The future of Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition

Not completely, they were fine as revolutions, but since the devs opened the doors with the United States and Mexico, well, it is what it is… I’m not complaining anyway, because I always saw it as potential for revolutionary civs to be complete civs…

But otherwise you would be left with a huge geographical gap between the Germans and the Russians as it happens with Persia with respect to the Ottomans and Indians…between 1569 and 1795, Poland was a great European power (although surrounded by other powers such as Sweden, Russia, Austria and an ascendant Prussia), it had a colonial empire in Tobago and Zambia (although through the Duchy of Courland), you have other interesting moments in Poland apart from the siege of Vienna, such as the Deluge, the Great Northern War (both historical maps indicate that the Baltic civs will come later), the Constitution of 1791 (the second oldest constitution after that of the United States), the Partitions, the Duchy of Warsaw allied to Napoleon, Congress Poland and the revolutions of 1831 and 1863 representing Polish nationalism within the Russian Empire…

Yes, but they are more unique cards than the ones that Prussia could have with Uhlans, Landwers, Totenkopf Hussars and little else that the current German civ already have…

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The real reason people want Prussia and Austria to be added…

So we can re-enact these historic battles: :rofl:

  • Waterloo (1815)
  • Leuthen (1757)
  • Leipzig (1813)
  • Austerlitz (1805)
  • Gravelotte (1870)
  • Sedan (1870)
  • Abensberg (1809)
    etc.

Who plays a game like this and doesn’t want to re-enact some famous Napoleonic battles. :joy:

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They are valid points and are respected…

The issue is that AoE 3 always had this American-centric image, which changed from TAD (5 campaigns in America and 3 in Asia), whereas in AoE 2 it always had this Eurasian image (3 campaigns in Europe and 2 in Asia in AoK and 2 campaigns in Europe and 1 in America in TC) that changed from TAK…

Yeah, devs can always change their minds when the time comes for them to want to make more civs…

It is difficult because you would have to separate the experience of the standard civ from the revolutionary so that one counts for the standard civ and the other for the revolutionary to raise their respective levels…

Wateloo, Leipzig, Austerlitz, Abensberg already appear on the historical map of the Napoleonic Wars…

But in the 16th and 17th centuries they were the exact same thing.

Meanwhile, Prussia and Austria had distinct cultures the entire time.

And how about Czechs, Hungarians, Croatians, Serbs, etc? All of these are very unlikely to see representation outside of a multi-ethnic Austrian Empire.

Euro civs share tons of cards so you wouldn’t need hundreds. And any new civ will need new cards.

There’s no reason to rebalance anything to make Germans Austrian. All you’d have to do is swap out their home city, leader, and royal guard upgrade names. Personally I’d like a bit more of a rework than that (such as Pandours as their unique skirms), but it would also be fine without that.

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In point of another view, removing things is much more difficult than adding new ones. A ‘Split’ is more than an overhaul, it’s deleting the previous one and adding several more ones much different from it.

The split of AoE2 Indians was easier than this, because all they had to do was rename existing Indians to Hindustanis, add a new unique unit, and add 3 more Indian civs. Hindustanis even share most of the tech trees with Indians. The same method cannot be applied to the Germans.

Splitting will cost a lot of resources and time, and even if they do, there always will be grumbling players about ‘removing Germans’. See AoE2. They complain about Shirivamsha Riders, complain about Return of Rome, and are not happy about adding anything. On the other hand, players who want unintroduced civs would be annoyed about their wishes had been delayed by a split.

It’s a poisoned chalice. Why would they risk it for uncertainty?

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Nothing at all would need to be deleted to split Germany. The home city, leader, and royal guard upgrade names would be moved to Prussia, and new ones given to Austria. Every other aspect of “Germans” could be retained by Austria and Prussia could be all new.

Your points are valid for India since that would require a more substantial rework to properly split. But even so, when the same thing was done in AoE2 it had an overwhelmingly positive reception (despite a few loud complainers).

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Yeah I’m aware, but it does feel weird not having a proper representation of Prussian and Austrian troops in battles where they were integral.

For me, I feel that there should be better European uniforms for gunpowder units, everything is starting to feel very generic for Europeans. Before anyone says it would confuse game play to have lots of very different looking units, look at all the 14 new civs we’ve had since the original 8, all with very unique units that are still distinguishable from one another.

Who doesn’t want to see more Pickelhaube (pointed helmets) bobbing up and down across the battle field??? :grin:

To bring us back on topic of what I think should be in the future of AOE3de, I think a re-skinning of the Skirmisher unit has to be coming as at the moment it looks like a rifled scout unit (like a militia) used to fend off Native American raids, rather than the professional proud decorative soldiers that fought in the Napoleonic Wars - such as the French Voltigeurs and Prussian Needle Gunners.

P.s. more about this at Should all generic Royal Guard units be re-skinned? and Meme of Empires 3

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True, they are civs from the 19th century for a reason, since in the previous centuries, they were only British and Spanish until their respective revolutions (which is already in the game)… post-colonial civs only extend the lore of the game up to the 19th century (in addition to the fact that the Americans and Mexicans appeared in the Hold the Fort scenario in the Steel campaign of the original game and in the Shadow campaign in TWC)…

True, but the Czechs have the War Wagon, the Hungarians have the Hadjuk and the Hungarian rev and the Serbo-Croats have the Crabat…

Yes, it may be at some point…

Yes, it’s a whole topic that surely the devs should keep in mind…

I’d say Prussia was not that distinctive (at least from a popular perspective) from the rest of HRE before 18th century. You rarely see it being listed as an important participant in the thirty years war.

