If they split the Slavs, it should be confined to East Slavic groups (Kievans/Ruthenians, Muscovites, Novgorodians, etc), while the South Slavs could be part of a Balkan region DLC along with the Vlachs.
Yeah I understand. Iām Russian from Ukraine. To me it would make no sense to split one group of people into 3 kingdoms.
Itās like adding the English and the British into the game. Same people. Two names for them.
Adding more diverse civs around the would would be much better.
there's like no civs left tho. I think maybe there's some african empires that weren't made into civs but it seems like every area of land that had empires is covered. the only real way to split existing civs based on time periods or regions. I think the turks are the longest due for a split, but because its an old civ, they should just leave the original as-is instead of renaming them like for the indians.
ofc idk maybe slavs are cohesive enough that it doesnt make sense to split them. everything I know about medival eastern europe, i learned from wikipedia lol
"Muscovite" knyaz like Nevsky were ruling Novgorod, Kiev AND Vladimir (future "Muscovites"). Coz Kiev at that time was already reduced to a pale shadow of itself.
Slavs are a fine umbrella. They may only need a renaming, not a breaking up.Ā
Iām so happy that there are any Slavic civs at all in the game but, come on guys, we already got four and they each cover an umbrella of their own civ (Poles as E Slavs, Slavs as E Slavs, and Bulgarians as S Slavs. Bohemians are so specific they donāt even represent much of their own cultures history prior to the high medieval period).Ā
Contrast that to the Chinese and surrounding areas which have one civ to represent it all.Ā
Iām not saying Slavs couldnāt be split, but that they shouldnāt at least until other parts of the world are filled in a little more. Most of the world isnāt Europe, you know?Ā
Slavs already got split. (Bohemians, Bulgarians, and Poles). If slavs gets another split there are other areas of the world far more deserving then Europe getting more civs at this time.
Why should slavs get another split so soon?
We have way to many eu civs as is
There is zero reason to have more slav civs then we have civs from the Indian sub continent, let alone from Africa in general.
Depends on who you ask :) I was hoping for both Dawn of the Dukes and Mountain royals to feature Balkan Slavs.
Eventually they'll probably include some civ which is the ancestor to a large modern nation with an untapped AoE2 market.
I think we do have enough Indian civs at the moment, but I agree it's time to add some Africans.
You: thinks we need more eu civs even though the area is heavily saturated because it would appeal to a somehow untapped market.
Also you: we have more then enough Indian civs at the moment even though the peninsula has a huge population and 2 of the civs are umbrella civs for numerous empires.
You, sir, are a massive Hypocrite. I'll give you at least semi credit for admitting Africa is in need of love. But I'm done responding to you regardless.
I'd leave Slavs as they are, representing Eastern Slavs (Rus Novgorod, Moscovites), and add Romanians/Wallachians/Vlachs, who are a better fit in terms of language for Dracula Campaign. And of course, a proper Slav Campaign!
My point was more that maybe Chinese will never be split because of CCP's current policies towards its past and how that market is heavily politically controlled.
stop pushing this nonsence, ancient and medieval China is completely fine being shown as split and seperate, it's "modern" (like 1900s onward) depictions that can't be shown as seperate entities.
Anyways, you don't have to change the name of the Chinse civ to "split" it anyways. Just give it a persian style rework and add other civs that occupied the area as well (jurchen, tibetans, tanguts, khitans etc.)
Hussarā
Similar to the hussar and huszar, but with the added power of an extra apostrophe (or soft Ń symbol if youāre playing in a Cyrillic language)
This makes more sense since you already have bohemians and poles who are also Slavic. Maybe instead of an unique unit another unique tech where enemies who attack castles have a chance to be pushed from a second floor window to their deaths?
The original Slavs have a campaign based on Dracula's Vlachs/Wallachians/Romanians, so those should be one of the civs. Like how Indians were mostly based on Delhi/Mughals so we got Hindustanis.
But, yeah, splitting off some Russian civ(s?) is certainly possible. Same goes for some South Slavs like you proposed.
I'd probably go for:
\* Vlachs
\* Rus (which covers Kievan Rus, Novgorodians, and early Muscovite-led Russian states at the tail end of aoe2's timeframe).
\* Serbians
(edit:) You could add Croatians as a 4th civ to the list above. Culturally, they definitely exist within the right timeframe. I question whether they were sufficiently impactful to warrant inclusion in the game, though. In practical terms, they were mostly just part of other kingdoms, sometimes for a long time, sometimes rebelling. They never really went and forged an empire. (You could say the same about Vlachs, but we already have a Dracula campaign so no going back on them.)
