I’m sure you’re right, and I find it weird that Sicilians were not called Normans instead. On the other hand, I’m not bothered by it personally – whereas I would be bothered by Italians being renamed Genoese, since we’d then have loads of instances in campaigns of a civ called Genoese representing non-Genoese Italians.
That’s probably true, although the hand cannoneers and bombard cannons don’t suit either, and the only Anglo-Saxon-looking thing about the Huskarl is his shield.
This is generally something AoE2 doesn’t try to do, and the ages seem to be purely figurative. Basically every unique unit becomes available in the Castle Age, regardless of when it appeared in history. The fact that, for example, you have to build a castle before you can get berserks is pretty silly when you think about it. And we now have a c. 12th century long swordsman upgrading to a c. 4th century legionary!
I figured out some time ago that the ages most likely represent stages of cultural development as demonstrated in growth of cities.
The Dark Age represents the nomadic period of a town, the Feudal Age represents the period where a town is formed but is still relatively small and mostly focused on agriculture, the Castle Age represents the beginning of organized military growth and the creation of religious and educational institutions, and the Imperial Age represents the peak of a town’s growth where its wealth and resources are at its maximum.
This is a nice interpretation, but since I’m English, in my head the Castle Age will always start in 1066, when the Normans rocked up and castle-dropped and knight-rushed the Anglo-Saxons.
Nah, keep them the way they are as a legacy civ. They’re fine.
Examples?
Nothing. The Vikings are pre-Christian Norse, while the Swedes or Swedish or whatever are the Christian people of Sweden long after the Viking era ended.
All African civs are umbrellas. Even if they’re named after specific groups of people, the devs thought it would be a great idea to use them to represent as many different people as possible.
I personally never understood this “it’s already in the game so don’t fix it even if it’s wrong” mentality especially towards legacy stuff. Ensemble made a lot of mistakes, I don’t see the merit of keeping them in just because Ensemble made them.
And it’s not exclusive to ES content. Even pre-DOI Indians had people who didn’t want them to be split.
I guess we should. I think every single historically dubious decision that the original ES devs made should be preserved, if for no other reason to act as a reminder of how bizarre the original game was in terms of historicity or lack thereof. The only one I’d be okay with changing is the Woad Raider, getting a rename and reskin, since it wasn’t even medieval at all.
Totally not, it does not make any sense, to let be a historically very wrong game inthe way like it is for soon 24 years.
The developers have been adding constant updates for over 3 years, to improve the game in its original state, but also to bring more historical correctness into the game and fixing many technical errors in the code.
The Woad Rider of the Celts does not have to be medieval at all, because the game also covers Antiquity as an time age. Apart from that, the Celts do not fit into the game as a civ name, as I have already pointed out in other topics. In the ages of Age of Empires 2, the Celts as a civ, have long since disappeared.
It does make sense if you want it to still be Age of Empires II.
To change it now would be to let a totally different game pretend to be AoE2 while puppeting around its corpse.
I’m okay with minor changes that make the game even better. What I am NOT okay with is fundamentally changing original civs in a way that ruins their identity.
I’d like to have more Berber civilizations but I don’t think Andalusians should be added as they are not a Specific civilization of the middle age. If I am not mistaking Andalusians were all the Muslims living in Andalousia (whatever they were Arabs or Berbers).
Also, I would like to see more Siberian Cvilisations (which could be somehow mixed with Central Asian Civilisations, for Exemple Kyrgyz are coming from Siberia).
In the Modern Russia, there are still so many Ethnicities, that it could be interesting to investigate about their role in the middle age and include them in AOE2.
Well I do not want play a very strong faulty game with ugly graphics from 1999 in its original state definitely not. There is a reason, why Microsoft made a HD and a Definitive Edition of the game, to improve the game and not leave it of the ruined 1999 state.
The game still remains Age of Empires 2, albeit greatly improved. You still see the same graphics and units also at the adding of new civs.
From that what I have read, you do not want that the Slavs rename to the Rus, Kievan Rus or Ruthenians. So a renaming of the Slavs would never ruin the identity as a civ from the important technical view of the case.
Slavs are not an original civ. I only want the ones made by Ensemble Studios to remain relatively unchanged. The ones from The Forgotten and onwards are in a lower class of civ in my eyes.
Bug fixing is not the same as removing or fundamentally changing an entire civ from the original release and you know it.
The “greatly improved” part is questionable. I wouldn’t say a game that has little respect for the content that existed in it originally to be “greatly improved.”
