I think we also need the Bruneians, Chams and Sundanese, possibly the Aceh, Kutai and Tagalogs and maybe even the Banjars, Sulawesis, Maguindanaos or Balinese if we want to be as thorough as possible.
Bruneiās sphere did reach into the Sulu islands and a chunk of Mindanao, but I think theyāre ultimately distinct enough to stand apart from the Malays and Luzviminda. Speaking of which, the latterās what Iād name the umbrella civ for Tagalogs, Visayans, and Bangasamoros + Cebuans encompassing those cultural variations without the colonial-era baggage. There were some differences between martial cultures of Luzon and the Visayas, just not enough that Iād have completely separate civs for them (and they shared enough naval tech/strategy with the Moros as well).
You could add Brunei, Javanese, and Luzviminda without splitting Malay, too, since theyāre closer to the South China Sea and inhabited a more Sinicized trade/cultural region (ex. Tondo trading with Ming) than lower Indonesia. Thereās a whole campaign one could do about Bolkiah, and a scenario about the Castilian War. Moving the Gajah Mada campaign to Javanese might be confusing for a DLC, though doable if the Malays in turn get a Malacca story centered around Parameswara and Mansur Shah.
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@SamePorpoise303 Sorry for the delay, these days have been very busy.
Regarding your first post, I can only say that, unfortunately, we will have to wait for more information in the future about the period you are interested in. For the reasons listed in the tl;dr our current knowledge becomes reasonable only after ~1300/1400. Thereās nothing we laypeople can do about this 
Also, I understand that youāre just a normal guy who has work and other concerns irl and you donāt have time to ābecome a PhDā just to create a campaign for a game. But as I said above, due to all the factors exposed etc etc
Thatās exactly why I took this on as my personal mission. And believe me, Iām in the same situation as you.
As for the second post:
Well, I donāt see a problem since the aoe2 period seems to extend up to ~1600. I guess you have no problem with the inclusion of the Aztecs or Incas, right? Some of the African civs would be older than both, at least in the imperial phase of the latter. And yes, I would also love for there to be more about the earlier periods.
I know itās not that important, but how exactly does āEuropean warfare somewhat normalize African peculiaritiesā? Would you mind elaborating?
If you are referring to gunpowder weapons again, as I said, they do not seem to have revolutionized native warfare there at all, only becoming important centuries later. In fact, itās just the opposite: the Portuguese and other Europeans had to adapt to the way Africans fought in order to prosper (or just survive) there.
For example:
Iirc, sources on Kanem-Bornu only mention firearms again in the 18th century, long after Idris Alooma had adopted Turkish musketeers ā the most important tactic in kanuri warfare being the construction of fortifications in strategic places (the same goes for the Shona) and the destruction of the surrounding environment (literally the massive cutting of trees) and economic means of the enemies. Somalis only appear to have strongly adopted foreign cannons after the war against the Ethiopians ended (that is, shortly after the death of Imam Ahmad Gragn). Benin completely rejected firearms sold by the Portuguese after learning that this required their conversion to Christianity (the Church did not allow the sale of weapons to pagans). The Kongo appear to be unique in using firearms regularly since the 1500s, but they were never more important than infantry and archers until centuries later. Not even Songhai, which is seen as an example of the relevance of firearms, really serves as an example since the larger context of the war is often ignored, such as the carelessness and arrogance of the ruling elite (they really did not believe that Morocco would try to invade them, since it sounds pretty stupid to cross the Sahara with a vague objective) and the costly effects of the civil war that hit it in previous years.
So, to summarize, there would be no problem in placing African civs without specific bonuses for gunpowder units, even though they are from the 1500-1600 period.
Thereās no problem, of course. But would you mind explaining how exactly this happens?
Itās just your impression, friend. Iām a normal guy who simply decided to learn about African history after seeing that there was very little on the Wiki. I started avidly exploring Google until I found great contributors on historum.com and r/askhistorians. Then I started reading the texts they suggested and accumulating knowledge, but everything was in no order (the idiot here didnāt write anything down). Soon after, I started making (horrible) concepts and drawings of architecture sets that unfortunately were lost when my old cell phone died lol. Now Iāve started everything over the right way, writing things down and saving things in Google drive. Is it time consuming? Yeah, but I like it 
Edit: In addition to the suggestions from other colleagues, I would suggest the rise of Afonso I of Kongo and his fight against the rebels since he is the earliest option for this civ. I imagine that this recent biography of him will have something more detailed about his life, but we have to wait. For Kanem-Bornu, Iām reading the book āHistory of the First Twelve Years of the Reign of Mai Idris Alooma of Bornu (1571-1583)ā by Ahmad Ibn Fartua translated by H. R. Palmer, and I hope to find more details about his campaigns. As for Benin, I honestly donāt know yet where to find the accounts of the campaigns themselves, but I know they exist because I saw several citations in Osarhieme Osadolorās free PDF, āThe Military System of Benin Kingdom, c.1440-1897ā (I read superficially).
