It’s really not a big deal, and to be fair to TAD, they had no “colonial” age. Naming it that was somewhat appropriate in the base game, made a little less sense with TWC expansion, and made absolutely no sense with TAD expansion.
Seriously. It’s not a big deal, although Settlement Age would make more sense than Commerce Age.
Ahem.
No, it was called the Dark Ages because the quality of life went down significantly, due to political fragmentation and subsequent state of perpetual warfare.
Technology and society actually progressed faster in the Dark Ages, than in Antiquity.
We should tell history as it is. Even if we don’t like it. Colonial should have stayed imo.
well some of the civs didnt do any colonial stuff like china, india, russia, germans … so the term doesnt goes well with these civs
Is this really a important issue? Let the SJW’s have their win and feel good.
Bigger things to fix like desync or custom ranked games.
Several of them had colonies, actually:
China
" The Qing dynasty was seen to be the return of Chinese expansionist policies. Under the Qing rule, China expanded beyond the Great Wall and started to annex more territories in process. The Qing invaded Korea, managed to conquer Mongolia, and also annexed modern territories of Xinjiang and Tibet as well.[31][32][33][34][35] The Qing also managed to extend its control into Central Asia for once more, mostly concentrated in what would be today Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.[36][37] The Qing also destroyed the Kingdom of Tungning of Koxinga, and annexed Taiwan as well.[38][39] This marked for the first time, China managed to directly control Xinjiang, Taiwan, Tibet, Central Asia and Mongolia. China also marked its claims far to Sakhalin, even though the Qing didn’t manage to control it; or even to Kashmir where it fought a bitter war against the Sikhs.[40]
Ming-dynasty loyalists from China invaded Taiwan and expelled Dutch colonialists from the island during the Siege of Fort Zeelandia and founded the Chinese Kingdom of Tungning. The Ming loyalists quickly moved to replace the institutions and culture of Dutch colonial rule with Han Chinese colonial rule. Language and religious institutions left by the Dutch were closed and replaced with Confucian temples and Chinese language schools for both Han Chinese and aboriginals. Officials encouraged new immigration of Han Chinese from China into territory further inland, turning aboriginal lands into new farmland.[41] After fighting between the Ming loyalists and the Qing during the Revolt of the Three Feudatories, the Qing attacked the Kingdom of Tungning. the Qing won the Battle of Penghu and the Ming loyalists submitted to Qing rule. Tungning was annexed as part of Fujian province. The Qing were “reluctant colonizers” but became convinced of Taiwan’s value to their empire due to the threat the island posed if used as a base by rival powers, and by its abundant resources.[42] The Qing turned Taiwan into its own province in 1885, after Japanese interest and a defeated French invasion attempt.
After British troops invaded Tibet in the waning days of the Qing dynasty, the Qing responded by sending Zhao Erfeng to further integrate Tibet into China. He succeeded in abolishing the powers of the Tibetan local leaders in Kham and appointing Chinese magistrates in their places by 1909–10. Qing forces were also sent to Ü-Tsang in 1910 to establish a direct control over Tibet proper, though a province was never established in this area.
The Qing campaign against Burma (Myanmar) (1765–70) was its most disastrous and costly frontier war. It ended in a military defeat but the Qing rulers could not accept Burma as an equal, and when diplomatic relations were resumed in 1790, the Qing court considered it a restoration of Chinese suzerainty.[43]"
Germans
Glorifying the past?
First of all cultures, people and countries should be respected thats totally understandable and I m totally cool with it.Although in general DE its an upgrade on previous version on historical accuarry imo but what bothers me is that its kind of half done and lacks consistency.
Discovery age and exploration age is basicly means same thing and there is no such thing as “commerce age” in history not to mention this is a game where you build colonies.No people and culture should be disrespected but also game needs tell correct history with proper correct naming on other stuff too. Also I think history’s dark parts for some people and cultures like colonialism shouldnt be hidden because whole purpose of it learn lessons from the past for the better future but if the facts hidden with non-facts like oommerce than how would that be possible.
