I’m happy to bow to someone else’s superior knowledge – I don’t actually know much about Polish or Lithuanian history. As I said, it was just a guess, and one based on my (apparently incorrect) assumption that Lithuanians were fairly accurate.
I don’t think what devs say in interviews is relevant here. The game itself is presented as if it is (in some sense) historically accurate.
I think you misunderstood what I said. I’m not claiming AoE2 is entirely historically accurate. What I’m saying is that, just by making claims about history, the game is asserting that those claims are true. As an example, suppose I say that Genghis Khan lived to 80 years old. If someone tells me I’m wrong, it would be ridiculous for me to defend myself by saying “I never claimed that what I was saying was historically accurate!” It doesn’t become less ridiculous when it’s a game rather than a person making such claims.
I mean, I think we’re actually on the same page about civ changes. I don’t want existing civs to be changed to be more historically accurate unless it also improves (or has a neutral impact on) gameplay. But that doesn’t mean I think AoE2’s representation of history is above criticism or that its critics should be shouted down.
AoE II is just inspired by history, not material to learn history and I don’t see anything wrong with Polish design - they have Folwark, reference to polish mines of salt, unique technologies are directly from Poland, while we have a lot of civilization that really lacks their spirit from history. They have very distinctive design and fun to play.
If we would focus on history, let’s remove skirmishers from game, because how javelin can deal only 1 damage to a horseman.
That would sharply depend upon the armor of the cavalry/steed, and the strength of the thrower. Heavy armor did work, it was simply expensive. If you will recall, it actually kept up with gunpowder weapons for quite some time.
I think part of the problem comes from a misunderstanding, Skirmishers were never meant to kill heavy cavalry. They were to break the cohesion of units, and possibly to pick off vulnerable soldiers like archers and light cavalry. Now if they could cause a heavy cavalry formation to lose cohesion, that could be the end of that that formation. Napoleon was a master at employing skirmishing tactics.
I like how we went from long lances to skirmishers.
Well, I did not mean throwing javeling at heavy armor, I meant the fact like skirmisher need to throw 45 javelins to kill scout cavalry ( I’m sure his armor isn’t heavy - if he has any ). Same goes for example with elephants. Skirmishers do nothing to elephants in game ( as long as there is no archer on top of him ) despite being effective against them.
And this is actually inaccurate. Skirmishers were used to great success against elephants. (Whilst infantry formations often were completely useless against them)
Skirmishers were mostly ineffective vs cav because of the high speed of the cav, not because of the damage of the spears. It’s basically impossible to target charging cavalry with javelins.
Again, you’re misunderstanding me. I’m not claiming it’s historically accurate. But any game (or book, film, TV series, etc.) with a historical setting necessarily makes claims about that historical setting, and any inaccuracies are potentially misleading, since to a non-specialist player (or reader, or viewer) it won’t be clear what is and isn’t accurate. That’s what I mean when I say it’s presented as if it’s historically accurate. And this is totally unavoidable in anything with a historical setting – even in something obviously nonsensical like, say, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a non-specialist viewer will draw some conclusions about medieval England.
Eh, you gotta choose your battles my man, for the ones that can be won.
I’m always partially sympathetic to threads calling for greater historicity, or for more to be added to civs for the sake of flavor, but these things have been shown to not be prioritized (if they are considered at all). That’s why I’ve almost entirely moved away from requesting game changes (except for balance and bug fixes), and become more interested in civ design, scenario design, and modding, where I actually have the power and means to design freely, rather than challenge the decisions of people who are literally paid to make those decisions.
While everything could be improved, there’s something to be said for biasing your attention towards positive things, for the sake of your own enjoyment. Two people can be equally aware of the limitations/inaccuracies of a game and might wish they’d change, but the person who is less fixated on that and doesn’t take the game so seriously is just a lot more likely to enjoy the game, versus focusing a lot of time and attention on a lost cause.
I don’t fight battles 11 I also don’t want to “win” 11
I think if you do these things you actually already have lost, cause you play a game you have absolutely no control of. And there are people who definetely can do that better than you. Cause they do nothing else and don’t provide anything useful, they just want to win and know how.
Regarding this thread I thought a bit about what people said about arena and the kinda (ofc subjective) positive effect Poles have there. I think also a lot of the other new civs have affected arena. And changed the gameplay there very hard in a short period of time.
I formerly thought that arena players liked the restrictive manner of that map and chose to play it because of that. But probably I have to revise that assumption. Probably it indeed was just the feeling of security to the main eco that lead people enjoy that map more than the more open map types.
As the listed civs with the gimmicks are indeed more arena civs and are less frequently played in the open maps, so the described negative influence there actually occurs in way less than 10 % of the games, it is somewhat acceptable to me. I don’t like it, but as long as the negative experiences don’t exceed a certain threshold it is fine to me.
I would probably even now unban Arena more to see what is no possible, at least with civ pick it is probably now the best time to enjoy that map cause there is now so much more diversity than formerly.
That expression is used pretty broadly, in this case mainly as an encouragement to focus thought and effort where it is most likely to make a difference. Most people who post ideas would prefer that those ideas be considered, or liked, which is the “winning” in this case. There’s room for hypothetical discussion of things that will never be added of course, but even this I find not very interesting compared to actually making something.
Even if they do not change any stat of any unit… I would love if they change at the very least the models of the knight line so they carry a lance instead of a sword…
Every time I see them charging and fighting with a short sword… it just feels off, at the very least is an inmersion breaker…
But then again you get aztecs with trebuchets an full plated heavy infantry, goths with fire arms, Huns with paladins, spanish with no xbow… and I could be here all day long
Poles need redesign of winged hussar. It should be unique upgrade for steppe lancer. Btw steppe lancer should be renamed to just “lancer”. This new winged hussar should be heavy armored lancer. I don’t like what devs did with winged hussar. They are meat shield… . Devs didn’t even get rid of these wings from the regular hussar. If devs do nothing with this what’s the point of introducing winged hussar? They all are “winged” even the Magyar one. I’m waiting for a patch to finally fix poles and other hussar stuff. Poles missing last armor upgrade is a bad joke. Polish cavalary was known for its effective and efficient fight. They didn’t die fast like russian and Turkish infantry thrown as a meat shield so they should have gold cost. Unfortunately aoe team release patches rarely and these patches are dictated by pro players so if they say winged hussar is ok… then unfortunately no change will come.
) despite being effective against them.