Poland lost the title of King and therefore status of the kingdom 3 times in its history. Firstly, after becoming kingdom in 1025, it lost the title in 1031, following losing the German-Polish War, with Holly Roman Empiror declaring Polish king an imposter attacking fellow Christian lands (Saxony). The king of dethronized and replaced with his brother who took title of the duke. Secondly, after becoming a Kingdom again in 1076, with coronation of Bolesław III the Generous. It lost the title in 1079 after the king was murdered, with his successors having again the title of duke. And finally, it briefly regained title of the kingdom in 1295 with Przemysl II coronating himself as the king of Poland, though he in fact ruled only the Part of Polish duchies at the time (Greater Poland and Pomerelia). He was murdered just a year later in 1296, with again country going back to using the title of duke intil 1300 when finally Wenceslaus II got coronated as a king in 1300 with title being continously used until the partitions of Poland in 1795.
I thought before the Dawn of Dukes announcement that duchies were mostly at France or Italy. I must recognize the good choice of Forgotten Empires team and Tantalus (?) for giving us a chance and content to do some proper research about history subjects. I never ever heard about Cumans before the last khans and people of the steppes are one of my favorites now.
Ohhh 10 years ago I remember when some modders were designing the Genoese Crossbowman and talking about 5 new civs in fan game mod. Look how our boy got stronger now. It’s amazing to see my favorite game genre resurrecting again.
We should rename the game to Age of European Duchies while we’re at it. Burgundy never held once the title of a kingdom, Bohemia was for the most part part of the HRE represented by the Teutons as this Czech user on the Wiki states:
This text here just further shows how for the most part Poland was a Duchy during the Middle Ages and Sicily is just kinda like here as a faction representing some very specific people who weren’t that relevant either even for their region.
Last Khans was the last good expansion. I don’t get being excited by some Duchies being added to the game though. Sure, new civs are new civs, but there’d be definitely better picks. Especially considering that they don’t even come with new architecture sets make them seem very cheap.
Compare that to “The African Royals” with completely new graphic assets and tons of new maps, animals and Natives. DotD seems like a complete cashgrab in comparison.
Without mentioning the price is overall higher yet with less content and even reusing existing architectural sets, while HD expansion each one came with one new set, 4 civs and 4 campaigns (The Lithuanian one was a must for TLK)
Compare that to “The African Royals” with completely new graphic assets and tons of new maps, animals and Natives. DotD seems like a complete cashgrab in comparison.
African Royals doesn’t get full campaigns like DotD does, just 3 historical battles.
The amount of time I spent playing just the campaigns of Lords of the West is longer than I would get for paying for most full priced games.
It’s 10 bucks.
I spent more than that on my lunch today.
I in no way feel as if LotW was a “cashgrab” and I doubt DotD will be a “cashgrab.”
Sicily is just kinda like here as a faction representing some very specific people who weren’t that relevant either even for their region.
Please say that you are joking right now 11 You speaking about Kingdom (earlier Duchy) that take part in majority of most imporant events in 11th and 12th century of Mediterranean Region. They fought with Papacy, muslims and two Roman empires, often simultaneously, Siciliy was also known during that time as a centre of enlightenment. Serioulsy, only because you don’t know about them dosen’t mean that they “weren’t that relevant”. They was, and not only for their region. Same for Poland, being a duchy doesn’t mean being weak or irrelevant, you writing about country that for all of his history was in constant war with at least one of his neighbours and what more imporant we not talking about another christian countries, but pagans from Lithuania, Teutonic Order, Mongols, Hungarians, Holy Roman Empire and many, many more, including Tatars or Turks in later centuries (but not too late for aoe2). It’s not that difficult to understand why they adding Poles, I would say that not adding them for such a long time was a big mistake.
Bohemia was for the most part part of the HRE represented by the Teutons
Firstly, it’s not possible to be represnted as “teutons”, teutons is possibly the worst concept to define anyone in this game, including Germans, but it’s not the most imporant part. More imporant is that you just totally misunderstand his comment, he didn’t say “we don’t want Bohemians, they are already in this game as Teutons” but he made fair (off course in some cases arguable) points why Bohemians is not Eastern Europeans.
