Unique unit: Tomahawk warrior (the same Iroquis Warrior from the Scenario Editor) - Infantry unit armed with two tomahawks axes, good against siege units.
Polynesians/Maori (oceanic architecture)
Ranged and naval civ
Unique unit: Whip Spearman - Heavy javelineer that throws flaming spears to damage multiple units.
Scond unique unit: Waka Taua - War Canoe that also can trade
Caribs/Taino (oceanic architecture or tropical american)
Naval and counter-unit civ
Unique unit: Blowgunner - Ranged unit that deal poison damage
Credit to AOE: Wars of Liberty Wiki for the Maori units concept.
these civs have been proposed so many times at this point. but let’s go through the motions I guess.
they are too late for aoe2. we know next to nothing about these people before european contact. even the best documented leaders of the iroquois (like hiawatha) are semi-legendary, we don’t even know what century he lived in (if he even existed). How would you even make AI leader names for them?
the entire population of Polynesia is less than that of the larger Euopean and Asian cities in the middle ages. I consider the addition of a civ with such a small population absurd. Even the Tupi, which many consider to be too tribal, had about 1 million people. Polynesia had about 100 000.
Maori culture is interesting, but it might also be too late for aoe2. The Maori culture we know of (ie the one Europeans came in contact with) didn’t start until about 1500. New Zealand was only settled int he 13th century. So all the unique units, buildings etc that would be typical for Maori (eg greenstone weapons) don’t really fall in the aoe2 timeframe.
Even the Waka Taua only became popular in Maori culture around 1500. The golden age for them is in the 18th to 19th century.
Two or three new architectures in a single DLC doesn’t seem likely (Chronicles are an exception but they are a spin-off). If they are going to add civs from completely new regions like Oceania or North America, they are going to do so in a DLC tied to one region instead of jumping across the globe. So one DLC with Filipinos and Polynesians, one with Algonquians and Iroquoians, etc.
I explained this to you in another thread. Your tone is insulting, ignorant, and offensive. Hiawatha did exist. The Haudensaunee did not have written records, oral story telling was how they keep their history and traditions alive. The Haudenosaunee relied heavily on formalized oral transmission, which was:
ritualized
repetitive
institutionally maintained (e.g., condolence ceremonies, council recitations)
They had was wampum, which scholars describe as a mnemonic and diplomatic record system, not “writing” in the strict linguistic sense.
Wampum belts were made of shell beads arranged in patterns.
They encoded:
treaties
laws (including the Great Law of Peace)
political offices
historical events
Interpretation of a belt required trained wampum keepers, who memorized the associated oral text.
but just for the sake of argument, how many other AI leaders in the world of AOE2 DE are based on legendary figures?
you can repeat “Hiawatha did exist” as much as you like, it doesn’t make it true. Insulting me won’t get you anywhere either. Most source I find describe him as “mythical” or “legendary”. The stories about him have major inconsistencies (eg they disagree on what tribe he was from, Onondaga or Mohawk), we don’t even know if he supposedly lived in the 12th, 13th, 14th or 15th century.
some civs have a few legendary figures as their AI leaders, but they are always the minority. For an Iroquois civ all medieval leaders would be legendary.
You can repeat yourself as much as you’d like too. Doesn’t make you right.
There are just as many academic sources that credit Hiawatha. Just because they weren’t white, or European, or speak the language you do, does not give you the right to discount other cultures’ histories.
This is a biased statement in itself. saying “XX century” is a European centrist way of marking the years. Obviously the Haudenosaunee way of saying things happened X number of years ago does not convert 1 for 1 to the european system.
correct, repeating the claim doesn’t make it right. You are making the claim that he is a historical figure, so you need to provide evidence. In histroy we treat stories as legends unless substantiated by evidence. You haven’t provided any evidence.
then provide one. the best I have found from googling is “possibly based on a real person”, “semi-mythical”, etc. If you can provide any evidence I’m happy to change my mind.
no. we are communicating in English, this is how time is recorded in English. If we were writing in Arabic we would probably use the Islamic calendar, etc. If you prefer I can rephrase this as “we don’t even know if Hiawatha supposedly lived 900 years ago or 600 years ago”.
it doesn’t have to convert 1:1, but for a real person we should be able to know a more accurately than ± 200 years.
In academic history, evidence is not limited to contemporaneous written documents. For societies without pre-contact writing systems, historians routinely treat oral traditions, corroborated across multiple independent tellings and supported by archaeological and ethnohistorical context, as evidence—though of a different kind than texts.
