I think Slavs really need a rework an Serbs also deserve to be added in the game. So I think Slavs rework, Croats, Serbs and Romanians is the way to go.
But out of curiosity, if you were to make a DLC with Romanians & a non-Euro civs what civ would it be and how would you name it?
I’m asking because AoE2’s DLCs are thematic. And while Romanians aren’t slav they do have slavic influence so they kind of fit with a Balkan/Slavic DLC. They are the odd one, sure, but they aren’t the French.
Romanians + Nubians.
The DLC is called “I will not return to Rome” cause both Dacia and lower Egypt were abandoned by Romans at the end of the 3rd century.
It was a joke. I don’t know anything about Gokturks actually.
There’s some civs beyond Europe that could be in a Late Antiquity DLC. One could be the Gokturks (no joke), the other the Nubians. It’s weird because Late Antiquity is a super Eurocentric term but whatever
I don’t think late antiquity is actually that Eurocentric unless with Europe you intend the Mediterranean rather than nowadays Europe. Otherwise it’s actually the opposite of Eurocentric since it considers the so called fall of Rome (476) as something not as important as classical historians tend to think. I don’t know how familiar you are with historians like Peter brown or Henri Pirenne who popularised the concept but they see the shift between antiquity and middle ages in the 7th century rather than in the 5th one.
So to them Islam was more important than goths or Huns in disrupting the ancient world because in short it cut off till nowadays the unity of the Mediterranean basin forever (the fall of Carthage in 698 is considered a more important date than 476 to split between antiquity and middle ages or either the fall of the Sassanid Empire in 651 or the conquest of the Visigothic kingdom in 721).
In the end Germans just mixed with local Roman people and institutions, they didn’t disrupt them like Muslims would. So not an Eurocentric vision at all imho. In this vision it’s Islam who created Europe after the battle of tours by uniting all Christian “Europeans” against them so Europe is a consequence of Islam rather than the fall of Rome which was a minor event. I personally subscribe to this theory.
Late antiquity is also extended outside the Mediterranean like in central Asia basically the lifespan of the Sassanids is late antiquity or the Gupta empire in India or the hepthalithe empire (5th to early 8th century).
And if you go even more east in China late antiquity fit almost perfectly for what came after the Han dynasty (three kingdoms etc) to the tang (early 7th century).
It doesn’t make much sense to refer late antiquity as Eurocentric because it actually focus on the Mediterranean while Europe didn’t even existed as an idea back then, it was rather a consequence of it along with Christianity.
So if I had to choose a date to begin the middle ages in the Mediterranean I’d say either 313 (edict of Constantine) or the break of Islam because together they shifted the world completely rather than the formal deposition of a boy in 476. And in general even Asia was changing because of climate and migrations around the same time.
Hahahaha, what?
Sorry but Europe was absolutely not united after the Battle of Tours, even if we limit ourselves to Christian Europe which, by this point, didn’t even include North Germany or Pannonia. It was even losing ground in the Balkans, not mentioning Iberia.
I think so yes, Romanians no, but rather Wallachians. Serbs yes, they were an empire, Croats were under the rule of Hungary, Austria etc etc for most of the time but could be interesting anyway. If they added Georgians and Silicians, they could really add the Croats yes.
Europe as a concept, the universalist Christian with a Greco Roman heritage Europe that is today, was first mentioned around that time… From Wikipedia:
The term “Europe” is first used for a cultural sphere in the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century. From that time, the term designated the sphere of influence of the Western Church, as opposed to both the Eastern Orthodox, churches and to the Islamic world.
The Mediterranean was never united again after the Muslim conquest so the concept of “Christian western world” shifted north and gradually you begin to have Europe (excluding north Africa and the eastern Roman empire which by ancient Roman time was the “civilised universal empire” so the “Europe of the ancient world” if you want).
Of course I’m not saying that Europe suddenly spurn out of tours but that was a turning point and created a new awareness around it and the famous (or infamous) civilising mission that all monotheistic religions seem to impose on themselves, Islam from a side and Christianity from the other.
Then of course it’s a theory among many (some archeological discoveries has proven that commerce between north Africa and South Europe was not cut from one day to another) but I find it more convincing than the classic fall of Rome etc thing.
In that case, make a Late Antiguity DLC and include the Romans there. BOOM, solved the problem of playing a campaign and not having a civ, if you don’t like the Gurjaras approach
Indeed. This is actually the only reason I would appreciate another European DLC (not as the next one though).
My suggestion:
Vlachs / Wallachians (they get Vlad Draculas campaign)
Serbs + campaign
Campaign for Slavs (+ perhaps rename them to Rus or Ruthenians)
Campaign for Magyars
This way it’ll be 2 civs and 3 campaigns as most of the time. This Balkans DLC should come out not before a full campaign for Turks is released, as they lose one mission in Vlad Dracula.
I’d rather have Romanians as an umbrella civ for Wallachians, Moldavians and Transylvanians since I don’t think anyone wants extra Romanian civs. People hated it when the French got 2 civs, let alone a less important region. Better to have 1 civ for all Romanians (full representation) and call it done.
Late reply, but I don’t have any second civ idea in mind. My idea was the DLC would add one campaign for every civ you currently play as in Dracula, and one for this second civ, so I think the second civ in the DLC could be someone who could realistically appear in at least one of those.
I don’t understand why the Malays should be split.
This civilization is already essentially Javanese.
Also, I don’t know how different the tech tree can be between Malays and Javanese.
I’d rather simply rename the civilization to the Javanese, or better just leave it alone.
Well, if the civ is renamed to Javanese, we would still need a new Malay civ to cover the other peoples in the region, and possibly more than one new civ. So it would still be a split.
I mean the civ is a well-working umbrella now. Why do we need to split it?
The establishment of Malay identity originated since the Malacca Sultanate in the 15th century. Before that, I guess there was no such a clear definition to separate Malays and Javanese. In the majority of the timeline of the game, they shared a common history such like Srivijaya and Majapahit. Karambit is the traditional weapon and identity of both of the peoples.
So we separate them just because they were different peoples? Even though they shared common history, related culture and similar potential tech tree? Sounds like splitting the Britons into English and Welsh. The differences may be huge from a certain perspective, but modest from another.
I may not be really familiar with the history of Indonesia and Malesia. In my eye, the current civ just cover the two decently. So, which significant empires should belong to Malays and which should belong to Javanese? Also, how to make the two civs different enough? Which civ keeps using Karambit (a very iconic weapon to the both) and what is the UU of the another civ? Why?
Cannot similar be said for all the germanic civs? Teutons Goths, Franks Burgundians are all Germanic tribes but they gave them all unique tech trees for some reason despite all being there fighting in the Dark Age even Viking Nords are Germanic!
This argument feels unfair especially as people try and prevent us from new elephant civs… not that Im explaining my logic well enough any more