It has recently come out that the Thirisadai, secondary unique unit of the Dravidians, is named after and based on a completely fraudulent Wikipedia article dating back to 2008, which contains dubious or fabricated sources for its claims. Furthermore, the article makes reference to other Chola Dynasty ships, which are directly compared to modern-day warship types despite being several hundred years removed. This should’ve been a red flag to the Wikipedia staff and should’ve encouraged them to look deeper into the claims, but they never did for 14 years.
About two months ago, just before the release of Dynasties of India, a post was made on the Bad History subreddit explaining how this obvious hoax made it so far in the public consciousness. With professional-sounding official names in Tamil, sources that seemed to be legit at a glance, and a lot of detail into how the ships were designed and what they contained, the vast majority of people fell for the hoax. By the time it was discovered, the damage had already been done. It has made multiple appearances in pop culture, including books, other articles that just tie back to Wikipedia, and, of course, AoE2.
So, what should the devs do about this? Well, I see there being three options: A) Leave it as is and perpetuate the hoax, B) rename it to something still derived but not from the hoax, or C) remove it completely. Personally, I think the second option is the best, so we can have the coolness of the Thirisadai still in the game, but the completely nonsense name derived from a deception is not there.
