I am not trying to add more civs.
I am trying to repair the civs we already have.
That is exactly the kind of awkward compromise I was talking about. It’s a change that doesn’t solve the problem. In my view, changing Wu into Liang doesn’t actually repair anything.
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I am trying to give the Three Kingdoms a chance to be reworked within the current framework.
Renaming is only the lowest-cost and most practical first step in this process.
If all you want is rename something without making any other changes, then it doesn’t actually fix any of the problems. In fact, it can even create more issues. Renaming Wu to Liang still doesn’t fit how people define a civ. Renaming Shu to Bai doesn’t make the design accurate for Bai at all, and it just turns it into a civ that is even less accurate to both Shu and Bai.
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Yeah but a rework needs to be more in-depth than simply a renaming (this can already be done with mods).
As for the Wu, the easiest way would be to name them Jiangnan(ese) or Wuyue, but the issue is that the existing Chinese civilization already fits South China well, because their rework make them focus on the inventions of southern dynasties like the Song. Not sure who else in East Asia could fit the Wu tech tree though – the Ryukyuans? The Tai?
I think there is also a misunderstanding of my proposal. I am not simply suggesting Shu → Bai; I suggested Dali (大理) as the replacement identity because it was an actual historical state with its own development.
Some existing mechanics also fit Dali better than Shu. For example, the multi-arrow chariot is difficult to justify as a Shu element, but it can be explained as a Song dynasty (宋朝)-influenced military technology, since Dali had long interactions with the Song dynasty.
Renaming alone is not a complete solution. It is only the lowest-cost and most practical first step toward making the civ identity, gameplay, and historical background more consistent.
The name is secondary. The willingness to rework is the important part.
Liang (Southern Liang) is only one possible solution, but it demonstrates how an alternative identity could better match the existing design.
The Liang dynasty wasn’t only a cultural center but also one of the economic peaks of the Six Dynasties period (229–589). Under Emperor Wu of Liang, Jiankang became one of the most prosperous cities in East Asia, with thriving trade, handicrafts, and cultural exchange.
This economic strength also made elite cavalry forces possible. Liang wouldn’t be a cavalry civilization like the steppe empires; instead, its cavalry would represent elite units supported by the wealthy Jiangnan economy, while its main strengths would remain naval power, economic development, and cultural influence.
Just think about why people want the Bai rather than the Dali Kingdom as a civ.
So you’re saying the Song Dynasty used multi-arrow chariots? Even if the Song Dynasty actually used them, why do the influenced civ has them but the original source, the Chinese, doesn’t?
If I’m forced to make a comparison, I would say Wu’s tech tree is actually closer to what Bai should look like than Shu’s. For example, having shock infantry makes more sense than having chariots. The possibility of Bai warriors using flaming arrows is also far more likely than them using multiple-arrow crossbows. Still, I prefer Bai to be a completely brand-new civ rather than being used as a mask for 3K.
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As for the chariot, I recall another user mentioned somewhere that the Champa kingdom used carroballistas / crossbow chariots that were somewhat similar. I guess it could be moved to a hypothetical Cham civ.
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That’s why I said the civ needs to be reworked. Whatever is needed to change it into Tibetans
I didn’t create the current Three Kingdoms design. I’m only discussing the most practical way to improve it.
AoE2 civilizations aren’t defined by exclusive ownership of technologies. A civilization can have a mechanic because it represents how that civilization developed or used a technology, not necessarily because it invented it first.
The point isn’t to perfectly redesign Dali from scratch. The point is to find a practical identity that can preserve the existing design without changing the DAT or tech tree.
For example, let’s look at Shu’s current design.
Archer and Siege civilization
- Lumberjacks generate food in addition to wood
- Archery technologies at the Archery Range and Blacksmith cost -25%
- Siege Weapons and Siege Warships move +10/15% faster in Castle/Imperial Age
Unique Units
- White Feather Guard
- War Chariot
- Liu Bei (Hero)(With heal aura)
Unique Technologies
- Coiled Serpent Array
- Bolt Magazine
Team Bonus
- Foot Archers +2 Line of Sight
For brevity, I’m only listing the Barracks and Archery Range.
Archery Range
- Arbalester
- Elite Skirmisher
- Heavy Cavalry Archer
- No Hand Cannoneer
- No Parthian Tactics
Barracks
- Full infantry line
- No Iron Casting
- No Blast Furnace
Anyone can check the complete tech tree online.
My question is simple:
without redesigning the DAT or the tech tree, what historical identity would make this existing design more coherent?
That’s the problem I am trying to solve.
