If you don’t mind, one small personal question? What do you do for living?
To break the iceberg. I am a lifeguard or PE trainer at school.
Nothing at the moment. I’ve been having trouble getting and keeping jobs because of my multiple disabilities.
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Oh that’s unfortunate. Hope lord gives you strength.
Wishing you luck for your future aspirations.
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Yes, He is good. There must be a reason for it.
Thanks! I want to go to culinary school and eventually start a restaurant. I also want to make music and eventually make movies, presumably with the money from those other endeavors.
This is really great!
If I were to be more picky, I would say that the size ratio of the bell to the main house could be tweaked a bit to make the main house (especially its roof) taller and more prominent with lanterns hanging, or/and make the bell a little smaller and possibly have its own roof. Temple bells are often hung in pavilion-like structures. Then one of the two stairs maybe can be changed to gravel ground and set up a stone standing lantern or stele, or changed to a garden pool (like the current Monastery) and plant some lotus flowers.
But anyway It’s more accurate than the current Monastery even without these changes.
Granted this has a more pure Shinto style such like its roof, but the torii gate should not be placed there though. The torii gate symbolizes the entrance between the earthly world and the realm of kami, so it is basically discourtesy to go to the main house directly without passing through a torii gate. If want to better, shimenawa should be hung on the eaves or torii gates.
Btw, compared with Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines usually have a much smaller main house, and seem to seldomly have a garden pool (this is less certain, but it seems so after looking at Google results). But this might be picky.
Looking forward to seeing better a Buddhist temple as the Monastery, and additionally introducing a Shinto shrine in the scenario editor to decorate the potential Japanese campaigns.
God I really hope there’s an official update to the East Asian architecture set, even though I know the chances are slim. You know, even the East Asian architecture set in AoEDE looks much better!!
Not only the Monastery but also other type of building in the Castle and Imparial Age should have tiled roofs rather than thatched roofs (maybe except for Mill and Lumber/Mining Camp), otherwise they would look too poor and fragile. The current they contain too much wood and thatch and not enough bricks and tiles, making even a large city look like a countryside. Additionally, when they have tiled roofs, there should not be the characteristic ridge decoration which is for Japanese thatched and wooden roofs. Needless to say that kind of ridge decoration currently seen on various types of building is not only inaccurate for the other civs, but also excessive for the Japanese.
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Yes, I agree. I just combined the alpha version Imperial Age monastery with the one from AoK, using the bell and part of the stairs to cover up where the torii was – but yes, the proportions are off in the end result.
Yeah, it’s in a really silly place. Maybe that’s why they moved it for the final version.
I have mixed feelings about this. The East Asian architecture set is my favourite one, and part of that is because it’s predominantly wood and thatch and doesn’t look overly fancy (apart from the higher status buildings). It also feels a bit less uniform than the others, while still feeling cohesive. Obviously I don’t know what would actually be accurate, but most buildings in AoE2 are vernacular buildings, so I expect the exact details would be highly variable and regional.
I’m actually not sure what you mean by the ridge decoration.
This raised my expectation. Not all but some civs that converted from one religion to another should get new Imperial Age Monastery in the near future. For example Lithuanians pagan temple in Castle age and church in Imperial age, Bengalis Buddhist temple in Castle Age and Mosque in Imperial Age.
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While I think East Asian buildings can use less thatch, I think Native American buildings can have more reed roofs and not be composed 100% of stone, especially for the Incas. The AoE3 Inca architecture set is an obvious example.
Use the Imperial Age buildings as examples:
The red boxes are the Japanese roof ridge decoration I mentioned. I may be ignorant, but I have only seen this kind of ridge appearing on a thatched roof. If you try to simply search “Japanese Thatched Roof” on google, you can see many pictures with this kind of roof ridge, and the houses in those pictures are mostly residential houses.
The most obvious function of such roof ridge decoration may be to weigh down the thatch to make it stronger and not destroyed by typhoons. The current tiled roof of the Barrack with it may be not accurate. Also, It itself may not be suitable for civs other than Japanese. If we can reduce the thatch of this architectural set, then naturally such ridge decoration should also be used less.
The blue boxes are the set of katsuogi and chigi we mentioned before. In the 7th century, this decoration was initially reserved only for the emperor and powerful nobility, and then gradually it appeared only in Shinto architecture. Leaving aside the Monastery, I think the Blacksmith does not need to emphasize the Shinto element.
The yellow box is what I call the balconies that is rare in real castles in Japan. I still feel that this element is actually more often found in defensive structures on the Asian continent, such as the Zhengyang Gate in Beijing. Of course, the real balconies are with different styles from the in-game balconies. For example, Chinese gatehouses are basically red and have only one floor of balcony. However, they are all large enough to wrap around the building.
