They have special line of ships which will probably offset this somehow.
Arab just means inhabitant of the desert.
Where do you see that Golden Horde part?
1 Like
The oldest surviving indication of an Arab national identity is an inscription made in an archaic form of Arabic in 328 CE using the Nabataean alphabet, which refers to Imruâ al-Qays ibn 'Amr as âKing of all the Arabsâ. Herodotus refers to the Arabs in the Sinai, southern Palestine, and the frankincense region (Southern Arabia). Other Ancient-Greek historians like Agatharchides, Diodorus Siculus and Strabo mention Arabs living in Mesopotamia (along the Euphrates), in Egypt (the Sinai and the Red Sea), southern Jordan (the Nabataeans), the Syrian steppe and in eastern Arabia (the people of Gerrha). Inscriptions dating to the 6th century BCE in Yemen include the term âArabâ.
The most popular Arab account holds that the word Arab came from an eponymous father named Yaârub, who was supposedly the first to speak Arabic. Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Hamdani had another view; he states that Arabs were called gharab (âwesternersâ) by Mesopotamians because Bedouins originally resided to the west of Mesopotamia; the term was then corrupted into arab.
Yet another view is held by al-Masudi that the word Arab was initially applied to the Ishmaelites of the Arabah valley. In Biblical etymology, Arab (Hebrew: arvi) comes from the desert origin of the Bedouins it originally described (arava means âwildernessâ).
The root Êż-r-b has several additional meanings in Semitic languagesâincluding âwest, sunsetâ, âdesertâ, âmingleâ, âmixedâ, âmerchantâ and âravenââand are âcomprehensibleâ with all of these having varying degrees of relevance to the emergence of the name. It is also possible that some forms were metathetical from Êż-B-R, âmoving aroundâ (Arabic: Êż-B-R, âtraverseâ) and hence, it is alleged, ânomadicâ.
They choose the dates 882 and 1552 as the start and end for the Rus, which includes the period when they were dominated by the Golden Horde. Which make sense for continuity, if they didnât include the golden horde period then kievan rus and grand duchy of muscovy had to be 2 different civilizations. I guess that is one of the reasons they get access to horse archers and the bounty system.
That looks like wishful thinking in my opinion.
I doubt that these horse archers are mongoloid. They are either Slavs directly or Cumans. Its not like archer on a horse was some new idea created by the Mongols. And what has animal bounty hunting system to do with Golden horde? Its more alluding to main merchandise of old Kievan Rus animal furs. If it was some slave hunting than sure I can see a connection.
Golden horde is represented by the Mongols themselves because game ends in 16 century.
1 Like
The Cumans who remained scattered in the prairie of what is now southwest Russia joined the Mongol Golden Horde Khanate, and their descendants became assimilated with local populations including the Mongols (Tatars). The cultural heritage of those CumanâKipchaks who remained was transferred to the Mongols, whose Ă©lite adopted many of the traits, customs, and language of the Cumans and Kipchaks; the Cumans, Kipchaks, and Mongols finally became assimilated through intermarriage and became the Golden Horde. Those Cumans, with the Turko-Mongols, adopted Islam in the second half of the 13th and the first half of the 14th century.
Animal hunting was very important for the mongols, much more than for other civilizations. It was used as a mean of training for their soldiers and was part of their religion.
For centuries, and even nowadays, the Mongols have been skilled hunters, which is directly reflected in their fast-working hunters in AoE2.
I dont think they are even meant to be Cumans honestly. If you look at that model its armour doesnât look Tatar like. It has some common European gambeson etc.
And about that hunting. That all is true but I remember that devs mentioned that Kievan fur trade in some interview or trailer as inspiration before.
1 Like
Iâm not keeping up with the discussion here and so I have no opinion on whoâs right or wrong or anything. I just want to say that this piece of data:
has zero chance of being accurate. Thereâs no way that percentage of people has even played online, let alone ranked 1v1.
He just doesnât realize that AoE2 DE had over 1.5 million copies sold. If 39k have played multiplayer then just 3.3% have ever played multiplayer and 96.7% hasnât. for the 3.3% to be 99% he has to add way more than a few thousands, he has to add more than a million.
Although I would prefer the name âPersiansâ as well, that has always been an incorrect name imposed by outsiders. Iranians have always struggled to be recognized as Iranians and not Persians for a long time, so the correct name should be either Iranians or the name of a dynasty/empire.
3 Likes
Persians and Byzantines are on my top wanted civs.
