Armenians, Georgians, Huns and Cumans are kind of in a grey area, for different reasons.
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I really want some more Native civs
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Saracens are like you said Arabs. Turks were just called Turks I think.
A middle eastern Civ that could be added is the Kurds.
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Why? They all came from Asia.
Is it because the Armenians and Georgians are Christians? so are Ethiopians.
Is it because the Armenaisn and Georgians are white? so are Turks.
While the Huns and Cumans literally came from Asia to Europe.
I donât think thereâs a definition of what makes an Asian civ asian apart from being from Asia.
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Europe is defined by culture, since its geographic boundries are purely arbitrary and not always consistent. Georgia is oftem included in Europe, Armenia not quite since its position is awkward
Both Georgians and Armenians followed much more closely the European social structures
Amd if we instead pick the geographical definition Cumans and Huns were present in Europe during their entire existance in the AoE2 timeline
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By that definition then Byzantine can be considered Asia, and even African. So could Slavs (Rus), and Spanish could be considered American, etc.
And if we go strictly by culture, then north African civs can be considered Asian since much if their culture was greatly influenced by Arabs and Islam from middle east.
So we cannot go purely by any single definition, it must be combinations of many different factors.
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North African civs are indeed middle Eastern culturaly 
. The thing is: African borders are clearly defined, but there was no shared âAfrican identityâ prior to colonization. There was no unifying âAfrican cultureâ either, there were like five diferent âmacroculturesâ with extremely little in common with each other. The same can be said for Asia, theres nothing in common beetwen thd Japanese and the Persians
Also,the argument for Slavs, Spanish is a bit silly. Slavs and Spanidh for most of the timeline were exclusively in Europe and the heartland of their civilization was always in Europe. Byzantines lost Africa by the 7th centiry, and the hearland was alwats the Greek culture parts in the Balkans and Anatolia. And Byzantium is the most important influence in Eastern Europe, has a clear Roman heritage and is christiam so it has very very little in common with anything outside âEuropean culturesâ
And I diaagree, you cant have it both ways. Europe has to be either defined by culture or by geography. They are the only continent fof which people use the cultural argument, which is kinda dumb if you also insist on using the geography (which was arbitrarily decided and isnt even very clearly defined and was only created as a concept to divide the âEuropean cultureâ from everything else)
Just go the simple route and differentiate who is who by looking at the ingame buildings.
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If we go by that then Portuguese are the same as Georgians lol
And buildings are always an abstractation tbh. South East Asia has an staggering variety in architectural variety but they are fine rn
Donât these arguments cancel each other out? If we define Armenia & Georgia as European because they have an European-ish culture, then we cannot define Cumans and Hus an European because they had an Asian culture, even though for most of their AoE2 timeline were in Europe. A similar argument could be made for Hungary.
While I agree that the geographic boundries are purely arbitrary, I disagree that culture is what defines a continent.
Britons/Lithuanians/Slavs/Byzantines/Spaniards were very different in AoE2âs timeline. And so were Indians/Chinese/Mongols/Persians. If we got to include all these 4 different set of culture as an European civ because they were in Europe, then we just go back to the definition of continents in geographical terms.
The same thing you said about Africa also applies to Europe. There was no European identity in the Middle Ages. We only see the Carolingian Empire as the âpan-Europeanâ union retroactively, they never saw themselves as such.
Much like the Byzantines always seeing themselves Romans and THE ROMAN EMPIRE, not the Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire populated by the Greeks, which was only done so retroactively. That part of the Roman Empire spoke Greek since the Romans conquered the Greeks, and they became Roman citizen, centuries later, only that part of the Roman Empire remained, so it became common sense that the official language should be changed to Greek since thatâs what most people spoke, but they never stopped being citizens of the Roman Empire. And true, 1400s Roman Empire was very different from 400s Roman Empire, but 400s Roman Empire was more different from the 500 BC Roman Republic than the 1400s Roman Empire. So the distinctions were only made retroactively and not always correct. For example, itâs very popular in the west to say that the Roman Empire fell in 476, which, yeah that was only the westen part.
Byzantinesâ heartland was Anatolia. Not in Europe.
Christianity isnât an European religion, yes it originated in the Middle East and was adopted by Europeans. But to this day exists Oriental Orthodox Churches and Assyrian Orthodox Churches who are arguably more Orthodox than the Eastern Orthodox church. There used to be more back in the days, up until 1000 AD the muslims were a minority in the Islamic Caliphate. But that aside, are the muslim Albanians and Bosniaks more European or Asian? Were the Turks European or Asian?
Could go on but point is, culture is more muddy than geography.
We tend to believe that people from the past were just like us but with less technology. And that all states in Medieval Europe were the same but with different language and religion, maybe laws. Not the case.
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Yes. I think either definition is fine. You should pick either of them, but using both of them is dumb which is what the other guy was defending in his comments and what you agreed with.
