From somewhere, their tendency became more for countries than peoples or ethnicity. A good example is the Lithuanians. There’re other cousin peoples near, but they all have no choice but to be represented as the “Lithuanians”.
The same goes with the Sicilians. They’re even like “Normans” in game.
If they add East European civs mostly associated to Slavs, then I bet the original Slavs will be an umbrella term for them. It must be awkward to take.
If they hadn’t added the Britain but done it today, I think they must’ve named it as “the English”.
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Would have loved to see Lithuanians named as Balts. Naming conventions in AOE2 are weird anyway. You have ethnic groups, smaller kingdoms and specific modern countries in them.
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Would have loved to see Lithuanians named as Balts.
Exactly what I think about the Lithuanians! I truly wondered why they named it so. “The Balts” would be much better considering the original Kings civs like the Teutons or Turks. I think the Spanish and Portuguese also should’ve been like the “Iberians”. Separate identities of them are, I personally regard, more for AOE 3 than 2. I wondered whether Portuguese had different identities just like how other Spanish peoples had each other such as Aragonese, Catalonians.
Since back then it was called “Kingdom of Sicily” i don’t see where something could be wrong. They came as Normans, they ruled as “Sicilians”.
All the other mentioned cases are just speculation.
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If new civ in the game is “Normans”, it should also incorporate some features of Normans in Northern France and some part of British history. Western European Architecture more fit to them.
But they only represents Normans in Sicilia and South Italia, and history description of Sicilians also give some description of pre-Norman Sicilians ruled by Byzantines. It means it is not only Normans but include other ethnic groups of Sicilians and don’t they speak Italians?
I am not expert on that. But there might be some cultural difference between Lithuanians and other baltic people. So “Lithuanians” also make sense.
I am on with you “English” is more fit to them, but they keep their name for 20 years.
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I think they try to appeal to the general public ignorant in history and geography (ignorant not as an insult, but as legitamally not knowing a lot about history or geography).
So while “balts” would have been a more encompasing term to cover a larger group of peoples, many possible customers may not find it as intresting as the historical counterpart of a modern country.
“Balts? What is a balt?”
Lithuanians make much more sense than Balts or Baltic tribes mostly because Lithuanians used cavalry and became really powerful independent county while others were conquered by others.
We can expect to see Monaco 
in the game soon! 