(Reposting this from another site. As I want to let other players know just how I feel on this)
Five new civs, an impressive free update that adds everything people ever wanted, set in an area where multiple old civs were missing campaigns, five easy factions to add. It was all set up perfectly and yet…it was bottled so incredibly.
I don’t want to be angry. I don’t want to be upset and disappointed. But sadly…this is where we are.
I’m sad that the civs I was most looking forward to being potentially added to the game have now been reduced to ruin. Khitans and Tanguts merged into some disfigured mess (it would take 30 seconds searching to figure out these two are not the same people), the Tibetans, Tanguts and Bai now unlikely to ever be added as we won’t be re-visiting the region. Jurchens being the one good speck now locked behind an atrocious DLC.
I am angry that the lines as to what counts as a civ have now been smashed to pieces. As antiquity-age civs suddenly get added to ranked along with others from many many centuries later. With mechanics utterly un-fitting of what this game represents.
This can be fixed though.
- Remove the Wu, Shu and Wei from ranked. Put them in their own ranked civ pool with Athenians, Spartans and Achaemenids (they are closer anyway).
- Split the Tanguts elements out of the Khitans and actually give us the Tanguts. You don’t even need to make a new castle or UU for them.
That’s all it would take to fix this as a bear minimum. But now, all the hard work and good-will built up by the patch is utterly in tatters, forgotten under the sea of anger that this misplaced DLC has created. Chinese players (the likely target market for this) are not even happy with this, so I wouldn’t call this anything close to a success.
There is a way back to a happier community that are excited again. But it requires listening, and not lying to customers.
Btw. For those of you who were interested in my Mandate of Heaven mod. It’s back on! With only 1 civ added after all (the Khitans are a Thing-like mess and I do not count them) and a grand total of 0 campaigns added for the Chinese, Jurchens and Khitans, looks like they still need them. But now I have a bunch of East-Asian assets I can yoink. A lot in fact…almost too many…
15 Likes
I actually like the Tanguts, the traces of the Khitan in the civ are minimal
Its kinda like how the Malay are based om the Javanese pr the Mays are based on Tarascans
2 Likes
I hope you notice that the civ is called “Khitans”…
Btw, what is the price of new DLC?
For me £13. But it could be anything and I wouldn’t touch it.
There will be too many good games released on steam. This DLC will not be prioritised in buy-list honestly.
1 Like
The civ called Malay is the Javanese 
Like, the infantry focus, UUs, wonder, castle is Tangut, their cav is fitting enough for Tanguts too. Only real odd parts for a Tangut civ are cav archers and pastures and those arent terrible
1 Like
The civ called Malay is the Javanese
The current unit roster, techs, bonuses, spoken voice, and UU do fit an actual Malay civ. The wonder (Kalasan temple), User Interface, and campaign (Gajah Mada) however are Javanese.
The lack of armor, the lack of cavalry; with fishing bonus and elephant bonus fit Sumatran and Malay peninsular polities/kingdoms. Forced levy also fits the Malay, as the Malay relied on mercenary and commoners drafted for war unlike Singhasari and Majapahit (Javanese) that had salaried standing army. The Javanese used elephants mainly for the transport of nobles and high-ranking warriors/officers, so not widespread like the Malay.
The ethnic Malay rarely wore armor, the Portuguese who encountered them explicitly recorded this, even the oval shields were scarce, and only used by officials. The Javanese however have a pretty good record about armor, including karambalangan (breastplate), kawaca (variable meaning but can refer to cuirass, chainmail, or jacket), siping-siping (scale armor), and waju rante (chainmail). According to the Dutch scholar Pigeaud, the armor depicted in the Penataran temple was chainmail, but it could also be a scale armor (siping-siping).
The Borobudur ship relief on the User Interface is Javanese — Malay and Sumatran temples lacked pictorial depictions like bas-reliefs. The UI also features the Sun of Majapahit relief. However, the civ logo (shield) is Acehnese, an ethnic group from North Sumatra. The newly-added Malay castle looks like Minangkabau houses from middle-Sumatra. This is somewhat acceptable because the irl Malay people did not build castles and the devs have to improvise (the same cannot be said for the Javanese who built plenty of brick and andesite structures for their temples and fortifications).
1 Like