The 'without sense' of AOE-3 that should be corrected

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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Here I will talk about the things that I consider to be out of place or time, or that simply do not make sense.

I’ll talk about the things that are meant to be true to the story or to the logic, but just don’t fit.

For example:

Zapotecs and Mayans in South America: Just ridiculous. Add new minor factions to replace them. Also, the Incas have Mayan allies in their deck.

They may also ally with the Zapotecs. Please change this.

They can also ally with caribs, but I don’t know if it is historically correct.

Speed of the camels of the excessive trade route: Why not simply improve the amount of resources it gives out, instead of speeding up the camels in a ridiculous way? Naval trade routes should also follow the same suggested pattern.

Bears as guardians of treasure in South America: In South America there is only one type of bear and it is not a ferocious predator. It is only in the northern part of the Andes. (Colombia and neighboring countries)

Outlaws of the old west as guardians of treasure on South American maps: We could create new outlaw units to replace these guardians.

The worse of all that it seems that it will never be reconsidered to correct: The strange way of “mining” of lakota and haudenosaune. The mine magically disappears when the villagers finish selling the skins. It’s just kind of weird.

Another one I’m not sure about: Seminoles as allies of the United States. I have heard that they were enemies, but it is only what I have heard and that is why I say that I am not sure.

Any other without sense in the game?

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India’s sacred cattle use the taurine model, not zebu. It’s really frustrating considering how trivial this should be to fix.

India’s fishing boats have rubber tires on the model.

All the Indian outlaws are called “Maratha ______” for some reason. As far as I’m aware, the Maratha don’t have any significant connection to outlaws.

Training outlaws and mercenaries from a monastery is also super weird. And the whole monk hero thing.

There’s lots of wildlife that is out of place or misnamed. There should be no moose in Arctic territories or Wapiti (Elk) in Europe. The “wild boars” also use the warthog model.

The Plymouth map doesn’t include Plymouth. The region highlighted is Acadia, and the actual location of Plymouth is shown as part of Carolina. It could easily fit in between New England and Carolina where it actually is. If they corrected this, I think Plymouth should gain Cherokee settlements and New England should lose them.

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The loading screen maps for the Americas are highly inaccurate and distorted (to mimic the maps of that era), but the maps of the old world are exact copies of modern maps. They even have modern geographic features like lakes on the Dnipro that were created by the Soviet Union or the modern course of the Yellow River.

Lots of the new European units are horribly named. “Northern Musketeers” should be called Opolcheniye, “Shock Riders” should be called Rascians, and “Mounted Riflemen” should be called Chasseurs. The Habsburg ones are just pure nonsense like “Dismounted Infantry”. I’m not sure why they’re trying to obscure the history by giving them such terrible generic names.

Medicine Men got renamed to “Healers” which was completely unnecessary and confusing. Their role in society was exactly the same as other “healers” like Priests and Imams.

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Es verdad Algunas cosas

1: La infanteria de Linea podria llamarse: Infanteria de Fusileros alemanes o simplemente Fusileros Alemanes, ya que el ejertcito austriaco estaba muy compuesto por ellos
2: Esto es una vicion personal pero, el piquero que tienen los Españoles deberia se quitado y reemplazado por una unidad unica llamado “Tercio” Con su respectiva mejora de guardia “Tercio Viejo”
3: Los aztecas no deberian tener una plaza comunitaria sino un templo de sacrificios (aunque esto no lo agregaran nunca, y los incas algo similar pero al dios inti
4: Los cañones pesados deberian llamarse cañones pesados de 12 libras (un poco largo el nombre)
5: Los Gurkas deberian ser unidades de infanteria Cuerpo a cuerpo excelentes contra la infanteria
6: El rodelero Español deberia ser un tipo de infanteria de choque anti infanteria ya que ellos estaban hechos para romper las formaciones del enemigo (sobre todo las de piqueros)
7: por que los arqueros de la selva atacan cada 3 segundos en vez de 1,5 como todos los arqueros? (xd)
8: El caravasar de los indios deberia ser algo similar a un establo y mercado para los indios

y esas son algunas de las cosas que saque se que algunas no tienen nada que ver pero queria decirlas, tengo algunas más por alli pero no sabia si decirlas.