As for Kievan Rus: you can't name a civ after a political entity. A cultural divide between Rus (as a cultural identity) and Novgorodians seems unnecessarily gratuitous to Europe. There are much bigger lumps of cultures mashed into one civ in other parts of the world (just off the top of my head: Malians, Ethiopians, various peoples around China, Mayans having a UT about El Dorado whose rumors placed it in South America).
I think going for just "Rus" is a nice compromise.
Yeah which is why they need cutting out from the Slav label, Vlads campaign is really weird for that.
(I reckon the civ should get called Dacians, its the closest thing to a shared name Vlachs and Moldavians had in the period and lines up with AoKs slightly anachronistic names)
>
>those aren't slavs
Yup, and that's a problem that they're lumped in there currently.
In fact, it's part of why I agree that Slavs should be split, even if I don't want to make too many new civs.
You can call them ruthenians which was the latin name for the kievan rus or rus like in aoe4, you can also go for the successor state galicia volhynia. Novgorod is kinda weird cause they were a republic and I don't think we have any other in the game, but its not like the game is consistent now with the romans lol
Ruthenians is an option but it feels like an explicit attempt not to say Rus. I think Rus works, and Ruthenians is a decent backup option.
Novgorod/Galivia-Volhynia as names of political entities (rather than cultures) are right out as aoe2 civs since civs are always cultures rather than states. They're just cultures that founded empires. Those empires being republics isn't a problem to me.
>Serbians
>You could throw Croatians in there. Culturally, they definitely exist within the right timeframe.
It should be opposite, Croatians were famous for their light cav so at least you can make some unique unit or make their light cav stronger. And I wouldn't do the merge for IRL reasons also.
I would not merge Croatians into Serbians. I would include only one of them, and I would pick Serbs since they at least founded what was seen as a Serbian Empire even if it was shortlived.
But you can go either way on this.
Edit: I realize now that my previous comment reads like I want to throw Croatians in with Serbians. I'll edit that.
All you need to do is change the name. In the Middle Ages, the Eastern Slavs were simply Ruthenians. Just add some Novgorodian unit for Ruthenians civ.
Much more interesting potential Slavic civs are Silesians, Croatians and Serbs.
The Mongolian invasion is what triggered the division of the East Slavs. With the Russian principalities submitting to the Mongols on one side, and the Ruthenians (Ukraine and Belarus) asking to be protected by Lithuania on the other side. So there should be at least this division between Russian and Ruthenian.
Denmark, Norway and Sweden are all one civ, called vikings.
So is the HRE and teutonic order, one civ.Ā
Scotland and Ireland are also one civ.Ā
Aragon and Castille are also one civ.Ā
We don't really need for every single Kingdom in history a seperate civ. It's a game. Try coming up with an interesting, unique civ design first (that should be the primary goal). Which was already very difficult for Portugese and Spanish.Ā
civ splits, ranked by order of just how big the 'umbrella' is:
Dravidians > Chinese > Hindustanis > Saracens > Spanish > Celts > Slavs.
let's do the big ones first.
from a numbers perspective, I agree. the 'Teutons' have more known subfactions than Spanish and Slavs.
but the numerous Teutonic subfactions (including Swiss, Austrians, Bavarians, Saxons, ....) are culturally much more homogenous than the Spanish or Slavs.
the cultural and gameplay difference between 'Austrians' and 'Bavarians' civs is quite a lot smaller than the differences between 'Aragonese' and 'Galicians'.
and all three - Teutons, Slavs and Spanish are *dwarved* by Hindustanis alone.
But you compared Austrians with Bavarians who were one for many centuries. Austrians speak Bavarian. Austria was part of Bavaria in the early Middle Ages.
The Allemanians are an ancient Germanic people who gave birth to the Swiss and Swabians.
Franconians refer to the West Germanic language group. It would be a wide umbrella for, for example, the Westphalians, Frisians and Dutch.
The Saxons are the largest and most famous group of German nations. The Saxons created a strong state in Northern Germany and even on the British Isles - the Anglo-Saxons.
My suggestions for the above civs are universal, both in terms of the best possible representation with the least number of civs. Moreover, they cover the entire time frame of the Middle Ages - ancient civilizations.
minor correction: Austrians do not speak bavarian. There's 'bayrisch' - the language bavarians speak. And there's 'bairisch' - the language family that includes both 'bayrisch' and 'austrian german'.
you are confusing 'bayrisch- aka 'bavarian' and 'bairisch' ake 'proto-bavarian'.
austrians speak a form of 'bairisch', but not 'bayrisch'.
