Thanks for sharing your thoughts. That said, I’m still a bit curious—because in China, or at least in historical-themed Chinese games, the “Li Hua Qiang” (Pear Blossom Spear) is generally considered one of the earliest gunpowder-based weapons. As far as I know, it dates back to around the Song Dynasty, roughly the 9th to 10th centuries. By the Ming Dynasty, I believe such weapons had already become obsolete.
I assume that during the Ming support for Korea in the Imjin War (the late 16th century), the firearms they used were more advanced—like the San Yan Chong (three-barreled gun) or bird guns—which roughly correspond to the gunpowder units we see in the game, like the Hand Cannoneer.
Yeah we’re joking.
Civ was and will be a game with funny anachronism. This is what it has been about. AOE was not. And should not be. At least not the main game.
Odd that they already “created” a perfect formula (chronicles) to accommodate wild designs and out-of-place contents and keep the main game consistent. It was received well and made everyone happy. No idea why they’d intentionally break it now.
As the Khitan has many Tangut elements and the 3K civs and campaigns were clearly made for an actual chronicles, I think something is very messed up within WE’s management.
Well, let me tell my personal humble opinion concerning historical accuracy of AoE II series.
The whole tech tree could be reworked to more authentic set of units (at least according to each region) since AoE II DE (or even Conquerors) came out - I am still getting cringe watching zweihanders and full-plate-armored cavalry as the units for non-Western-European civs.
Mentioned kind of trend is not new at all - e.g. it was realized in “Tzar - Burden off the Crown”, publised in the same 1999 as AoE II : Age of Kings.
And this is the main (not the only) flaw I can recall.
Also that’s the main reason why I prefer AoE III (Asian Dynasties and later add-ons).
P.S. At least they added some of more authentic units for the Far-Eastern factions in the 11.04.25 update - that’s good but not enough at all, they shall keep going rework the tech trees IMHO.
There was a gradual trend of improving the historical consistency. AOE3 did it better than 2. Then the DEs did it better than the legacy games. The civ designs, visuals and campaigns were all becoming more and more coherent, unique and authentic. Past mistakes like the “woad raider” were avoided. Unit looks were more inspired by actual historical materials than Hollywood. Bonuses were carefully designed to accommodate both representation and gameplay. This is what we call innovation.
And now they are throwing all those efforts out of the window and some people consider that as good innovation.
The free update is a great one.
The real new civs (Jurchen, Khitan and Tangut, yes, Tangut) are great.
Even the three kingdoms themselves are great by design, if these were restricted to a chronicles,
And they killed all the hype and good efforts by merging Tanguts with Khitan and forcing the three kingdoms onto ranked. What a pity.
As Eastern European habitant - IMHO, the Three Kingdoms period is overhyped. They could take Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period instead. Or some time since begin the fall of Late Han till Tang dynasty estabilishment. Or Tang expansion to Central Asia.
Or fall of Ming dynasty (and banishment the Dutch out of Taiwan) - IMHO Zheng Chenggong is worthy person to have his own campaign. Howevewer, he is more close to AoE III timeline.
BTW, there is still no Chinese campaign in AoEII. The same for Japanese, Koreans, Turks and Vikikngs. A shame IMHO.
As far as I could suppose on new civs they possibly could be planned to focus on the period of begin of Jurchen Jin and Southern Song dynasties. Thus, it’s my personal speculation.
Yes. I think Tang would be a great campaign. Tang before its (yet another) brutal civil war was the true peak of pre-modern China, both culturally and militarily. It had a lot of interactions with neighboring nations, even the Caliphate. And it is in fact as popular as the oversaturated Three Kingdoms.
Three Kingdoms is mainly popular for its Romance. It’s a period of folk heroes. People enjoy its characters, their duels, their heroic deeds, their near-magic tactics…but not really the warfare part (the historical arms , armor and tactics——not magic). That’s why every Three Kingdoms game is character-centric, and even Total War has to shoehorn itself into one.
The Tang expansion is indeed a very good choice for an RTS campaign.