I am pretty sure they did when they declared themselves as Caliph of Cordoba. But they didn’t ruled too long on Morocco. However Almoravid/Almohad had good amount of influence both Morocco and Spain.
Also Berbers umbrella can work out for now but again they really aren’t Berbers. They didn’t spoke North African Berber language that widely. They had their own Latin-Arab culture distinct from both European and Middle East. You can see the history of Muslim Spain.
Umayyads themselves later looked more Europeans than Arabs. I think a Caliph had red hair and blue eyes and used dyes in order to look more Arabs. I think that’s the only Saracen/Berbers split I can think of. Otherwise there is nothing to split.
Only thing Arabic about Umayyad Spain was the ruling class and nothing much to say otherwise. Almost similar to how Hindustani works in Indian DLC. Hindustani’s campaign(Babur/Mughal dynasty from Central Asia) and overall theme is about ruling class who is a Muslim but culturally it’s Hindu.
Yeah, I guess the Moors could work as a match-up of Berbers, Arabs and Mozarabs, but I really don’t think Andalusians would work for the Almoravids, since they always ruled from Morocco. Almohads are kind of a different case, but I still think Moors would be more appropriate for them. Andalusians should be strictly limited to the Umayyads of Cordoba, the taifa which emerged whenever the local muslim power crumbled and the emirate of Grenada.
They would need to replace their UT or at least its name, but yeah, it would be perfect. The other option would be streltsy, but they appear a little bit too late.
Moors = Muslims. Perhaps at first it referred only to Muslims in Morocco, but later it was applied by the Portuguese and Spanish to every Muslim they encountered (Swahilis and the Moros of the Philippines for example)
They relied both on local Andalusians and Berber tribes in military campaigns. As said, there military was always heavily multi-ethnic.
Like he pointed out it would be fairly odd to call someone something which they never called themselves by. I still think Saracens deserves a rename and the civ should be called Andalusians. You can have Cordoba Mosque as wonder. Civ can be centered around healing bonus. Siege may be bad. Because Andalusians have poor record of doing bad sieges but good field combat. Time and time bad sieges is primarily the reason why they failed to push/defend themselves to Christians in north during Reconquista.
For Campaign choice other than El Cid continuation, only thing I can think of is Abd-Ar Rahman Ad-Dakhil’s takeover of Spain and defend against Franks/Castile at north and Abbasids from south/inside.
Personal opinion Abd-Ar Rahman Ad-Dakhil itself deserves a series in any media form. I think there was this State Of Fraxinetum rule of south France to some time.
If Saracens are split I won’t accept less than 6 civs to cover all of the empires and dynasties Saracens already perfectly do.
No, they should not be split.
They just should be renamed to Arabs. Saracens is a non-specific exonym that kind of made sense before the introduction of Berbers. Right now they are practically a synonym of Arabs.
The game is not about introducing dynasties but civilisational groups (unlike AOE4 which is a terrible idea). The game is not only about introducing factions for use in multiplayer but for single player, campaigns and mod creation with new stories and content. Narrowing to factions/dynasties is terrible. What is the issue with using some umbrella terms? Arabs would be a suitable tag if the Saracens are renamed ever.
Yes, this Is exactly how I see things. Dynasties and empires was just a bad word choice. The 6 civilizations I was talking about were: Syrians, Iraquis, Bedouins, Yemenis, Egyptians and Andalusians.
And I don’t understand what you’re replying about my comment. I don’t want them to be split.
How are these civilisations in the Middle Ages? In ancient times, maybe ok, Syrians (Amurru, Aramaeans, Egyptians, Libyans, etc) would work. By the Middle Ages, they were either under Byzantines, Arabs or earlier, Persians. Andalusians would be a culture formed by the mix of Berber, Arab and Spanish influences. They do not warrant a separate civilisation. What we need are civilisations like the Armenians, Georgians, Nubians and maybe Somalis, Swahilis.
I’m not a specialist of middle eastern history, but it always felt weird to me to group all non-Turkic muslims into a single civ (Civ 6 also does that).
What can be done is the introduction of new scenario editor buildings, decor and units which scenario makers can use to create campaigns and mods which could help capture the flavour of some of these sub-civilisational groups (Arab Egypt, Andalusia). It would be much more logical then adding civilisations ad-infinitum.
Main issue is Egypt before Arab conquest is under Byzantines and later Saracens.Maybe a copt faction to include both Nubia and Egypt might be a good option.