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You donāt have to be sorry, I donāt have much to add anyway. We already know the issues with African civs in early to high middle ages as you confirmed.
Yeah but both Aztecs and Incas have accounts before European contact, I mean pachacuti is about that and imho itās not a campaign as bad as people say, it just needs more civs to fight against (never again a DLC should add an isolated civ without at least one other neighbour civ to fight).
Again itās not a problem per se to have 75% of African civs to fight in early modern times (as I said better something than nothing at all) but then again all campaigns would basically look the same at a certain point meaning African tribe Vs European invaders, losing but somehow winning for gameplay reasons like in Montezuma. There are exceptions of course (I think Songhai is one) but not as much as people tend to portray here.
Well people often say theyāre tired of knights etc so if you add African civs just to give them gunpowder and European weapons whatās the point of it? The previous statement also sounds hypocritical in this context, like an Indian guy wanting more Indian civs for diversity but also wanting them to have knights and dromons. If the intention is genuine then I just donāt get it, if itās not then youāre being hypocritical.
If they add non European civs I want them to look different from European civs, thatās pretty obvious right?
I donāt know to me it seems very obvious lol. Unless youāre a fan of colonialism, I guess you want non European civs to retain to their native and pagan customs, no? Iām not saying it isnāt cool to see Christian Ethiopia or Muslim Ghana but if all Africa just become a box of European or middle eastern colonial civs again whatās the point in diversity? Iām sure there are tribes like you reported that clinged to their peculiarities and original identity but unfortunately those are the less documented ones since it seems that only colonisers cared to keep written historical accounts about them (thatās why the problem in finding sources before 1400).
Ok cool, then itās about passion. In this case I know very well how passion can make you thrive in details (being one who knows some really obscure trivias about late antiquity) but thatās not something you can expect from everyone otherwise itās totally unreasonable. Passion is personal, everyone has its own, thanks God, and itās not a fault if Iām passionated about idk Sri Lanka history and I would find 8 civs to split only there. Hence the problem I have with some people here on the forum (not you) who donāt seem to get such a simple notion.
If I want to make a campaign about Africa and Iām not knowledgeable about it I want sources and I want them easily accessible like on a wiki or similar. With Europe you can do that, with Africa you may have to search more and still obtain less so itās totally up to you, you canāt expect that as something that is due. Only passion can shorten the gap, youād walk a longer way for love etc but not everyone can or should do the same as you because what you love is about you and you only.
Itās like I say I like purple and you ask me vehemently āwhy donāt you like this more specific kind of green? Are you against having more green shades???ā And the answer is: because I prefer purple ahah. Thereās not much to discuss if the intention is to change my mind or me changing yours, thatās not up to debate, thatās taste. I could make the same question to you: why donāt you like purple?
Any attempt to force someone to adopt your mentality is a form of violence, indirect and more subtle, but it exists (you can observe it in many posts, many likes, many threadsā¦ even if since when I spoke up things seem to have become a little more reasonable). For the sake of variety you end up creating a world less varied, colonising other peopleās tastes with yours only because you happen to like X which is a poorly represented civ in the game. Thatās your call but nothing is due to you, neither from me or Devs or whoever. I donāt want to get political but this is a problem Iām observing more and more in real life where people are ok to ban freedom because of what they think itās āequalityā (equality is a number only in abstractions, in math, not in real life where weāre all different, all of us is) while itās really just their taste. And in the end we end up having neither freedom nor equalityā¦
So to me thatās a big no, but it doesnāt have to do with a specific subject as I hope people will comprehend (Iām not against ANY kind of civ per se, quite the opposite), itās about means you use to justify an end. And thatās wrong no matter if youāre doing it āfor a good causeā. Every person willing to limit other peopleās freedom talked like that, even authoritarian people in the past.
Conclusion: everyone must be free to like what they like and to not care or care less about what they care less because nobody can care about everything in equal terms unless itās a robot and Iām not lol. (This has not to do with our conversation but as a reminder for people reading)
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I could see a Javanese/Malay split working, theyāre actually very different, theyāre only confused now because a simplified form of Malay was promoted as āIndonesianā when the culturally disparate Dutch Indochina colonies got their independence.
Really that region under āMalayā now has a lot more real material to work with than sub-saharan Africa with its near total absence of any native written records.
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At the end of the day none of these matters, itās all about preferences.
You can spot peopleās preferences when a key word is used āimportantā. Important means nothing more than āI like itā. Youāll see people arguing for African civs making the case that they are more important than whatever European civs are left, and then those āimportantā African civs are so important they are mostly undocumented.
