Outremers/Poulains (Kingdom of Jerusalem, Principalty of Antioch…)
All of them!
None
I don’t know
I don’t care
Other(s)
0voters
And how many of those civs do you want to see in game?
1-2
3-4
5-6
7-8
9+
All of them!
None
I don’t know
I don’t care
0voters
New saturday, new poll. The Mountain Royals has made my old poll obsolete by including the two favorites into the game, but the region might still have some potential in the near or (most probably) distant future.
A few precisions aside from the usual (I’m not an expert, please be courteous, most of you know the drill by now):
Civs in square brackets are umbrellas that a new civ might be split from. Turks, Tatars and Cumans are a little bit of a headache to work with in this case, as many of those civs can be seen as splits from at least two of them. In most of those cases, I’ve decided to group them under the “Turkic” name to make things simpler.
Onogurs is the name of a tribe which both Balkan Bulgarians and Volga Bulgars originated from. It might be too specific, but I can’t find a perfect name for the Volga Bulgars that doesn’t sound too close to the current Bulgarians.
I tried to avoid using dynasty names as much as possible, but sometimes I didn’t have any other way. Some people may want to see the Sasanians and Safavids represented separately (especially since they are height century and a half apart with arguably no fully Persian dynasty between them and had completely different armies and religious beliefs) but I can’t think of any demonym to differenciate them as they could both be called Persians or Iranians. As for the Timurids and Ilkhanids, they formed multiethnic empires, which makes things complicated if you want a civ specifically designed after either of them.
On the other hand, I’m quite satisfied with the Anatolians representing the Ottomans and other Oghuz people from the same region and Turkmens being the earlier Oghuz Turks who mostly settled in Iran and the Levant. But feel free to suggest other names.
The current Armenians mostly represent Cilicia, both in their tech tree and their campaign, but when I thought about splitting Bagratid Armenia and Cilicia I quickly realised that the Bagratids should probably keep the name “Armenians” (which would also cover the Ancient Arsacid Kingdom of Armenia) but it wouldn’t make sense to put a civ with this name in the poll again. So Cilicians are the ones being featured, even though they would probably be mostly unchanged in case of a split.
I recently discovered that the Ghaznavids might have had Karluk origins, and I couldn’t find much informations about the political organization of early Karluk people, so I’ve decided to use the name Karluk to represent this dynasty.
In any case, if you think you have better candidates but also better ideas about how to name a civ or any correction to make, don’t hesitate to point it out in the comments or in DM.
It has been brought to my attention that I made a mistake: The state I wanted to used as an example for the Iraqi civ was the Abbasid Caliphate but I put the Umayyads twice instead.
I feel like a lot of these are already covered by other civs (though I do think there would be merit in a Saracens split) but an earlier Turkic civ in central Asia is needed. Tatars are later Turkic (and are somewhat Mongol influenced), and the Turks civ is very much Ottoman influenced.
Well, yeah, pretty much everyone in the region can already be covered by an existing civ. There’s a reason why almost no one here is without square brackets. That being said, some civ splits are still in order imo.
Gokturks fit the South Siberian Turkic niche (plus Uighurs, Rourans, Oghuz, etc.) and could easily have a campaign/civ design centered around when they invaded the Sui Dynasty in China.
Khazars are a natural progression for the Western Turkic Khaganate, representing Central Asia on the west Caspian coast (roughly modern Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia) prior to Islamicization. Their campaign potential is solid, focusing either on repelling the Umayyads in the 7th century or the Jewish rulers Aaron II and Joseph up until Sviatoslav I brought their demise.
Avars are a bit tricky here because of the major differences between the Pannonian and Caucasian realms; I think FE/Microsoft would opt for the former due to much interaction with Byzantines, Lombards, Bulgarians, and Southern Slavs. Bayan definitely needs a campaign, just so we can have the destruction of the Gepids and humbling other Byzantine enemies. Add on a mission or two at the end for Bayan III’s reign (including the siege of Constantinople in 626) for good measure.
Khitans are pretty well-known here, representing the northern Liao Dynasty of China and the Western Liao following Jurchen conquests. Ideal campaign choices include Abaoji (Taizu of Liao) and Taizong (Great Liao) uniting the Khitans to found Liao and expand it, conquering Later Jin in the process, or the reign of Shengzong during which they forced the Song Dynasty and Goryeo to pay tribute or face conquest.
Alans have a bit of the Avars’ problem with geopolitical disparity between the Vandal Kingdom and Alania proper. Campaigns focusing on either polity work great due to many adjacent civs and distinct time periods–Western Romans and Berbers in the 5th century or Georgians and Alania’s later Christianization and collaboration with Georgia. FE could go for a Gaiseric campaign, using Alans for the Vandal Kingdom in turn, while giving some nods to later Alania in the civ’s design. (On reflection, this doesn’t give enough credit to a standalone Vandals campaign starring the Big G, and Goar/Resplendial have enough historic info to justify a contemporary Alans story, likely in the same DLC.)
Afghans are hard to pin down, but occupy the same general area controlled by the Saffarids, Ghaznavids, and then Ghurids among later empires. Since the Prithviraj campaign already features the Ghurids as antagonists, I think going with Ghaznavids avoids redundancy. Mahmud of Ghazni also had as much of a military chronicle as Muhammad of Ghor, but with more socio-political dealings to add flavor. No matter what, I hope such a civ can balance both Pashtun and Turkic aspects of this historic period.
