In a historical sense for Age IV which would likely be in Yuan or Ming Dynasty timeline some more historically accurate units would be the suggested as name replacements for the Imperial Guard and the Yuan Raider.
The ‘Imperial Guard’ would best be rename to Uriankhan Guard which historically make more sense as it is the major component of the Duoyan朵颜 guard(mongols that submitted to the Ming Dynasty) and they played a great role in the Early-mid Ming especially in helping especially in helping Yongle secured the throne as emperor of China. In addition, their allegiances were also unstable as they sometimes allied with the Oirat’s and the Northern Yuan.
Alternative suggested historical names for the Imperial Guard would be the Asud Guard(which held remarkable power in the Yuan and the Northern Yuan), the Iron Sparrowhawk of the Tanguts or the Iron Pagoda of the Jurchens considering it being a heavy cavalry.
Consequently, I have the same suggestion for the ‘Yuan Raider’ and they could be adapted to Sariq Uighur or yellow uyghurs to make them represent one of the peoples under the Kara Del Protectorate which switch hands between the Ming, Northern Yuan, Moghuls and Oirats. This makes sense as in late game the dynastys would either be set in Yuan & Ming.
Yuan Raider would also be suggested alternative names like Moghulistan Horsemen or Dughlat Cavalry to represent the Kara Del and Chagataids affliated with the Ming and Northern Yuan courts.
I say keep the names as actual civilizations. The Jin Dynasty of the Jurchens is featured in the game in its campaign already. And though Chen Buddhism and the Shaolin tradition was born long before it, the Jin would take over regions such as Dengfeng, the birthplace of some of these institutions after winning in the Jin-Song war.
They are extremely relevant to the game and it’s roster. They fell to the Mongols long before China, and they feature those iron pagoda heavy cavalry units you brought up. Being somewhat nomadic themselves, they would be even better of a fit with all of those Mongolic units shown.
Although in my opinion, they deserve their own brand new civilization, I accept that this will never happen. This is as good of a chance as it has, and it just works.
Maybe could rename Zhuxis legacy to Northern Dynasties?
The dynasties could also be renamed then from Song → Jin (Jin was the great antigonist of Song before they got conquered by the Mongols)
Yuan → Yuan (stays same)
Ming → Qing (overthrew the Ming)
All of these originate from northern China. Jin, Yuan and Qing are all somehow famous for cavalry. Jin had Iron Pagodas (=heavy cav unit) Yuan has firelancers already confirmed for this variant civ and Qing historically was also famous for massing cav. in their military.
Since the variant civ comes with a relatively big pack of cavunits (4?)
I like the idea, but the Qing are just outside the game’s time period so it is a bit questionable to bring them into the game. And instead of “Northern Dynasties”, it would make more sense to name it “Jurchens”, as a contrast to “Chinese”. Alternatively, it could be called “Manchurian”, as that is how the Jurchen peoples would end up identifying towards the end of the Da Jin’s rule, and it describes a living peoples of today, just like Chinese.
You’d have the same system of Liao → Jin → Yuan → Qing. That’d be pretty neat.
The Liao were not ruled by the Jurchens, who were instead their subjects. But, I think this works because the Yuan Dynasty was not exactly spawned by the Jurchen or Chinese either, and they are considered part of their cultural and historical heritage as well.
