Very Happy for Beloved AoE3, but a Colossal Missed Opportunity: PERSIA

Seriously I love Italy and Age of Empires 3 even more!!! I’m unapologetic: AoE3 is still probably my fav AoE game! But this feels like a gigantic lost opportunity.

Maltese? Ok… but come on… Where is PERSIA ! ? ! ? ! ? The Safavid empire of Persia was a FULL-FLEDGED WORLD POWER that almost saved Europe from the Ottomans, with the most beautiful architecture humankind has ever seen!

(As a matter of fact, even “Italy” didn’t exist as an entity, much less an empire while AoE3… no comparison with the Iranian Empire)

It’s literally SURREAL that tiny fortress Malta get its own “Civilization” (? ! ? !) in Age of Empires while one of the largest Empires on freaking Earth, PERSIA, is still non-existant after SO MANY YEARS!!! My god, Come on something almost fishy here…

Persia 8

Iran c

Persia: the World’s First Superpower

Persia of Cyrus the Great, the King of Kings, was the only empire to rule over 40%+ of humankind EVER, even the Roman Empire, China or the Ottoman Empire never reached this mark.
Iran is a titan of human civilization and it is a GIGANTIC, ENDLESS SHAME that “Age of Empires” 3 has not added Persia yet

History – 1 Jun 20

History’s first superpower—the Persian Empire—originated in ancient Iran

Under the leadership of Cyrus the Great, Persia ruled the world’s first true empire, centered in Iran and stretching from Europe to Egypt to India.

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Personally I’m very grateful that it’s 2 civs, thought it’d just be a small dlc like mexico. not 10 new minor natives, 30 maps and 2 full civs.

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Lots of civs are missing (Siam, Burmese, Danes, Poles) and I agree that Persians are one of them, but I’m happy for this expansion to finally fill the missing gap of not having European maps for 17 years.

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Just because this DLC doesn’t have them doesn’t mean we won’t get them down the line. Devs just can’t snap their fingers and produce new civs.

This is the best DLC we’ve gotten for the DE and if it does well financially more will come.

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Indeed, it’ll take time just like this DLC :slightly_smiling_face:

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It’s never too late to include the Persians, especially if these DLCs continue to do well. Considering the demand for the Italians, I think that it also likely that Persia will come next. Fear not, friend.

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Still missing southamerican revolutions and more minor civ settlements with perhaps some full native civs too
But as is going, the later the civ come, the better mechanics it could have, if Italy was released in vanilla, it would have been another generic europe civ

One of the reasons why the Maltese were included I think is because the devs came up with a lot of ideas for the Italians, but many of these ideas were left over or couldn’t fit into a single civ, and that’s why we ended up having 2 Italian factions. This is why I don’t think that the inclusion of the Maltese has hampered or delayed the inclusion of another civ, surely the devs were struggling for a long time to design the Italians and this resulted in the development of many ideas… that later were used in the Maltese. Remember that there was also already a simple Maltese civ design for the campaign, so if we combine all this…

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AOE-3 is so expandable, that it is practically impossible to give enough in the short term.

Art for natives, treasures, sound effects, etc.
Gaia like birds, weeds, trees, etc. And all the details on the maps in general.
The art of cards, politicians, unit avatars, etc.
Unique mechanics by civilization very different from each other.
The art of units. (Many change their skin according to the improvements).
Balance.

It will surely come, but there are many more things that we hope will come apart from the Persians.

It is more difficult to create an expansion for AOE-3 than for any AOE.

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That’s what feels strangest. Against the AoE3 background, NONE of them can compare with the Empire of Persia.

Matter of fact, even Italy can’t compare with Persia. “Italy” didn’t exist.

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Hopefully, but eventually all rides end and AOE3’s support is likely to fail sooner rather than later. For all we know this could be the last DLC. Why waste a slot on Malta?

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“Small”? Small doesn’t begin to describe it. Malta is microscopically tiny compared to Persia.

Which, by the way, is the oldest Empire in the history of the world, so it kinda merits inclusion in “Age of Empires”, to say the very least and obvious.

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They talk as if Persia will never come. Have you ever imagined civilizations, maps and minor factions from Africa and Europe in the game? Many did not imagine it some time or a few years ago.

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Not having Persia NOW doesn’t mean it’s not in development. A dev said today on discord that Italy has been cut out twice (we know the first time was back in 2005). When African Royals, IIRC, was announced, they said that civs are released when they are ready, which doesnt mean that the one that get ready first was the first they were working on.

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Right on the spot. Those are some of the main considerations in my mind motivating me to write this post.

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You should blame Sandy Peterson who decided to make a whole campaign and the very first one with Malta.

We keep thinking that the support for AoE3 will end. But tell me, if support is truly ending, would they spend time on making things like explorer customizations and photo mode? Or improving the flare system?

A lot of things seem to tell me that the game is going to get support for a while (I think maybe about 2 more years). So there’s probably time to include Persia.

I think we should enjoy Italy and Malta for now. Persia will come if enough people really want it.

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I’m sure Sumeria came first

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I think it will be added along with another central asian or middle eastern civ… possibly Safavid and Afghan

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Such a wild time to be alive! More AoE2 and 3 support!

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