This is not a representation game!
You do not add new civs just to fill the map.
You have to have an elegantly and brilliantly designed civ with high replayability value before even considering adding a new civ to the base game.
If your civ isn’t of the same quality as the Ethiopians, Teutons, Turks, Britons, Portuguese, or Byzantines, then it cannot be put in the same category as those civs.
You keep using that word elegant… hmmm… and those civs mentioned!??!! Nah just my imagination… anyway since you know “elegant” design, why not use your erudite wisdom and intellectual shrewdness to regale us with GOOD civ design
No, but one must represent in order to create content.
I agree; but you shouldn’t discount new civs just because of “elegance”; many things have to be taken into consideration when making a civ. Besides, I’d hardly call some of the classic civs elegant, and I’m an AoK player…
Most of these civs tend to play like one/two-trick ponies. I’m detecting some bias here.
You too, huh? Talks exactly like that one dude, with the table allergies…
Only the Britons are one-dimensional in that list.
But that one simple dimension is what forces opponents to play a totally different game.
Yes, and apart from the Ethiopians, they’re all European, and we don’t want the game to become “Age of Europe,” right?…
It would be strange otherwise. There are fewer sources, and for better or worse, no one waged war as much or as well as the Europeans.
I think it’s too late for that. I would be really surprised.
So Bantu?
It is unclear why, given that the area is already well covered
I’d go with Shona. “Bantu” is an extremely wide term, you can’t really design a civ that represents Kongo, Zimbabwe, the lake kingdoms, and the Swahili Coast city states in one.
That’s a fair point, or even Karanga.
Which reminds me that this is a short list of all the names that have been circulating over the years regarding possible African civilisations, these seem to me to be the best:
→ Ayneha (Songhai Empire) (wikipedia).
→ BaKongo (Kingdom of Kongo) (wikipedia).
→ Edo (Kingdom of Benin) (wikipedia).
→ Kanouri (Kanem-Bornu Empire) (wikipedia).
→ Karanga (aka MaKaranga, Kingdom of Zimbabwe) (wikipedia).
→ Somalis (Ajuran Sultanate and Adal Sultanate) (wikipedia, wikipedia).
→ Soninké (Wagadu, aka Ghana Empire) (wikipedia).
I think a single Shona civ covering Great Zimbabwe and its predecessors and successors (Mapungubwe, Mutapa, Butua etc.) would be sufficient. Nyatsimba Mutota (the founder of Mutapa) has a bunch of oral histories about him so he’s a natural campaign hero candidate.
I’d also add a Nguni civ as their more mobile, warlike neighbors with the Assegai as a UU. Nguni is an umbrella of a variety of nations and tribes (Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele, and so on) who played a significant role in shaping South African history and have a clear military identity that’d translate well to AoE2 gameplay.
Sure you can,recalls dravidians with khmer and chinese graphical assets.
Two factions is nowhere near “well covered”. Especially when one speaks a made up language and the other mentioned El Dorado (famously located in South America) before TLC and has a made up UU.
If Mutapa is Shona, then it would be appropriate to include the civ as the two Bantu players in Almeida 3. The others would be Swahili, so this would add variety.
I think Assegai are better served as a regional unit, a fast javeliner basically serving the role of Cavalry Archers.
I included a Nguni Shields unique tech in my Shona civ, but that was a remnant of it being a Bantu umbrella, which I liked and decided to keep. Is it not appropriate?
I’d keep Shona and Nguni separate as their differing warfare transitions make it really easy to design two distinct civs.
If we were to make a list of poorly done/unfinished dubbing and so on, it would be quite long.
And I would like all of those fixed. Byzantines shouldn’t be speaking Latin and Berber voice lines also have a lot of Gibberish.
To avoid any misunderstanding, I would like that too, but I think it will never happen. In recent years, the problems have not diminished, they have increased.
As a Portuguese speaker, the Portuguese civ’s voice lines are really poorly acted as well, besides having a few mistakes.
The game is done with the new civs.
Nothing good could come from them.
Give Ethiopians some elephants 
