Ye I agree, I think some big dumb corporate idiot CEO from Microsoft or some other big company came in and said " mAKe tHiS bECauSe OuR anALytiCS sAy tHAt ThiS iS GoInG TO seLL".Just like it has happned in AOC with Koreans, Return of Rome with Vietnamese etc.
I don’t have anything against this, but when you don’t even make your cash grab correctly this generates big problems. I hope they have the decency to admit they made a mess and fix it by reworking the DLC but I’m skeptical.
The Three Kingdoms civs don’t last until 266 AD, let alone 420 AD. In Imperial Age they can train Liu Bei (died 223), Cao Cao (died 220) and Sun Jian (died c. 191). Of those, as far as I know, only Liu Bei was alive when the kingdoms were established – so they don’t actually represent the kingdoms of Shu, Wei and Wu, but the military forces that fought in the war leading up to the establishment of those three kingdoms. The campaigns end in 208 AD, with almost no reference made to the kingdoms themselves, which didn’t exist until several years later.
The idea that Wei represents the Jin Dynasty is particularly absurd to me – no, Cao Cao did not fight for a dynasty that was establish 46 years after he died.
That said, I don’t think not fitting the time period is the worst thing about the Three Kingdoms civs – but the other problems have been discussed to death, so I won’t bother listing them here.
And the “Wei civ” in the game is more like Northern Wei than anything…
Additional nuanced but very strategic reality twisting efforts spotted:
Five nomadic clans and 16 states. Xiongnu was only one of them. Calling all of them “16 Xiongnu clans” is good misnomer and equivocation, and likely a deliberate one
Sorry if you want to force any connection between Xiongnu and Hun, it was the “Xiong” part that sounded like “Hun” not the latter part. That was the origin of the theory. By no means would there be anyone calling them “Xiong Hun”.
Xiongnu = “the Xiong slaves (literally, or derogatorily barbarians/enemies if you stretch the meaning). “Xiong Hun” would be “Xiong Xiong”.
Along with “Sima clan ruled Wei” and “Wei won the three kingdoms war”, these are all very cleverly chosen wordings to smuggle false details and make WE’s nonsense sound less absurd.
Not to mention your blatant act of retrospectively inventing a “Xianbei migrated to the Bosphorus in 50 years” theory out of thin air only after being countered.
You know why WE stopped at “3K were technologically advanced so they were medieval”, while they could write longer justifications of their other design choices? Because they knew themselves such arguments do not hold.
By the way, the original AoE2 in 1999 has “Roman has fallen” as the first sentence on the cover.
Since RoR the game began to go into another direction, given that AoE is dead.
i think RoR was fine, as long as romans were only a singleplayer/scenario faction. then some loud minority of players whined and they added them to ranked. That was the start of the downfall of aoe2
I was not a pvp player but I thought Romans were fine. Now I get what I deserve.
The signs were already there since DE: we acquiesced Burgundians and Sicilians, then no stratification or refinement of Italians and Slavs when more detailed civs were added, then mini-games as DLCs, then small stretches like Romans, then the whole “variant” nonsense from other games, because they were borderline “fine”——now it all peaked. They are now free to dump anything without any mental effort. You got more trivial variants lasting a few decades as civs, mini-games forced into the main game, much bigger stretches, and the umbrella Chinese sitting next to its subfactions.
The moral is NEVER support mediocrity under the belief of “they’ll do better next time”. You are only going to send them messages that mediocrity is acceptable.
A teacher needs historiography…
i think most of this could be fixed with one simple change:
add a new ladder, that only has either the pre-DE or vanilla DE civs. those of us who despise most of these new additions can play the game in the state it was when we bought it. (I’d be willing to stomach the stupid RPG jaguar warriors and fire lancers)
WE had their esports pros to appeal as the top priority. That is not remotely possible for them.
That’s what I said, “AFTER” 200 AD. People don’t read.
