Religious figures are fictional.
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Not true. Basically all religious figures actually existed historically in some capacity. Also, this is completely irrelevant.
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Regarding Mulan, there are doubts about whether she was a historical figure or not.
The oldest record of her is neither historical nor legendary, but rather a “Song,” which doesn’t mention the dynasty, the era, or the name of the king of that time. It’s likely that this setting was intentionally left ambiguous so that the listener could adapt it to their own period and enjoy listening to the song.
Furthermore, within her own story, she remains a character who contributed as a “common soldier” but not as a general, so even if she distinguished herself, it was hardly enough to be recognized in the final official records. Moreover, within her own story, she rejects the position of general to return to her house to farm the land; another narrative element created so that the viewer doesn’t question why she doesn’t appear in official records.
And well, getting back to the original topic, I doubt her story would fit an official campaign (not even 5 levels). At most, one or two scenarios. In fact, they already made 1 in the mods section.
I feel like more custom campaigns could be made, now that there’s Bee Nest and Fire Lancer to represent those from the original Disney animated movie. I’ll use a Komodo dragon for Mushu.
Yodit seems to be, if not fictional, then at least of unclear historicity, and no one seems to complain about her having a campaign.
The Bari campaign is based around fictional characters… but people do complain about that, and I guess a Mulan campaign might receive similar criticism. But I think a Mulan campaign would make more sense than Bari does.
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I just finished the 3K campaigns, and yes, it felt a bit strange to see that CaoCao and SunJian’s versions end with fandom endings instead of Canon (Historical) endings.
The only canon version is Liu Bei’s, my favorite character.
I suppose they wanted to copy the style of “Total War” franchise, which also released its version of these events (Total War: Three Kingdom), and where, as in every game in these franchises, you can use a faction to conquer half the world even if it never happened; the same as Alternate History, but in a video game.
But in AoE2, most of the campaigns have a realistic setting, so the 3K ending feels out of place in certain stories.
Personally, I would have turned CaoCao’s final level into a defeat, where, to at least gain something from the conflict, he pits Liu Bei against SunJian while preventing his base from being destroyed. Admitting that you can lose would be a good final lesson for his campaign, knowing that he can always learn from his mistakes.
On the other hand, technically the campaign doesn’t end there at the Red Cliffs:
CaoCao and Liu Bei and the other would continue fighting in several subsequent campaigns, which would leave room for another DLC, 3K: Part 2, hehehe, although for the moment and based on the reviews, I think it would be more realistic to consider making the continuation in custom campaigns.
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We don’t need her as the hero of the campaign/scenario, just a hero that features in the story of more historical commanders during Wei-Rouran wars. And she doesn’t need any MOBA abilities like the 3K campaign heroes, older campaigns show that memorable characters can be written without resorting to switching genres.
Liu Bei also gets heavily ahistorical when you decide to betray Sun in the final scenario 
I’m fine with some ahistorical embellishments like the final Barbarossa mission, or being able to slightly alter history in less impactful ways, but 3K went too far IMHO.
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Ehm, actually MANY complained aggainst the Yodit campaign when was released, and many still complains until now, even myself, jejeje.
Historicity: -99/10
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Not only because the first four levels are narrated by a father who’s “making up” a “decorated” story about the despot who staged a coup to seize the kingdom of Axum, but also because there isn’t enough irony about what she’s doing, which is often extremely evil.
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It’s like having an Empire Earth campaign about Hitler, narrated by a Nazi father to his son about how the poor Führer was “forced” to wage blitzkrieg against other countries, or to exterminate Jews… and without any irony. In Judith, you destroy temples to get gold, and they never explain why, when the reason is precisely why she’s so hated in Ethiopia.
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The only thing that saves it is that in the last level, a soldier tells the real story and finally shows you that you have to destroy an entire city for despotic reasons.
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On the other hand: Judith is not a positive figure for Ethiopia’s history; she’s like Hitler for Germany, Benedict Arnold for the USA, or Polpot for Cambodia.
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And worse of all: Yodith didn’t even was from Axium, not even a princess, but a jew queen from a neighbour country invading Axium.