We should rename the game to Age of European Duchies while we’re at it.
But why? Why you saing this now? We have civs like Goths, Koreans, Japaneses or Celts for over 20 years now, however, I have not heard any funny propositions to change name of the game, so maybe it’s not about title after all?
Ah yes, they were important for the 200 years under the control of the Frenchizied Vikings. Really a good reason to add a civ.
You know what is actually a mistake? Adding Poles when we already have a Lithuanian civ that perfectly represents Poland at its moment of highest power. If Lithuanians werent like that sure, but as it is Poles are absolutely pointless. And if they end up being an infantry civ with a farming bonus and good cavalry thats even dumber with the existance of Slavs.
All those civs cannot be directly represented by other civs already in the game. Goths are the only ones you can argue that and they controled at some point like half of Western Europe and are extremely unique gameplay wise (as well as being far far away of the Spanish and Italian civs in terms of timeline). However, in this case we are so far getting:
Poland who can be represented by Lithuanians because of historical ties as well as the in-game Lithuanian military
Bohemians which will probably have an infantry/monk/siege gameplay which is what the civ that in game that represents the HRE is best at (and the wagenfort is represented okay enough by tankier siege and good fortifications). If they end up having archer bonuses then fine, but unless they do that they are fairly pointless.
Sicilians who while fairly unique gameplaywise are just Frenchified Vikings at the end of the day.
Burgundians who are just based on a duchy of France and are practically just the Franks.
I dont see german players complaining about it over and over like the eastern players who wants every country to be different from slavs.
You realise that the area of the world people label as Slavic is dramatically larger than the German speaking world, right?
Take a look at a map.
I don’t understand why some people want to simplify history and cultural groups so much.
This a is a game with a broad historical setting, so I thought that most people would have respect for how much depth there is to the past.
If you’re not interested in the new civs being added, that’s fine.
But to attack the history and culture of the civs, saying they’re not relevent enough to be in AOE2, is so disrespectful.
The reality is lots of different groups are worthy of being in AOE2, because history and culture has a lot more depth than you give credit.
This is why these endless arguments keep happening.
No one is telling you to be happy about the new civs or to stop enjoying your own favourite parts of history.
But stop depreciating cultural groups and devaluing history.
This isn’t cultural bias, I’m not European or Slavic.
I just have a respect and appreciation for the many different groups across time.
Ah yes, they were important for the 200 years under the control of the Frenchizied Vikings. Really a good reason to add a civ.
The Sicilians were not under the control of the Normans, they WERE Normans, or rather, to some extent, because the country was multicultural and the Sicilians were both Greeks, Muslims, Lombards and Normans, the latter were distinguished by the fact that they ruled the country. There is currently no faction in this game that would represent them already, the Franks were not Scandinavians, the Vikings are the name of the profession, the Italians do not have much in common with the Normans, just as with Poles I am surprised that they decided to do it so late.
Only one thing that I can agree is Burgundians, it was stupid choice, but all other civs you have listed make sense.
This is very well said! If you oppose some civs that’s fine everyone has a right on opinion!
But so many people here are so stubborn and have totally incorrect and disrespectful arguments why some civs shouldn’t be added, it makes me wonder what drove them to this game if not history…
What determines a “large cultural group” though?
Celts and Huns are in the game and they only apply to a comparatively small cultural group compared to the rest of the civs.
But then you have Slavs, Indians and Chinese which can apply to a massive cultural group, arguably too large to the point of overgeneralisation.
I think Celts are most certainly worthy being labeled as a large cultural group.
But so are many other cultures.
Say that to some of the people here calling certain entities Stone Age Savages just because they don’t fit in their narrative.
AOE2 generalized a lot civs. The fact that we’re getting specific entities which were not even local empires goes against this philosophy and I’m really not a fan of it at all.
Not true, i said this for multiple nations, however only certain were disrespected, including mine.
And we already talked about this, i wouldn’t object having Albanians added in a way you are pointing out, i had problem with Albanian nation as not being relevant in AOE2 timeframe. If that isn’t an issue then go ahead add them.
