Witn the Mountain Royals about to be released, I think it’s time I take a look at my old polls again to analyze the results before releasing a new batch, taking the recent updates into account. I initially planned on starting a series on AoE3, but the new dlc forces me to change my schedule.
I will start by taking a look at the polls for AoE2 proper (both those I already talked about in this topic and the more recent ones) and I will cover RoR in another message.
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Unsurprisingly, the first one didn’t evolve much since I talked about it considering it was about the next dlc after DotD. The only change I noticed is that Caucasus and North/Central Africa were previously in a tie, but the African option ended up beating Caucasus with a 1% margin (with only one more voter since my first analysis, I might add).
The second poll is probably more interesting, with 198 voters totalling 788 votes. I have to say it was also probably better constructed than its predecessor, with far more options each accompanied with a few examples, not mentioning it was multiple votes this time.
And guess what? Caucasus came first with 25% votes, so either the devs are listening to the community or the wisdom of the crowd made a correct guess on what was already planned. In both cases, yay for us!
The rest of the top 5 is, as follows: Central/South Africa (22%), East Africa (20%), the Eastern Steppe (also 20%) and Balkans/Carpathia (19%).
We also have quite a high number of honorable mentions (between 10 and 20% votes but outside of the top5): West Africa (18%), North America (16%), Italy and Mesoamerica (15%), Himalaya, South America and Germany (14%), Central Asia (12%), Indochina (11%) and finally the British Isles and Scandinavia (10%).
I included non regional options, some focusing on time periods or types of units/playstyle, but none of those got more than 8% of the votes so I probably won’t do it again next time.
Excluding the winner which turned out to be confirmed, Africa seems to be confirmed as a continent people want to see more of. That being said, it’s quite apparent that we haven’t entirely given up on Europe despite the general Eurofatigue in discussions. In Asia, it seems East and Central Asia are generally speaking the most requested regions to develop, especially the continental parts. Finally, the Americas are slightly lagging a bit behind despite being as unexplored as Africa, and North America is the most requested region there… which might however be on the condition that it receives a specific building set.
Anyway, this poll is probably the one I will do a new version for next, as the results may change drastically after the tMR.
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Nothing new regarding the first poll, as we didn’t get any additional votes, but I did a new one after DoI even though India was unsurprisingly quite low on the “next dlc” poll. We got 31 voters and 111 votes, which might be too low to draw any conclusion but can easily be explained by people not being so interested after a dlc already focusing on the region. It’s worth noting however that, contrary to the European poll, the “None” and neutral options don’t score too high.
Anyway, the top 5 is Kannadiga/Kannadigaru (41%), Sinhalese (35%), Afghans/Pashtuns (29%), Hephthalites/Alchon Huns (22%) and Nepalis/Maithils, Oriya/Kalinga and Tamils (19% each). Honorable mentions include the Deccanis (16%) and the Gupta/Magadhis, Mughals and Punjabis (12% each).
Quite a few civs received 0 votes, among which the Arakanese/Rakhine, Bhojpuris, Malayalis, Malvis and Manipuri.
It’s worth noting that the Afghans and Hephtalites can be tied to Central Asia more than South Asia, and the Nepalis could be more associated with the Himalaya. With this in mind, it seems if the devs ever want to revisit the region, they should probably focus on South India and Sri Lanka first since Kannadas, Tamils, Sinhalese and Oriyas all come from there, as well as Deccanis). Obviously, as I said before, it needs to be balanced by the fact we didn’t get so many votes.
I would also like to point out that, as usual, most people voted for 1-2 factions to be added (34%), but almost as many voted for 3-4 (33%).
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The first poll only received one additional vote, which didn’t really change the results. I will however need to do a new version after tMR is released, as the two civs in first position will both be added to the game. Because, yes, we correctly picked the Georgians and Armenians as the two main civs to add to West Asia.
The second poll is more recent and mostly aimed at predicting the content of tMR before it was even announced (so obviously I won’t need a second version). Once again, Georgians and Armenians came first, with 64 and 52% out of 52 voters and 159 votes. The rest of the top 5 includes the Sogdians (22%), Gökturks (20%) as well as the Afghans and Hephtalites (18% each). To be honest I expected the Afghans to come in third place, in the poll at least.
The only honorable mentions are the Alans (13%) and Swahilis (11%).
The Chagatai, Ilkhanids and Tabaris received 0 votes.
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The first one seems to have received the highest number of new votes after I published my first analysis, going from 82 to 93… Unless I just misclicked when entering the first number which isn’t really unthinkable. Anyway, it didn’t visibly change the results aside from the Edo dropping from 28 to 26% votes and the Kanuri and Songhai switching places.