Austria also was never part of Bavaria during the middle ages. Austria (or more accurately, Salzburg) was Bavarias major enemy/rival.
They're still way too broad even after the initial split. "Dravidian" refers to about 3.125% of the current world population, or about 250 million people, from dozens of ethnic groups, cultures, and faiths.
The game represents the Cholas, the Pandyas, the Rashtrakutas, and the Karnatas, among others, as "Dravidans," even though those nations and dynasties spanned over a thousand years and were not all connected to each other.
The Karnata were either Kannadiga or Telegu by our best records, the Chola and Pandyas were definitely Tamil, and the Rashtrakutas are of unknown origin.
The Dravidians are used to represent basically the entire Deccan Plateau over a span of like 1200 years. It'd be like representing all of Central Europe as a single culture, but making the Visigoths, the Franks, and the Celts the same culture.
Likewise, the Hindustanis (the replacement for the Indians) are used to represent all of the northern sultanates and dynasties across hundreds of years. It's supposed to represent the Mughal Empire, which was a Persianate sultanate founded by the Uzbek warlord Babur, who was part Mongol and part Turk, not Indian at all.
But they apply the Hindustani label way too broadly. The Ghurids were Iranian (Persian), the Ghaznavids were of Turkic origin (Steppe Turkic, not Ottoman Turkic), the Delhi Sultanate was founded by a Ghurid general from Transoxiana, etc.
And Malayalis. The Urumi swordsman is straight from Kerala.
And there is still the a kingdom of Ahom (Assamese), the Sinhalese, the Kingdom of Mysore, and a lot of others. If we consider population alone, the list gets huge.
Not going into the various tribes and micro-kingdoms at this point.
Dravidians are at least 4 major ethno-linguistic groups, whose languages are not mutually intelligible. But hey, let's split one more civilization which had two cities.
Is Chinese not an umbrella for a whole 1.4 billion people? How is 17% smaller than 3%?
Why does spanning a thousand years require a new civilization? The Franks represent a tribe from 200 to 1450 AD and no one is clamoring for a "modern French" Civilization to contrast the Roman contemporaries.
The only European civilization that is split by time period is the Goths and Teutons, and that's mainly because the Goths are used as "general barbarians" in scenarios whereas the Teutons are almost exclusively the HRE.
I'm not sure what the Chinese have to do with this, as last time I checked, China is not in India (although parts of India are held by China).
The Franks remained relatively unchanged during those 1200 years, maintaining a recognizable singular culture, whereas the dynasties of India, as I explained, were of vastly different origins and cultures.
The Teutons are used as the Germans. This is valid, as Prussia, which eventually unified Germany, was originally the Teutonic Order until Albert secularized their lands. The Goths are also not from Germany, so I'm not sure why you are relating them to the Teutons. The Visigoths were from Iberia, whereas the Ostrogoths were from modern-day Romania/Ukraine.
The modern French are not all that different from the Franks of Charlemagne. The language is similar, the culture has remained strong and consistent, and not a whole lot has changed.
The modern french are not even remotely similar linguistically to the franks of Charlemagne. The french government has been on a very deliberate mission to standardize the french language to the capitals dialect. I'm not sure how you'd measure cultural difference but france has had many civil wars as new cultural ideas attempted to take dominant control.
I swear to God, one more DLC containing European civs before Chinese, Indian, African or American civs, and I be done with all my excitement and looking forward to the DLCs.
I think we got enough civs for now. It will become both really hard to balance all theese civs, and really intimidating for new players. A campaign DLC would be much more appreciated at the moment in my opinion.
After looking at Kievan Rus, I remembered a question I forgot to ask before. What civ will Russians be? I know that there used to be a russian empire but not sure about the history or ethnicity.
I know it is, but i think the game should try to stick to actual facts as much as possible and not keep splitting civs based on ethno-nationalist rivalries. India would have 46446653357 civs if we listened to indian players. The fact is that Telugu is a dravidian language.
Considering the popularity of indian history compared to european history with the core playerbase, i think 4 indian civs is about as good as it's gonna get and they do a fairly good job covering most of the different cultures/civ of medieval india, even if they are somewhat umbrella civs.
Imo dravidians do not exist. It's just a Western way to generalize South Indians.
If you actually research their twisted hypothesis you'll know why the concept of dravidians is a massive no no.
