They should have been done the changes without over explaining them, as they changed Portuguese Guerrero to Legionario.
I am fully aware of that. I encourage you to read this response I made (and have repeatedly made) to this exact argument. @BonnyMountain91, you should also read this response.
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I’m pushing against this because I know for certain that every book I’ve ever seen on it doesn’t actually cover what happens. Personally? I’d rather just avoid it entirely.
I’m against this. The Lakota should be Lakota - other cultures can have cards in the Support style from the Messenger or just be pushed on more in the native trading posts, but the civ itself should be 100% Lakota. My own mod followed this, but made Cree Trackers and Dog Soldiers trainable from the Native Embassy after being shipped in, as well as enabling their basic upgrades so they could be usable the whole game.
I can understand that it may be difficult for you to budge on this point.
Basically I support change too. But as I said, what the game really wants is a plains Native American civilization, and “Lakota” is a name for the civilization. If such a massive change was not necessary, I’d rather rename this civilization to “Plains Native Americans,” which, even if it’s drab and awkward, could reasonably cover every aspect.
Imagine, if there is no general term for “Japanese”, the current Japanese civilization may be called “Tokugawa (clan)”. Maybe someone will ask that this civilization should be 100% Tokugawa clan, so it is time to strengthen the samurai and ninja. The strong economy belongs to the Toyotomi clan, the muskets and European powers belongs to the Oda clan, the cavalry belongs to the Takeda clan and the Sanada clan, and the water army belongs to the Murakami clan. Those parts that are not part of Tokugawa’s strengths should not be taken seriously.
What you’re asking for is the equivalent of a “European Civ” and asking that it make sense. The area and cultural diversity you want covered by this one civ is roughly equal to literally the entirety of Europe.
Yes, I will not deny this. But obviously there are differences between European and Plains Native Americans.
The cultural differences between Plains Native Americans and Europeans may or may not be as large, I don’t know. In the market, however, European civilization is better marketed. Historically, European countries have had a great influence on the world. These are the reasons why Europe will not have only one civilization called “Europeans”.
If Europe is a region with a very small total population, a region with very little influence historically, or if most consumers have never heard of it, then they probably won’t be part of the vanilla game, with an “European” civilization, or “Germanic” and “Slavic” two civilizations in DLC to cover.
If the tribes of the Plains Native Americans have shaped global history in a certain century, or the cultural and historical differences of the tribes are familiar to players around the world, then perhaps we can welcome the “Lakota”, “Cheyenne”, "Apaches” and many other Plains Native American civilizations, and perhaps Asians will have “Lakota Allies” or “Cheyenne Allies” in their consulates.
Obviously because of market and historical realities, we can have 11 European civilizations, but the chances of a second plains Native American civilization are extremely low. Since we can only have one Plains Native American civilization, why not try to make it take care of every aspect of Plains Native Americans without being based on stereotypes?
PS. In fact, European civilizations have been streamlined to a certain extent because the game is focused on the globe rather than a specific region. A developer once stated that the game will not separate Western countries or political entities as civilizations like some well-known MODs. For example, Germans cover all German-speaking countries.
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Ignorance of the subject at hand is not an excuse to diminish or stereotype it, especially when they used correcting the culture as a marketing scheme.
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I can understand where you are coming from, when aoe3 is the only game that includes your culture and does it wrong. Hell, my culture is a revolution and i have to live with solders speaking other languages, and i can’t even play it from the beginning. All other aoe games completely ignore lesser civilizations. You are surely not the only one in this situation. But a game is a game.
I think people are reading a bit too much into this. The devs wanted to added a cavalry rush based civ into the game, they found the lakota/sioux/whatever matched that and went from there. This is how game design works. They wanted to add a mechanic and looked for the civ that works the narrative the best and then tried to squeeze it in. From a game play perspective, in supremacy, lakota is perfectly designed as its intended role. It can use some help in treaty though. If you want a full rework, you need to bring in a new civ that will fill the role of the cav rush civ.
On top of it, there are some generic cards, like land grab , that literally every civ has. They are there to allow people to transfer knowledge from one civ to the other.
Coming up with absolutes like removing the civ from the game is a little extreme for this situation.
