Ever herd of the term readability?That means ability to identify something at once.If you rename and reskin units it will break that.
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He means the name.
Now now, the developing company isnât an all-powerful entity with unlimited resources. These things cost money, time, and they have to analyze the impact of this on the playerbase. To tell you the truth, I agree with what people have said: readibility is super important, so different skins shouldnât be implemented.
With regards to the OP, respectfully disagree.
While I generally support accurate unit naming (more in AOE3 than AOE2), âknightâ in modern context is generally synonymous with an amoured cavalry. Most major civilizations, at least in the Old World, have their own version of this unit. So when someone says a âChinese knightâ or âTurkish knightâ in English, most people can innately understand that they are talking about a âChinese Tie-jiâ or an âOttoman Sipahiâ. There is no confusion, or anything really awkward about it. Furthermore, it is more concise in English to say âknightâ than say âiron cavalryâ or âsoldier (horseman)â.
Plus, this keeps future unique units and techs open. Notice that Samurai, Ghulam, and Knight all means âservantâ in some capacity. Unless we are redesigning a new medieval game along the lines of AOE3 (I think that is what AOE4 is doing), we can probably make do with the universal âknightâ.
Now âchampionâ on the other hand⊠Did any civilization refer to their elite foot soldier as âchampionsâ?
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Milita line names are completely wrong historically.M@A is a cavalry man or heavily armored footman,long sword should ideally be a two handed weapon.
I would rename champion to foot knight or m@a if we are going for historical terms.
Milita footman swordsman m@a foot knight.
Half of the regular unit names are specific to a region and a time period: Knight, paladin, hussar, longswordman, halberdier, arbalester, trebuchet, galley, cogâŠ
Your proposal is basically giving the knight 7 different names.
It is important to have a standardized language to discuss topics related to the game. What could we call the standard heavy cavalry and its upgrades? âHeavy cavalry level 1/2/3â kind of work but its a bit more complicated and, honestly, boring. How would you call the dozen of variants on the milita line? Theyâre the same unit at the end of the day.
The original devs have decided to build a standardized set of aesthetics for all the civs based on western europe. Itâs only logical that the naming convention follows the same route.
Furthermore, the name âknightâ is so specific to western europe that its meaning has come the other way around and became an abstraction of âheavy cavalryâ of any kind and culture.
Nevertheless, as other comment says
and this is something almost any civ in the game historically had.
Now, as a side note
All this can be made âclient sideâ, so that only the player can see the sknis and names.
It doesnât makes much sense for renamings, since the names could no longer be used as standardized terms for communication.
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Gaudio3342, this is the case when I read a text and its parts seem to make sense, but all together is complete nonsense.
I donât understand the problem.
Is it the word âknightâ? In that case, the knights of the Teutons should be called âRitterâ?
Is it that âknightâ means âelite heavy cavalry funded by feudalismâ and some nations didnât use feudalism? By that metric some of the Teuton knights also shouldnât have been called knights.
The problem is that most of nations never had knights.
Sorry, I still donât understand what you mean with âknightâ, and your explanation doesnât clarify it for me.
Unless you mean to say that most nations didnât have heavy cavalry whatsoever. Whatâs the defining point of a âknightâ? Plate armour?
except for the meso civs which ones didnt?
Dravidians, Koreans, Malays, Vietnamese, Chinese, Cumans, Bengalis.
Almost none did. Read the head-post.
Theres a large gap of the world outside of Europe amd south to East Asia that never used Crossbows yet i wouldnât change that either because why make a big deal over a simple aesthetic that as others have said: readability
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it has been explained to you that âknightâ is just âheavily armoured nobels on horsebackâ.
so which ones do you want to rename:
japanese knights are now called samurai?
turkish knights are spahi?
pesian cataphracts?
polish hussar?
frankish chevalier or gendarmes?
teutonic ritter?
itâs absurd
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No. Tatar knight, African knight and Japanese knight is absurd.
There were cavalry with heavy armor which is called Bushi, Samurai in Japan in 11c~. (btw, what is mounted monk in Asian nations? Iâve never heard.)
I will echo Gaudio3342âs words and say that most of the units in AoE2 are right now an abstraction of actual historical units. Knights in AoE2 do not literally mean Knights, nor do Paladins mean the⊠twelve paladins of real life.
Knights in AoE2 refer to heavily armored mounted units, but finding a name for them that is universal is either cumbersome or⊠boring. That being said, we already have Light Cavalry. We can absolutely have *Heavy Cavalryâ.
Not sure what it would upgrade to, Hussar much like Paladin are iconic names in AoE2 at this point, and renaming them will be futile. I donât think the playerbase would follow the renaming attempts (though Arbalester and Camel rider are the names used, so who knows; though you can argue those arenât as iconic names 
).
For the time being, you can just imagine Knight being renamed to Heavy Cavalry, Crossbows into âStronger Archersâ and whatnot else. And finally, historical accuracy hasnât really been a priority for the game anyway. It serves as inspiration, not a rulebook to be followed. Itâs why we can have Aztecs fighting Teutons in the game. That doesnât make sense just as much as whichever âproblematicâ civ having Knights doesnât. But in AoE2, both are possible and things that happen. (:
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Ingame bengali and dravidians dont have knight line but historically they did use heavy cavalry.
All stepp people had catapract type units other adopted from them.
Chinese and koreans had heavy cavalry,juchen iron pagodas were fully armored.
Burmese and vietnamese might be the only candidates without heavy cavalry.
Did the Malians and Ethiopians have heavy cavalry, or even heavy infantry for that matter?
This is really an Asian battle monk. They just didnât have a special name if they are on horse.