Gauls are Celts.
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To start, the civs of AoEO: Celts and Norse and then the civs of 0 AD:
The Celts: They consider ranged weapons as bows only for cowards, excellent in hand-to-hand combat. They are not known for their war machines, nor did they excel in the construction of ships, nor in the siege. They usually build using wood that is fast and cheap but less strong than their solid stone constructions.
Hailing from Northern Europe, the Norse were a strong people that dared to challenge the Roman Empire. Command the extremely aggressive Norse and use their unique ability to build production facilities with their infantry! Wield the powerful Berserker to decimate your enemies’ front lines, or use the ancient Seer to summon a raven that can scout the map. There are endless creative strategy options at your disposal. Join the fight and rule the world with the Norse!
Britons use war dogs and chariots in battle and build crannogs. They also have men with long swords and powerful melee soldiers.
The Gauls possess the first rotary grain mill and the field of infantry and heavy cavalry among Celtic civilizations.
The Iberians: Precursors of the guerrilla art, capable of launching lightning attacks and retreating before their enemy counterattacks. His ground units are some of the fastest in the game, particularly the Balearic Slingers. Harritsu Leku: (with the exception of alluvial plains and river valleys, stone is abundant in the Iberian Peninsula and was widely used in the construction of structures of all kinds). The Iberians start with a precast circle of stone walls. Zaldi Saldoa: (Like Numidia in North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula was known to be a country of horses, capable of breeding up to 100,000 new equines per year.) Reduced the resource cost of training mounted units (cavalry) by 5% for each cornered animal. Saripeko (equipment bonus): (The Iberians were well known for providing mercenaries to other nations to serve as auxiliaries in their armies in foreign wars. Carthage is the best known example and we have evidence of their skill in Aquitaine.) Skirmisher Citizen Infantry/Soldiers and Horse Skirmishers cost -20% to allies. Suzko Txabalina: (the Iberian tribes were known to surround the handles of their throwing spears with grass and wet them with some kind of flammable liquid, to later set them on fire before throwing them). Causes targets hit to ignite and lose hit points at a constant rate until healed or repaired, as applicable. Maisu Burdina Langileak: (The Iberians were known as the best iron and steel producers of their time. The famous Toledo steel attests to this, even today). Metal cost for units and technologies is reduced by 50%. Gur Oroigarri (special building): ‘Reverential monument’. The Iberians were a religious people who built monuments to various gods. These monuments could also serve as family graves. Iberian heroes: Viriatus. Karos. Indibil.
In fact, AoE 2 and AoE 3 overlap from 1421 to 1598 since TAD in 2007…before that it’s just AoE 2 and after that it’s just AoE 3 exclusively…you’ll never see the 100 Years War in AoE 3 nor will you ever see the 30 Years War in AoE 2…
No late antiquity civs like Huns
Iberians, Gauls, Marcomanies/Suebi (Germans), Etruscan, Thracians, Celts, Picts… any of them would be a good option
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Many people concentrate here on late antiquity, but I would like to point out again that the AoE1 spans the early and late stone age (palaeolithic is the stone age, meso and Neolithic is the tool age), the bronze age and the iron age (ends around 500 BC).
While Germans were famous enemies of Rome, Rome didn’t become a prominent city-state in Iron Age, only in middle antiquity. And Germans, along with Slavs and other proposed civs, were prominent only in late antiquity.
Regarding Gauls, Gauls brings a more Roman-centric late-antiquity perspective to Celts, but Celtic culture was prominent culture (not state or empire like Assyrians, but a culture like Greeks or Phoenicians) in neolithic and bronze age, and spanned a significant proportion of Europe.
I am not sure I would split Celts that much, Greeks or other culture groups unless they were very prominent (Spartans weren’t really that different from other Greeks).
Scythians or Cimmerians is a good pick, they were known historically from Greeks and Romans (Scythians), or from Assyrians (Cimmerians). Very similar cultures, although technically different. Pick one (Scythians are more famous) and don’t split.
Umbri, Samnites, Ligurians, Apulians etc. are just different Italic tribes (so are Romans BTW.). We are not going for every Bronze-Age city-state either, despite Ur, Uruk, Eridu etc. being much more prominent. Adding Italics would be however good fit in the same manner as Phoenicians - Carthage, we would have Italics - Romans. This would add us quite lot of flavour for Roman-oriented missions.
Etruscans might also be an interesting pick, as they are different culture than Italics, Etruscan language is an isolate, not Indo-European (like everything else around). But not sure they would be THAT different to neighbouring Italic tribes.