In the case of the Haudenosaunee, figures like Hiawatha appear consistently across early recorded oral accounts (e.g., Cusick, Newhouse) and later ethnographic scholarship (Fenton, Vecsey). While this does not prove historicity in the modern biographical sense, it exceeds the threshold of “unsubstantiated legend” as used in professional historiography.
Cusick, David. Sketches of the Ancient History of the Six Nations. Lewiston, NY: H. A. Packer, 1828.
Newhouse, Seth. The Constitution of the Five Nations. Manuscript, c. 1885; approved by the Council of the Six Nations, 1900. Various archival editions.
Hopkins, Kelly Y. 2025. Iroquoia: Haudenosaunee Life and Culture, 1630–1783. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press
Wonderley, Anthony, and Martha L. Sempowski. 2019. Origins of the Iroquois League: Narratives, Symbols, and Archaeology. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press
hahah we are using Arabic numerals…
um. do you know how math works?
Googling..the equivalent of “trust me bro, I saw it on the internet”
I’m not asking for written documents. I am asking for references to reputable historians who agree with you.
here is how these refer to themselves:
Notable aspects of Cusick’s preface are his admission that there was no consensus about Iroquois history, and any interpretation he made was likely to be contentious; the humility of his tone, and his observation that truth and myth were indistinct. Iroquois fables were so closely bound to its history as to be inseparable, and Sketches begins with a fantastic origin tale.
Its own author says that it is impossible to separate fact from fiction, yet you are presenting this as proof that Hiawatha is not legendary? Are you kidding?
We are writing in English, using Arabic numerals, and the Gregorian calendar. What’s your point?
yes. in fact i did my undergrad in maths. the earliest proposed date for Hiawatha is 1150ish, the latest 1630, so a gap of almost 500 years. ± 200 is already generous.
Have an open mind. No body knows everything about everything in the world. Stop posting the same dismissive post over and over that Hiawatha was a fable when it is debatable.
NGL, I want a official Robin Hood campaign, despite it’s a folklore character and there’s some units in the map editor. Also King Arthur for strange reasons…
Maybe not a full Robin Hood campaign, but an RPG-type scenario like in Victors and Vanquished could be fun.
Hiawatha being recorded only in the oral history doesn’t bother me much, Polish history before Christianization is also known only from spoken tradition. As far I know, it doesn’t include any wind rituals or men scaring whole armies by shouting across a bridge, so it’s already more believable than 3K campaigns.
When I was designing an Isokelekel campaign for the Micronesians on paper, I drew from several different versions of the oral tale for one scenario, resulting in several different side quests or ways to start the scenario, which is pretty cool. Other details in certain scenarios were completely made up for artistic and gameplay reasons, which can be explained as just another variation of the oral legend.
Point is, there’s a lot you can do with oral history.
Yes, the Maori are already too late for AoE 2, there is no information about them prior to 1500 (they may be Malay or Polynesian) and the only battles we know of are the wars they had with the British in the 19th century (that is, very late even within AoE 3)…
Yes, the most we know from what AoE 3 says is that it would be from the 16th century (c. 1525-1595), but little else…
Yes, at least one scenario for VaV during the First Barons’ War (1215-1217) (which we see at the end of the English campaign in AoE 4) playing as Robin Hood and his friends and having as allies the barons who are fighting the troops of John Lackland…
Yes, at least a naval scenario expanding island by island…
Technically we can have civi ingame which does not have a campaign or scenario as we already have civis like romans khitans and juchens.Even puru and thracians have a very generic mission each.
According to oral history, genetics, and linguistics, they came from Tahiti.
In case anyone is interested in having more than one Polynesian civ and how they could be sorted out, here’s a link to classification of Polynesian languages: Polynesian languages - Wikipedia
If the Polynesian Civs will be put in this game then it would probably be the Maori and the Hawaiians. Considering the fact the Tupi are in, making a DLC based on Oceania and the Pacific Island is feasible.
You can do the Papuans, Aboriginals, Maori and Hawaians, they would have the same regional units and similar play styles. It would be an opportunity to sell the game to people of the south hemisphere.
The arguement can be made that these Civs came in too late, are too primitive or that they didn’t have much contact with anyone. But similarly arguments also exists for the Tupi yet they still added that civ, even the whole timeline argument doesn’t hold much water because of the 3 Dynasty Warriors Reference Civs.
I really think the only viable way to include Oceania civs is by having three umbrellas representing the three regions of Oceania. Individual islands or island groups are simply too small and insignificant for entire civs.