unit rosters more unique. That said, if Mississippians get added to the game as a playable culture, I could see them fielding cavalry in the late game since some of the Plains Native cultures (as well as the Eastern Woodland ones) might descend from them.
As far as CouguarLoup’s suggestion of adding prehistoric animals into the game, I like that idea, but I personally think they would be best suited as huntables and predators on maps with a “lost world” theme. Maybe take a fictional place like Lemuria or Hyperborea and make a map out of it that has prehistoric animals running around.
Most plains nations descend from the Great Basin, not the Mississippians. The woodlands people come from them.
Give them cavalry and just avoid the whole need to “justify” it, 90% of the draw to prairie peoples is the massive cavalry and nomadic focus they could bring.
I think an eastern woodlands culture fits best into the more standardized building design AoM R went for. In Retold Fortresses of some kind are now a mandatory Heroic Age building for aging up to Mythic, unlike in the original game, and it’s much easier to justify with some sort of fortified town design.
I’ve been trying to come up with an idea for a fortress building for inuits for weeks now, but I can’t find a precedent in neither mythology nor history for one.
Best I could come up with is a sky fortress built by the Tuniit giants, and even that one is entirely fictional since the Tuniit were peaceful and weren’t said to have built anything quite so megalithic.
And even if a civ lack fortresses, they will need some other age-up requirement for Mythic Age. And I’m back to being stumped.
The Inuit built fortress-like structures to defend against the Russians. Look into that.
Fair enough, but I thought I saw you say the Dakota at least came from the Mississippians.
I googled that and only found a mention of a TLINGIT fort being used to defend against Russian invasion.