If criticizing me would actually help AoE2 improve, I have no problem with that. The important thing is focusing on improving the game, not just blaming the person proposing a solution.
Almost nobody wants to improve the Three Kingdoms designs (except maybe for balance reasons in ranked), people either have accepted them or don’t want them in the main game. For the latter, there have been suggestions to change them for other civs by reworking them, but how much rework would they need before it’s just better to make a new civ from scratch? Xianbei is promising because of its wonder and the Xianbei Raider.
Besides the DLC is called The Three Kingdoms and it has to offer the Three Kingdoms so you have to think about that too.
Where does this information come from?
We have a super diversely spread community all around the world. They are so many different takes on almost every topic.
Not even the devs know what our community “wants”.
This comes up so many times. Some people in this forum continouulsy claim to know EXACTLY what the community or parts of it want. In many cases even if these people don’t even have contact to these parts of the community.
Also in many cases these peoples are not so blunt, but hide these claims in implicts. So you can’t even ask these questions I ask here. So I use this as a reminder to our community: Nobody here actually knows everything. About what our community wants. About the different takes on different topics that are discussed. And even if sometimes the community “agrees” to a huge majority on a point, it doesn’t necessarily mean that would be “right” and other takes would be “wrong”.
Also there is the thing that at this point makes it very difficult to state a differnetiated assessment on this question. Most people of the community don’t even tknow this possibility exists. And the question to ask is, why don’t they know? Why almost nobody has attempted to fix 3K this way so far? I remember I actually tried to encourage this direction when 3K came out, assessing that it looks to me these civs actually were originally planned to be representative of other civs that could have been added. But was turned down then. Why?
And secondly because many people want to get over 3K at this point. They want an easy way out. And ofc this isn’t really easy, because this would require several people from different background to sit together and work hard together to figure out a solution. With a lot of compromises.
As the sate of this forum currently is, unfortunately. Neither are all the different backrgounds needed present anymor (why?). Nor I see a lot of attempt to find compromises from the few remaining backgrounds.
So currently I unfortunately don’t see good chances for this attempt. And I wish I am wrong with this. I would be glad to be proven wrong on this impression.
But I also have to state if this would have had any chance to come up when 3K was released, I’d see a huge amount of people from all different backgrounds joining in and have high hopes in this conceptional proposal. I can’t give numbers here, because quite frankly nobody of us can. But tbh this is so far the best attempt i’ve seen to bring everyone at a single table who is actually interested in a solution. A solution everybody who loves this game could agree on.
The campaigns could just stay, maybe put on a different page so people who really dislike them don’t see them directly anymore. Deal?
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I think this discussion shows something interesting: even though players disagree on how The Three Kingdoms should be improved, many of them share a similar concern.
For example, some people think my suggestions, such as Dali or Southern Liang, are not the best direction and have proposed other ideas instead. But these different opinions all show the same thing:
The current identity of The Three Kingdoms still has room for improvement.
The disagreement isn’t about whether changes are needed, but what direction those changes should take.
The Three Kingdoms is a theme with many interpretations. Different players are influenced by history, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, games, and their own cultural backgrounds, so there may never be one single version of the Three Kingdoms that satisfies everyone.
That is why I suggest a Civ Editor:
It doesn’t need to be a complete system at first, and it doesn’t need to affect Ranked play. Even a simple version that allows players to adjust The Three Kingdoms civilizations in single-player games would already create many possibilities.
Instead of searching for one version of the Three Kingdoms that everyone agrees on, perhaps the better solution is:
Let players create their own Three Kingdoms.
I thought I made myself pretty clear: from my perspective, changing the name hasn’t really improved things, and it’s actually created other problems instead.
I’m commenting on your idea, not blaming you. I think just changing the names would make the situation worse, so I’m saying I disagree. That’s it.
Why is changing the tech tree off the table? Even not the 3K, many civs have had their tech trees adjusted to improve historical accuracy. If anything is going to change, there’s no reason to assume the developers would stop at simply renaming things.
Clearly I don’t like having the 3K in the base game either. But I’d rather see them reworked to be more accurate to the 3K in the novel while we wait for other medieval civs that actually belong in the base game, along with a dedicated 3K spin-off. I wouldn’t want those medieval peoples to be turned into masks for the 3K, because that would end up doing a disservice to both the 3K and those medieval peoples.
If you’re interested, I actually wrote up a proposal for reworking the 3K a long time ago.
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Renaming Is Not the Final Solution, but It Can Be the First Step.
I agree that a full DAT and tech tree rework would be a better solution. If the developers are willing to invest the resources, a complete redesign would have the greatest potential.