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Very out of place African mercenaries. Sometimes i can hire gatling camels in texas. I don’t know if it’s something on purpose or not.

The fact that African and pre-Columbian civilizations can see the TPs on the map regardless of the continent is something that does not make sense. For example, the Incas can see the location of the royal houses from the beginning, but a European civilization cannot. This could be modified to make more sense.

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  • The name “Knight” for Aztec units should be changed with “Warrior” or “Soldier”. Arrow Knights could be renamed as “Huastec Archers”, they’re even mentioned in the History section.

  • Sheep for Aztecs are out of place. Sadly, there isn’t any other herdable that can fit for them.

  • Capybaras should not be present in Yucatan. Deer could take their place, geographically speaking.
    Tapirs are OK in this map.

  • Possibly, consider to swap the Landsknecht role as a mercenary with Doppelsoldner instead.

  • Renaming “Royal Huntsman” to “Royal Hunter” simply does not make any sense. I mean, “huntsman” and “hunter” are basically the same (in Spanish, both are translated as cazador)

  • Same with “Tatar Archer”, very generic considering that there were more than one “tatar” group in Europe.

And that’s all I remember

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This one is deliberate. Tatar Archers are kinda supposed to represent all the Turko-Mongol peoples of the steppes. I just wish the other unit wasn’t just a wolf.

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The Keshik of the Chinese is unreasonable. The Keshik should be Genghis Khan’s personal guard with a powerful armor, not the image of a nomad now. It is suggested to give this unit a new name, such as steppe horse archer, Mongolian horse archer or something, instead of keshik

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Manchu should not appear in civilization decks other than Chinese, they are an important military force of the Chinese (qing dynasty), how could they go to foreign countries to be mercenaries? I can accept manchu spawning in Asian maps, but not in decks like Ottoman, Russia. Emperor Kangxi will be angry! lol.
manchurian_archer_portrait

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Wolves are more of a unit that should be trained by Explorers, but I don’t mind TP having access to them too.

Maybe turkey?
The turkey might look too small in game if true to scale, I don’t mind scaling it up a bit to make it closer to the size of a goat.

We can introduce a similar unit called “Mongol” or “Mongolian Horseman” as a mounted archer mercenary to replace Manchu. Manchu can be a type of unit that only the Chinese can access, like a Chinese Isolationism unit, or a powerful unit that can only be obtained by shipping.

If I remember correctly, the TCs of Native American civilizations fired bullets and cannonballs not arrows when attacking, even the Aztecs and Incas.

The Spanish are famous for their bullfights, but they have access to llamas instead of cows or cattle.

Germany had little influence on the Qing Dynasty. As a consulate option, the Chinese Isolationism or the US are better than Germany.

Wonders should not be built outside of their home cities, just as the British do not build Westminster Abbey in Boston, the French do not build Notre Dame in Quebec, and the Spanish do not build Torre del Oro in Mexico City.

“Yojimbo” just means “bodyguard” and doesn’t particularly deserve to be a unit. It was introduced more simply because of the developer’s penchant for Kurosawa’s films.

The name Hokkaido is quite late. For most of AoE3’s timeline, it’s called “Ezo” or “Ezochi”.

It is a pretty strange design that the Japanese need to buy from the Dutch to obtain the sacred animals of their traditional religion. It should be a tech at Shrines rather than a Consulate stuff, allowing Sika deer to be trained at Shrines as their sacred animal.

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Battleships also don’t make much sense to many revolution-type nations. For example, the great Colombia should not have battleships.

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It was confusing, at least to me, when I saw the name.

The problem is the fact that they were included as huntable animals. I don’t see a problem if they are changed to be herdables, but don’t know if any other huntable would replace them.
I’ve proposed, one or two times if I remember well, a card that sends turkeys for Aztecs, it could be something similar.

They can get access to Cows with the Hacienda, won’t they?

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They could use Chihuahuas as herdables.

