This article goes into them. The Hidatsa used them and they are a Siouan people. They were also used by most of the peoples around the Lakota like the Cheyenne and Cree so it’s not like they’d be foreign to the Lakota. It’s pretty much the same method of herding them into a narrow passage, but with built up structures in addition to the terrain.
When it comes down to it, this is a game and there needs to be some level of generalization to keep it simple enough to be playable. A Buffalo Pound is the most logical building that could generate bison and would be much more appropriate than farms and plantations. It could be a shared building with the Cree if they ever get added and not just be a Lakota thing.
The Tribal Marketplace is a horrible building and doesn’t logically have any connection to bison generation. It should just be removed so it doesn’t cause confusion with the actual market.
Otherwise there was a black & white Western serial film called Black Arrow, starring an eponymous Navajo character. It’s too old & forgotten to be the intended reference.
I’m all in for names, skins and voices changes, but I would won’t change too much the gameplay, although give Lakota new strategies like the small reworks done to Spain and Great Britain could be cool, specially if they are more accurate.
Keep in mind that AoE series also reflects “what if scenarios”, so for balances and fictional history, things like water navy is needed for people that weren’t seafarers.
Are you sure the studio genuinely referred to these events when making the ‘Adoption’ card?
Isn’t it rather a reference to the Lakota custom of adopting into their family or kin?
Especially regarding the ceremonial adoption of Hunka Lowanpi (‘The Making of Relatives’)
More generally, assimilation cases through intermarriage, abduction, asylum or adoption are quite common among North American Native people, including the in-game Haudenosaunee.
Several outcomes of these mixings even lead to renown Leaders like Cornplanter (Dutch-Seneca), John Norton (Mohawk-adopted Scot-Cherokee), Joseph Louis Cook (Mohawk-adopted African American-Abenaki), Quanah Parker (American-Comanche), Sequoyah (German-Cherokee), William Holland Thomas (Cherokee-adopted American), Major Ridge (Scot-Cherokee) …
AOE3 DE is a video game, that simple and being honest, publications like these were the ones that ruined the Iroquois and Sioux, the Iroquois were one of the most played civilizations in the TAD and now they only seem boring to me in gameplay and cultural representation, before They seemed to me to be a worthy, magical, honorable and strong people, there is no longer any of that in the “haudenosaunee” and I speak clearly about the game, I am not interested in social or political issues AOE is a game and it was always incredible to see how they represented nations with defects and virtues, I hope that the developers follow the essence of Ensemble Studios <3
They 100% did not mean to. What I am criticizing is the super poor choice of wording, and the fact that the card name was not updated and changed to something that means much more to the culture - Mitakuyin Oyasin is much more important and means something much more impactful, while being relevant to the card’s purpose.
Tiospaye is the concept you’re looking for, in my personal opinion. The concept of tiospaye is what creates the core band of the Lakota. The Naming Ceremony is significantly… less so.
In the more modern day, the tiospaye is created of those you find to be your family. More historically, it was those you were related to by blood. Modern interpretations of family have changed this significantly to be more in-line with the modern concepts surrounding found family.
They absolutely were, and one of the finer points of being part of a tribe is that your blood quantum means very little. One of my tribe’s respected elders is an old Sami woman, and she’s respected as much as any of the full-blooded Lakota elders.
This is the problem. Your understanding of my people and my cousins, the Haudenosaunee, is 100% a fantasy in your head. It is not my job to live up to a fantasy you’ve created in your head that is non-representative of what my culture is and who we are as a people.
When I’m done with the card review, I have a lot to say on the gameplay. The beginnings of that were hinted in my suggestions about the two tipi cards. The TLDR, however, is that gameplay are extremely badly done.
I have absolutely no problems with the water-based aspects of the gameplay being 100% fantasy. There is no history to draw from for that aspect, so I see no reason to base it on history. The rest, however, has plenty of history to back it up.
You don’t want people described as “magical”, native americans aren’t like elves or fantasy creatures. They are just people like anybody else.
That’s exactly the problem the civs had before.
Clearly I left the “magical” comment on purpose because this opens another topic, the Incas generate resources in the communal plaza with llamas and as a Peruvian originally from the Andes I don’t feel offended by that to the point of criticizing the GAME and turning it into a history documentary, in any case Japan should be called Nihon since they are named like that, and the Spanish should feel offended when they receive a bonus with the inquisition card, but come on, I think even we understand that it is about making the game more fun, there are books and libraries, places where we can freely discuss historical issues and question them, I repeat AOE3 is a VIDEO GAME!