And they Huns were powerful enough to destroy the Bosporus Kingdom in 375 AD and scare a whole bunch of peoples (Goths included) into migrating to the Roman Empire for fear of being annihilated.
Although I wish it were that way, they included the Goths, Huns, and Romans (with the army after Constantine I’s reforms); and the first two have been around since Conquerors, so it’s not a pure Middle Ages.
The Goths weren’t successors to Rome; they migrated to Spain and northern Italy and founded their own kingdoms.
Honestly, since this is a “game,” not fieldwork or a thesis, the period they want to represent depends on the developers.
At least technologically, China during the Three Kingdoms period had enough technology to fight Rome or annihilate the Goths, and even the Aztecs and Incas. I see it as sufficient to include them, since, as you say, “When the Middle Ages begin, it’s a more European concept than anything else.”
But anyway, it would be a matter of taste; I don’t see a problem with 3K
That’s what he says, it’s a hypothesis, and I discussed the other one with Penny, which I don’t quite agree with, but anyway, “they’re theories.”
There is no consensus on the Huns, more for scientific reasons than for political and ideological reasons:
3.- Now we know, thanks to genetics, that they do have a relationship with the Xiangnu, or Xianbei (who practically share genes because they are descendants), but it’s another matter for people from the first groups to want to change their story.
The “Racially Mixed Group” thing should be taken with a grain of salt, as it’s not the same as “mixed race,” especially if it’s written by English authors. The Huns had “many vassal peoples” serving them, but in general there was a SUPERIOR Hunnic people who dominated the rest and had a distinct race.
This is confirmed because after Attila’s death, all the Huns’ vassals rebelled against the superior group, almost exterminating them.
If they were a people where “everyone loved each other” and cared for each other, and there was no racial discrimination, they wouldn’t have chosen one of their own to exterminate after the King died and it was the best time to free themselves.
But as I say, it’s good to discuss these things, so we learn more, I could be wrong too.
Do you really want a campaign about the Epic of Gilgamesh in AoE2? With magic and demigods?
Obviously not, because otherwise you would have bothered to explain how things connect, but you haven’t, so I’m going to assume it’s a VERY POORLY DONE and forced sarcasm.
The Three Kingdoms campaign is based on a real conflict that took place in China. If some events are more romanticized than others, that’s fine when it comes to making the campaign narrative, which has happened many times in other campaigns in the same game.
About the timeframe, as I said, this isn’t a thesis, it’s a video game, so it’s mostly a matter of the developers.
The problem that will always exist in this game is that there are many people playing different modes:
At least for Single Player vs AI, more civs offers a wide variety of enemies to defeat.
However, for Ranked, if you only play the strongest or most Broken civs with certain builds, more civs is a headache.
For Custom Scenarios and Campaigns, more elements in the Editor are a blessing.
For multiplayer, more civs can be good or bad, especially if one of the new civs is too strong for one of the ones you’re used to.
I don’t think you can satisfy the entire fanbase.
About restricting Ranked civ types:
I suppose Vanilla, “until X expansion,” and “All CIVs.” I don’t know, I don’t play AoE2 ranked civs. If the majority of the ranked community accepts it, it might be a good idea, but if not, I have no idea. As long as it doesn’t affect the base game, custom scenarios or vs AI, normal.
Well, fine for you, make a forum thread saying you want Egyptian and USA added.
But if it’s not related to what I’m saying, constant sarcasm without logic just makes you look like a stalker Flammer.
Well, if you are sure quote or cite an article to refute it, but insulting me isn’t an argument. I could also say the same about you, who just want to spread your own version of the Huns.
Resorting to insults and contempt only hurts you, not me.
I’m not improvising, I’m using one of the Hunnic theories.
And what does that have to do with “lick the boots of some whacky gaming cooperator”?
I say it again, you’re paranoid. Your message doesn’t make any sense.
