Regarding the "Viking" civilization

You mean that Vikings wars will be in basic game?
I think that they will add NORSE civ in some DLC like new asymetric civ with own campaign (vs English and vs Rus)

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There is a fine line between accuracy and entertainment in video games.

No there isn’t. One thing is taking some “artistic liberties”, a totally different thing is getting historical facts completely wrong on a history-based piece of media just to make it look “kewl”.

This is not a documentary or history dissertation after all.

So? Doesn’t mean we should avow factually incorrect information sold as entertainment

People want to play with vikings because it sounds cool first and foremost.

Yes, but viking doesn’t mean what you think it means, it’s an occupation, not a demonym, which is a confusion caused by mistake done by laziness. It’s funny, because a person from outside this community is more likely to notice how “vikings” doesn’t apply to all the people but only the warriors who get off the ships, than the players and main consumers of a historical videogame. All of it thanks to inertia.

It’s pretty much the same when companies stick with the brand-like term “vampire” and not the actual historical Romanian name for the myth “strigoi” or Greek “vrykolakas”

Different languages have different names for the same thing, not relevant. Still doesn’t make it correct call “the vikings” a civilization.

You’re not going to attract wide audience if you go too specific, you have to play it a bit smart.

Appealing to retards and partially illiterate people forever isn’t playing smart. It’s what’s been happening everywhere in movies, series, books, videogames. But once the flashy lights and shiny objects wear off, these people you tried to appeal to will no longer care, and to gain a margin of profit you just ruined something for everyone.

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We don’t have Arabs in the game. we have the Abbasid Califate (that they are afraid to call Califate).
We don’t have India we in the game, we have the Delhi Sultanate.
We don’t have Germans or Teutones, we have the Holy Roman Empire.
So we will definitely not see a civilisation called “Vikings”.

The time frame of this game seems to be around 1000 AD till 1500 AD according to the civilisation descriptions and the technology used ingame.

I think seeing a Scandinavian civilisation is not unlikely. Denmark, Norway and Sweden were relevant after 1000 AD and some of the “Viking” traids still lived on.
You could give them a unique Heavy Infantrywith less armour, more HP and more attack armed with an Axe that is also available in Dark Age like the English Man at Arms.
In Caste and Imperial Age a unit like that could get more modern armour and a two handed Poleaxe. No fantasy Berserker next to cannons please.

Also please don’t call them Berserker. Berserker is basically Norse word for Champion. They are Elite warriors that were used for duels and happened to wear a bear skin.

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Hey we get the Rus, and they were often misunderstood to be vikings from people at the time anyway :wink: :wink: same same but different lol

They could also just name then Danes or Norse with like a message or update that a previous messanger mentioned. “The vikings are coming!”

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Yes I am a finish norse and would like to see the norse vikings in the game as halo infinite is a spartan game.

Big Mac and cheese Big Mac and cheese.

I agree the Vikings is a pretty widely known term for a large group of historical warrior cavillations. I’m 1/4 Norwegian and love the term Viking it embodies an impressive part of history… we don’t need to break the game down into every politically correct or socially accepted term. As interesting as the history within the campaigns of the AOE franchise may be - it shouldn’t be looked at as a historical reference when citing facts or events, merely a source of entertainment loosely based around historical events. It’s basically an interactive cartoon… I don’t think anyone would cite cartoons as historically relevant in any serious discussion.

Nonetheless, I really hope the Viking civilization is brought to AOE IV as soon as possible… or Scandinavia haha either way

calling them vikings is bad for a lot of reasons.

for one other things happened in the area after the viking age (and when did the age end? one could argue it ended in Denmark in 960 when it (re)united and Christianized but others will give you later dates until around 1060s).

the Kalmar union for example is much later.

then there is the fact that at the time most of them legitimately where just called Danes, the entire area in the early medieval era was stated to speak the “Danish tongue”, which no is not the language you have vikings speak in AOE2. the population around the formation of the Kalmar union saw Denmark equal norway+sweden combined (which also included Iceland, finland etc.)

then you get language, where as i just said the language in AOE2 is not necessarily the correct one, what they speak there is west Nordic, which today only exist on the faroe island and Iceland.

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