The only thing that could be made distinct about pre-18th century Prussia is the Teutonic knight and that is too early.

True, Prussia as such does not appear until the 18th century (actually it was born in 1701) before that, it was a duchy of Brandenburg or Poland…

Teutonic Knights are just within the timeframe.

And I’m not making a comparison between Prussia and the HRE. I’m making the comparison between Prussia and the Austrian Empire. Prussia is Lutheran, forward looking, and primarily German. Austria is Catholic, archaic, and primarily non-German. There are tons of things to differentiate them.

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Well, in any case, you have to ask for it to make it a reality… long live Prussia and Austria xd…

Maybe add for Prussians unique building - Krupp Factory (Artillery Foundry with investment mechanic for unlock Unique Technologies and Units). Available with select a
Rhineland (Ruhr) State in Age Up.

Ballonabwehrkanone

Brandtaucher

Krupp Gun

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How about, instead of rehashing these nonsensical demands for ruining an existing base AOE3 civ with a completely unnecessary split for the gajillionth time (that the devs have openly said will never happen), this thread reverts to discussing actually constructive ideas? If you want Prussia and Austria separate and Germany removed, go play Wars of Liberty.

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How about not fabricating a strawman argument for the gajillionth time?

No one is asking for removing or ruining Germany. Everyone in this thread is perfectly fine with simply renaming it. Adding Prussia is no more complicated than adding any other potential new civ and far less radical or controversial than a lot of civs that have already been added.

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Awesome. Again, a thread turned into a debate about splitting Germans.

It’s not about simply renaming the current civilization. Assuming the German civ is renamed to Austrians in order to introduce Prussians, then all non-Austrian units/techs/cards will have to be adjusted accordingly. It may not be as easy as you claim. At least, it’s not your job, so it seems selfish that you just assume it’s easy and blam the developers who actually have to work for it.

The split between the revolutionary country and the colonial mother country is an openned can, but what we can expect is that the introduction of Brazilians has a good chance of closing it. However, the division of the Germans is another matter entirely, since the relationship between the German states is not that of a revolutionary state and a colonial mother state. This civilization is clearly and firmly defined as “representing the Holy Roman Empire”, which means that it is undoubtedly valid to represent both Prussians and Austrians. If they split, the another, bigger Pandora’s box will be openned. The community could start arguing about Savoy and Venice, Ming and Qing, Scotland and England, etc., wasting a great deal of attention discussing these before the Persians, Omanis, Kongolese, Siamese, etc. had not yet been introduced.

Should this become the future of AoEIII DE?

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That’s true, they already opened a Pandora’s box with the post-colonial civs, don’t open anymore…

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This is the argument I hate the most, because in theory adding any civilization from the Middle East or Oceania is also opening another Pandora’s box. :expressionless:


Strongly disagree, this is the worst idea you could come up with, it would just cause fewer people to revolutions, especially since the vast majority of players have a favorite revolution and you would be forcing them to play certain maps.


The only thing I can say is that I hope they add Brazil and it’s not the last post-colonial civilization. (I particularly want many more)

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Austrians = Habsburg monarchy = HRE most of the time.
So you just need to remove the obvious Prussians ones and keep all the rest, like those referring to other HRE states. Otherwise Aztecs should not have any non-Aztec ally card either.

Then the list is pretty short. Here let me the selfless do that job for you:
Berlin - Vienna
Krupp Metalworks - the regular Manufactory
Fredrick the Great - Maria Theresa or Charles V
Prussian Needle Gunner - Schützen
Scharnhorst reforms - simply Landwehrs (like “Rangers”)
House of Hohenzollern - Imperial Diet or sth
Death Ride and March Revolution - just remove them. They do not fit in the current German playstyle anyway.

All of their assets can be directly reused in a new Prussian civ.

DISCLAIMER: I never said they have to do this. But it’s really not that complicated if they want to.

Which was strongly requested since 2007.

IDK why everyone on either side would have the mentality of “adding this would gatekeep the rest forever”.
I guess no one writing ideas here is assuming the devs have to implement those ideas ASAP before anything else otherwise they will riot? Or the game will die instantly after the next update?

Awesome. Now all suggestions should be banned because they are selfish.

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If the game was still about “colonization of the Americas” I think it’s fine if the Europeans are represented as their American colonies.
But now we have proper representations of actual Europeans, I start to think it is a good idea separating Europeans and their American colonies (ie the “colonial civs”) and give the former a more proper European theme.
Also it’s noteworthy that “Indians” in the game is half-EIC.

Otherwise you’ll see this:
Asians, Africans and native Americans all have their assets and aesthetics based on Asia, Africa and America, respectively.
But Europeans also have assets and aesthetics based on America.

For example, look at the “European” native ally-related bonus cards. They still have images of native Americans, despite all the different natives (especially European ones) added to their decks. In the meantime, Asians have Asians, native Americans have native Americans and Africans have Africans.
It’s very odd. With the introduction of other regions it is really off to keep representing Europeans as their American colonies. Either give them something generic, or a European theme. This should have been fixed with TAD but TAD was really rushed on everything not-new.

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