You just described a political choice. “Canadian company” and “english speaking audiance”, can it be more political than that?
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It is absolutely a political choice in one sense of the word “political.” In a more literal sense of the word, it isn’t because it doesn’t involve literal politics. It’s easy with a word like that for people to talk past each other.
Nobody seriously thinks Relic chose to include the English civ for the purpose of “obtaining control over a government.” But they obviously included the English civ in some unfortunate attempt to play into the “total complex of relations between people living in society,” namely the English speaking gaming population.
My major problem is that doing so is totally abhorrent to the franchise’s supposed belief that it serves as some kind of authority on good, real history. In actual history, England was a relative blip on the world map until the English navy started expanding around the world, but that was after the stated era of aoe4.
For above citations see Merriam-Webster’s various definitions of politics here Politics Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
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They even made the English one of the 4 civs with a campaign. I would of loved to see a Chinese or Abbasid campaign at launch. AoE 4 is just too Eurocentric 3 European campaigns and 1 asian campaign…
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That’s called selling to a demographic. By your definition, lingerie having female models is political. This decision has nothing to do with the US or Canadian government.
English is in the game because it is a very recognized and popular civilization.
I will say, if the hundred years war turned out differently, their impact on the game era would have been drastically different. If they successfully formed the Angevian empire, they would have been a European Powerhouse.
Even as it is, the English were one of the main leader of the crusades (mainly the 3rd), so it wasn’t like the were totally irrelevant.
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The civ bloat problem is when the units all look the same and there is not enough visual/building set diversity. New mechanics etc can solve most of these issues. But introducing new skins and regional variation and you have the pro player horde descend on you with all kinds of recognisability issues like they are five year old children.
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Ehm guys, the title of the topic is “The Devs Agree to add an Indian Civ”, but it is diverting to despise the existence of the English in the game, which I don’t see any sense, or even trying to justify the reason why “There is no Indian civilization because of the English”, which personally, seems like a ridiculous correlation to me.
In any case they could open a topic about why they think the English came out first and are the tutorial campaign, I don’t think it has anything to do with this post.
Indeed, but in general I think it also has to do with the fact that AoE4 was promoted as a 3D remake version of AoE2, and therefore some elements of the base game, before its expansions, had to come out first. If there is a civ that has appeared in up to 4 of the 5 original campaigns of the Age II, it was the Britons. They are a civilization that has had a lot of involvement in the Middle Ages with so many civilizations (enemies of the Scots, French, Byzantines, Abbasids, Vikings, Spanish, Portuguese, Burgundians, Irish, etc.) that suggesting removing their own version from AoE4, England, from the game would be like wasting his potential as an enemy in any of the campaigns of other possible civs.
Outside of that, I say again that we must return to the main thread, “INDIAN CIVILIZATIONS”.
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Agreed, I just want an Indian Civilization with “PRIORITY and ATTENTION”
This franchise ALWAYS ignores South Asian South East Asian civs, either as “Forgotten” / “Umbrella civ” / “Un sincere research” etc.
There is ALWAYS the efforts lacking.
Older games can be forgiven after such long time for thier limited mindset.
BUT with AOE4 came HIGH hopes, of finally giving a
- Global
- Non-Euro centric
- Sincerely researched civ
But even after two years I see it missing. which is quite disappointing. And I can surely say similar things for Native american and other civs.
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To be one of eight launch civs, a civ should be a whole lot more than not totally irrelevant.
I agree. They should have been there to begin. I can think of two obvious civs that are sitting in their place, and who they are or why they are there is less relevant other to compare them with the Indians, who are far more deserving.
We cannot go back in time and give aoe4 the most deserving civs at launch. But we can repeatedly discuss how those mistakes were made so that hopefully they stop being made in the future. Hopefully no more european civs until the Indians and other more historically deserving civs are properly included.
To be fair, the devs are four-for-four on making excellent civ choices since launch. Sometime before launch I made a list of the next eight most deserving civs, and the Malians, Ottomans, Japanese, and Byzantines were all on that list.
Remaining on my list: Indians, Persians, Inca, and either the Aztecs or Maya
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England was around the 1200s arguably the largest and most important empire in Europe, well the crown of England that is, as really the concept of nation-states didn’t really exist.
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While I agree with the general Euro-centricity of this argument, I don’t agree with this reasoning leveraged solely to target England’s validity.
The Norman Conquest was a turning point that tied us to the French in a number of ways, but also continued the late Anglo-Saxon unified “kingdom” approach that brought England through and out of the Dark Ages with the various warring lords, etc). The Kingdom of England was its accession to viability.
Otherwise this lens can easily be weaponised against other choices. The Mesoamerican civs being obvious - their influence was massively limited (except maybe the Aztecs - the Mayans ruled individual valleys and didn’t have scope challenged until imperialism came a-knocking).
Though to be fair the Aztecs would almost be after AoE IV’s timespan as well - they’d be perhaps the latest starter out of all the civs we currently have here I think - I’d need to check though). Might be easier to choose my faves the Mayans there.
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Some Native American civilizations like the Mississippian culture (500-1500 AD) and the Pueblo (700-1600? AD) would fit into the time frame of AoE 4.
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Hmm, you missed the whole point. Go back a square and read @AndyPXIII reply right next to mine. As he perceived, I didnt use the common sense for politics, which I hate cause I find it make lots of discussion dumb.
IF, which England didnt.
No one said they were irrelevant: not being THAT great doesnt mean not great AT ALL.