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The turkey can be divided into herdable animal and huntable animals. A slightly different model can be used

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I had this idea for giving bulls to a few civs:

I’ve also seen a suggestion for some native allies having a passive bonus such as enabling or increasing the build limit of livestock. So a Quechua ally could allow you to make some Llamas, a Navajo ally could increase the sheep build limit, or an African ally could enable some cows.

How about just flipping the role of Keshigs and Manchu? Keshigs seem more like an elite guard that would be more suited to be a mercenary.

A tech for the Explorer to train them instead would be better. I’d like the second unit from the Tengri shrine to be the Mongol Scout, but with the added bonus of having a falcon ability like the AoE4 Khan.

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A simple split between wild and domestic turkeys should work. There should also be suitable other huntable animals as an alternative.

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Elephants have both a huntable and a treasure guardian version so it’s not unheard of to have one animal with two different forms.

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Maybe outlaw/mercenary/native also needs some clean up. I think maybe merging them into two concepts.
In vanilla and TWC there was a clear distinction between them:
Outlaws are trainable treasure guardians, mostly rogues and bandits. They are available earlier, are very cost effective but occupy more population.
Mercenaries are actual European mercenaries in history. They have good stats but more expensive, and available later.
Natives are native American allies. They cost wood and no population, and are generally weaker but with more hp.

Now none of these still holds:
We have much more treasure guardians. Treasure guardian pikeman, treasure guardian cuirassier, treasure guardian highlander, treasure guardian priest. So outlaws no longer need to stand out as the “trainable treasure guardians”.
With Asians and Africans, some very local units become mercenaries and some natives. Why are sohei and sudanese dervish natives while iron trooper and sennar horseman mercenaries? For the Asians it can be justified because the natives are religious units, but not for the Africans because both their mercenaries and natives are local peoples.
Now with Europeans we have “royal guard” units as both natives and mercenaries. And the natives sometimes cost gold. Also some “irregular” units become outlaws. But why are crabat and hajduk outlaws while pandour mercenaries, as they are all irregulars?
And we also have age 2 mercenaries.
And Italians can send cards that include outlaws, mercenaries, regular units and papal units at the same time (the combinations are good and historically relevant but it is confusing).
AND the German and French royal house cards make natives cost pops.

Also their cards look a bit confusing when placed in the same card selection panel. Some cost pops. Some do not. Some have build limits and will be stuck if that limit is reached. Some can exceed the population limit.

I think it’s better to at least merge outlaws with mercenaries, and then tweak the stats of the outlaws to the same niche as mercenaries. Because no one uses outlaws besides the pre-nerf crabat and cossack anyway.
Or merge mercenaries and natives because they can both be sent from home cities. Make all of them pop-free with a build limit (I don’t think anyone would spam mercenaries except Swedes). And for the exception cases like Swedes and Hausa (maigadi) their mechanics and units can be tweaked a little bit.

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One of my pet peeves with the New England and Carolina maps in DE is much of the trees are gone compared to their 2005 counterparts. New England is heavily forested in real life. I prefer maps with plenty of wood. I used to love these maps but I barely touch them these days in DE. :frowning:

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A greater degree of consistency between outlaws and mercenaries would probably be good. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for spies to also counter outlaws. But the distinctions like outlaws being map dependant but mercenaries being random could maybe stay.

A rework to mercenary availability is also something that I’d like to see. They should be grouped into armies of similarly themed mercenaries like how they are in certain cards. Instead of a random selection of mercs in the Tavern, you’d get a random selection of armies, and picking one would lock in that selection of units.

Some example armies:

Holy Roman Army - Landsknecht, Jagers, Black Riders
Highland Army - Highlanders, Harquebusiers, Swiss Pikemen
Mediterranean Army - Li’l Bombard, Elmetti, Zouaves
Napoleonic Army - Napoleon Guns, Mamelukes, Fusiliers

An upgrade similar to the Poker card for United States could allow you to reset/randomize what armies are available to you.

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Although it is true that there was a severe imbalance between single men and women in New France by the mid-17th century, it is not necessary to completely eliminate the possibility of female settlers.

We can introduce the female equivalent of Coureur des bois — Fille du roy, with the exact same stats as Coureur des bois. Allows Coureur des bois and Fille du roy a 50% chance each in training and shipping after hitting the Commerce Age.

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