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Frankly, any other plains nation civ would do that just fine. I’d suggest the Shoshone, with a Revolution-like option in any age to turn into the Comanche. The Seven Fires were uniquely defensive in the wars they fought against the US - other nations like the Shoshone, Omaha, Comanche, and Cheyenne were all aggressive and took the fight to the US, but the Seven Fires focused their efforts on creating set boundaries with the US and defensively fighting to keep those borders in place. The Seven Fires were a trade empire, not a wartime aggressive one.
If anything, they chose the absolute worst plains nation for the gameplay loop they wanted.
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So the idea of the cavalry rush civ comes from the late antiquity / early dark ages of nomadic, raiding tribes like the golden horde, goths, huns and all that in Europe which brought about the fall of the Roman Empire, which is a major event in European history. Even in this cases, tossing them in the generic nomadic raiding tribe is an exaggeration, but these were basically their defining traits until they eventually settled down.
The difference between those tribes of europe and those of the great plains is that the ones in the great plains were mostly already established in their territory. Even if they were attacking the US, they were essentially fighting a defensive war, similar to what is currently happening in eastern europe right now. The nomadic tribes in europe were essentially looking for new, better places to live, they didn’t have their lands to call their own. They were the aggressors against established population. In a way, you can say the US is actually the nomadic tribe, and not the natives of the great plains.
The cavalry rush based civ essentially tries to capture that: the civ is nomadic (generally lacks houses or is able to spam units very fast and not be population locked), the objective is to conquer land so they can easily control the map, it is very strong in the early game but loses momentum in the late game.
I personally don’t think any of the cultures in the time frame of AOE3 still meet these criteria. With the exception of the Roma, all cultures that I know of were already settled and were fighting for national identity. Whichever civ they picked would have been wrong. Does this mean that AOE3 shouldn’t have a rush based cavalry civ? Maybe. But back then they were trying really hard to attract the flock of AOE2.
What is ignorance? It may be true that the Plains Native Americans were culturally diverse, but it is certainly true that European countries had a more significant influence on the world.
It was the Spanish who destroyed the aboriginal empires of Central and South America, not the Comanches.
It was the French who started the study of ancient Egypt, not the Apaches.
The first to unite India were the British, not the Cheyennes.
The modern knowledge acquired by the Japanese during the isolationist period is called “Rangaku”, not “Rakotagaku”.
Every country in the world has European participation in history after the 16th century.
The game isn’t called “Age of Plain,” so it’s impossible for us to compare the entire Plains Native Americans to Europeans, either from a historical perspective or from a business perspective. (Note, I still respect your culture, it’s just an indisputable fact about the game.)
It would be nice if the stereotypes could be reduced, but the status quo is that what we can have is just a civilization that represents such a group of culturally diverse people. If the culture of the Lakota or Seven Fires is not sufficient to provide the desired features or balance necessary for this civilization, such as the early cavalry raid and the naval warfare, then the civilization must be tolerant to other tribes, or it will be a failure civilization design. I think people should think about how to minimize cultural errors and stereotypes on the premise that each tribe must be included, rather than denying that premise outright.
You can find that, at the beginning of the game, it is shown that the European civilizations are funded to establish new colonies, while the Asian civilizations are funded to establish new towns. Perhaps, for example, the Lakota Civilization will start the game with a message that it is a new tribe that shelters some Cheyenne, Comanche, and Pawnee.
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Again, ignorance of the subject at hand is not grounds to diminish or stereotype it. That argument has no place here.
It doesn’t matter that the plains people of the Americas weren’t world-changing people - the DE marketed itself on fixing cultural stereotypes. Either fix them or admit that no change was ever going to happen. Either way, something needs to be done.
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You want to compare Europeans, so I discuss Europeans, that’s all.
This paragraph is my argument. From what you have stated, you think that the Lakota should not be an early cavalry raiding civilization, nor should there be naval warfare, because there is no such culture. So what is the merit of this civilization in this design? If I use Lakota in Ceylon it’s all game over? I’ve never stopped you from suggesting improvements on the grounds of improving cultural accuracy, but I wouldn’t want to kill a civilization that’s so fun to play. For games, fun is the most important thing. I suggested messaging when the game starts that this is a Lakota tribe that has sheltered refugees from other nations, trying to rationalize the gameplay while respecting the cultural differences of these ethnic groups. If you insist on destroying an already functionable civilization for the sake of culture and introducing one that has a definite disadvantage or is not interesting, then I can only pray that that day will not happen.