The green box is the stairs I mentioned. In fact, there may be no building that actually has such wooden, elevated, outward-facing and Y-shaped stairs. However, I personally feel that the design of bifurcated stairs is still more common in buildings on the Asian continent, such as the Summer Palace, than in Japanese buildings. Stairs attached to the outer walls of the structure can also be seen in gatehouses on the Asian continent.
For reference and comparison, the stairs common in Japanese castles are often part of hill paths leading to the main tower of a castle on a high place. Also they rarely have that kind of balconies, but more windows and murder holes.
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Why not just give them a unique castle?
Please don’t listen to someone above.
I’ve seen enough Chinese fortifications to know that the in-game one still largely resembles Japanese castles rather than Chinese gatehouses (albeit not a perfect match).
And the balconies and stairs aren’t similar to Chinese fortifications either. The Y-shaped stairs in front of the fortification directly exposed to the enemy is virtually unheard of on Chinese fortifications (or on any fortifications for that matter). Instead Chinese fortifications either have stairs on the internal walls facing the city rather than the enemy, and some Chinese hill fortresses (particularly the ones from Southern China) had removable wooden planks or stairs that could be retrieved or removed before a siege. And the triangular multi-layered roofs as well as multi-storied castle towers are also something more of a Japanese design rather than things that you would see on Chinese fortifications.
And Chinese fortifications or cities (particularly the ones from Song era onward) also tend to have extensive or elaborate barbicans or fortified gateways, something that isn’t reflected at all on the in-game East Asian castle.
I currently don’t have time but I’ll provide some pictures later on what I think to be the most typical/unique Chinese fortifications.
Yeah. Why not give *everyone a unique castle?
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Why not give everyone a *unique architecture?
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Your hostility towards me has been revealed clearly.
When you give me feedback on my posts, I had always respected your opinions and respond to your feedback with my thoughts. However, when I just express my opinions on your ideas, you seem to consider my words as hostility, thinking I’m forcing you to accept my opinions and saying that I do not respect your ideas. Then your blame my tone, saying I am condescending and dictatorial, but my tone is the same to you as it is to anyone else. I have no idea what’s wrong. You blamed me and asked me to improve my attitude, and you also interpreted my fear of communicating with you as my attitude improving, which make me feel that you may be even more condescending and aggressive.
When I go back and check all the conflicts we had, most of them started with you replying to me. However, this time I was replying @TommoChocolate with my personal feelings and thoughts instead of replying you. Why do you still be picking on me? I beg you, snice you hate me so much, please set me ignored. As long as you don’t attack me like this, I will never reply to any of your posts.
I have said it many times that I have not denied this. I don’t understand why you think I said the in-game castles resembles Chinese gatehouses, but seems you always stick to this point.
I said it.
Having stairs on the internal walls facing the city does not conflict with my point of view that they are attached to outer walls of the structure (or I should say exterior walls if the term I used is wrong due to my poor english). The walls, whether facing the enemy or the city, are the outer walls (or exterior walls) of the building structure. The inner walls (or interior walls) are oriented towards the people inside the building structure.
I indeed have already pointed out in my first post on this topic that their stone foundations, gables and roofs make sense for the reference to Japanese Castles.
I never said these are Chinese elements. I only said that the element of balconies of the in-game Castles look more like the element of balconies of Chinese fortifications than the Japanese castles. I used pictures to explain why I felt that, but even so it didn’t mean at all that I think they were just the same style of balconies of Chinese fortifications.
I have responded and even clarified myself to every question and accusation you have made against me. I think you may have misunderstood my words many times along the way, but the damage you have done to me, like falsely accusing my of any ethnocentrism and having a non-existent hatred for you mainland Chinese, make me unacceptable.
I feel like I can’t be lowly any more. I’d like to see your pictures that you said you are going to share, but I just hope you will stop misunderstanding me and attacking me.
Yes, I think it doesn’t make sense on a tiled roof (like on the barracks).
Oh, I’m not getting involved in this argument about castles! I’ll just quietly make my own judgements about the things you and @UpmostRook9474 have posted, and avoid being seen to take sides.
If I were making the decisions, I’d start with unique castles for all civs (since the precedent has set), then prioritise reducing the number of civs using Mediterranean architecture by introducing a Byzantine/Caucasus set. I’d also sort out the more conspicuously incorrect monasteries (e.g. non-Japanese East Asian civs; Ethiopians).
I agree that unique architecture for everyone would be the ideal end goal – not a realistic expectation, though.
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I will take unique monks too.
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Unique monks for EVERY civ, or just different regional styles? Because there are Buddhist monks and Imams in the Scenario Editor that would be great skins.
Regional styles please.
That I would agree with.
Some civs may perhaps need a solution similar to villagers i.e., a mix of two models.