Illyrians and Thracians might also be interesting pick. Both would be a good stand-off fore Dacians, but unlike Dacians, Illyrians and Thracians are describing wider culture group, rather than a single tribe or small group of tribes. Both had some bronze-age interaction with Greeks as well, and Illyrians were famous pirates.
Slavs, Bulgars, Balts, Huns (other than Xiongu and more prominent in the East), any many others are WAY out of the time and date, or not prominent in the described time-period.
So my pick would be:
“Barbarians”: Celts, Germans (not specifically Goths, but a wider culture group, not like they were that distinguishable anyway, prominent, or documented in bronze-age), Illyrians and Thracians
“Civilised”: Italics
“Horse nomads”: Scythians/Cimmerians, Xiongnu (asian architectonic set)
Using this set, you would get tools to represent with relatively high detail various situations in Bronze and Iron-Age Italy, and many Roman expansions, without having to have 5 different civs fr barely different Celtic, Italics or Germanic tribes, given that we would be quite limited by written knowledge about them, and Romans and Greeks tended to lump all these barbarians together, or not describe them in a great detail.
At the same time, we would not make AoE1 (or technically, AoE2:ROR) into only Roman, European and Late Antiquity game, since many Middle-Eastern Bronze Age civilisations play much more prominent role in AoE1.
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And Palmyra what? It’s a late ancient civ (if you count them as Palmyrene Empire), plus any civ from before 373 AD could go into AoE 1…
Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history covers all continents inhabited by humans in the period 3000 BC – AD 500. The three-age system periodizes ancient history into the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age, with recorded history generally considered to begin with the Bronze Age. The start and end of the three ages vary between world regions. In many regions the Bronze Age is generally considered to begin a few centuries prior to 3000 BC, while the end of the Iron Age varies from the early first millennium BC in some regions to the late first millennium AD in others.
Celts enter the game for sure…
I like Etruscans as a civ and they did a lot against the Romans in their rise…
Yes, which is why we have several Middle Eastern civs in the game represented in the game: Sumerians (4500-2000 BC), Assyrians (2000-600 BC), Babylonians (2000-500 BC), Egyptians (3000-30 BC). and Palmyrans (260-273 AD) without counting the great empires that conquered these civilizations, such as the Persian (550-330 BC) and the Macedonian (330-63 BC)…
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Rise of Rome was seriously pushing it. Carthage, Romans, Palmyrans and Macedonians belong into Antiquity and were pushing it quite significantly, compared to other AoE1 civs, which were often more predominant in the Bronze age with a few Iron Age civs.
Greeks and Phoenicians were mostly Iron Age civ, but heavily influential in that period and known in Bronze Age as well, Assyrians had a few Bronze Age successes, but its most famous one success was in Iron Age.
So Rome, Carthage, Macedon and Palmyra are quite out of place. Palmyra empire existed only for 13 years anyway, and their only notable success is that they originated as a rebellious region from Rome and wrecked one Roman army, only to be wrecked hard and dismantled afterwards.
(and don’t get me started about ROR’s Carthaginian navy, which sucks compared to Phoenician. Carthago was famous naval power, yet Rome not Carthage get siege ships, something Carthage could use when actually transforming their naval advantage into land gains)
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Well Rise of Rome was to fill the gap in the Late Iron Age (300 BC-500 AD) before focusing on the Middle Ages with AoE 2…you can’t have a game in Antiquity and not have Rome and Carthage in it (the Phoenicians were good navigators and had a good navy and some of that inherited Carthage as a Phoenician colony, which instead were more focused on African elephant cavalry, because in fact Carthage IS an African civ)…
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Tbh I think going for more European civs in return of rome in particular is a mistake, as the game already has a huge focus on Italy and its immediate surroundings. I’d rather see something like India’s various cultures be featured, or a focus on the horn of Africa and Arabian peninsula.
Grizzly: Unfortunately, more people are interested in Rome, its struggles and enemies, than something like Harrapans.
Strongly disagree, RoR barely has European civs compared to the rest of the games so it won’t be a “mistake” to add a few more that aren’t from the Mediterranean area. There’s too many Middle Eastern/Mediterranean civs than Western/Central European ones, why the hell do we have missions like Trajan 2 and 3 where Macedonians are used for Dacians instead of having a proper one? Or even the original Roman ones that aren’t in the game right now where Assyrians or any unrelated civs were used. That seems out of place so much…
It’s not unfortunate that people “aren’t interested” outside of Europe, there’s potential candidates out of Europe but the lack of “barbarian” ones in AoE1 is bizzare while AoE2 has them (Celts, Goths and Huns). Civs like Kushites, Numidians, Guptas, Mauryans (I’m 100% sure I’m not using the right ones for the Indian subcontinent) can be added alongside the western/central Europan civs that aren’t in the game at all.
