The Devs agree to add an Indian civ to address the Community's concerns

"“While the Delhi Sultanate is the first Age IV civilisation set in South Asia, we chose to do this so we can revisit this region via future expansions and explore an indigenous Hindi-speaking civilisation being represented in the game as well,” a Microsoft spokesperson confirms.”

I have been on these forums for more than 10 years and have seen enough to confidently declare that this would not have happened, particularly would not have happened like this right now, if not for the well researched and well reasoned arguments from all of us on this forum. (And I include myself only because I am here – I am no scholar of SE studies like many others.) Congratulations, everyone! And thank you to the developers for continuing to recognize their blind spots and having the courage to do better.

Thanks to @DigitalXentric for the link.

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@AndyPXIII My pleasure, although I wouldn’t consider it a “done deal” - my POV is that they’ve stated an interest in doing this, but it’s not confirmed until it’s confirmed, right?

Also, for anyone interested (and who doesn’t read the full post), there was a second half to the quote we received that dealt with why the Delhi Sultanate was chosen in the first place. It reads:

“The Delhi Sultanate was chosen because they were a South Asian civilisation with a compelling history that spans the same time period as the overall era of Age IV. The Delhi Sultanate, like many other civilisations represented in the game, were invaders: in this case invaders which spanned the majority of the Indian Subcontinent during the Age IV time period.”

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I suppose it is possible to read the quote I cited as mealy-mouthed lip service, but one can read the meaning out of any sentence if you try hard enough. I would be shocked if they gave that quote and did not deliver. They are much better than that.

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Super happy that this happened. I am glad they acknowledged the fiery debate on these forums. It means they genuinely care about representation and the discussion that happens here. :slight_smile: :smiley:

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Really nice. I hope they’ll also consider some Precolumbian civs too :smile:

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Yes , it seems great, action on it yet to be seen , also the civ balance will also be a major factor, hoping for the best !

I’m not a narcissist, but for this, Your welcome :stuck_out_tongue: :slight_smile: and also thanks to others who participated for or against the argument

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I guessed it on April 10!

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Thinking about it more, if they truly do add another South Asian faction, it would be the very first Age game which would acknowledge the fact that India is a subcontinent.

This would only be true though if they don’t it earlier with a South Asian DLC for AOE2:DE which would be amazing too IMO.

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Yup that’s pretty cool for a potential Asian expansion in the future, also @GKShaman they mentioned your name in the news article.

I wonder what would be the next civ to add for the Indian subcontinent, there are lots of good picks

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Having thought about this for a few hours, I am very curious to see how they plan to maintain the levels of asymmetric civ design they have heretofore promised but have not yet demonstrated.

Asymmetric civ design has been a fundamental expectation in the Age series since Age of Mythology and requires a healthy diet of unique units, unique buildings, and unique techs and cannot be achieved with a reliance on a unified roster of units and buildings.

We fans of AoM, AoEO, and AoE3 can attest to the development constraints imposed on good civ design. You can’t make amazing and unique civs and also balance 36 of them. There’s a natural tension between quality and quantity that cannot easily be solved.

As @anon63664082 aptly said, “The current limited asymmetric gameplay elements in Age of Empires IV, with exception to the Mongols, give the impression that they are gimmicks, different ways to do the exact same thing. They give a surface level impression of asymmetric civ design without actually making the game more interesting to play, like unique units and technologies would. Perhaps there is more to these asymmetric gameplay elements than I can perceive at this time. We shall see.” If true, this would be a return to higher a quantity of civs of lower quality. That’s an anathema to me (and many others here), but I understand it is business as usual to others who enjoy the earlier Age games.

I am deeply curious to see how the Devs rise to the challenge of making a second civ that must contain the apparently tentpole unique feature of the existing Delhi Sultanate – elephant units.

If the major feature so special about the Dehli Sultanate is simply repeated in a second civ, then that feature is no longer so special at all. Accordingly, if the Devs plan to continue to expand the game with more and more civs, they need to cram each civ with many different unique features in order for the new ones to not step on the toes and water down the existing ones.

This kind of nuanced and strategic civ design is what caused so many of us to fall in love with games like Age of Mythology and Age of Empires Online. I am fascinated to see if the new generation of Developers can follow in their footsteps.

However, those two games do not use unified unit rosters and also deviate significantly with unique buildings and technologies. Those games are designed to be expanded in amazing directions, but even then, there’s only so much you can do before you drift too far and lose cohesion among the roster of civs.

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Salty Dravidian enter the chat
Jokes aside , It’d be nice to have a Chola , Vijaynagar or any other Dravidian empire if SE Asian empires are also added .

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Same here :wink:

I was actually quite happy to see the Delhi Sultanate instead of Indians since it hinted a possibility of more empires from the continent to be added down the line in future expansions instead of passing India as a ridiculous monolithic camel riding weird Rajput-Turkish hybrid civ that builds a Tamilian wonder .

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Yeah india is too diverse to be one civ

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yes… afghans, bengals, rajputs, dravids, hinds, sikhs, nepal, sinhalese, asamese, tibetans… we are all south asians and we need our identity represented properly for the sake of our history

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It was me who started the topic :sweat_smile:

My topic even got a bunch of downvotes on reddit, but was liked on forums

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Why should a Hindu kingdom have the same mechanics as the Muslim Delhi Sultanate?

No way they gonna have the Scholar mechanic.
I could see them having a similar mechanic as in AoE3 with the holy cows.
AoE3 also shows that there are a lot of interesting potential unique units that are not just Elephants.

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this was pretty obvious… dunno why some people thought delhi sultan would represent whole india

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im pretty sure they will find many ways to make every indian civ different… if u see in AOE 3 or the dharma mod for aoe 2 you will see how different ways elephant units can be used… indians used elephants in different ways in warfare, mughals mounted swevel cannon on them, bengals used them for transport, some attached modifications like flail, tusk sword etc…the mysorean used rocket mounted elephants lol. their tactics differed a lot too, like rajputs relied mostly on cavalry for shock troopers and bengals didnt even have horse cavalry … so we can see many different mechanics

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+1

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