However, my suggestion of renaming was never meant to say that renaming alone can solve all the problems.
The Three Kingdoms DLC has already been released for more than a year and is already part of Ranked play. The challenge is not only finding the best solution, but also finding a realistic way to encourage the developers to revisit the DLC.
If someone has been hungry for days, the first priority is to give them something to eat and stabilize the situation.
Renaming is indeed only an emergency solution. It may not be perfect, and it may not be as ideal as a complete redesign. But its advantage is that it is something that can be done now.
A full DAT rework may be the better long-term solution, but we do not know when it will arrive, or even whether it will happen.
This issue is also time-sensitive. The longer the DLC remains unchanged, the harder it becomes to make meaningful improvements. Player expectations become fixed, the Ranked environment becomes more established, and the cost of making changes increases.
This doesn’t mean the emergency solution is better than the ideal solution. It means priorities matter.
My goal isn’t to choose between “renaming” and “full redesign.” I support deeper changes if they are possible. I am simply considering what can realistically happen first.
Because if the first step already looks impossible, it becomes even harder to reach the later steps.
After all, since everyone in this discussion already recognizes that the Three Kingdoms DLC has issues, even if we disagree on the solution, we all share the same goal: improvement. So why not start taking the first steps sooner rather than later?
I don’t think you’ve quite gotten my point yet. In my opinion, simply changing the name just doesn’t help, and it actually creates even more problems. At this point, it’s not about whether it’s the first step or not. This isn’t even a step worth taking.
Everything we’ve seen in the past suggests that if the dev were truly willing to make changes, they wouldn’t necessarily limit themselves at a simple rename. There’s no reason why they couldn’t go further: rework the tech tree, release a spin-off, add new medieval civs and make them available to people who already own the 3K DLC, and so on. None of these genuinely beneficial changes that would actually make a meaningful improvement require renaming the civs.
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I understand that the main focus of your proposal is historical identity and overall design. However, because these civilizations are already part of Ranked play, I think the practical side of implementation also has to be considered.
From the developer’s perspective, Ranked is clearly one of the main focuses of the current game. Any future changes to the Three Kingdoms civilizations can’t be considered only from a historical or design perspective; they also have to consider balance, player expectations, and the impact on the competitive environment.
This is why I see renaming as a possible first step. It doesn’t affect gameplay balance or the Ranked environment, and it is also highly reversible. If the community reacts negatively, the names can be changed again with relatively little cost. A full DAT or tech tree rework is much harder to reverse once players have adapted to it.
A full rework may still be the ideal long-term solution, but it is a much larger decision with higher risks and costs. A smaller, low-risk, and reversible first step can create an opportunity for further improvements without immediately disrupting the current game.
Perhaps I should’ve clarified when i said improve the Three Kingdoms designs I meant to make better representations of the Three Kingdoms. That’s why i made the initial assumption as I considered it a safe one. And of course i was talking about the people who are aware of this issue(Whether they agree that 3K is a problem or not).
They can stay, yes, but afaik any change to a civ affects the campaigns too. If Wei is reworked into Xiambei, you would play Wei’s campaign as Xiambei. Wouldn’t that be a problem?
They can essentially “split” each of the three into one Chronicle civ from the 3K period (played in the campaign) and one ranked civ from the medieval era (without heroes, traction trebs moved to castle, etc)
Yes, that could be a concern, but it would not be unprecedented in AoE.
In fact, the 2019 AoE: DE still uses Yamato to represent the Hun in a campaign. Rise of Rome also used the Hittite to represent the Hun.
So the series has already accepted cases where the civilization name used by a campaign does not exactly match the historical group being represented. Ideally, the campaign presentation could be adjusted to match a new identity, but I don’t think this makes renaming an unworkable option.
The campaign naming issue is primarily a presentation and narrative issue. It can be handled within the campaign itself without necessarily changing the underlying civilization data or Ranked gameplay. Compared with changing the DAT, tech tree, and Ranked balance, I still consider this a relatively small and reversible issue.
I actually think the campaign side is easier to handle than it may seem.
Since Update 42848 on November 17, 2020, AoE2: DE has had the “Change Civilization Name” trigger effect in the Scenario Editor. This means a campaign can change the civilization name within the scenario without changing the underlying civilization data.
So the campaign does not necessarily need a separate civilization in the DAT just to present a different historical identity. The underlying civ can remain unchanged for Ranked, while the campaign presents it under a different name.
That is another reason why I see the campaign naming issue as relatively manageable and reversible, rather than something that requires splitting the civilization into two separate versions.
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