I don’t think so. The Han Chinese were not known for wearing such headdresses. And from what they did with AOM (that unit definitely is NOT boring), this model is not their impression of the tiger cavalry either.
Edit: also, if they indeed base this model on Tang or later cavalry, then it further solidifies the speculation that it was originally made for something else other than the real “tiger cavalry”.
Despite the grenade looking Tangut-ish, I think it fits Jin to get something as thevfirst nation to really get a lot of value out of gunpowder in the battlefield
The siege of Kaifeng was really bloody and the Jurchens only were able to fight that long thanks to their gunpowder
Maybe it could have been just a Hand canoneer bonus but I dont mind it, the Jurchen used plenty of grenades
And the fact that the original name of Tiger Cavalry is 虎豹騎/虎豹骑 (Tiger & Leopard Cavalry)
Where are the Leopards? The designers ate them?
I don’t remember if that was the full name of the unit, or if there were two regiments (Tiger cav + Leopard cav), and are usually referred to as Tiger and Leopard cavalry in conjunction. If they are separate, then it’s odd to name them “Tiger cavalry” and nothing else
Too much text for the UI
Imagine “elite tiger & leopard cavalry” XD
Wouldn’t be the first time lol
At least in the Spanish version of the game (CD version I mean), the Teutonic Knight was “Knight of the Teutonic Order” and the elite version had like two abbreviated words. I think it would look something like “Elite Kni. Teutonic O.” translated to English. It was “Cab. O. Teutónica de élite” in Spanish if I remember correctly.
So they could call the unit something like “Elite T&L Cav.”. Sucks but it’s more accurate so that removes negative points?
Even the Jurchens are missing camels despite being a steppe people from the area with camels. I mean kudos for making a steppe lancer civ without it but why this one!?
As the guy who brought this topic up, I only meant a little joke, or something I like to share with anyone interested lol, Tiger Cavalry is good enough.
But still, I’m a supporter of rebranding Wei into Xianbei, which might involve rebranding the UU into something else. But I have no good suggestion.
Skin head tiger is familiar in east Asia, some soldier take it let can prove he is strong and brave, special in Tang dynasty they get a class for it. in Viet too have a class same but in 11-15 century @@.
In DE, the tech tree Icon has them as Caballero Teutonico, but the tooltip still calls them Caballero de la Orden Teutonica (de Elite)
Also, it seems the Wu elite fire archer in Spanish is called “carro de arco de fuego” (fire archer carriage)
First of all, the short answer is. yes, its historical inaccurate for sure. the devs surely didnt care much on not just the helmet but also the armor neither.
But if we really still want to dive deeper into what might be the reason the Dev might have came up with this graphic design, then here we go:
So ancient chinese lion are more look like this, which is very commonly seen in old day china statues
(I cant put another picture, so please google for Chinese Guardian Lion for images)
While the topic is Tiger, not Lion, however, once Lion became well known by chinese in around the Han Dynasty which was just a little bit earlier than Three Kingdom era, Lion had apparently became much more favorable design to Chinese soldiers, its probably because there was no lion in China, so poeple family and livestock wont get eaten by Lion like tiger do, so it feel like Lion is more a Righteous animal, and therefore a better pick for helmet design.
Returning to Three Kindom topic, while the hisotry book didnt mention much, but the Three Kinddom Literatures (Romance of the Three Kindoms) had very clearly address that at least one of the most popular general are to wear “Beast Helmet and Splendid Armor”, that is Ma Chao (one of the Top 5 generals of Shu). His helemt is only mention as Beast Helmet, but didnt mention rather its Lion or Tiger Helmet, however, it is more likely to be a Lion helmet as mention above.
Ma Chao was used to be the northern west China leader whose territory was absorped and control by Wei, after defeated by Cao Cao, and therefore, CaoCao could get those high quality horses from the Northern West China, and probably these horses are supplied to Tiger Cavalry as well. Thats probably a very tiny linkage i could think of between Ma Chao helmet style and the Tiger Cavalry…
But again, I am not trying to defend the devs about this design, i am only guessing how they came up with Tiger cavalry would wear a Tiger Head, its probably from a mixture of ancient chinese beast helemt culture, the image of Ma Chao from the Three Kindom literatures, and many inaccurate and laid back design.
Simply saying that, even though with these guessing in mind, the design of Tiger Cavalry by the devs are still far off, as Anicent Chinese beast helmet are probably made with Bronze, or tanned leather that imitating a Lion/Tiger, rather than putting a real Tiger head on your head. This style actually look more like Jaguar Warrior of the south america culturals to me though.
here, And it has nothing to do with the Han Dynasty
所以，按照世界邊緣的設計，“虎豹騎”就該披老虎皮……
那末，龍騎兵（Dragoon）是不是應該長犄角呢和翅膀呢？
So, according to the design of World’s Edge, the “Tiger Cavalry” should be dressed in tiger skins…
So, should a “dragoon(cavalry)” have horns and wings?
Okay this is fresh. Thanks for the material.
Then it certainly means this unit was designed for something else in the correct timeframe, and would be a rather cool one if not scrapped for an irrelevant unit. What a pity.
I still think the design of this unit is very stupid and has nothing to do with China, especially the late Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period.
If the model was designed for Xianbei or anything from the Tang dynasty and later, it makes sense. Aztec jaguar warriors did not wear actual pelts either but is also depicted in the game as if they do.
In fact it makes more sense to me now: what is the best civ and campaign concept for medieval China? The Tang and Song dynasty and their involvements with the other minority peoples. This unit model is highly likely made within that theme. So sad that was scrapped for a short-sighted, greedy cahegrab.
But yes definitely it’s not fitting the Three Kingdoms.
I doubt whether the design of “Cao Wei” was modified from “Northern Wei”
I think it’s almost confirmed. The wonder is a Northern Wei one. One of the UU is Xianbei. So it’s highly likely a renamed Xianbei civ.
If it was Xianbei, it would be very reasonable and very “medieval”.
So the DLC might have originally been: Han, Xianbei, Khitan, Jurchen, Dangxiang Qiang
Later, for some unknown reason, it became what it is now
It would be awesome if they really did this. What a pity.
