Copied from a post I made on Reddit, as I thought people here would likely not have seen it, due to that site being a shilly hell-hole.
Before I start, some clarifications:
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Why does this matter?
Well at the end of the day, these additions to the game represent the real history of people that live today. I bet for a lot of the people reading this, they wouldn’t be happy if their history was jumbled up or mis-represented. -
I know this is a game
When it comes to making a game, gameplay is very important (I am not going to say it comes first, as for a game like this, marrying history and gameplay is important). So there are going to be things that get a pass. For example, Aztecs with Crossbowmen; it’s a basic gameplay unit and there’s not much that can be done outside of making a metric ton of reskins that not everyone would be happy with. -
The presence of other mistakes
I know other civs have anachronistic elements, but the majority of those are older civs, where research was not as easily available. Over time, civ design has become more accurate, even with some…contentious choices (Armenians) still being accurate, even if only referencing a tiny area. -
I want designers to do better
Chronicles proves you can have accuracy and fun gameplay. This isn’t something that must be sacrificed, but can be married.
Anyway, let’s get started.
Khitans
Ok, let’s start with one of the worst offenders, and its aesthetics.
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Voice lines
Khitans did not speak Mongolian. I don’t know what else to put here, it’s just flat out incorrect, no little “perhaps” to add or anything. -
Castle
The building depicted is Khara-Khoto, a Tangut fortress. Tanguts are not related to Khitans at all. It would be like giving the Mongols the Burmese castle.
This fortress was built in the Tibetan Buddhist style, and there are no records of Khitans building fortresses like this. In fact we have records of Khitan defensive structures at Shangjing; they don’t look like this.
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Cavalry & Infantry civ
Khitan infantry was awful. Like, actually awful. I am not sure where the idea to make them an infantry civ comes from; they were bad at it. The cavalry designation is fine, but the infantry bit is made up. -
Liao Dao
Ok, firstly the name is just weird. It’s just the name of the Khitan dynasty, and sword. Funnily Liao is sometimes translated as “impossible” so perhaps it’s a weird joke.
Either way, while the unit’s clothes are accurate, and the sword was used by the Khitan cavalry, they didn’t use this on foot. Maybe a guy fell off his horse once and hit someone…but that does not make it a unique unit.
- Mounted Trebuchet
Again, this does not belong to the Khitans, this is a Tangut unit. The Boxi/Poxi is attested in Song Dynasty Chinese records, where it’s described as being used by the Tanguts.
The Tanguts possibly only fought alongside the Khitans in a very small spit of land where the Liao Dynasty occupied them. But we have no evidence of this. So association of Tangut military units with the Khitans is fantasy.
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Team Bonus
Again; not an infantry-using military. -
Lamellar Armor
Ok, I get it only affecting some units and not others (even though cavalry would have had this armour too), but again; not an infantry military.
This civ is frankly an abomination. Half the concept feels wrong, with bits from an unrelated people jammed in there. It needs splitting and reworking.
Jurchens
(No, these guys don’t escape the issues of this DLC either)
- Voice Lines
Ok, I have seen some people try to defend this as “but the Jurchen Jin dynasty was majority Chinese”, ok, and the majority of many other militaries and population for different empires would have not spoken the language of the people in charge either. Not to mention (as we will see later) the civ represents both settled and nomadic Jurchens, the latter of which would not have had a majority Chinese-speaking population.
The voice-lines are incorrect.
- Archery Range
Jurchens were famous for their archery and bow-making, in fact after the second Jin Dynasty, Jurchen bows became the standard across China due to how effective they were. So Jurchens having a weak Archery Range is a massive mistake when it comes to representing Jurchen history and culture.
