The gameplay is phenomenal but the setting feels unfinished. Turkeys have no compendium entry and most of the myth units have no scientific name. The common name has been placed where the scientific name should be, presumably as a placeholder that was never replaced.
Then there’s the wildlife. The new animals are super cool, and some of the existing ones like deer and elk fit right in, but what the hell are caribou, chickens and aurochsen doing anywhere in Latin America? Caribou serve no purpose whatsoever with tapirs, deer, capybaras, alpacas and elk filling the passive huntable niche, and quail and javelinas would fit the game bird and aggressive huntable niches respectively.
Tale of the Dragon justifiably got a lot of criticism, but they at least gave the Chinese maps a unique ecosystem with nothing as jarringly out of place as caribou in a jungle. It just feels weirdly sloppy compared to everything else in the game.
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None of these (other than deer) live in North America either. The furthest north capybaras live is south of Panama, and it’s not the same species as the big famous one.
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Pretty sure the tapirs in the game are meant to be Baird’s tapir, which does live in Mexico and Central America (both part of North America).
Tapirs definitely live in North America, but yes, this game has always taken liberties with wildlife. The Egyptian maps are inhabited by the most iconic African animals with little regard for which ones actually live in Egypt. Norse maps feature Arctic animals that would have been encountered by the Norse but are not commonly found in Scandinavia. The spotted deer found on Chinese maps are native to India. Each setting is a very broad strokes interpretation of the general region the relevant civilization existed in, and I accept that. Caribou and aurochsen are still jarringly out of place in any Latin American context though.
Oh, I only knew about the South American and Malaysian species. Now I wonder why the AoE2 ones weren’t added to Montezuma and Dos Pilas.
You guys are arguing about wildlife and where they lived in a game with dragons monsters and gods?
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Like I said, I’m pretty generous about the wildlife in this game because it has never been accurate, but they have to at least LOOK like they belong. Arctic and European animals look out of place in Latin America, and it’s disappointing when the previous Age of Empires games did a good job differentiating the New World and Old World settings.
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Amazon (AoE2 map) has Turkeys (which do not live in South America) but not Peccaries (which do). It wasn’t even updated after The Last Chieftains.
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Yes, I think a better argument would be to compare it with AoE 3 maps, since AoM maps, due to the mythological context, takes “greater liberties”…
That one has grey wolves in one or two South American maps, and black panthers in Japan (instead of wolves or bears, which actually existed over there)
Yes, that was also an issue… they could have fixed that with the Mediterranean DLC…
I’ve been asking for maned wolves for AoE2 and AoE3 for ages. They would actually fit South American maps.
And in AoE2, they could be gold resources. Or even just eye candy, as at this point that game has multiple animals that don’t attack nor give food.
Yes, it could be used for gold (since her skin was valuable)…
Regarding the new animals, I noticed that the decorative Giant Otter actually has all the animations of a proper animal unit, including attacking and dying. They can be viewed with the animation viewer in the Scenario Edtior.
When selected (which is possible with the Unit Select trigger), it can be seen that it also holds food:
AoE Wiki editor Bologhine pointed out that there are unused compendium entries for both Giant Otter and Dolphin (though the latter refers to the common dolphin rather than a river dolphin).
So, it seems the Giant Otter was intended to be huntable, but now is pure embellishment (not even selectable like the Panda). I wonder whether this decision is in any way related to the fact that it is considered endangered?
Jaguars fill the role of wolves on AoE2’s Mesoamerican maps.
Cool but
- I didn’t say they should take the same role as wolves (it would be the same as foxes, if anything)
- bears do share the same role as wolves, but show up in the same maps
- it’s a South American animal. I explicity said so.
Besides, bears and wolves also live in Mexico. It’s weird that Mesoamerican maps only got jaguars. And if the wiki is to be trusted, jaguars aren’t known to attack humans unprovoked.
are there foxes in AoE2 now?
what map are these otters on?
Since the update preceding the Chinese DLC. They give gold instead of food, and don’t need a dropoff point (like Khmer farms).
Oh wow. They just be adding stuff to that game, huh?