I agree, although āLuzvimindaā is simply the combination of the names of the three major regions of the Philippines- Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. It is not a demonym, rather a mnemonic we use in grade school geography, and also happens to be a common Filipina name. So it wouldnāt work, āFilipinosā would be fine.
It wont sound odd in a medieval game?
I mean Iād like more African civs to be in game like the majority of people, splitting Malians, Ethiopians, adding Nubians, south Africa etc.
The problem is when youāre forced to ācheck the African boxā before any comment about Euro civs otherwise people get crazy.
In general I think itās not a good indicator of an healthy discussion to start by having to justify your own taste.
The point is that sub-Saharan Africa is severely lacking in representation, while Southeast Asia has 4 civilizations. The lack of written records does reduce the number of reliable potential African civilizations, but a new African civilization is still more profitable than a new Southeast Asian civilization. If we went back to before the release of AoC, the Aztecs and Mayans were still definitely more attractive than the Magyars and Slavs, even though the latter two have more records.
Compared with the new African civilizations and the Chinese split, the priority of the new Southeast Asian civilizations is indeed lower. Even inside Southeast Asia, the introduction of the Siamese, Chams and Nuosu might have taken precedence over the independence of the Javanese and medieval Filipinos from under the Malay umbrella, as the first three had heavier interaction with more existing civilizations.
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Kinda funny how most of the replies here are about africa, america, asia and SEA civs.
Might as just let this dead thread die, and move on to a new thread that actually is on topicā¦ or at least to one of these fitting ones:
etc, etc.
You know, instead of hijacking and bumping this one.
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the āRomaniansā is a pretty modern term which includes all the peoples you mention, but what is the point to add more civs if they are going to be a modern name and a collective civ? I see the problems you are pointing at, butā¦
The Romanians is not a modern term, itās an endonym. The Romanians have always called themselves Romanians since they were first mentioned. And Wallachia was called in romanian āTara Romaneascaā meaning āThe Romanian Landā.
Wallachians/Vlachs is an exonym. They were called as such by other people, but thatās not what they called themselves. It comes from a proto-Germanic word that means āstrangerā and was generally used for romance-speakers. The Hungarians used to call the Italians olasz, and the Slovenians used to call the Italians Lahi, both having the same root as Vlachs.
So Romanians is not a modern term. Other nations also started to user the term Romanian to refer to Romanians since the little union of 1859, but itās not like Romanians suddenly started to call themselves Romanians in 1859.
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As for being a collective civ itās a shade of grey. The Romanians in Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania considered themselves Romanians or āRomeiā and spoke the same language (more similar than the Italian languages were). But ethnicity wasnāt a big thing back then.
If you take it by country, they lived in 3 different countries: Wallachia, Moldavia and Hungary. If you take it by culture, they had more or less the same culture even if they lived in 3 different countries.
I would argue that a civilization is first a culture and then a country, but as I said itās a shade of grey.
We have vietnamese which is never a medieval thing in game so romanian is fine.
Romanian is a medieval thing as well, in the romanian language.
Yes, letās say the Saracens represent the Abbasids and the Ayyubids (separate civs in AoE 4)ā¦
You would still be missing the Balkansā¦between the Bulgars and the Byzantines in Greece there is nothingā¦you can divide the Byzantines into Serbs, Croats and Albanians and the Slavs into renamed in Ruthenians and Vlachsā¦
You can reuse the voice lines of the Lakota from AoE 3 (the Lakota between the 9th and 12th centuries were part of Mississippian culture)ā¦
Siouan language speakers may have originated in the lower Mississippi River region and then migrated to or originated in the Ohio Valley. They were agriculturalists and may have been part of the Mound Builder civilization during the 9thā12th centuries CE.[7] Lakota legend and other sources state they originally lived near the Great Lakes: āThe tribes of the Dakota before European contact in the 1600s lived in the region around Lake Superior. In this forest environment, they lived by hunting, fishing, and gathering wild rice. They also grew some corn, but their locale was near the limit of where corn could be grown.ā[8] In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Dakota-Lakota speakers lived in the upper Mississippi Region in what is now organized as the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas. Conflicts with Anishnaabe and Cree peoples pushed the Lakota west onto the Great Plains in the mid- to late-17th century.
Yes and you could fight against Italians, Turks, be an ally of Dracula in the Skanderbeg campaign and an enemy of Mehmed II in his campaignā¦
Skanderbegās rebellion was an almost 25-year long anti-Ottoman rebellion led by the Albanian military commander Skanderbeg in what is today Albania and itās neighboring countries. It was a rare successful instance of resistance by Christians during the 15th century and through his leadership led Albanians in guerrilla warfare against the Ottomans.[1]
On 2 March 1444 the regional Albanian chieftains and nobles united against the Ottoman Empire and established the League of LezhĆ«. The coalition would go on to successfully fight the Ottoman forces up until 1479, after which it was dissolved. After Skanderbegās death in 1468, the league would continue fighting under LekĆ« Dukagjini.
