sure. I was saying than Rashidun with Mubarizun as heavy infantry or horsemen (but apparently with what you are saying heavy infantry seems better). And another unique unit about camel, if they were used by Rashidun, would be an interesting design of civilization if it works.
Like I said, I know than camel were used in early Arabs conquest (over persia, etc). But no clue if used by Rashidun.
It’s more about speculating about designing a camel civ which is not a big stretch like abbasids
Fair enough. Also, wiki says this " Though only part of the Rashidun army was actual cavalry, the entire army was camel mounted for movement." but again, it’s wiki, so it’s hard to confirm but sounds reasonable. Basically, they only used camels to march the army.
Since we have the Delhi Sultanate and the Abbasids, it seems AoE4 is basically going to split up the Indians and Saracens from AoE2 into many civs.
AoE2 has 35+ civs, and AoE4 supposedly is supposed to have asymmetric civs (though we haven’t seen what that means yet). In a world where the Dehli Sultanates are marketed with Elephants as a unique unit supposedly crucial to their asymmetry and the Abbasids are marketed with Camels as a unique unit supposedly crucial to their asymmetry, it is magical thinking to believe that AoE4 will have even more civs than AoE2 and deliver on its promise of asymmetry.
The term Dark Ages cant really be used for places like Germany, most of North Eastern Europe and even England etc because its not like there were any advanced Light ages with written history there before.
So even when we use old meaning of that word it DOESNT applies for half of the Europe anyway.
I have a feeling that people did not understand the point of the author of this topic. He does not say that the Abbas did not exist or that their addition is a terrible mistake. It literally tries to express the opinion in the title that there are better candidates for historical campaigns in this area. I don’t know much about Middle Eastern history, but his arguments come in handy. Is sad that it turned into a stupid debate about the existence of the building. @newaoeiiiai thanks for interesting topic
Does the abbasid caliphate even feature in a campaign in this game?
Seems like the campaigns we know of might not even include them.
Regardless, a lot of the most important events in medieval History were in some part influenced by the Abbasids, and Saladin even aligned his Sultanate with the abbasids while he was vizier.
The abbasids were incredibly important technology-wise, inventing windmills and water mills.
I am happy to see them, and under their banner we could see many potential campaigns from the various sultanates and factions within the caliphate.
They’ll probably appear in the Mongol one.
Yea most probably. That was like the most important part of the entire Mongol Conquest thing alongside with the Chinese campaigns.
That was almost a thousand years later tho, and is almost out of the AOE II or IV timeline. Anyway that “golden age” terminology is kind of inaccurate and oversimplified by default.
Again no Japan and Korea in the main game, even though they are the main actors of the most important events taking place in eastern Asia in this time-span.
Not mentioning their uniqueness and cultural complexity.
So in AOE employees minds, Russians were more important… Russians that were absolutely non-significant in that era.
In eastern Europe, the main powers were Polish, Magyars and Turks.
Why isn’t Microsoft hiring actual historians when doing history games?
They don’t have Byzantium in the main game, the biggest empire at this time period. If they make many dlc, most of the civs/empires will appear. With the same logic Americans will be upset because not any American empire appeared, Africans also the same etc. Whatever Empire if they had picked, there would be some people very upset. To all these I can only say, be patient and just wait.
Practically the north-east and middle-east europe, for most of this period were all the Byzantium Empire.
Byzantium Empire disapeared in 1453.
I said Polish Magyars and TURKS were the most important because Turks eradicated Byzantine empire and took over it. If u talk about Byzantine empire, u talk about the period before the Ottoman empire. Eastern Europe history before Ottoman empire had small to none events happening, nothing important.
Yes, but TURKS practically wasn’t an Empire before. Moameth union the tribes after 1400. For AoE4, period after 1400, is a part of the imperial age. Thinking of this, it is very unlike to added as an Empire at all in AoE4.
PS: The crusaders practically destroyed the power of Byzantium at 1204 when they conquer their capital. After that the period till 1453 was a period of declined.
Sure, but the point is not that to include empires at all, the game name is just symbolic, not even 15% of civilizations in AgeOfEmpires2 were empires at that time or at all.