No Arbalester, no Thumb Ring, no Parthian Tactics…
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Lack of strong heavy cavalry
Jurchen heavy cavalry was famous, in fact they had the heaviest cavalry in all of East Asia. But what we get here is a UU which is just a reskinned knight with a single block ability, and no access to the knight/Hei Guang line. -
Confused identity
The design for the Jurchens feels quite confused. Like the devs were not sure if they were making settled or nomadic Jurchens, and mixed and matched parts randomly. Most civs in the game feel like they go through a natural progression, but here you get some nomadic elements forced later, like Steppe Lancers but no knights. And the fact the monk and monastery flipped shows that the designers are not really sure either.
At the end of it, Jurchens are probably the least inaccurate of the 5, but that’s not a high bar and the civ still has some serious inaccuracy problems.
Wei
I am going to mention time period here, but more in the context of what these three civs have.
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Voice lines
Speaking modern Mandarin is really weird for a 3rd century civ. I know it’s not accurate for the real Chinese civ…but here it sticks out even more. -
Wonder
The Wei wonder is Songyue Pagoda, this was built in 523 (243 years after the Wei fell), and was built by the Northern Wei dynasty. Now, despite the name sounding familiar, the Northern Wei are Xianbei, a nomadic people closer to Mongols than Chinese. The Wei civ is not the Xianbei civ, what is this doing here? -
Tiger Cavalry
Alright, this thing is actually really bad.
First, the tiger skin, that’s not what Wei Tiger Cavalry look like. They didn’t wear tiger skins. Now, before you go “well, it’s just a bit of fun” let me show you this…
This is the Tiger Cavalry from Age of Mythology, the game less concerned with historical accuracy. And yet it has a more accurate Tiger Cavalry model than the historical game. But don’t worry, it gets worse.
It’s a bit hard to spot, but can you make out what’s on the Tiger Cavalry rider’s feet? Those are stirrups. Stirrups would not appear in China until centuries after the Three Kingdoms period. And again, if you look at the Age of Mythology Tiger Cavalry model, it lacks stirrups.
- Cao Cao
Disregarding single individuals not fitting the game, I just want to make a small point here…stirrups again!
While it’s one thing to give a unit them, you could maybe stretch the argument that the unit lasts longer than 280. Cao Cao however most certainly did not.
- Xianbei Raider
Stirrups…again.
At the end of it, this civ has some very clear anachronistic elements going on. Taking models from unrelated peoples, technologies that existed long after the faction vanished. It’s a mess.
Wu
Oh god, I have to remember which one of these is Wu and which is Shu…
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Voice lines
See Wei. -
Cavalry and archers reversed
The Wu were based in the wet and mountainous region of Southern China. This would have been a very poor ground for good horse breeding, and very good for archery due to all the areas to hide.
Yet for some reason, these have been reversed with the civ.
- Sun Jian
Stirrups…again. Harder to spot this time, but they are there.
The Wu are not as egregious as some of the others. But they still suffer from similar problems as the Wei. But hey, at least their wonder is from the right time period.
Shu
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Voice lines
See Wei. -
Wonder
The Shu wonder is the Wuhou Temple located at Chengdu. There’s one problem with it…it was built after the Three Kingdoms period. In fact it was built specifically due to the death of one of the people involved in the conflict. -
War Chariot
Ok, this is the single worst one.
First. Chariots were not used for any combat use during the Three Kingdoms period. This is attested because the warlord Cao Cao re-wrote a redacted version of Sun Tzu’s Art of War, because it contained references to chariots, and Cao Cao recognised that direct tactics for specific units would make the book obsolete with time, so he removed them. Therefore the unit should not exist by this point in time, and was probably used last 4/5 centuries earlier.
Second. The region is unsuitable for chariot warfare. Chariots require a lot of space, space which the South-West region of China does not have due to the mountains.
- Bolt Magazine
This is more a funny point. This tech exists to replicate the Chu ko nu, which was improved by Kongming and used in the Shu army.
This civ has quite a few mistakes, and several are really bad.
tldr: Designers, this is not acceptable after all the much better civ designs we have gotten since The Forgotten. Do better. Hell, I would love these civs to be reworked into other civs, but if you’re going to add these out-of-time civil war factions…at least make them not insultingly inaccurate.