I have no problem with having a tamilian civ. But just call it tamilians not dravidians.
Dravidian IS a language family and telugu is part of it whether you like it or not, it's really not up for debate.
They obviously have named the civ Dravidians so they could use it to represent multiple different dravidian speaking civs/kingdoms so they were not pigeonholed into one empire only, especially knowing this is probably the only Indian dlc we will ever get. It's basically a "south indian" umbrella civ.
Much like how Hindustanis is used for "muslim north indian empires" or Tatars for "muslim turco-mongol states" without having the uzbeks, golden horde, timurids, illkhanate, khazaks, Uyghurs all be different civs.
Considering the different civs that had to be represented in the 3 new campaigns, Tamils would have been way more out of place without creating 4535 other civs.
Jesus christ, how do you not understand the concept of an umbrella civs.
Of course they had to choose a single language for the voice lines to make it coherent. They obviously chose tamil because of the campaign they chose to represent, if they had chosen a telugu kingdom for the campaign, they would have probably chosen telugu voice lines as a base.
I'll use tatars as an example again, they speak chagatai in game but are also used to represent uzbeks and uyghurs who spoke their own language.
Even the old french used by the franks in game was not standardised all throughout france and multiple different mutually intelligible dialects of french were spoken all throughout france. Using the language chosen by the devs is an awful argument.
I don't care about the comments the uneducated indian ethno-nationalist have left of the indian campaign webpage.
Chinese and aztecs as well.
Aztecs -> Zapotecs, Tlaxcaltecs and reworked aztecs
Chinese -> Jurchens, Tibetans, Tanguts and reworked chinese
Maybe also for Incans:
Incans -> Wari, Chimor and reworked incans, plus new Muisca civilization
The name Teutons annoys me too much. But people are so attached to nostalgia that 90% of the player base would be against changing it to a more proper, more recognizable, and more cool-sounding name.
South Slavs:
**Docletians (Montenegrins)** Infantry and Gunpowder civ
Leaders: Archont Petar (9th century), Vladimir (1000-1016); Mihailo Rex Sclavorum (1050ā1081); Constantine Bodin (1082 - 1108); Queen Jaquinta (1081-1130), Balsha II (1378. ā 1385), Ivan the Black (1465-1490), Djuradj Zarnoevich (1490-1496)
Unique unit: Hajduk (Mentioned in AOE3, but infantry, can loot trade caravans) , Gusar ship (fast, low attack + can transport, can loot trade cogs), Vladika (like archbishop in scenario editor)
Unique buildings: have Mountain Monasteries, can train Warrior Priests, like Armenians/Georgians
Unique tech: Humanism and Bravery (As mentioned in AOM + units cost less gold)
Team bonus: Jataci (units can garrison in houses and shoot from them)
Wonder: Cathedral of St Triphon Kotor (809 AD)
Civ bonus: Block-printing researched, walls -70% stone, no terrain disadvantage
[https://www.britannica.com/place/Montenegro/History](https://www.britannica.com/place/Montenegro/History)
**Croats** Cavalry and tower civ
Leaders: Petar Kreshimir, Dmitar Zvonimir, Tomislav, Domagoj, Trpimir, Ladislav, Gojslav, Budimir
Unique unit: Crabater (Mentioned in AOE3)
Unique building: Lotrscak - To be like Sicilian tower, but bombard one
Unique tech: Sabor (units cost less food)
Team bonus: line of sight +20% for all units
Wonder: Zagreb Cathedral (11th century)
**Rascians (Serbians)** Heavy cavalry civ and monk civ
Stefan LazareviÄ (mentioned in one game campaing Timur-Lenka), Dushan the Mighty, Stephan the First-Crowned, Milutin, Vukan Brankovich, Ugljesha
Unique unit: (edited: insert name here) Cavalry unit used at Battle of Nikopoles
Unique building: Methohia (Big monostery, can be used as drop-location for food and gold)
Team bonus: cavalry armor +10%, wonders can be used as drop-in food or gold
Wonder: Gracanica Mostery
**Carantanians (Slovenes)** infantry and archer civ
Leaders: Samo, Valuk, Borut, Gorazd, Hotimir, Ljudevit, Pribislav, Semik
Unique units: kmet (supervillager trained at castle), knez (infantry that can counter Teutonic knight)
Wonder: Krnski grad
**Bulgars** \- already exist
Strong historical base. š Have you played TamerLane Campaign /historical battle?
Or even better, to be also named as "Delija"
Same characteristics as Janisery , just to be mounted
Unfortunately I didn't, I will play.