This game is about educating kids history in a fun and interactive way.
That means this game is about important events, important battles, important decisions that people should learn about.
None of them happened before 1400 in eastern Europe and nothing special related to Byzantium.
Also there is little to no information about 400-1200 period in eastern Europe due to the fact of not writing down what happened by the scribes at that time, Dark ages was the name of the period for a reason.
The rise of moscow campaign is focused around a group of people that were subjigated by the mongols for most of the medeval period, only near the very end does Kievian Rus become an independent kingdom of any significance. They could easily do something for the Turks as they grow towards the mighty ottoman empire and capture the famed city of constantinople.
This is an important and irrefutable observation @Malloxfire.
I do believe it’s highly likely they are saving Turks (and also Byzantines) for a bombastic DLC with Constantinople Campaign because of commercial strategy. It’s a bit risky launch though.
More than that. In late AoE4 timeframe - what really matters here - Turks were the major power in East/Southeast Europe, in Asia Minor / Anatolia, the Holy Land, North Africa, the Middle East (together with Persians), the Caucasus etc.
If you consider other Turkic peoples, which is absolutely possible +arguable here, Turks also dominated Central Asia, South Russia and Western China.
Because they’re going to fight the Mongols.
@newaoeiiiai
Congrats. This is one of the most interesting, thoughtful topics around here. Yes it often does seem the Abbasid Dynasty was incompetent in battle. If you are military-minded, yes Turks do look way more powerful than Abbasids overall within 700-1500.
But AoE is so special because it’s not only about smashing and slaying. It’s about Civilization. It’s about building Wonders.
In 1280, Arabs under the Abbasid Caliph (NOT China, not Europe) invented the rocket. The world’s first explosive gunpowder weapon.
In 1360, Abbasid Muslim gunsmiths /gun engineers (NOT China, not Europe) invented the bombard in Cairo, changing siege forever. Contrary to AoE4 depiction, China had NO bombards at all.
During the Golden Age of Islam, Abbasids had the world’s most advanced mathematics, made the most discoveries and bestowed gigantic gifts of knowledge to humankind. European Rennaissance was partly based on the math & science works and translations of the Abbasids.
The Abbasid Caliphate also left a legacy that’s far greater than any bloody battle in history, something that didn’t exist in Europe and China: TOLERANCE.
Yes, historical Abbasids were pretty dismal and pathetic on the battlefield… but in my opinion, this Civ with the House of Wisdom is one of the coolest things in AoE4 by far! And a giant of world civilization.
There is a misunderstanding here. I never argued that the Abbasids were terrible on the battlefield, on the contrary their(few) battle records against foreign powers are nearly perfect.
the problem is that they couldn’t maintain their autonomy and political power to translate that military might to anything meaningful and spent most of their time fighting amongst themselves or their subjects. this means that meaningful conflicts against other sovereign states only existed in the first century of their rule.
after the death of Harun Al Rashid and the civil war between his sons they essentially lost all of their territories, populations and armies to rebels and were figureheads imprisoned in their own capitol by their subjects. At times they even failed to exert power or control over their own capitol, the sole possession that they maintained after the spectacular implosion of their state.
that is what I’m getting at, their mismanagement and failure to maintain independence and political power and the subsequent lack of involvement in any major conquest or defense with other launch civs means they are a poor launch candidate. the Abbasids are a missed opportunity because most other political entities from that area have far more campaign potential, not that the Abbasids couldn’t fight well(they could).
in that active first century they relied heavily on infantry battle lines composed of armored spearmen as the bulk of their forces with a preference for direct head on clashes while archers, siege weapons and cavalry only played a supporting role. even in their revolution the infantry spear wall was the anchor of their battle plans just like the caliphates before them and continued to be so until the disbandment of the Arab standing army. the medieval Arab(as well as Persian/Roman) strategy appeared to be outlasting the enemy formation and having them break from morale and rear cavalry charges first before their own lines did in battles of attrition.
if you want to learn more about the Abbasid point of view, the basis for their laws, society and economics, and how they came to be in power this webpage is pretty good with lots of sources: Islamic Economics (hetwebsite.net)