Skanderbegās revolt represented a reaction by sections of local society and feudal lords against the loss of privilege and the exactions of the Ottoman government which they resented.[citation needed] Because of the frequent conflicts between rival families in Albania during Skanderbegās rebellion, particularly between Skanderbeg and LekĆ« Dukagjini, Albanian studies scholar Robert Elsie described the period as more of an Albanian civil war.[2] However, Skanderbeg reconciled with LekĆ« in 1453 and re-allied with Gjergj Arianiti in 1456.
Internal power struggles within the Byzantine Empire in the 14th century enabled Serbsā most powerful medieval ruler, Stefan Dusan, to establish a short-lived empire that included all of Albania except DurrĆ«s.[51] In 1367, various Albanian rulers established the Despotate of Arta. During that time, several Albanian principalities were created, notably the Principality of Albania, Principality of Kastrioti, Lordship of Berat and Principality of Dukagjini. In the first half of the 15th century, the Ottoman Empire invaded most of Albania, and the League of LezhĆ« was held under Skanderbeg as a ruler, who became the national hero of the Albanian medieval history.
There you have the 2 campaigns for the Balkan dlc (add Tomislav for the Croats and Dracula for the Vlachs and ready)ā¦
Yes, the issue is that before 1400 there is not much information for civs and African campaignsā¦Sundjata and Yodit are almost semi-historical oral legendsā¦and after 1500 it is pure colonialism (that is, AoE 3 timeline)ā¦
A little late, the Uzbeks appear in the 16th century (or lasting until the 19th century)ā¦
The Burgundians are medieval Dutchā¦the Dutch became independent in 1581 (already very late in the timeline)ā¦
This is because (as seein in Bayinnaung) Burma expanded throughout the SEA in the mid and late 16th centuryā¦
Yes, we need more campaigns between the year 500 and the year 1000ā¦
Of course and end in the Portuguese Historical Battle of AoE 3 of Cristopher Da Gamaās expedition in 1542-1543ā¦
And so you would have a campaign from the 7th centuryā¦
Yes, the Turks represent all the Turkic peoples and Khanates from the Gokturks to the Ottomans passing through Rum and Turkmens (Seljuks, Chorasmians and the Qoyunlu) in betweenā¦
Of course, in fact Return of Rome is more of an expansion of AoE 1 than AoE 2 (the civs and campaigns are from AoE 1 perspective)ā¦
True, they would have to bring in the Vlachs and then give the Slavs a campaign (Ivan III)
Exactly, the Western Romans are from 395 to 476 and from there come the Italians (476-568), Teutons (568-774), Franks (774-936) and well from there Teutons and Italians until 1494ā¦
Yes, maybe a Barbarian invasions dlc (250-400 CE) for RoRā¦
Yes, letās say that the full Middle Ages began with the Arab invasions (because that led to the Reconquista in 711 and the Crusades in 1095)ā¦
Of courseā¦Armenia is more centered between the 9th century and the 14th century and Georgia between the 11th century and the 15th centuryā¦
Maybe this one fits moreā¦as the Vietnamese have the imperial skirmishersā¦
No, itās a limitation of the engineā¦
Visayans are fine,but Filipinos are Malays/Polynesiansā¦
Of course,the Filipinos are Malays,but Malays could be divided at some pointā¦
It is because they were very far from Spain that the Americans occupied the Philippines with greater force and began to limit the use of Spanish language in the area until it disappeared after WW2ā¦
As a revolution of Spainā¦
Itās better for AoE 3ā¦
Thatās trueā¦ the same thing, Africa in AoE 3 just started in 1543ā¦
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But they only did that in the late 16th century at the very end of the AoE 2 time period, for much of the Middle Ages the Mons had their own independent kingdoms (Haripunjaya, Thaton, etc.)
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Give Vikings Indians treatment and split it into multiple civs. Shield Maidens, spinning infantry dps, dismounting raiders, spear throwers. There is so much potential over there. Maybe add some unique buildings like raiding camps that heal units, and add scout ships with ability to build lighthouses that are basically naval outposts.
I wouldnāt mind if they went far and changed them to Norselike nomadic civ from Age of Mythology where villagers couldnāt build, but only gather while walking around with Mule (Ox) Carts. The one that could build is infantry and they had weaker defenses and were lacking most tower upgrades and their villagers couldnāt build towers or walls.
Sure, maybe another dlc between the 12th and 14th centuries in SEA would be good, so we would see how the expansion and decline of the Mongol empire affected the entire regionā¦