Im talking about what defines Europe as a continent, the others dont have this problem. The main problem is the border with Asia since Europe doesnt follow the definition of continent, which is âa landmass beetwen large bodies of waterâ. The idea of Europe as a continent is purely to divide the âEuropean cultureâ from everything else.
They were very very diferent, but saying that they were as disimilar to each other is either being generous when talking about the pagan periods of the Lithuanians, Slavs and Vikings or straight up ignorant.
Thats not true. The concept of âPan-Europeanismâ dates exactly to that point in time, the late Frankish Kingdom. The presence of the Caliphates led to the unifying notion of Europe, a notion defined by the Roman heritage and the Christian faith.
Thats not quite true. The heartland of the Byzantines was the Bosphorus, but there was a slightly greater emphasis placed on the western side of it because thats where Constantinople was. Anatolia was where most of the Byzantine population was, so calling the civ partly Asian isnt unfitting but since Europe was defined based on culture and the Byzantines were most important for the shaping of the culture of Eastern Europe and were as Christian and Roman as they come, they are âway more Europeanâ than almost anyone.
Its not, but it was the basis for the European identity, so its important to take into account when discussing what defined Europe.
Ethiopia, for example, was also Christian but they were so disconected to Europe and so disimilar in Social Structure that they dont fit into an argument for defending why Georgians and Armenians arent Europeans, who inherited so much from the Romans
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Where did I agree with such comments? can you quote me on that?
Why is Europe a special case? I donât see it as a special case. No continent follows the definition of a continent, itâs just a convention. North & South America are technically 1 continent. Europe, Asia and Africa are technically 1 continent. Australia & Greenland are opening a new can of worms, how big should this landmass be to be considered a continent? since thereâs no clear definition.
Or knowing more about them in detail.
A notion created retroactively. They were as Pan-European as the Mongol Empire was Pan-Asian.
Yes, Constantinopole was in Europe right at the border with Asia, but thatâs about it. The heart of the Byzantine Empire was in Anatolia. Why is it unfitting? Europe is not defined based on culture, you define Europe based on culture.
Itâs not. You could make a similar case about slavic, nordic, roman or greek paganism. Just because Christianity ended up the dominant religion in Europe it doesnât mean it was the basis for European identity. So if Ethiopia being Christian doesnât get to make Ethiopia European because of other reasons, why would being Christian matter for Europeanism? why would Georgia and Armenia being Christian be a criteria make them European? This seems more like a clasification based on a vague personal impression than something completely settled.
What part of the social structure are you talking about? and how you consider the social structure to be different in say France, Georgia/Armenia and Ethiopia?
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Thatâs precisely why I said they were in a grey area for different reasons. I wouldnât myself cathegorize any of them as purely European or purely Asian. To be fair, I could have extended this grey area to other civs. Like, why is the Byzantine Empire considered European and the Ottoman Empire Asian when they shared the same capital and huge parts of their territory?
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Basically culture I guess, but the irony is that the Byzantine Empireâs heartland was in Anatolia yet the Ottoman Empireâs heartland was in the Balkans.
Itâs a muddy field, itâs like asking âwhen did Hungary/Bulgaria became European?â because thereâs no definition of what âEuropean cultureâ is, itâs an impression. Just like Asian culture or African culture. Was Carthage of African culture? Or Al Andalus of European/African culture?
This is why I think geography is the best. Than making a stereotype out of a continentâs culture and saying all civs from there are more or less that stereotype. With geography, the borders make somewhat sense: Ural, Caucas, Bosphorus, Suez. But at least they are clearly defined and not based on opinion.
Is like asking, where is Eastern/Western Europe. Is Czechia/Finland East or West? Yes communism so East but also HRE so west. And capitalism so west but also located more east than most eastern nations. Itâs more or less arbitrary.
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Ok, but even then, civs like Cumans whose territory was on both sides of the Ural and with no capital (that I know of) and a very nomadic cultures that make it difficult to track down where the population was the highest are still in the grey area for instance.
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The Cumans were originally from Asia so I would count them as an Asian civilization. Itâs true that they expanded beyond Urals and eventually reached into Europe as far as Wallachia & Moldavia, but so did the Mongols. As for the culture, they were Turkic.
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So back to the original subject of the topic:
[2DE players 1 milisecond after not getting yet another Eurocentric DLC]
(This was supposed to be the Spongebob âI need itâ meme but for whatever reason itâs all getting censored)
Couldnt have you just left the thread alone to die since it had been 4 days already
Now I feel obligated to answer the goddamn geographic argument
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You can ignore him. He is contradicting himself. He is evaluating Cumans by Culture but he is evaluating Georgians by Geography.
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Me? I just said at the end âAs for the culture, they were Turkicâ. But before that, it was all geography argument. They came from Asia, were originally from Asia. And yes, they did extend into Europe, but the Mongols also extended into Europe and the Romans in Africa.