Some opinions about Chinese and Indian design

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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Hello everyone, I am very excited to see the news of Age of Empires 4, and I am very grateful to the production team for their hard work. However, as a Chinese player, I still have some small opinions here:
First of all, it is mentioned that Chinese civilization can gain special units and benefits by choosing different Dynasties such as Tang, Song, Yuan and Ming. The design is innovative, but the reference to the Yuan Dynasty, which was basically part of the Mongol Empire, which is already in the game as another Civilization, is really weird. I think giving Chinese civilization Yuan features both weakens the main features of Chinese and Mongol.

In addition, the so-called “civilization” of the Delhi Sultanate is also very puzzling. Referring to the design of Chinese civilization, the content of the game ranges from Tang Dynasty, Song Dynasty, Yuan Dynasty to Ming Dynasty, which covers 618 to 1644 A.D. , represented Chinese civilization with a thousand years of history. Then look at the design of the Delhi Sultanate, it is very strange. The Delhi Sultanate is just a very short Dynasty of Indian civilization (A.D. 1206 ~ 1526), not an independent civilization(.If we regard the Yuan Dynasty or the Qing Dynasty as a part of Chinese civilization, then naturally the Delhi Sultanate should also be regarded as a part of Indian civilization). Referring to the background and age selection, there should be Gupta Dynasty, Harsha Dynasty, Pandya Dynasty, Jura Dynasty and so on, so there are too many missed contents. This means that the historical framework of the game design is not uniform. Is it out of cost savings, or out of market considerations? At least for me, a fan of historical games, this is a great pity.

In addition, because the history of China in the game reached the Ming Dynasty, does it mean that Indian civilization will reach the Mughal Dynasty, or that there will be advanced firearm civilizations such as the Tamerlane Empire and the Safavid Persian Empire in the game?

The above are my opinions about the Cilivization design of AOE 4. I hope the production team can see them and give some feedbacks. Thank you vrey much.

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I also thought the inclusion of the Yuan Dynasty for the Chinese civilization was puzzling. I am not sure of the best way to address the overlap, since my knowledge of Chinese history is quite limited (I am from the U.S.). I’ve read that there were periods of division in the same timeframe, though, like the “Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms”. Since this period fell between the Tang and the Song, maybe one of the in-game benefits could be associated to this time, or one of the dynasties existing in it? The developers wouldn’t have to modify their timeline to make that happen, at the very least. I am not sure if a simple renaming of dynasties could fix the issue, though, since the developers likely tried to make the in-game benefits closely tied to the historical dynasties, but maybe there is some way to make this work, so that the dynasties are distinctly Chinese? With the landmark system we saw previewed, though, it may also be the case that they were not able to find suitable landmarks from that time period? Again, I have a very limited knowledge of Chinese history.

I think the Delhi Sultanate is unlikely to be changed to span a larger time frame, simply because it would take too much work this close to release. I think the important thing, though, is that the Delhi Sultanate did interact with the Mongols, so there is room for some really cool historical battles in the game, possibly even a Mongol-based campaign. Even if there is not a perfect match in the time periods for the different civilizations, it seems close enough for a video game, and I’m pretty excited to learn about some historical events through this medium.

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Yuan was founded by the Mongolian minority in China. He inherited the Chinese cultural tradition and the way of governing the country. The emperor of yuan was also learning to integrate into the Han culture, so yuan is a part of Chinese history. The Mongol Empire was different from the Yuan Dynasty. Later, they were separated from each other. The Mongol Empire was divided into several independent khanates. Yuan was not part of the Mongolian Empire, but also a royal dynasty that inherited the orthodox Chinese.

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Yuan Dynasty is a dynasty of China, not a Mongol Empire, but an independent one. Yuan Dynasty is a dynasty that inherits Chinese culture.

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I think they will release other kingdoms later, the problem here is India was divided into kingdoms with their own rule, each had their own military and uniqueness thus it’s unable to pin point in a videogame. Like the Malabar kingdom of Kerala or the Rajputs. AOE 2 has Prtviraj, so I guess they will release other kingdoms later.

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By that, you mean slaving Chinese people and collecting more taxes? The Mongol Yuan Dynasty was very racist towards the Chinese as they introduced laws to not marry Chinese and more cruel things. Is that Chinese? Moreover, it existed during Chinggis Khan because he was the emperor of his conquered Dynasties. So that makes all of the Mongol Empire Chinese? Or just because it is located in the Chinese region it is Chinese? You have to ask a lot of questions then and read a lot.

Moreover, the Mongols brought Persian governors as they were the most sophisticated and successful governors in history. And that offended Chinese scholars but the Mongols simply didn’t trust them. The Mongols were great actors too, they will do almost everything to control Chinese people.

However, you must understand what does “Dynasty” means. It is not Chinese culture or a specific thing. It did exist long before it. CCP always claimed Yuan Dynasty is Chinese, but it is not. The leader is Mongol Khan and no one can deny Khubilai Khan as he is a well-known figure to many people.
“Dynasty” simply means a line of hereditary rulers.

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You shouldn’t bring this kind of racial view that you don’t know whether it’s true or not to the forum, where it’s about discussing problems rather than creating opposing topics. Mongolia has always been one of the 56 ethnic groups in China. It may be difficult for a single nation-state to understand the concept of a multi-ethnic state. Yuan is a national name formulated by the Mongolian emperor and officials according to the Han system, according to the Chinese cultural tradition. The unification of the Mongol Empire was short-lived and long-term. The Mongol Empire was divided into various Khanate States and became independent. Later, the Yuan Dynasty was also an independent Empire, inheriting the Han culture. However, the Yuan Empire was very short, only existed for more than 70 years, had limited influence on China, and was overthrown because of the inequality policy. As for foreign officials, there are many in the Tang Empire.

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OMG The discussion bewteen you and SubotaiMGL has gone too far. Here is a game communty so let us focus on game design.
First of all, the Yuan Dynasty was, of course, a Chinese Dynasty. Part of Mongolian culture was eventually integrated into Chinese culture. Such Dynasties are common in many civilizations in the world, such as the Ptolemaic Dynasty in Egypt, the Second Dynasty in Babylon, the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Dynasty in India, all of which are obvious foreign invasions and eventually inherited local culture.
So, in this post, I just said two hopes: 1, hope that the characteristics of civilization are more distinct, to avoid the collision of the characteristics of civilization between China and Mongolia, obviously there are many more mainstream characteristics of Chinese civilization worth showing.
2、Hope that the historical framework of the whole game will be unified. From the information we know now about AOE4, the Yuan Dynasty will be part of China, but the Delhi Sultanate will not be “part” of Indian civilization, which will lead to many players’puzzlement. Obviously, Hindu characteristics can better represent the mainstream of Indian civilization than Islamic characteristics. If we do not expand the content of the current Delhi Sultanate will it be followed by a Hindu kingdom in the south of India in later DLCsor will it simply abandon the whole rich Hindu civilization system? This is a problem that needs to be considered by the development team.

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Maybe the game making group doesn’t know much about Indian history.

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India was never one united political entity. It is made up of tons of different people group with their respective kingdoms and empires. Delhi Sultanate represents only Delhi-Kannauj Region. It does not represent Indians.

It makes zero sense to compare Chinese (one ethnicity) to Indians (group of multiple ethnicities)

Classical Age Magadhan Dynasty

Classical Age Haryanvi Dynasty

Late Medieval Tamil Dynasty

Nothing like that