Did you just say that supporting companies is harmful to Wikipedia readers? I’m assuming English isn’t your native language and you might even want to translate something else, because what you said doesn’t make much sense. Otherwise, I’m starting to doubt your sanity.
Update: Lol, you edited it to delete the Wikipedia thing. Hahahaha. It’s clear you’re not thinking very rationally, and just want to flame. Fortunately, I quoted you earlier.
You can say it’s nonsense, but so far you haven’t cited any articles or anything to refute me. You’ve just been repeating sarcasm, insults, and conspiracies with corporations, so the conspiracy theorist is you, not me.
You’re still with your corporate theory. The conspiracy theorist here is you, not me.
Did you just say that supporting evil corporations is harmful to Wikipedia readers? I’d like to assume English isn’t your native language, and I might even try to translate something else, because what What you said doesn’t make much sense. Otherwise, I’m thinking of questioning your sanity.
In fact, accusing someone of supporting evil corporations is already paranoid enough for a day, without repeating it twice, believing you’re saying something clever.
Only a completely insane person accuses others of supporting evil corporatists for saying “I liked a DLC.”
If you were supposed to write something defamatory, in the end you’ve just defamed yourself like a lunatic.
I say you are a lizardman. Now it’s your duty to refute me.
You first correct all your nonsense of:
Wei won the three kingdoms war
Wei was ruled by the Sima clan
The Jin was sacked by 16 Xiongnu clans
The Xiongnu were called “Xiong Huns”
Xianbei migrated to the west to become Huns
Before we can have any serious discussion. But I’d expect more nonsense anyway.
I have been a Three Kingdoms fan. I purchased almost every 3K themed entertainment. I am not to be taught by WE or you that 3K is medieval or related to the Huns. The DLC is a straight up insult on me. Your efforts saving their ass is a greater insult.
I cannot imagine any sane person who browsed the wikipedia pages without the pre-determined biased conclusion of “WE was right” would read the facts so blatantly wrong. Those are so simple and straightforward. Either your mind was controlled by WE, or you carefully edited the details when writing them.
If you could provide ANY prove that you already have those theories and preferences before WE dumped their nonsense, I apologize. Otherwise get back to your small circle. You’ll have infinite applauses for bootlicking WE there. This place is not for that.
I think I need to make myself clear:
When I say someone is a shill or brainwashed by the corporate, it is sarcasm. I do not mean I really think they are, but it would be particularly pathetic if they are not.
Your choice
No voy a perder el tiempo con insultos. Simplemente voy a reportarlo, el tema no esta para SPAM difamatorio.
Well, you should really refute it, not just say it’s *nonsense" 30 times. But you didn’t come here to argue, just to criticize the DLC.
According to the presumption of innocence, one doesn’t have to prove that “they didn’t commit a crime”; you should prove that I committed the crime, and then I refute it.
But in your world, liking a DLC is supporting an evil company, and discrediting someone is repeating “nonsense,” but that’s not how logic works.
Sarcasm is a disguised insult; it’s disdaining someone while pretending not to, but it’s disdain, not an argument.
You can’t tell if what you’re saying is sarcasm or not. If it is, you’re a pretty contemptuous person, and if you’re not, you’re a lunatic. Either way, you end up badly.
You filthy liar.
YOU BLATANT FILTHY LIAR.
Why would you compromise fact than your own dignity for, what, a company you don’t even work for?
Now apologize and get lost. Never had I been so insulted as a 3K fan in my life
but “AFTER” 200 is a pointless argument as others have pointed out. Dinosaurs and the Roman empire are both AFTER 1 billion BC. Whenever you add something new to the game you can make this argument if you keep changing that cutoff time. Protons and South Sudan are both AFTER 20 seconds after the big bang.
