Tbf I (like many people, I assume) played the game before I even knew about what those groups were (maybe not germans and french but definitely their medieval iterations).
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What about Moravians?
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I assume they are covered by the neighbouring Bohemians
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Maybe if the in-game Bohemians weren’t pretty much exclusively hussites.
That’s the issue of having to make civs different gameplay-wise, AOE2 is not a grand strategy game. If the Bohemians were more than the Hussites they would be very close from the Teutons with an heavy HRE army.
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Let’s…not go there.
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I would pick:
Must-Have: Slavs rename into Ruthenians, Romanians, Serbs.
Optional: Croatians or Albanians.
Also, just pointing it out, Moldavians are Vlachs, Wallachians are Vlachs.
It goes like this:
Latin split into:
- Iberian Group
- Frankish Group
- Italic Group
- Vlach Group (Eastern Romance)
Vlachs split into:
- Aromanian Group (more mixed with Greeks)
- Meglenoromanian Group (more mixed with Italians)
- Istroromanian (more mixed with Croats)
- Romanian Group (more mixed with Bulgarians)
Romanian group:
- Wallachian
- Moldavian
- Transylvanian
Not important, but saying “Vlachs and Moldavians” is like saying “American and Texan”.
Unit dialogue is going to be 90% identical? they all spoke different languages.
I haven’t seen as much disagreement on what balkan civs to pick as much as you said there is, what posts made you believe that is the case? I haven’t read that so I’m curious.
Architecture set is again very simple:
Eastern European: Romanians (or Wallachians & Moldavians)
Eastern European/ Byzantine if added as a new set: Serbs, Bulgarians.
Mediterranean: Croats, Bosnians, Albanians.
The audience argument… is in fact a good argument… for the Balkan DLC.
I agree that Romania has 20 Million, Serbia 7 Million, Croatia 3.8 Million, Bosnia 3.2 Million, Albania 2.8 million, but how many of them play Age of Empires 2?
In terms of playerbase:
Romania 20 Million - place 32 in terms of player numbers, above Porgual, Greece, Hungary, Bulgaria, countries who already have a civ in AoE2. And we didn’t even add Moldova to that who are basically also Romanians.
Serbia 7 Million - place 78, Croatia 3.8 Million - place 62, which yes small, but let’s look at per capita. Romania has 20 Million and Serbia/Croatia way smaller, per capita they are doing really fine. Not to mention, if they are added in AoE2, their numbers will increase.
Which is not something I can say for African or Asian audience if we are talking strictly in terms of interest from the audience.
It is indeed not very surprising that those countries are rarely represented in any games. But the reason is very different from what you may assume.
Western Europe was a very Anglosaxon-centric world until the past 10 years. When they realized other cultures exist and took an interest in other cultures. Like Africa and Asia. But no Eastern Europe because they are too white, so they were jumped because they were more similar to them in favor of more exotic ones. I guess diversity isn’t a good thing when you aren’t diverse enough from the ones calling the diversity.
Looking objectively at the numbers above, there is a market there. Romania at least is above so many other countries already in the game in terms of AoE2 popularity in their country. But it’s easier to sell “these people who are not at all like us” than “these people who are 50% like us but 50% not like us”.
For anglosaxons, the world begins in Los Angeles and ends in Berlin. I think the fundamentals of the west did not change even with their diversity movement.
There’s a reason USA failed to build a stable democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan. They simply have no understanding of other cultures.
I read that US demanded the new Afghan collaborative government’s soldiers to cut their beards, because soldiers in US army cut their beard.
If you heard nothing wrong with that statement that’s the American education system’s fault 100%. Spoiler alert: For Afghan men their beard is their pride, asking them to cut their beard is like someone asking you to cut your ####### ###############
I cannot understate how fatal such a small thing was. And yes it was small, from the Amercain POV, because they did not understand and respect the culture of the people from there. For an American, cutting your beard was no big thing, so surely, that must be for someone else the same, right? right? nope.
You may think I made a small tangent, but I cannot overstate how important the beard is to an Afghan. So yes, it may be a small tangent, but one with huge ramifications, don’t think that USA failed in Afghanistan because of the beard issue, but because of similar issues that add up. And I’m not saying “Afghans wanted sharia law” because that’s not it. It was simply a lack of understanding, care and respect for their culture simply because they did not care. It’s those small things that add up and eventually become bigger things. This is why “American Colonies” failed everywhere except in the anglosaxon world. They even tried to make China democratic in the 90s without understanding Chinese culture at all (not communist, chinese culture), look how well that worked out for them.
But the Americans did not see it that way, because, once again, the world starts in Los Angeles and ends in Berlin.
So yes, that’s the reason those countries are rarely represented in any games. In a nutshell. Not diverse enough for diversity. And the anglosaxon world being too ignorant to see the other 50% that isn’t at all like the rest of the anglosaxon world.
It’s not out of lack of potential profit, just look at the numbers. It’s out of ignorance.
Nobody is born with all this knowledge, but everybody is born with the capacity to listen.
That’s true…if they brought in the Bohemians it was because of the Hussites, and I don’t think they’ll bring in the Moravians anymore…
[quote=“DairyChimera759, post:212, topic:232381”]
Romania 20 Million - place 32 in terms of player numbers, above Porgual, Greece, Hungary, Bulgaria, countries who already have a civ in AoE2. And we didn’t even add Moldova to that who are basically also Romanians.
Serbia 7 Million - place 78, Croatia 3.8 Million - place 62, which yes small, but let’s look at per capita. Romania has 20 Million and Serbia/Croatia way smaller, per capita they are doing really fine. Not to mention, if they are added in AoE2, their numbers will increase.
Which is not something I can say for African or Asian audience if we are talking strictly in terms of interest from the audience.
Yes, due to player population I don’t see the Balkans having their own civs, although due to history they could have them (Serbian Empire and Kingdom of Croatia and also include a campaign for the Magyars with Matthias Corvinus, one with Tomislav for the Croats and another with Stefan Dusan with the Serbians) (and obviously give Dracula to the Vlacs)… P.S. seeing that table I hope that next year they give us Argentina and Brazil in AoE 3 (they are the Latin countries that play AoE the most by far)…
Yes, it’s just that it’s all of the West and Western Europe… note that in Eastern Europe they only escaped from Russian influence in 1991 and joined the EU in 2004 (it’s a relatively new region in the modern Western world)… in 1991 the West reached as far as Berlin, today it reaches as far as Kyiv…
Yes, I agree… In addition to being American-centric, the video game industry was ignorant of areas outside the First World (i.e. Second World aka Eastern Europe and Third World aka LATAM, Sub-Saharan Africa, India and SEA)…
Historical significance matters more than current player count, for example asking for a civ to represent Brazil or the USA wouldn’t be anywhere near the top of the list (and certainly not in a form looking even remotely like the modern country), while the Byzantines were a major power at the time which trumps Greece only being a medium-sized country now. Jurchens are one of the most asked civs despite the last time Manchus had an “independant” country was 1931-1945 (even then it was a puppet of Japan), and player counts from China cannot tell how many players are Han Manchus Mongols from Inner Mongolia…
I don’t know medieval romanian history enough to judge, Dracula portrays them under the influence of several foreign powers (Ottomans Hungary…).
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This is a very important point to raise. And people need reminding of it when suggesting such relatively small-scale civs.