In terms of Gameplay: It’s an annoying campaign.
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In the first level, you don’t even play as Ethiopia; it’s an RPG where you flee while being chased by 999999999999 soldiers, which, with suspension of disbelief, sounds ridiculous. No kingdom would send an entire army to kill a single woman. Even worse, the scenario allows you to assemble your own large army in the middle of a flight.
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The second level consists of minigames. And it would be fun if it weren’t for the endless raids that harass you every two seconds, and in some cases, a bug is reported to make them increasingly frequent.
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In the third level, you only have to kill an elephant. You actually dream of having an epic battle, but no, killing him is SUPER EASY, which makes the side quests completely useless.
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The 4th level is just okay, I’d even say it’s entertaining, except when you realize there’s hardly any gold where you start and you have to raid hard or you run out of resources.
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The 5th level in AoE2:HD. Curiously, this is the best mission of all; I liked how they did it. That said, so many houses consumed a lot of RAM. Seriously, a magnificent mission, especially the ending where you show the ultimate evil of destroying the last Keep and the king. Oh, but then the DE version comes out… what a way to RUIN a scenario!
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The 5th level in the Definitive Edition is awful. You only have to capture 5 locations in the city. There’s an isolated fort that seems pointless in the map because you can’t and shouldn’t attack it… the reason is obvious: they removed it from the map and turned it into an ultra-easy mission where you just capture city areas.
And I’m not the only one; there are many others who also hated Jodith. Here’s an example from Reddit.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/cssgp9/african_kingdoms_did_ethiopia_dirty/
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https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/r774n1/yodit_3_a_fallen_crown/
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https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/fes0pu/is_yodit_2_bugged/
With so many kings of Axum and Ethiopia, they decided to use Judith, who wasn’t even Ethiopian, for the Ethiopian campaign.
Well, what was done, was done. Maybe, i could return to my forgotten proyect to make a actual yodith campaign.
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Yeah Yodit doesn’t make sense as an Ethiopian campaign since you actually fight Ethiopians/Axumites. Maybe they could make hers the campaign for another civ (Beta Israel? If that makes any sense) and make a more Ethiopian or even Axumite campaign.
That I think it’s irrelevant, it’s a game, not a church seminary, if players do not have the maturity to separate a game from their morals well… art is art. And the good about morals is that they’re subjective. Though it’s not that Gengis Khan is that positive of a figure yet the narration sort of engrosses you while you murder and destroy everything during the campaign… it’s just the nature of the game. If someone has a problem with this it’s hypocritical to keep playing this game or any strategy game in general.
As for legendary figures like Mulan and king Arthur I think there’s a way to make them work (not the 3k approach)… at least I have in mind a way in which a “king Arthur” campaign could work but that’s because he is understood as a collection of different characters of the very late Roman and very early British dark age. So you could sort of make a campaign touching different moments of that period (vortigern is one) without ever mentioning Arthur or making him appear of course. The narration would be sort of metaphorical, like told by a Saxon/Welsh druid speculating about this “Arthur" or something while the scenarios could adhere more to history (for what is possible and it definitely is in part like the vortigern scenario proves, many characters of the Arthurian legend are taken from real people). I know less about Mulan but I imagine something similar is also possible.
It’s a historical game, so yes, it’s relevant.
Just in case, and before talk about moral objectivity, I think you’re misunderstanding me:
- I’m not criticizing campaigns featuring controversial figures. In fact, if Age of Empires 5 is set in World War II, I absolutely want a Hitler campaign for Germans, Yes or Yes!!!.
What I’m criticizing is that if a character is known precisely for their atrocities, or at least for having caused a lot of destruction in warfare, and this is a war game, I’d like to see it portrayed that way and recreate those events.
But in Judith’s case, you’re practically a saintness who, for the first 4 levels, does good wherever she goes, or has romantic escapes, even though her records don’t say that.
- It would be the same as with Genghis Khan; in the 2nd level, instead of defeating the Khitans, you “run away from them like a coward” and hide in a cave. And that on the 3rd level, when invading China, “your mission is to make alliances with all the Chinese states, giving them tribute and then being friends with everyone.” All good, no invasion. And then, only on the last level, you move on to invading villages, only for some guy to tell you that everything you were told before was fanfiction.