The West African poll is more recent, as I was under the impression West Africa had a higher number of interesting civs than the rest of the continent despite them being less popular than the East or Central/South tops, so I wanted to look into it. It received 139 votes from 31 voters (so once again, less than my oldest polls but not surprising considering it’s more focused in scope).
Well, the results are not far from the poll for the entire continent once you remove the other region, with the top 5 consisting of the Edo and Songhai (64% each), Hausa (54%), Kanuri (51%) and Yoruba (45%), with only the Soninke being replaced by the Hausa. They are however a very honorable mention at 22%, and the regular honorable mentions include the Akans (16%), as well as the Fon, Fulani, Igbo, Jolof and Mossi (12% each). It would probably be quite different with more voters, but it seems to indicate some of those civs are actually quite popular if you don’t pit them against the entire continent.
More importantly, even though none of those civs made it to the top 5 in the main African poll in which most people voted for 3-4 civs to be added, here again 3-4 is the most popular pick and nobody voted for “None” to the question how many of those civs should be added. It suggests to me that people will always tend to ask for few civs, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t want more.
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A different kind of poll, as this one didn’t focus on new civs or dlc. It also looks like the hopes it carried with it were kind of crushed by the new tMR civs receiving the South European set rather than a new one, suggesting that we won’t have any new ones for the time being and maybe ever. That being said, it received 152 votes from only 34 voters, so maybe not so many peoples are interested by this question.
Interestingly, the first place is an equality between three different options: Balkanic, South American and a split between East and West African (47% each). The 4th and 5th positions are for a Nomad or Western Nomad set (44%) and a split between a Japanese and continental East Asian one (38%). We also have several very honorable mentions with the Caucasian and Eastern Nomad (32% each), North European (26%) and South/Central African (20%).Finally, regular honorable mentions include North American (17%), Himalayan (11%) and Iberian (11%).
A fun poll to make but I don’t think I will make a new version considering it’s not something the devs seem to want to update anyway.
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Another unusual poll, but this one was more popular with a huge 128 voters and 423 votes. It’s worth noting however that 22% voted for “None”.
The top 5 was Chinese/Koreans (42%), Slavs (28%), Italians/Sicilians (18%), Saracens (17%) and Ethiopians (16%), and as an honorable mention we have a massive tie between Celts, Malians, Dravidians, Incas and Vikings at 14%.
Byzantines/Romans, Gurjaras, Bulgarians and Lithuanians all received 0 votes.
I would tend to mitigate those results by pointing out that not everyone agrees on what a split is, but aside from a huge interest in China and Africa (and to a lesser extent South America and South India), those results suggest that people really aren’t done with Europe.
I may do a new version of this poll again after a dlc with an actual split.
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The Americas didn’t receive any new votes, East Asia and Europe got 2 new votes each but it didn’t change anything significantly for the first one. For the European poll however, the Vlachs and Venetians have switched places and the Swedes have joined the ranks of honorable mentions. I considered doing a new poll for Europe, but the Romans ranked quite low and the Armenians and Georgians were not included so I don’t think it would be useful right now.
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LATE ANTIQUITY & EARLY MODERN ERA
Neither of those polls received new votes, but it’s worth noting that the top 2 civs in the Late Antiquity poll (Romans and Armenians) are now in the game. Whether you’re happy with those inclusion or not, it’s another correct guess for the community!
I don’t know if I will do polls centered around time periods again, as it’s unlikely to be the focus of a dlc, but they seem to work relatively well so who knows? Plus, with the addition of Romans and Armenians, the Late Antiquity poll may need a new iteration (though I would probably change the title to include the Early Middle Ages next time).
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Conclusion
Last time I said that the safest bets for future dlc would be “Caucasus, Himalaya (if Tibetans can make it into the game), North China, Indochina, East Africa, Bantu area and Central Asia”. Obviously, the Caucasus can now be crossed, and with the results of my last “next dlc” poll I would slightly change my stance. The next one should probably be about either China (with the risk of the Eurofatigue turning into Eurasia fatigue) or Africa (ideally East or Central/South). Obviously, that’s my text before I make a new batch of polls whose results might differ due to the last releases.
Finally, last time I included a list of civs with more than 50% votes on any poll. We can now remove the Georgians (as well as the Tamils who are from an outdated poll), but despite its low number of voters, West Africa brought four additional candidates. Also, some results changed in other polls and now Jurchens are not even part of the golden kids. So the new list is:
Tibetans (67%, East Asia), Edo (64%, West Africa), Songhai (64%, West Africa), Siamese (57%, East Asia), Hausa (54%, West Africa), Shona (53%, Africa) and Kanuri (51%, West Africa).
I hope you enjoyed the reading. I don’t think I will have time to do the same work for RoR tonight but I hope it will be soon.