Samurai Revolution recently made video about this as well and I agree for the most part with him.One of the first reasons I liked age of empires series was I m a history fan too now this is just a game after all at the day’s end and of course there will be some inaccuracies which is fine imo but there is quite a lot of difference between some inaccuracies and outright false facts like commerce age
I think the major issue is not the accuracy but the optics that create.
All the period of Aoe3 and well into XX century there are colonies (therefore the colonial age does not end in the beguining of the start of the colonies). Again, this is preety obvious, but the devs wanted to be clear that on the subject of colonialism… well, all ages have it. Also, some nations, like the Lakota, did not engage in colonialism. Is it correct to attibute to them an advance in age, to something they were never a part of?
Regarding the discovery/exploration, it is again about semioptics. When we say discovery age, we are implying that we europeans discovered something, as it was not previously know. (And we can have an entire discussion, about how saying the we discovered something creates a different perception about how we treated the land and the peoples we encontered). But the reality is that the territories we uncovered actually had people there for thousands of years. For them is it correctly to tak about discovery?
That id happen in several cases, though. Europeans did discover plenty of islands and extents of land, that had no human presence before.
As an example: the archipelagos of Madeira and Azores.
i didnt want to mention it but i think its still offensive to civs who were victims of colonization… like aztecs, indians, incas, lakota etc
The Moors having Genitours in AoE2, is ofensive to Iberian peoples, but you see no one complain.
Japan at least also had colonial possessions (Taiwan, Korea, parts of China amongst others).
well they in aoe 3 DE they focused more on making it less controversial
They failed to invade korea in the 1500s and only had colonial possessions in the end of the xix century, early xx. I dont think it still applyies to the Game’s time frame.
Because for some civs in the game it doesn’t make sense. That’s probably the main reason.
I think though that completely removing every mention of Colonialism is stupid, considering the game is mainly about that.
A better approach would have been to showcase how bad Colonialism is via a good campaign. It’s harder to do though than simply removing every mention of Colonialism.
Which colonialism would you define as bad?
I’m happy that my ancestors were colonized by Acadians and French, and yes there was little bloodshed between the Algonquin and the French.
But making a campaign that, throughout it, forces upon the player that all the events are objectively bad is not the way to go.
Luckily it wasn’t done with all the campaigns in AoE1 and 2 but who knows what the future holds for further campaigns in either aoe3 or 5.
For now it seems they don’t want to go down that track, so instead keep the rubbish fantasy
In 1592. Japan crossed the ocean to attack Korea,South Korea asked China for help.Truce in 1593
In 1597.Japan attack Korea again,1599 War ended, Japan failed
In 1609. Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川家康) ordered Satsuma han (薩摩藩)
Three thousand soldiers and a hundred ships attacked Ryukyu, controlling part of the land.
In 1632, the Ryukyu Kingdom became a puppet regime of Satsuma Domain
In 1871, the Ryukyu Kingdom was officially annexed by Japan.
Exploitative colonialism, extermination of population, ethnocide, forced labour etc. Examples like those:
Mostly slavery and not allowing the Native population to keep following their traditions and cultures. One of the main reason the Colonial Empires switched later on to African slaves is that there weren’t the Native nations they considered to be an inexhaustible human source died from the lethal forced labour they were forced too via the Encomienda system.
The Natives were not allowed to follow their traditions either and were forced to assimilate to the Euroamerican “values” they were taught too (kinda ironic considering how brutal and exploitative some of those people were in the name of certain institutions)
You can just do it the other way round. Showcasing some brave Native leaders which are trying to resist the Colonizers. Of course it’s hard to do and some prefer to forget the Dark past (probably one of the main reasons AOE3 avoided real historical campaigns) but that would have been more honest and respectful towards the Native communities than some small irrelevant changes if you really want to go the route “We’ll fix the errors of the past in our game”.