But anyway, they should make another civilization to represent Yodith, who wasn’t even Ethiopian, as you correctly point out, Beta-Israel.
I see, I agree then. Probably with Yodit they didn’t know what to do, there wasn’t any intention to paint her in a good light, they just thought “we know little to nothing about her so let’s just make an engrossing plot that you can empathise with” and that’s it. Compare it to Alexander in chronicles where it raises more than one doubt about his “morality” and rightly so I think. Or at least that’s one of the ways you can go with… I personally find empathic and rhetorical tales about conquest and “a great nation forged in blood etc” kinda boring. All campaigns end up looking the same that way. I like campaigns that tries to tell something human like generally the ones made by LordBasse.
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I think you’ve missed my point. As far as I know, no one argues that Yodit shouldn’t have a campaign because she’s not a historical figure. You say she has “historicity -99/10” (which I guess means you think she’s entirely ahistorical) but then everything else you’ve written seems to assume that she was real person with a well-recorded history.
As for the Reddit threads you posted, only one of them is complaining about Yodit being the protagonist, but their objection is that there are better choices. Like you, they seem to think Yodit was a historical figure. The others are all complaining about gameplay. None of these are relevant to what I said.
Speaking of 3 kingdoms:
The EpicGames store has the game FREE until de January 8.
Perhaps this is a good opportunity to compare both products at another franchise.
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They can give the Ethiopians a new campaign and officially release the current Yodit as a mod. Anyone who wants to experience the old campaign can download it. I remember they did the same with the Inca campaign.
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Imo they should just overhaul the Ethiopians at this point, mostly cuz I want them to have an elephant UU since they’re the only African people they used elephants even if tentatively in warfare.
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I suppose they could split Ethiopians into Ethiopians, Nubians, Somali, and Ibrawi (ethnonym of the Beta-Israeli). The latter would inherit Yodit’s campaign.
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Renaming the 3k to the three groups of ancient China, aside from the campaign mode, might be more appropriate. For example, Wei = Xianbei, Shu = Eastern Jin
Xianbei is the name of a group, it’s good. Personally I’d pick Hu rather than Xianbei for covering more barbarian groups.
Eastern Jin is the name of a dynasty, and like the Three Kingdom, it only ruled part of China. Renaming it this way doesn’t make it any better.
I’ve seen some people suggest that if renaming, they should be something like Wu → Wuyue, Shu → Sichuanese, using terms that reflect internal regional distinctions within China. I wouldn’t say that’s entirely unreasonable (although there would still be political risks involved), but the Chinese civ for entire China still exist, which makes the presence of additional Chinese regional civs feel very odd. Just like we have those Indian civs but still keep the Indians.
The proper solution would still be to move the civs and campagins of Three Kingdoms to the Chroniclse or a similar mode, and then make them more accurate to the factions they represent (e.g. removing the Xianbei elements from Wei), rather than renaming them.
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Oddness (and political risks of censors thinking the game implies that Sichuanese and Wuyue aren’t Chinese) could be avoided if the OG Chinese get renamed into Zhongyuan (Central Plains, the most populated area of ancient and medieval China), just like Indians became Hindustani.
I even read a post from a Chinese player that renaming the original might help with adding Tibetans later on, so that instead of politically dangerous possibility of a tournament where two Chinese players play Tibetans versus Chinese, you get them playing Tibetans versus one of Chinese regional cultures (satisfying censors who like to see Tibetans as another Chinese regional culture).
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There is nothing wrong with adding the Tibetans. There is no risk of Chinese censors going bananas and banning the game, none whatsoever.
1: The Chinese censor system works on a public report system. Players of the game have to report it to the authorities en masse to get it even looked at. It’s not a system where officials comb through everything and ban stuff. In fact the number of banned games in China is lower than some countries in Europe.
2: Middle Ages Tibet is not a sore topic, and is not a criteria for a game being banned, depictions of modern Tibet are. There are games with Middle Ages Tibet playable in China right now that you can play.
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In a far-future expansion to AoM, that could be cool.