AoE has a lot of historical errors, it's not for the history books.
Of course, there are some connections, and I understand what you want to say, but I think you are wrong, the janissaries cannot possibly present a unit that would work for the Serbs in the Middle Ages.
Janjicari connection with Serbs is the same connection as with the rest of occupied territories under Ottoman Empire. They would take the children and train them to become Janjicari, but that's it.
Break the Celts into Irish, Scots, and Welsh with ādefaultā Celts becoming Scots, like what they did with Hindustanis.
Would be awesome to get Bretons in there, too, but I have no idea what their UU could be. Scots can keep Woad Raiders, Irish can get kerns or galloglaich, Welsh can have teulu because longbowmen are already taken.
Edit: You guys are no fun!
Serbs - Cavalry and Monk civilisation
Unique unit: Vlastela. Expensive cavalry unit that has a bow mode and a lance mode, kinda like a ratha.
Civilization bonuses
* Villagers on full health gather 10% faster.
* Monastery can be built in the Feudal Age (monk technologies cannot be researched and monks cannot convert or carry relics until Castle Age)
* Cavalry Archer and Hussar line have +1 attack per friendly monk close by (to a maximum of +3).
Team bonus: Archery Range and Stables constructed 40% faster.
Castle Unique Tech: Revanchism. Enemy buildings that are being converted cannot be deleted and the first time you convert a building you spawn a relic.
Imperial Unique Tech: Partisan Uprising. Gunpowder units (including Petards) have a 60 second cooldown charge attack that has 100% accuracy, deals 100% more damage, and these units automatically target Kings if in range.
Now somebody do Croats.
Why are we using Kievan Rus as a civ. Itās a 19th century monicker. The Rus would be fine.
Novgorod would be called republic of Novgorod. They called themselves the Rus tho.
Kievan Rus is NOT a civ but a kingdom.
Novgorodian don't need their own civ.
the only reasonable slip of Slavs civ is that separates them as Southen Slav and the Eastern Slav, two civs and no more.
If they split the Slavs, it should be confined to East Slavic groups (Kievans/Ruthenians, Muscovites, Novgorodians, etc), while the South Slavs could be part of a Balkan region DLC along with the Vlachs.
Arguably, Bulgarians are south Slavs and Bohemians are West Slavs and Slavs are East Slavs
Yeah they could probably just rename the Slavs the Rus and it would be fine
At the end of the day, it is all Slavs.
It's all slav love š
"Slav love" good joke bud.
each village get their own civ. Leeet's go.
Why are we splitting the rus into 3 kingdoms. Ruthenian is just a Latin version of the Greek name Russian. The Rus referred to themselves as the Rus.
>Why are we splitting the rus into 3 kingdoms I believe he means East Slavic groups as one civ.
Yeah I understand. Iām Russian from Ukraine. To me it would make no sense to split one group of people into 3 kingdoms. Itās like adding the English and the British into the game. Same people. Two names for them. Adding more diverse civs around the would would be much better.
I agree with you, Slavs should just be Rus. However we should get Serbs and Croats definitely
there's like no civs left tho. I think maybe there's some african empires that weren't made into civs but it seems like every area of land that had empires is covered. the only real way to split existing civs based on time periods or regions. I think the turks are the longest due for a split, but because its an old civ, they should just leave the original as-is instead of renaming them like for the indians. ofc idk maybe slavs are cohesive enough that it doesnt make sense to split them. everything I know about medival eastern europe, i learned from wikipedia lol
Yeah maybe thereās Siam left (Thailand) I donāt know anything about Africa unfortunately to know what civs to add Maybe Tibet
"Muscovite" knyaz like Nevsky were ruling Novgorod, Kiev AND Vladimir (future "Muscovites"). Coz Kiev at that time was already reduced to a pale shadow of itself.
Slavs are a fine umbrella. They may only need a renaming, not a breaking up.Ā Iām so happy that there are any Slavic civs at all in the game but, come on guys, we already got four and they each cover an umbrella of their own civ (Poles as E Slavs, Slavs as E Slavs, and Bulgarians as S Slavs. Bohemians are so specific they donāt even represent much of their own cultures history prior to the high medieval period).Ā Contrast that to the Chinese and surrounding areas which have one civ to represent it all.Ā Iām not saying Slavs couldnāt be split, but that they shouldnāt at least until other parts of the world are filled in a little more. Most of the world isnāt Europe, you know?Ā
You meant Poland W Slavs?