But the Norsemen/Vikings sound like they would have incredibly fun gameplay mechanics.
Any proof otherwise? What is your basis for that being false?
And where are those million players? Not playing on steam and I highly doubt that 1.4 million people bought it off of MS store instead of Steam. People can buy a game and then never touch it you do realize
Of these, the ones I most hope for are:
1- Portugal;
2- Byzantines;
3- Moors;
4- Habsburgs;
5- Ethiopians.
3 Likes
Not proof, but some evidence, including your own:
Thereâs no concrete/official figure for how many copies DE has sold, but that 1.5 million seems like a pretty fair estimate. Now, some people certainly did buy it to never play it even once, but I doubt those would make up over 95% (1.45m out of 1.5m) of buyers (again, no proof available - same as you - but we gotta use some common sense here). Letâs be very generous and say that two thirds (a million) of the buyers bought it purely for nostalgiaâs sake, just to have it in their library, and never opened the game once. That leaves us with 500k. If players were doing a rotation and that ~11k daily figure was comprised of a completely different set of people every day, it would take 41 days for 90% or more of those 500k to have gone through it.
Divide that percentage by 10 and you have 9%, a much more sensible estimate, which happens to match those 45k people recorded as playing a ranked game on aoe2.net, when compared to a total of ~500k.
Again, thereâs no proof about any of this either way, but it just makes sense that a majority of players of an Age of Empires game would never venture into competitive play when thereâs so much single player content for a casual. Heck, it took me about 2 damn years to make that transition back when the original game was launched.
2 Likes
Definitely match Japanese with Koreans, they have the Imjin Wars. Meanwhile Siamese and Khmer are nemesis.
1 Like
No I mean reusing assets like spoken dialogue and architecture to reduce the amount of work that is required to introduce a new civilization.
Well they can use Russian audio from dark age fĂłr Polish civilisation assuming they use old Slavic.
Also maybe some early architecture and unit design.
Why though? The point of new civs is to make them unique
1 Like
Is this from the official AoE website? Wow there are some BIG inconsistencies⊠Rus were nothing close to a unified state early in the period, and were vassals (slaves) to the Mongols / Golden Horde for much of the later centuries.
Also the Mongols were not a real player in world history throughout the period 1000 -1500 (bizarre round dates?). Mongols were extremely short-lived in history compared to the major civs.
It should also be noted that relatively small England was never an empire, not even a powerful nation in the world at large, between 850 and 1555.
None of these 3 civs (actually, neither HRE, Abbasids or Delhi) can closely match the overall importance of, say, the Turkish Empires from 700 to 1600. Turks ruled Mongols and all of vast Central Asia for several centuries during the early AoE time bracket, and in the decisive last centuries, the (mainly Turkish) Ottoman Empire was the worldâs (I mean the worldâs) top military, economic and gunpowder Power. How can they not be in the game?
1 Like
Is this from the official AoE website?
Yes.
And I almost agree with you in everything else.
The English most powerful period(in the game timeframe) was probably between 1154 and 1214 with the Angevin Empire
But they were not nearly close to the power of the Mongol Empire, or the Abbasid Caliphate or any of the turkish empires.
In last centuries the Spanish Empire was the only one rivaling the Ottomans but sadly they are not in the game either.
1 Like
Thatâs probably correct. In reality England does not merit to be among base 8 civs. Feels phony. Spain has more merit in this timeframe. Honestly compared with amazing AoE 1, 2 and 3, AoE 4 feels so fake and shallow in vanilla civ selection.
Safavid Persia and much later, Russia were constantly attacking Ottomans too. Big respect to Spain!
This Topic is very enlightened, congrats to you man! But why did you begin your list with small Portugal and tiny Navarre?
A few observations:
- Ethiopian Empire was destroyed by Ottoman Empireâs proxy Adal Kingdom in 1543 - Iâd love to see this great African civ
- tough Bulgarian Empire was destroyed by the Ottoman Empire in 1396
- mighty Kingdom of Hungary was destroyed by the Ottoman Empire in 1526 (1699 is out of AoE 4 bounds)
Just a bit of correction, Vietnamese dynasties lasted all the way to 1858 when France came (except a 20 years period that is under occupation of Ming dynasty). In fact, the 15-19th centuries is the period that Vietnam got its peak strength and expanded southward.
Correct me if Iâm wrong but Japan doesnât seem to have any significant connection with Siam in history due to geography. Also, I donât think itâs a must to have a pair in every DLC.