You went totally off topic, but, guess what, its not only women who uses lingerie, then, again, a political choice ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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What the heck is your definition of politics? Politics mean relating to the government. Is the fact that TV’s advertise lingerie using female actors some convoluted way to gain support for Biden or Trump or something, or was adding the British to this game somehow related to supporting the Queen of England? The only sense of the word political makes sense is the recent American habit of labelling anything they don’t agree with as politics. Like, if they say something you don’t like, now it’s politics.
The hundred year’s war was a huge conflict that greatly impacted western europe. The French and English were also important parts of the crusades (the French especially having a huge impact on ############ ## # ##### with the whole Anti-pope and Papacy in Avignon stuff.) It’s hard to really say what nations deserve to be represented on a global scale, since frankly anything besides the Mongols didn’t have a huge global reach, since globalization just wasn’t a thing.
huh, name of a religion is censored?
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Yes, they are a curious example because they essentially were a government more than a people. I’m not sure what the right name would be for the people, but mesoamerica was super important, large, densely populated, technologically advanced, etc at all times during the game’s era.
Civ names are curious things because they need to perform several functions at once: identify the people accurately, label the civ in a way modern players easily identify, advertise the new expansion/hype people up.
“Aztecs” do some of these things really well and other parts less well, but they may still be the best label to use. I’m not sure I’ve looked deep enough into it to solidify an opinion worth sharing.
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I don’t see the tendency towards eurocentrism as being contradictory to being historical, but of course it is contradictory towards being global.
All of that said, The DLC pipeline was likely already soft determined by launch for the first DLC. So there would not have really been room for them to toss in a new South Asian civ quickly unless it was a variant, but given how much the community cares about a good South Asian Hindu representation, I would imagine they are wanting to put in a lot of effort to make sure it is done properly and correctly.
So I always expected that we would see a South Asian Hindu civ in either the second DLC, OR as a bonus two free civs to download like the Malian’s and Ottomans AFTER the first DLC. They could have made a variant for the Delhi, but I think given the current variant reaction, it is probably rather good that they didn’t this time around. Next DLC we may see a proper South Asian civ, variant, etc. So I wouldn’t give up hope yet.
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Delhi speaks Persian so I’m not sure a variant civ would really be an option.
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I ended up posting this research in another topic, but I’ll share it here too, as it’s important to better understand India as a whole.
In the images below, we can see ALL of India’s great empires and their respective years of power and expansion.
Even those Empires that managed to conquer a lot of land, were not strong enough to maintain them for long, thus showing the eternal power struggle that existed in Medieval India.
In short, we may have many options for the future, be it a new architecture for the new Empire/Civi, but also new variants at some point.
Enjoy:
India 760-1270
India 1330-1600
India 1640-1800
They brought the English and French into the game for the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453), we already know that they would be powerful centuries later…
Well, but they are going to put them together with the Japanese (obviously they kept them to attract the sale of the dlc/expansion)…
Well, the Chinese appear a lot in the Mongol campaign (so I don’t miss them so much) and the Abbasid campaign was obviously saved for this DLC of the Crusades… I would have liked an Ottoman campaign (taking advantage of the fact that they included the Byzantines) and a Japanese or Delhi campaign (because of the “Sultans” theme)… I hope they put them in the next seasons (as they did with William the Conqueror’s campaign) or in the next dlc next year…
Yes, without Joan of Arc, England could have conquered all of France by 1453… and that would affect all of the European Early Modern era…
The Angevin Empire fought in the Third Crusade, in fact the death of Richard Lionheart in 1199 defending his territories in France caused the First Barons’ War, which ended the Angevin Empire…
Yes, I mean without the English you couldn’t do the Hundred Years War campaign…that’s why they will always appear in a medieval game, no matter how important they were in the Middle Ages; the English since AoE 2 (with the exception from AoM and AoEO) always appeared in the saga…
Well they solved that with the Indians in AoE 3 TAD and AoE 2 TF (and now with DoI in 2 DE and the Indians in AoEO)…with AoE 4 it is the first time that an “Indian” civ appears in the game base…
Yes, that’s true… in AoE 2 and AoE 3 a year you already had native american civs (Aztecs and Mayans in TC and Aztecs, Sioux and Iroquois in TWC)…
The thing is that they were very requested civs…now people will no longer be desperate for new civs (at least until next year xd)…
As I understand it, Relic had in mind to launch a South Indian civ at some point (perhaps Cholas, Viyanagara or simply Dravidians)… I find it difficult for the Persians since they are represented by the Abbasids or the Mongols (Ilkhanate), although Maybe they put them in as some variant civ (Ghaznavids?)…Incas and Aztecs are sure to put them in (Mayans maybe it’s some civ variant of the Aztecs)
Until at least the 19th century…
The Aztecs fit well in AoE 4, since they emerged in the 14th century (1325-1521); the Mayans on the other hand fell into decline in the 10th century (900 CE) and were lost between the jungles of Yucatan and Guatemala until they were conquered by the Spanish in 1697…
And in AoE 2 too…the Hauds too, but it’s more debated…
Yes, ultimately you only have 4 empires left that occupied much of medieval India: Ghazanavid Empire (977-1186) and the Delhi Sultanate (1206-1526) in the north and the Chola Empire (848-1279) and Viyanagara (1336-1646) in the south…I would go with the Chola Empire to represent the pre-1200 period and because they occupied Sri Lanka and Malaysia…the Viyanagara Empire would perhaps fit better for the early period of AoE 3 (1400-1600)…
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA no.
Go play Delhi sultanate if you want your precious Persians right now instead of spamming every thread with your nationalist fantasies, Vinifrss.
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Persian as a culture Is different from Persian as civilization in the game. I mean, a particular Persian kingdom or empire would be the reference, with a long enough and influential enough history in the Middle Ages.
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