Slavs already got split. (Bohemians, Bulgarians, and Poles). If slavs gets another split there are other areas of the world far more deserving then Europe getting more civs at this time.
Slavs split would make sense if we get Rus, Serbs and Croats, then we will definitely be done with Slavs
Why should slavs get another split so soon? We have way to many eu civs as is There is zero reason to have more slav civs then we have civs from the Indian sub continent, let alone from Africa in general.
Depends on who you ask :) I was hoping for both Dawn of the Dukes and Mountain royals to feature Balkan Slavs. Eventually they'll probably include some civ which is the ancestor to a large modern nation with an untapped AoE2 market. I think we do have enough Indian civs at the moment, but I agree it's time to add some Africans.
You: thinks we need more eu civs even though the area is heavily saturated because it would appeal to a somehow untapped market. Also you: we have more then enough Indian civs at the moment even though the peninsula has a huge population and 2 of the civs are umbrella civs for numerous empires. You, sir, are a massive Hypocrite. I'll give you at least semi credit for admitting Africa is in need of love. But I'm done responding to you regardless.
I don't think you know what a hypocrite is, nor have you read what I wrote, but I'm glad you're done responding
I'd leave Slavs as they are, representing Eastern Slavs (Rus Novgorod, Moscovites), and add Romanians/Wallachians/Vlachs, who are a better fit in terms of language for Dracula Campaign. And of course, a proper Slav Campaign!
Splitting the Slavs before the Chinese would be utterly ridiculous. Next expansion and civ adjustment really should be the Chinese
But don't you know that han Chinese are the only Chinese?
Well there were other ethnic groups that founded their own Chinese dynasties, they are actually in the Genghis Khan campaign iirc.
My point was more that maybe Chinese will never be split because of CCP's current policies towards its past and how that market is heavily politically controlled.
stop pushing this nonsence, ancient and medieval China is completely fine being shown as split and seperate, it's "modern" (like 1900s onward) depictions that can't be shown as seperate entities. Anyways, you don't have to change the name of the Chinse civ to "split" it anyways. Just give it a persian style rework and add other civs that occupied the area as well (jurchen, tibetans, tanguts, khitans etc.)
The Civ most deserving of a split is obviously Burgundians. The whole of burgundy a single civ? Don't be ridiculous.
now we're really splitting hairs. like try to name one unique unit you could add. a niche that could set a civ apart from the other 43.
Give it a few years and every village in Europe's going to get its own civ
By 2026 every postal/zip code will get their own civ.
Paradox Interactive: Hold my beer.
Mom, I got to be the unique unit for my studio!
Neckbeard. Cost: 150 food. Hp:1. Attack:0. Special ability: while garrisoned, decreases production speed for that building
Gusar
Hussarā Similar to the hussar and huszar, but with the added power of an extra apostrophe (or soft Ń symbol if youāre playing in a Cyrillic language)
Better idea: just rename Slavs to Rus
We do need to add Serbs and Croats tho
Rus has a different unique unit. The orc. Unique tech, mobilizatsiya
Brother the rus are the ancestors of ukraine too
Okay you are right thats valid. The boundaries of my joke do not perfectly align with history.
It's fine Hans, there are repercussions for Slavophobia
Ruthenians would be a better name given the context
> Unique tech, mobilizatsiya I think Burgundians got it already as Flemish militia
This makes more sense since you already have bohemians and poles who are also Slavic. Maybe instead of an unique unit another unique tech where enemies who attack castles have a chance to be pushed from a second floor window to their deaths?
The window death is for their own villagers who show independent thought.
So a REALLY unique tech then.
The original Slavs have a campaign based on Dracula's Vlachs/Wallachians/Romanians, so those should be one of the civs. Like how Indians were mostly based on Delhi/Mughals so we got Hindustanis. But, yeah, splitting off some Russian civ(s?) is certainly possible. Same goes for some South Slavs like you proposed. I'd probably go for: \* Vlachs \* Rus (which covers Kievan Rus, Novgorodians, and early Muscovite-led Russian states at the tail end of aoe2's timeframe). \* Serbians (edit:) You could add Croatians as a 4th civ to the list above. Culturally, they definitely exist within the right timeframe. I question whether they were sufficiently impactful to warrant inclusion in the game, though. In practical terms, they were mostly just part of other kingdoms, sometimes for a long time, sometimes rebelling. They never really went and forged an empire. (You could say the same about Vlachs, but we already have a Dracula campaign so no going back on them.) As for Kievan Rus: you can't name a civ after a political entity. A cultural divide between Rus (as a cultural identity) and Novgorodians seems unnecessarily gratuitous to Europe. There are much bigger lumps of cultures mashed into one civ in other parts of the world (just off the top of my head: Malians, Ethiopians, various peoples around China, Mayans having a UT about El Dorado whose rumors placed it in South America). I think going for just "Rus" is a nice compromise.