The Haudenosaunee and Lakota tribes reached out to assist with this game. If the Japanese, Spanish, Inca, etc., gov’ts want to reach out and ask for changes or offer assistance, I’d imagine they are welcome to do so.
However, these two tribes both reached out to have this changed.
Being able to train bears is badass, if that is a “bad magical” thing then sign me up for more
Most people know that Native Americans don’t have magic or the ability to train bears. The human race generally aren’t that stupid. It’s just a game.
Of course, I defer to what Lakota people want so if they say no bears I understand. Though personally I wouldn’t give a crap and if I were the leader of the nation I’d actively promote the more fun parts of the culture.
Honestly? The Lakota are probably the best civ to put actively stupid things into because our most religiously sacred and revered “priests” are literally clowns. Teachers of the language often joke that learning Lakota is 50% grammar and 50% puns. Humor is at the backbone of the culture - the problem is implementing it in a way that makes sense.
There could be some kind of age I card that grants a TP travois and make TP give an economical aura to allow boom strategies to Lakota.
Friendly territory could give also an HP aura boost to TP buildings.
So then you can have a more defensive boom strategy focused on a more decentralized map, while relying on speed and mobility (no walls until age 4) to defend, without taking out the classical Lakota gameplay.
Turns out I hadn’t read what I found carefully enough. The Black Arrow card is literally a Cheyenne reference. It is (one of two) Cheyenne Sacred Arrows that symbolize war.
Basically, there were two conflicting accounts of the Sacred Arrows’ colors. The Pawnee said they were in four different colors; but by the Cheyenne account:
Two of them, called “buffalo arrows,” represented food, […] The other two were called “man arrows” and represented war […] The buffalo arrow-shafts were painted red, while the man arrow-shafts were black.
Source article cited under the Wikipedia entry on the tale
======
Re: Onikare, I understand it to not fit Lakota phonology, but it’s nonetheless a word with some minor international fame. E.g.:
I have been granted a very rare honour: permission to participate in the most sacred rite of purification in Lakota culture. The onikare takes place in a sweat lodge […] The onikare is part of Anpetu Luta Otipi, ‘Living in a Red Day’, the Lakota nation’s drug treatment programme for teenagers.
If we want to preserve its meaning without using the word, obviously we can rename the card “Sweat Lodge”. However, there remains the problem that it’s unrelated to the card’s Tokala-boosting function.
Inipi. We call this inipi. I think Onikare is a loan-word from another language, as its grammatical setup doesn’t match the rest of the language. I would personally prefer inipi not be referred to in-game - there are some ceremonies not appropriate to put in a game. Inipi is one of them.
In that case, the legacy civ is literally more accurate a depiction of the Cheyenne, as it had more Cheyenne references than Lakota or Seven Fires, and even in the DE, the Tokala Soldier is still a near-perfect replica of a traditional Dog Soldier’s regalia and warbonnet. This just furthens my case that the civ is an abstract concept that could represent any plains nation culture, not just the Lakota, which is a big reason the civ needs heavy changes.
So you just want the game changed because it uses a word that can mean something that offends you, even though that’s not the purpose the word was used?
You realize people like you is why they added stupid name changes to de? Just revert to sioux and iroquois, plantations, colonial age, and anything else changed for pc garbage, ban me if you want devs idc.
The game aims for historical realism more often than not, and wherever applicable. Do you want that, or do you want magical woodland elves that are pure fantasy?
I imagine a lot of the playerbase would get annoyed if they added an AoM civ into AoE3, but most don’t realize that the Native civs are already designed as pure myth and fantasy, not historically in the slightest.
I want the changes made to the game for nothing but political correctness to be reverted, simple as that. The sioux and iroquois have been referred to as those names by european settlers for centuries with no intent of insult, just because you trace the roots of a word to an insult doesn’t mean we need to change the word that everybody uses.
Moreover colonial and plantations are even more accurate that commerce and estates.
You just said even though the adoption card might not actually represent abuses to native children, you want it changed because that can be a reference. Pointless name changes everyone has to relearn to please the feelings of tiny minority that will always find something to be offended about.
If they had left the name as sioux they wouldn’t have you complaining now about the inaccuracy of the lakota; appeasement will never end.