Sogdians, meanwhile, already fit into umbrella civs at different points in time: the Sasanians in late antiquity, then a succession of familiar Central Asian empires (like the Ghaznavids and Ghurids!). Samarkand and both halves of Khorasan had a regional identity all to their own, sure, but their military presence was almost always determined by the ruling empire. At most, I could suggest basing this on the Kara-Khanid Empire (which also represents Karluks), which mainly controlled Transoxania and its hinterlands while fending off the Seljuks, Ghaznavids, and Kara Khitai. They were ethnically Turkic, but very culturally Persianized/Islamicized. (Ironically, the best-known historic Sogdian, An Lushan, was a Chinese rebel and usurper, far from the region his parents hailed from.)
While I’m a fan of the Himyarites, I doubt they’d have enough material for a good campaign or distinct civ design. Yemen afterward then joined the Islamic sphere, culminating in power under the Rasulid Dynasty who really didn’t have much of a military history until the bitter end. At most, the Himyarites might play like Byzantines In Arabia, given what’s speculated about their armies, and that seems redundant.
Of the remaining top civ choices I’m seeing, there’s a bunch that could work if there’s ever a Saracen split. I’m of the opinion that such a split isn’t necessary or easy to do in one DLC, though (much like splitting Vikings or Teutons), so it’s a long shot. Pechenegs were a fearsome opponent to the Magyars and influenced much of the Balkans/Black Sea region, but they’re not too different from the Cumans/Kipchaks from a civ design perspective. The Kurdish states mostly got bodied by the Seljuks, but I’m partial to the Rawadid Dynasty in Azerbaijan/NW Iran; Abu Mansur Wahsudad fought off many competing Turkic/Persian raiders before ultimately losing to the Turkomen. Every other suggestion either seems like repeats or minor variants of these peoples/powers which lack favorable odds for nearly any DLC.
Still, it’s nice that the poll covers all these options, even the Crusader states. If I were being optimistic, FE could do 2-3 more DLCs for West/Central Asia, one splitting the Saracens and the other(s) adding major new civs.
I would prefer Goar for the Alanic campaign. While this was after his reign, the campaign could end with yet another perspective on the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields, this time from the Alans’ perspective (the Roman perspective was in Rise of Rome, while the Hunnic perspective was in The Conquerors).
I like the Alans because they aren’t really covered very well by any other civs, they also already appear in a few campaigns, honestly they should have been included in The Mountain Royals
They also extend trough a lot of the game’s timeline, from the very beginning with the migrations to the Roman empire because of the Huns to their fall to the Mongols in the Caucasus almost 1000 years later, this might make their design difficult, but it has been done with civs like the Turks that have both Seljuk and Ottoman characteristics
Goar works, especially alongside Genseric for the Vandals if they’re given their own civ. You could have the Crossing of the Rhine as an opening mission, setting up the Vandals’ story in turn while introducing players to Goar and Respendial. The final mission (Catalaunian Fields) would have to feature Sangiban, and mission 2 should revolve around Respendial settling his troops in Hispania, but the other 3 can feature Goar fighting for Jovinus, then defecting from the Visigoths at the Siege of Bazas, and finally redeeming a land grant for the Alans against the wishes of Gallic Romans. Narrator would be Sarosius, a 6th-century Alanic king leading the people in Ukraine and playing go-between for the Avars, Hepthalites, and Byzantines; he’d have a lot to say about his far-flung predecessors.
Cool ideas but I’d rather use vandals for Genseric and the vandal kingdom while leaving Alans covering more the Caucasus region hence their later incarnation of Alania. Only because otherwise vandals would be without material to work with.
I’ve already agreed that the Vandals are worthy of their own hero campaign–no need to worry about them.
It’s vexing how little we know about rulers of Alania. Heck, there’s more usable history for Alanian princes and princesses married to neighboring sovereignties than de facto kings of the Caucasian Alans. So any campaign set in their golden age will likely just be Tamar 2: Electric Boogaloo, starring her husband David Soslan (whose exploits already form the bulk of the Georgian missions). Even if I wanted to make a custom campaign about Alania repelling the Ummayads during their Khazar vassal years, I’ve got just one person to base it around (Itaz) about whom there’s no info (and lack of sourcing on the Wikipedia page worries me too).
Yeah nobody could care enough to keep records of Alans. They’re in a similar position to many African civs before 1400 in regards to campaigns.
But if you can give a campaign to Avars I think it’s possible to do something with Alans too.
Bit surprised to see Khitans listed here, as I would put them closer to the Sino-sphere. But I voted for them anyway, as I really want to see them in the game.
The Khitans from what I have read focused much more in heavy cav than most steppe peoples but were outclassed in that regard by the Jurchen so since you cant add two heavy cav civs in the same DLC (ideally) and they would come togheter in a DLC most probably I wonder what would be the best approach to designing them
You just gave me the idea that a potential Sino-sphere DLC could add the Fire Lancer as like a Castle Age pre-evolution to the Hand Cannoneer for Chinese, Jurchens, Khitans & Tanguts, and when you upgrade to Chemistry, all the civs with Hand Cannoneer access have their Fire Lancers upgraded.