Early cavalry raiding civ? No. Late-game cavalry powerhouse? Yes. Naval warfare? I’ve state repeatedly that I am fine with the naval aspect of the civ being complete fantasy. That’s acceptable, because there’s no historical precedent
No, what you’ve done is repeatedly state that you think the every plains nation of the Americas be reduced to a single, all-encompassing umbrella civ. That is not acceptable.
There are no “multiple cultural groups” to be discussed. There are the Lakota, and that is it. Should they be able to ship in allies from the Cheyenne or Arapaho? Sure, why not? Should the Cheyenne and Arapaho be part of the civ’s base design? No. Absolutely not. The French don’t have Russian units built into their base civ design, so why should the Lakota have units from other nations built into their civ?
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Well, we lost an unique gameplay.
There is no history of naval battles, so the creation of naval battles is acceptable.
Why can’t the creation of an early attack be accepted without a history of the early attack?
Maybe you read it like this, but what I mean is that we only have one civilization. When this civilization has the opportunity to include more things, the more flexible it can possibly adopt the design. That’s all.
Even so, you reminded me of the advantages of an umbrella civilization. We have Germans and Indians, but should we argue that the unit is Prussian and shouldn’t exist with Austrians, or Mughals with Marathas?
I wouldn’t be surprised for the Russian and French standing together if we only had one civilization called Europeans. This is also the reason why I first tried to find a suitable term for the civilization name.
If the name of Lakota cannot be changed, then I tried to make an assumption in the game that this is a tribe that accepts other refugees. It’s the Lakota tribe, only because of this there are some units that are not Lakota. Assuming is no a big deal, the presence of Edo-era Japanese in Africa alone is more bizarre than the Lakota tribe that took in other refugees. You don’t even want any chance to keep the existing gameplay, then we just wait to smash the existing civilization and send it back to the kiln, praying that the new Lakota can still be a fun civilization.
People worry, not because they are against more precise cultural descriptions, but because the whole civilization becomes very unfamiliar, because no part of the new design you want seems to retain the remnants of the old design. What if the new one is less interesting than the old one? What if the new one is harder to balance than the old one? We can discard incorrect designs for the sake of culture and history, but we also have to consider how other players feel.
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It would be nice and helpful for the devs if you’d complete the list.
Top effort 
IMO the best approach would be to rename this civ to the Shoshone (with the ability to revolt into the Comanche) or make them the Cheyenne, then remake the Lakota from the ground up with mostly known assets and make a few extra ones to make the civ more specific, with a new playstyle entirely that lines up more with the culture and history.
It’d be a good way to properly remake the civ in a respectful manner. If the current one was remade into the Cheyenne, they could rename the Tokala Soldier back to the Dog Soldier that everyone knows and loves.
(Afaik, the Cheyenne did some farming while the Shoshone were equal parts nomadic and farming, which would make their economy work just fine how it is.)
I’m trying, but I also work 55 hours/week on top of full time school. I’m tired. It’s gonna be a bit before I can finish this list.
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No worries at all. It’s already really impressive how much effort you put, especially if you have to work so much too.
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Literally seems more acceptable than “100% Lakota”, or maybe just because I don’t care whether the major part of this Plains Native American civilization is Lakota or not. Anyway, the cultural accuracy of this civilization has improved, and the interesting familiar gameplay has not completely disappeared. It is always good to reuse existing assets designed by the devs as much as possible, rather than completely overturning past efforts due to false cultural references.
But I still don’t think there’s much chance of having a second Plains Native American civilization in the foreseeable future, so all we’re going to have will be a “Shoshone” or “Cheyenne” civ, no There are so-called “Lakota”.
You have to be aware that even if the devs do a serious study of the natives and remake the civilization, there is likely to be something you still don’t like. Everyone has a different understanding of how to interpret and reference culture, and that’s not necessarily wrong. You also have to be aware that it’s not just Native Americans who have a need for update. Even if it may not be satisfactory, we have to admit that when the DE was released, the Native American civilizations had already received an update to a certain extent, while only 2 civilizations of European civilization have been updated for now, and Asian civilizations are even bigger pits. It’s a long, long road, and you have to be more patient, which is good for you and for the community.
Let us wish the developers of this game enough wisdom, luck, time and budget.
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This is a much more sensible approach.