The fact is that by adding the Romans and now 3K the “starting time” of the game has been pushed later and later.
you are missing the point. Persians and Chinese have been around for millennia, but they represent medieval entities. The same is true for the Goths, who represent the visigothic and ostrogothic kindgoms all the way up to Spanish and Portuguese (before they were added as their own civs)
It’s true to a lesser extent for the Huns, who at their prime were what started the middle ages (ie the fall of Rome), and were still around in the form of the White Huns (until the 8th century) and the Hungarians (now represented by the Magyars)
the same is not true for the Romans. At it isn’t at all true for the city states of 3K. there is no medieval entity they represent.
dude:
of course it does. but if they decide to take the game in a direction the community disagrees with we should voice our complaints. would you be happy with an EU-civ being added?
the majority of the aoe2 community seems to disagree
but you didn’t present it as hypotheses, you presented it as fact. that’s why I corrected it. and no they are not scientific theories, they are hypotheses. a theory in history (or any other science) is a hyptohesis that has been confirmed by evidence. There is no scientific consensus on the Huns being the same as the Xiongnu
exactly, it would be as bad as 3K. campaigns with magic.
that’s not what the campaigns are. the campaigns are based on the fictional novel “the romance of the three kingdoms”, not on the historical conflict.
how would adding an extra ladder to any of that? of course this wouldn’t affect custom scenarios or vs AI???
To avoid the obvious fact being buried and gotten away with:
Wei was overthrown by Jin in 266. Which then captured Wu 20 years later.
Wei was ruled by Cao. Sima only became de facto in power later.
It is the same manner as how Cao Cao dominated the Han court in the late Eastern Han. That does not make him a ruler.
It was sacked by “5 barbarians” (including Xiongnu) who established 16 kingdoms. Not 16 Xiongnu. That is a deliberate effort to exaggerate their role.
The theory was “Hun”=“Xiong” not “Nu”
There was no archaeological evidence. Genetic studies showed relationships between Huns and Xianbei because separate branches of same people were likely assimilated by them many centuries before 3K or the Huns’ invasion of Rome. That does not suggest any linkage, even narrative, between 3K and the Huns. It is a common mistake of reading correlation as causality.
Pre-modern cultures are more defined by linguistics and self-identification, sometimes external identifications by “civilized” peoples such as Greco-Romans and Chinese. If you only look at genetics, you’ll find very unlikely relations. That does not have any cultural or historical significance if we talk about “civilizations”.
That was like saying “because the English people had genetic linkages with the Galatians in the Near East (because Celtic), it means ancient Egypt has narrative relations to the Great Britain”
And among the many candidate peoples that likely merged into “Huns” (a process of centuries of dilution and assimilation), Xianbei was very minor and almost the bottom of the list. It took the Oghuz Turks 200-300 years to migrate from western China to the Black Sea and Anatolia to emerge a major population. No way the Xianbei would do it in fifty years when they were in fact settled (ironically what the in-game “Wei” civ wrongly portrays) and at their peak.
I would like to raise an alarm to passers-by that all of those misinformation seems either very deliberate or very biased. I don’t think one would read all of them wrong like this without a strong conclusion already. It’s in fact very hard to make such mistakes if you don’t come with a clear purpose. It is also statistically impossible to make so many “random” mistakes that happen to all benefit WE’s bs.
And most importantly:
Even if those were all true, there was still minimal linkage between the 3K and the early middle ages in Europe. I’d say Western Han 300 years ago have a stronger linkage than 3K. How does the Xianbei in 300s have anything to do with Wei?
I mean, I remember there was a reddit post - someone found evidences that 3K were originally planned for chronicles, by looking at game directories.
If that is true, then it could imply that even WE itself thought it was not a good idea to put 3K into base games.
Can someone justify how strong that evidence is?
Exactly. The fact that they only threw “3K was technologically medieval” (which is also VERY debatable) and then shut down communication entirely meant they really had nothing better to defend themselves. I don’t know why people would spend so many acrobatics to justify it on their behalf.
To be fair, that evidence alone was more interpretive than solid. But combined with their other actions, I think it’s highly likely.
