Renaming and splitting the Saracens

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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With the recent DLCs that we are receiving lately it seems the game is going on adding more empires and kingdoms and breaking a lot of we call it “Umbrella civs”.

As for this procedure I think honestly the most civ that could receive a new DLC and expansion would be “The Saracens”.

Name itself doesn’t make any sense from the beginning it is like calling the whole Europe civs “Christians” or “Franks” for example.

IMO current Saracens should be renamed as “ABBASIDS” since they cover them the most and the new expansion will be under the name of:

THE RISE OF THE CALIPHATES

1- Rashidun Caliphate:

The Rashidun Caliphate (632–661 CE) was the first Islamic state following Prophet Muhammad’s death, ruled by four “Rightly Guided” caliphs from Medina: Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali. This period saw rapid expansion across the Middle East, North Africa, and Persia, establishing a vast, unified empire and laying the foundations for Islamic law and governance.

2-Umayyad Caliphate:

The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE) was the second of the four major Islamic caliphates and the largest one established after Muhammad’s death, transitioning the leadership into a hereditary dynasty based in Damascus. Founded by Muawiya I, it expanded the empire to its greatest extent, stretching from Spain to India, and oversaw significant administrative, architectural, and cultural development.

3-Abbasids Caliphate:

This will be the same current Saracens with just a rename and new campaign.

4-The Emirate of Cordoba:

The Emirate of Córdoba (756–929) was an independent medieval Islamic kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus) ruled by the Umayyad dynasty.

What do you guys think?

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Absolutely not.

Adding content for Africa is more important than splitting more AoK civs.

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No.

Civs are not political groups. They are along culture and ethnic lines. Arabs would be better.

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Having a civ named after a dynasty, not in AOE2. However, you could do it discreetely by keeping the identity of the dynasties but naming them after their seat of power, such as the Levantines, Egyptians, Bedouiins (being the early invasion force from Arabia)…

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If that’s the case then why do we have Wu/Shu/Wei and other things? Even Cysion in a podcast with Masemora and Viper when Viper asked him if Vikings could receive a split then Cysion said there are some civs that have a great potential for a split and the most one is “Saracens”. Go check this link

Go to 1:07:00 and after

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I am not a fan of this but it is already done and it is already in the game.

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Agreed. This is just a discussion. But if there should be a new DLC then sure Africa should have top priority. I already made a topic about it before you can check it.

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8

Because someone lost their mind :person_shrugging:

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I don’t see it possible in AoE 2…in AoE 4 yes, since there are more kingdoms than civs…

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The first rule about 3K civs is, you do not talk about 3K civs.

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There’s no talk of 3K civs in Ba-Sing Tse…

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Oh you should have mentioned that earlier. Cysion’s input on civ splits is truly the gold standard.

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No,Aoe2 does not have and should not political entities,3k is an abomination.Arabs is the only rename that makes sense for saracens and that gives the oppertunity for non arabic people to be branched out like kurds egyptians jews etc.

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Because the devs lost their minds with greed one time. Does not mean they should do it again.

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It’s the ideal approach. But it would still be complicated.

Context:
To begin with, Bedouins never formed kingdoms, participating in Islamic armies with notoriety only during the early caliphates. The Levantines (Syrians/Arameans, Phoenicians, Jews/Palestinians) only held administrative positions at most, never governing nor standing out as soldiers.

The early caliphates (Rashidun and Umayyad) were entirely Arab in government and army, purposefully excluding not only non-Muslims (logically), but also non-Arab Muslims, who levied heavy taxes on them — which is precisely what caused their fall to the Abbasids, and the same prejudice led to the Berber Revolt in the Maghreb and Al-Andalus.

The Abbasid Arabs joined with the Shiites and other peoples to overthrow the Umayyads with the promise of better governance. But that didn’t happen, with control remaining solely with the Sunnis, and taxes and prejudice against non-Arabs continuing unabated; despite the Abbasid caliphs, over time, increasingly being sons of Arab fathers and non-Arab mothers (concubines/slaves), mainly of Persian origin.
So basically: Persians in power, Arabs and Turks in the army. This continued until the Abbasid caliph became a puppet sultan of the Persians (government) and Turks (soldiers) and later fell to the Mongols.

The Fatimids in Egypt, although claiming to be Arabs, came from among the Berbers of North Africa. Being a Shiite island in the Sunni ocean, they always needed allies, so they increased the importation of thousands of Armenians, Bedouins, Circassians, Turks, and “Blacks” into their army; disgruntled Shiites, Copts, and Jews for administrative roles.
This is the closest thing to a native caliphate in medieval Egypt and also the most tolerant. Meanwhile, in the Middle East, the Arabs retained only their religious influence, holding some power only in Arabia and Africa.

However, with the arrival of the Crusaders and later the Mongols, Saladin and the Kurds saw an opportunity to create a more just caliphate and unify the Muslims (read: Sunnis). He used the Turkish soldiers, who were gaining importance, to overthrow the last Fatimid and thwart an alliance between Makuria and the Crusaders. As a result, the Ayyubids became suspicious and began to dismiss all the foreigners who had been brought in, with the most numerous of them (the “Blacks”) being massacred in a bloody battle for their loyalty to the Fatimids and support for the Nubians and Crusaders.

From this point onward, and especially after the Ayyubids were overthrown by the Mamluks, the Egyptian government and army became increasingly dominated by the Turks. To give you an idea, the Mamluks didn’t even speak Arabic like the previous dynasties and were very exclusive and brutal. It’s no coincidence that they were the ones who ended the Crusades and defeated the Mongols.

So, finally, the only reasonable split I see is a new civ for the Arabs, from the pre-Islamic kingdoms to the Umayyads. The Saracens would remain the same, but with some adjustments to now represent only Egypt and the Levant.

What do you guys think?

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Monkey’s paw and we’re getting all AoK, AoC and Forgotten Empires civ splits, European and not European :upside_down_face:

The more people are seriously getting into actual AoK silly civ split requests EVEN IF IT’S JUST EGYPTIANS, BEDOUINS AND KURDS (bad as caliphates in my opinion) the more I feel like the game doesn’t need more DLCs after an African DLC.

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Still not sold no matter what…I don’t mind a name change for Saracens to Arabs but this whole split is really obtuse and unnecessary when other regions have more things to offer rather than being split from OG AoE2 civs.

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Ok so we dont need any of these ingame.

Perfect we have all three ingame.

We have enough representation for these in game right?

Ok so egyptians can be represented by other ingame factions or be a own thing with elements from here and there?

So why do we need to change saracens to represent egypt more and other parts less if turks are a better fit?

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Tbh I don’t want to split it on dynasties. I agree with Cordoba being split off as Andalusians. Beyond that I could see an argument for Egyptians and maybe Kurds being split off, but other than that I think leaving Saracens as is for the Levant and Arabian peninsula Arabs is fine. (I would like to see a Levant Arab split off, maybe as Syrians?)

There’s also higher priorities than this either way (other than Andalusians, which I do view as higher priority, but I also think it could be wrapped into an Africa DLC; a better connection than Portuguese which were wrapped into the last Africa DLC)

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One thing to remember with splits. They never remove any OG campaigns like Saladin, it only gets reassigned to a new civ. E.g: if the Saracens get reworked or removed like how Indians became Hindustanis.

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