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I would go for general civs just like the other regions.
Scythians, Etruscans, Boii, Celtiberians/Lusitanians.
Because those were the most important in archaic europe.
The Celtiberians/Lusitanians will fit between Rome, Carthage, Greeks and Phoenicians. The sailors that went through the mediteranean and in Spain encountered the civilization Celtiberians. The Iberians were a unique folk, where as today only the Bask are left. And in many regions they mixed with the new celts. They are famous for their metallurgy, early swords and hillforts. Rome copied their swords. And Carthage hired them as mercenaries.
The Scythians, a nomadic steppe folk would be an umbrella civ for all the steppe civilizations from eurasia. From Parthians, Roxolani, Sarmatians, Caucasians and many others. Scythians would be a divide since they are the archaic ‘mother’ of these civs.
They would have to tell the tale of the (proto-)indo-europeans, their ability to invent the wheel, the chariot and the cavalryman. But then we would need a chariot skirmisher added to the game as a pre-chariot, which was historically probably the first form of chariot fighter. A light chariot that threw spears.
Besides that the Scythians are famous for trade, and for their metallurgy in Bronze age and gave them early access to iron metallurgy too through trade. But Bronze age was their real peak.
The Boii are the continental celts of central and eastern europe. The Indo-Europeans through Yamnaya came from the east and took over europe with their chariots. Then the tribes formed and came to be. The Boii are the late archaic celtic tribe that kind of conquered central and eastern europe. Fighting against the german tribes, italic tribes, illyrian, dacian and other tribes. Mostly famous for their chariot use.
It is for people who are interested in bronze-age civs outside of Europe.
If you look at the scope of AoE1, it is not bizarre. It is quite obvious.
AoE1 takes the classical bronze-age and iron-age civs from middle-east, “the cradle of civilizations”. Goths, Huns and the most prominent portrayal of Celts is way of the scope. Huns and Goths didn’t become relevant until after the iron age.
Huns arrived to Europe only around 4th century AD. To contrast with Assyrians, who came about 2600 BC and lasted till around 600 BC.
Basically, it is not bizarre that AoE1 does not include Celts, Goths, and Huns, as most of them are well outside of the AoE1 timeframe, and the late antiquity was in AoE2 timeframe, which covers the period of late antiquity, so-called dark age, up to renaissance, with early gunpowder weapons.
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The lack of barbaric civ is problem if you have campaigns with them and they are represented there as such as Yamato, Assyrians, Greek, Carthage and Phoenicians while they should be Celts. I didn’t know that brittanic celts used war elephants, but in Caesar campaign it could happen because of that.
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DapperTrout1297: I don’t necessarily disagree, see my post: Which factions do you thinks should be added to Europe in RoR? - #25 by Colombo
But this is basically a self-inflicted problem of the Rise of Rome expansion that pushed the timeline to early Antiquity (500 BC and onwards) for what was previously neolithic to an iron age timeline (roughly 15 000 BC to 500 BC).
Uh… what? We only have one civ from Italy and no civs from areas bordering Italy directly. Are you refering to Carthaginians and yhe Hellenic civs? If so I’d say the game focuses more on Greece/the Mediterranean, though the main focus of the game is still the Middle East (half of the civs come from here).
Well, I plan to do polls from other areas of the world in the next few weeks/months, but Europe came first in my poll about which area of the world should be focused on first (which is probably a better thread to give your opinion on this specific matter) so I started from there.
I think you should wait for the results of another future poll to say that. Harrapans will most likely be one of the two Indian civs with the highest score 
Hu… I think they are far more of an Iron Age civ, their span across Europe and as far as Anatolia only started in the 6th century BC and they are strongly associated with the European Iron Age. Some of the areas most associated with Celts were actually Roman for as long if not longer than they were Celt.
I think “Italics” alongside Romans and possibly Etruscans would confuse many players, as the name is also strongly associated with the peninsula. I would personally name and design them after the Oscans/Samnites to avoid confusion.
I mean, not that I disagree entirely (the game isn’t really good at portraying anything beyond the Hellenistic period, which aside from naming convention is represented as a part of the Iron Age in game) but RoR is still the best thing we have to portray anything from the Ancient Era, up to Late Antiquity (which you seem to use to talk about a far longer time period than what it’s usually used for). Aldo, not that I disagree about the scope of Rise of Rome being somewhat clunky, but some OG East Asian civs were stretching even further…
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Have you paid attention what units you can make in Iron Age? These units are clearly post 500 BC. Ballista, catapults, cataphracts, phalangite etc…
To be honest AoE1 Iron Age is more like up to 200 AD. Not to mention that Age of Empires series age names aren’t most accurate anyway.
