Apart from the Hautesville campaign, they also appeared in Edward Longshanks and Bari as “Normans”.
The Normans should have their “real” civ, as Sicilian-speaking “Normans” with Mediterranean architecture in Britain and France would be quite odd. They did not just appeared in Sicily. They would be better named as Normans, with Western European building set and using the Franks’ or Vikings dialogue line.
Even before the Sicilians (aka Norman’s’ own civilization) were introduced, the Normans in Hastings were represented by Franks.
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yes, normal should be closer to the french and speak french, but that would kill diversity, they would just be the step-son of the franks and vikings then. also the donjon is based on a structure in sicily, so they do have a bond with south-italy, and the theme of first crusade and the team bonus makes it clear we are talking about the normans of sicily, not in normandy.
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I’d be interested to know what happened during development with Sicilians/Normans. Based on their campaign appearances, it seems almost as if they were originally planned to be Normans, but they changed the name at the last minute. But I don’t think that can be right, because of the building graphics (castle, donjon and wonder) - surely those can’t have been made at short notice.
I like the donjon concept but the naming is kind of weird. My understanding is that a donjon is just a particular design of keep, and some of the castles (which are, in fact, keeps) are already donjons anyway.
Donjon is just French for “keep”.
Anyway, I kind of agree with the initial post in the sense that I don’t think this civ makes for a good representation of Sicilians outside of the Norman period (I don’t really picture it in a Sicilian Vespers scenario for instance) but it’s not the civ I’m the most eager to see renamed.
to be fair, it’s pretty impossible to represent sicilians outside a certain arbitrary chosen period, since they had a ton of different cultures and governors from various times. from Goth, to Eastern Roman Empire, to Longbards, to Saracens, to Normans, to Holy Roman Empire, to French (anjou), to Spanish…it’s a bit messy