The future of AoE2:DE expansions

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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“I also send your highness, a Goan master gunsmith; they make guns as good as the Bohemians and also equipped with screwed in breech plugs. There, he will work for you. I’m sending you some samples of their work with Pero Masquerenhas.”

This was a letter that the then viceroy of Portuguese possessions in the western coast of the Indian continent, Afonso de Albuquerque, wrote to King Manuel I back in Europe.

This is about Bijapuri (Deccan) unique technology of the time. They advanced faster than the other empires North and South of them. Please understand the uniqueness of each culture of the Indian continent. Either remove “Indians” or allow for actual cultures. Whether it is as low as just 3. “Indians” aren’t a monolith. It’s like showing Europe as one. English longbowmen and Condottiero in one team.

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Thanks.

I would say its WestEurocentristic :slight_smile: Generally, I guess the key problem lies in AoE2 theme which was Mediaval which is European term for some historical age. The first face on cover is a knight or king. Standard units are European. Its painful to see Teutonic paladin in African savanah :smiley: So more standard unit diversification would surely help mend the situation IMO …

As a guy from Bohemia I can tell you people here were taught about India only in a very limited amount of time. More we know about British Raj which is clear why… So its up to you to join fights for Indian culture presentation :slight_smile:

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Ever wondering what Hungarians effectively brought to the game… like another cav civ… Cumans, Huns…

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Rajpit, Urumi and Deccan style cannons are all part of AoE III. Yeah, one more civ would be fine, but 4 civs targeted on india? Not really.

Eurocentrism is expected because this game and the playerbase is Eurocentric, and for the normal people it’s easier to find the differences and know the civilizations.

I wouldn’t even dare to say some Indian game would be lacking European Civs, but since we got Burgundians and Sicilians (Normans) very well represented by Franks, why not get Bohemians/Hussites, Dutch and Poles?

And because you’re the history expert about India (and most likely Indian yourself), that’s the reason this current discussion has been ongoing → to show us (non-experts) the difference between indian cultures and architectures;) Maybe you could also give us your thoughts about campaigns and interesting milestones/wars.

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Hungarian Cav Archers and Magyar Hussars are very unique and a great aspect of the game.

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The Magyars play differently than Huns. The Magyars play more like to Mongols.

Magyars were the first Eastern European civilization, they are unique in every way thanks to that.

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Always happy to help. I just really don’t want to see “Indians”. And they speak a language that didn’t exist in that timeline :rofl:. Like they could’ve introduced it as Rajputs cause the Chauhan campaign was exactly that. It doesn’t matter how many they add. Whatever they add should be real. So I’d honestly be happy with just 3 even. But realistic 3. Perhaps Gurjara (can represent Rajputs and Gujaratis), Tamilar (can represent the Tamil people and where applicable, for Kerala, though not accurate: this can replace camels in the Portuguese war with the Zamorin haha), and the Bengali civ (representing over 200M people of modern day Bangladesh and West Bengal in India).

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Those three units were there under the same umbrella in AOEIII. Very wrong though. Besides, those units were more popular during the AOEII period.

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Overall, I understand the point of the revenue coming mostly from Europeans. But maybe, just maybe we should see the Europeans as wanting to play with these “exotic” civs? We shouldn’t underestimate the customer demographic. And yes, an Indian based game would obviously have more Indian civs than European ones. I’d push for more European representation there if that happened :slight_smile:

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That not makes them unique :slight_smile: In my eyes they are redundant. My opinion.

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Calm down.

This game needs a lot of many more civs. This game, instead of representing entire cultural groups as it used to be, now begins to make new civilizations that are represented by kingdoms, e.g. the Burgundians. Several civilizations are badly named, e.g. Teutons should be Germans (unless there are new German civs) and Slavs (who are Ruthenians and represent only them).

As for the Name, these new civs are a matter of course, but there is now a fashion for non-Europeanness.

India is not a priority, we still have a small number of American civas (Mapuche, Iroquois, Mississippi, Hurons, Tupi / Amazons etc) and African (Songhai, Congolese, Mamulks etc.). Even Eastern Europe is under-represented. The best example of this is Dracula’s campaign in which we play three civs, and only a Romanian civ would suffice. Poles, Czechs, Serbs, Croats, Romanians and 1-2 German civs are missing (the Teutons are a Teutonic Order).

15 Indian Civs would be overkill - even in a game of Asia alone, it would be overkill.

2-4 new civs from the Indian subcontinent will suffice. Asia is also missing some Chinese civs (two civs only about specific groups - India and China?), Tibetans, Georgians and Armenians.

It would be nice to see Polynesians, Maourys and Eskimos too.

AoE 2 is such a famous and respected game that despite 20 years on the back of its neck, it is still developing. I think that it will also be an indicator of a good RTS for the next 20 years.

50 civs in AoE 2 it is obvious the question of what number will go up.

The devs won’t abandon their magnum opus - adding new DLCs with new civs will give them easy money, easier than creating a new game.

New Indian Civs will arrive sometime, but they are not of the utmost importance. But they will definitely come.

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70 is the least number I could be satisfied with.

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Me too. This game has long since represented a group of nations, only specific nations / kingdoms.

She just fell into her own trap - she has to add new civs to be fair.

So far we have only 4 typical Eastern European Civs - Hungarians, Lithuanians, Bulgarians and completely dishonest Slavs (RUS, NOT SLAVS). We still have the Byzantines who were of course in Eastern Europe, but are heirs of the Roman Empire. The Huns and Goths would be more suited to AoE 1 as civilizations fighting against Rome. They are classified as nomadic civs neither European nor Asian.

Eastern Europe is also much more forgotten than Western Europe, which has always been promoted and favored.

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To be honest, they are very underutilized in the Campaigns. They went on a giant raiding spree all over Western Europe, defeating very powerful dukes/kings, (and even going as far down south as Catalonia) while also pillaging the Byzantine Empire. They could do with a full campaign honestly.

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In AoE2 we have 10 Western European civs and 4 Eastern European civs and the Byzantines (in the 6th century it had a lot of territory after the Western Roman Empire - Italy, part of Spain and North Africa. Also they can be considered heir to the Roman Empire, which it was by the way).

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The Asia-Pacific region needs some love too, not just India, Africa, and the Americas. Right now the Asia-Pacific region is far from being complete.

At least they should add the Chams and the Siamese, for they’re important civs in the region and are not covered by existing civs. Siamese aren’t covered by Khmers due to speaking different language, and Chams aren’t covered by Vietnamese either (different language and different culture/religion).

And if adding the Tibetans is somewhat controversial, at least they should try to add the Tanguts or maybe the Nanzhaos. Those were important civs too and they were independent from the Sinitic dynasties.

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No 70 is way way WAY too many

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No it is not. Though we are not even sure we can even go over 48.

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Yikes. 70 civs is a lot and would probably hurt the multiplayer more than it would achieve anything productive. Look at how exotic the civs became after AoAK. I don’t think there is realistically room for more than maybe +5 more civs max. As much as I like theory crafting I don’t really want new civs in the game.
If you want to have a really good representation of many nations other titles such as Total War are probably a better choice.
I also don’t see another 30+ civs for campaigns to be honest.

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A billion civs would not hurt the multiplayer.
All the tryhards ever play, is the same 7 civs on repeat.