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quote=“Temudhun, post:36, topic:232782”]
Uh… what? We only have one civ from Italy and no civs from areas bordering Italy directly. Are you refering to Carthaginians and yhe Hellenic civs? If so I’d say the game focuses more on Greece/the Mediterranean, though the main focus of the game is still the Middle East (half of the civs come from here).
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Technically (and only technically): Phoenicians settled a significant portion of Sicily before Greeks even showed up. Greeks settled a significant portion of Italy, called “Magna Grecia” – “The Big Greece”. Greece is also in Europe, so Greeks and Macedonians would be there. So technically, counting Carthaginians who were the prominent Phoenician city-state with influence on Sicily, and also Phoenicians themselves, we have 5 different European civs (Greeks, Macedonians, Romans, Phoenicians, Carthaginians). Depending how much we want to count Hittite and Persian influence.
You are right, I have to correct myself. The neolithic blurb is blatant nonsense, and even the Bronze Age might be pushing it. Indo-European languages in Europe are all derived from Yamnaya culture, which dates to 3300 BC, which is way out of Neolithic and closer to the Bronze Age.
Proto-Celtic culture could then be dated to late bronze age (from around 1200 BC) and Celts emerge only in the Iron Age at 800 BC.
Although they were plenty influential, the Celtic expansion is thought to be more cultural expansion, rather than expansion of peoples or conquest. And they had a significant influence on Greeks, Romans, and all people in Europe. But you are right that it is more Iron Age and Antiquity.
Man, but it is the correct name, and we already have a precedent with Phoenicians-Carthaginians, and Greeks-Macedonians (both which are plenty confusing). So Italics-Roman just clearly fits into this trend. And the connection with the peninsula is also correct, that’s why we call the ancient people Italics.
Since people called about proper representation of nations (instead having Gauls represented as Assyrians etc)., I think this is the most correct way, we will have Italics city-states and Greeks city-states in Italy. They can have different names and affinities.
And again, I am not fan of picking a single small tribe and putting it into the game. Aside from ROR, we had quite big long-lasting influential civilizations. Compare this to a single tribe is eh…
Hmm?
You are probably right here. I have no clue about East Asian civs, so I try to not talk about them. I listened to History of China podcast and it was quite a bit confusing to me. Just too much stuff happening there I have no clue about. At least I can put Assyrians, Hi####### Cimmerians, Skythians, Babylonians, Minoans, Phoenicians, Egyptians on a map, and probably in a correct time-frame as well. I have no clue about East Asian civs, how they dressed, how they looked, and what time-periods they occupied.
Basically what I am saying is, lets not get that route, where we will try to represent every single tribe that Caesar or Tacitus ever wrote about. Lets get a sober representation, where we try to represent correctly wider cultural groups. Because we can probably distinguish the difference between fighting style of Assyrians and Phoenicians, but even Romans didn’t see much difference between Celts and Germans (and their historical treaties creates some confusion to this date), trying to represent different tribes would be horrible, and honestly not fitting into such long time-period. And representing only single tribe Celtic/Germanic/Italic tribe would IMHO not make such long-lasting and influential cultures like Phoenicians, Egyptians or Assyrians justice.
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Well, yes. If you want me to start complain about complete ahistoricity of weapon systems, mixing styles from different ages etc., I am up for it. In fact, I already wrote a small rant on reddit.
But this not place to talk about it. Feel free to come to r/aoe and find my post.
Right. I mean more in the terms of campaigns: All of Rise of Rome’s campaigns are focused on the Romans (where you either play as them or their antagonists). Return of Rome adds another Roman campaign, and they’re a huge player in the Pyrrhus campaign as well. I realise they’re not very well fleshed out when it comes to actual civilisations, but I’m somewhat wary of adding any civilisation to the game when their campaign is inevitably going to be about their relation to Rome. AoE1 covers a huge timeframe and I think it’s a shame when a lot of the focus of the storytelling is focusing on an era that’s also covered quite a lot in other fiction, be they games, books or films.
I somewhat agree, I would have loved some Macedonian campaigns about some of the Diadochi doing stuff unrelated to the Romans for instance, but the devs at the time decided to go all-in on Romans.
That being said, Rise of Rome didn’t have the OG game’s content 
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