I thought it might be interesting to discuss the Turkic peoples in Age of Empires 2. This includes what some people consider to be part of what was missing in the recent China DLC.
Historically speaking this would probably be a little awkward, but certainly no less than some of the other European civilization’s dubious divisions like the “Slavs” or the “Goths” as there is already an explicit tie-in with Northern Wei and what we now more commonly call the Göktürks and their descendants.
There is a lot to unpack historically speaking, and while some “Turkic” empires are represented in-game, like Tatars and Turks The Ottoman Empire, as is more narrowly specified in other translations of the civilization in-game, others are wholesale ignored.
In terms of cultural variety this is a very obvious area to explore, and that the dissolution of The First Turkic Khanganate onward aligns perfectly with the AoE2 timeline and covers an area seldom detailed well in games. Plus, if it’s marketed as not a Chinese DLC at all, people won’t find it as sensitive for subject matter. Not that we should really care, but it makes it lower risk and provides an opportunity to fill-in what was barely scratched in 3K.
Ottomans aren’t usually considered relevant for AoE2 due to its breakoff point (early 1600s at the latest). If you want a standalone Ottoman faction, AoE4 and AoE3 are your games (I prefer AoE3 personally).
The current game currently uses オスマン帝国 Ottoman Empire (Japanese example, but there are others) for the current civilization, so it’s already represented, yet it is only a tiny facet of the people’s that have broken off from the First Turkic Khanganate, which spanned from Korea to Bulgaria, so as one would imagine without much effort: they were all very different from each other.
Bulgars (proto-Bulgarians) Kipchaks and Cumans are represented more or less but countless others like Khazars, Uyghur, Pechenegs, Tiele, Kyrgysz, that are omitted. Some validly, due to lack of credible information and it’s fine to abandon those, but others still hold real promise with little downside past some people will struggling to try to identify them as “Chinese” or “Turkic” in a modern sense when they are simultaneously in-between linguistically and neither culturally.
Why would they translate it like that?
And I thought “Os gurjares” (Gurjaras) in the Brazilian translation was dumb. It should be just Gurjares and it never got fixed.
AFAIK it’s translated like that in most languages besides the English client. They want it to be based on the Oghuz Turks, which did ultimately culminate in that empire, I suppose. But I think the English name is just as much a problem if we’re being realistic. “Turks” is almost as egregious as saying “Oriental” in a historical setting.
That’s also a misnomer that wears on me a little. I think there’s also room for a split there as well, and it’s far better that than suggesting Italian City States, Gothic tribes who wrote nothing down most of the time, or Sengokujidai nonsense.
I think that the Goturk Khanganate is a very huge domain, and not really great as a singular civ. It would actually encompass modern day Bulgaria and the proto-Bulgars were part of their empire. And yes, I don’t really think the current civs have to be changed at all for this except maybe giving Bulgarians a tiny eco bonus.
There is a lot of history involving the groups that split off from the First Khanganate and much of it is more closely fitting the timeline of most other civs in AOE2. This isn’t to say the First Khanganate is outside the timeline either though.
Uyghurs, Bashkirs, Khazars, Anatolian Turks and Kyrgyz are still all around today, but there were plenty of others with more military prominence that ended up scattered to the wind.
I guess I would say while I don’t necessarily want an “Ottomans” civ in the game, the current Turks civ feels very Ottomans-centric IMO with the focus on gunpowder. My preference would be to have another civ to represent earlier central-Asian Turkic peoples, because they honestly don’t IMO feel well represented by the current Turks civ and Tatars doesn’t really cover them that well either, I guess maybe a bit better than the Turks civ but Tatars are still moreso supposed to be later Turkic-Mongol mixed peoples. Whether you want to call it Gokturks, Oghuz, Seljuks, whatever it doesn’t really matter, just something else to cover that.
Khazars gameplay wise would be a focus on monks possibly as a Caucus civ would have mules to go with their nearly full stable and historically good siege weapons
Unlike the Vikings, where I don’t see the need to divide them, I do see it more clearly with the Turks.
Turkmen would indeed be a sensible idea, although they ultimately lead to the current Turks of the Imperial Age.
I’m struggling to imagine how one could present oneself differently in the later ages than what is already covered by the Turks or other civilizations.
If we’re looking to add something genuinely missing in this area, then the Hephthalites are the best choice.
Nothing in this game covers the various “Huna” groups that moved into Southern Central Asia and attacked and settled in Persia and South Asia for centuries. Kushans, Kidarites, Alchon Huns, the aforementioned Hephthalites, nothing in the game comes close to representing these groups.
They have religions not even seen in the game yet, let alone languages. And can even be used to cover other nomadic Irannic groups.