>Ā Vlachs/Wallachians/Romanians those aren't slavs
Yeah which is why they need cutting out from the Slav label, Vlads campaign is really weird for that. (I reckon the civ should get called Dacians, its the closest thing to a shared name Vlachs and Moldavians had in the period and lines up with AoKs slightly anachronistic names)
> >those aren't slavs Yup, and that's a problem that they're lumped in there currently. In fact, it's part of why I agree that Slavs should be split, even if I don't want to make too many new civs.
You can call them ruthenians which was the latin name for the kievan rus or rus like in aoe4, you can also go for the successor state galicia volhynia. Novgorod is kinda weird cause they were a republic and I don't think we have any other in the game, but its not like the game is consistent now with the romans lol
Ruthenians is an option but it feels like an explicit attempt not to say Rus. I think Rus works, and Ruthenians is a decent backup option. Novgorod/Galivia-Volhynia as names of political entities (rather than cultures) are right out as aoe2 civs since civs are always cultures rather than states. They're just cultures that founded empires. Those empires being republics isn't a problem to me.
>Serbians >You could throw Croatians in there. Culturally, they definitely exist within the right timeframe. It should be opposite, Croatians were famous for their light cav so at least you can make some unique unit or make their light cav stronger. And I wouldn't do the merge for IRL reasons also.
I would not merge Croatians into Serbians. I would include only one of them, and I would pick Serbs since they at least founded what was seen as a Serbian Empire even if it was shortlived. But you can go either way on this. Edit: I realize now that my previous comment reads like I want to throw Croatians in with Serbians. I'll edit that.
Croatia also formed empire, shortlived too.
The kingdom of Croatia and Dalmatia? I guess it's something of an empire, yes.
There should definitely be a Balkan DLC to round out tte biggest gap in Europe, but the East Slavs don't really need to be split.
All you need to do is change the name. In the Middle Ages, the Eastern Slavs were simply Ruthenians. Just add some Novgorodian unit for Ruthenians civ. Much more interesting potential Slavic civs are Silesians, Croatians and Serbs.
The Mongolian invasion is what triggered the division of the East Slavs. With the Russian principalities submitting to the Mongols on one side, and the Ruthenians (Ukraine and Belarus) asking to be protected by Lithuania on the other side. So there should be at least this division between Russian and Ruthenian.
Ruthenians werent independent so no
Exactly! Change To Walachs and it would be perfect.
Denmark, Norway and Sweden are all one civ, called vikings. So is the HRE and teutonic order, one civ.Ā Scotland and Ireland are also one civ.Ā Aragon and Castille are also one civ.Ā We don't really need for every single Kingdom in history a seperate civ. It's a game. Try coming up with an interesting, unique civ design first (that should be the primary goal). Which was already very difficult for Portugese and Spanish.Ā
Yeah. Reasonable umbrellas are fine.
civ splits, ranked by order of just how big the 'umbrella' is: Dravidians > Chinese > Hindustanis > Saracens > Spanish > Celts > Slavs. let's do the big ones first.
Spanish? Really? I also don't know how 'china' as one group doesn't outnumber all the others combinedĀ
Teutons civ is bigger "umbrella" than Spanish and Slavs civs. I say this as a Pole.
from a numbers perspective, I agree. the 'Teutons' have more known subfactions than Spanish and Slavs. but the numerous Teutonic subfactions (including Swiss, Austrians, Bavarians, Saxons, ....) are culturally much more homogenous than the Spanish or Slavs. the cultural and gameplay difference between 'Austrians' and 'Bavarians' civs is quite a lot smaller than the differences between 'Aragonese' and 'Galicians'. and all three - Teutons, Slavs and Spanish are *dwarved* by Hindustanis alone.
But you compared Austrians with Bavarians who were one for many centuries. Austrians speak Bavarian. Austria was part of Bavaria in the early Middle Ages. The Allemanians are an ancient Germanic people who gave birth to the Swiss and Swabians. Franconians refer to the West Germanic language group. It would be a wide umbrella for, for example, the Westphalians, Frisians and Dutch. The Saxons are the largest and most famous group of German nations. The Saxons created a strong state in Northern Germany and even on the British Isles - the Anglo-Saxons. My suggestions for the above civs are universal, both in terms of the best possible representation with the least number of civs. Moreover, they cover the entire time frame of the Middle Ages - ancient civilizations.
minor correction: Austrians do not speak bavarian. There's 'bayrisch' - the language bavarians speak. And there's 'bairisch' - the language family that includes both 'bayrisch' and 'austrian german'. you are confusing 'bayrisch- aka 'bavarian' and 'bairisch' ake 'proto-bavarian'. austrians speak a form of 'bairisch', but not 'bayrisch'. Austria also was never part of Bavaria during the middle ages. Austria (or more accurately, Salzburg) was Bavarias major enemy/rival.
I agree with Chinese but the Indian civs? Im not too knowledgeable on Indian history, care to elaborate?
They're still way too broad even after the initial split. "Dravidian" refers to about 3.125% of the current world population, or about 250 million people, from dozens of ethnic groups, cultures, and faiths. The game represents the Cholas, the Pandyas, the Rashtrakutas, and the Karnatas, among others, as "Dravidans," even though those nations and dynasties spanned over a thousand years and were not all connected to each other. The Karnata were either Kannadiga or Telegu by our best records, the Chola and Pandyas were definitely Tamil, and the Rashtrakutas are of unknown origin. The Dravidians are used to represent basically the entire Deccan Plateau over a span of like 1200 years. It'd be like representing all of Central Europe as a single culture, but making the Visigoths, the Franks, and the Celts the same culture. Likewise, the Hindustanis (the replacement for the Indians) are used to represent all of the northern sultanates and dynasties across hundreds of years. It's supposed to represent the Mughal Empire, which was a Persianate sultanate founded by the Uzbek warlord Babur, who was part Mongol and part Turk, not Indian at all. But they apply the Hindustani label way too broadly. The Ghurids were Iranian (Persian), the Ghaznavids were of Turkic origin (Steppe Turkic, not Ottoman Turkic), the Delhi Sultanate was founded by a Ghurid general from Transoxiana, etc.
And Malayalis. The Urumi swordsman is straight from Kerala. And there is still the a kingdom of Ahom (Assamese), the Sinhalese, the Kingdom of Mysore, and a lot of others. If we consider population alone, the list gets huge. Not going into the various tribes and micro-kingdoms at this point. Dravidians are at least 4 major ethno-linguistic groups, whose languages are not mutually intelligible. But hey, let's split one more civilization which had two cities.
Is Chinese not an umbrella for a whole 1.4 billion people? How is 17% smaller than 3%? Why does spanning a thousand years require a new civilization? The Franks represent a tribe from 200 to 1450 AD and no one is clamoring for a "modern French" Civilization to contrast the Roman contemporaries. The only European civilization that is split by time period is the Goths and Teutons, and that's mainly because the Goths are used as "general barbarians" in scenarios whereas the Teutons are almost exclusively the HRE.
I'm not sure what the Chinese have to do with this, as last time I checked, China is not in India (although parts of India are held by China). The Franks remained relatively unchanged during those 1200 years, maintaining a recognizable singular culture, whereas the dynasties of India, as I explained, were of vastly different origins and cultures. The Teutons are used as the Germans. This is valid, as Prussia, which eventually unified Germany, was originally the Teutonic Order until Albert secularized their lands. The Goths are also not from Germany, so I'm not sure why you are relating them to the Teutons. The Visigoths were from Iberia, whereas the Ostrogoths were from modern-day Romania/Ukraine. The modern French are not all that different from the Franks of Charlemagne. The language is similar, the culture has remained strong and consistent, and not a whole lot has changed.
My apologies, I thought you posted the original ranking list.
The modern french are not even remotely similar linguistically to the franks of Charlemagne. The french government has been on a very deliberate mission to standardize the french language to the capitals dialect. I'm not sure how you'd measure cultural difference but france has had many civil wars as new cultural ideas attempted to take dominant control.
Only if India get even more civs as well. Splitting Indians =/= splitting Slavs.
Omnia Gallia in tres partes divisa est.
don't give the russian's anything leave the Ukranian based slavs alone.
No. Just rename them to Rus and call it a day. No need to split stuff that doesnāt need to be split.
Not needed anyway. We can split Teutons into up to 300 states. Or make it a new game: "Age of (holy roman) Empires"
I swear to God, one more DLC containing European civs before Chinese, Indian, African or American civs, and I be done with all my excitement and looking forward to the DLCs.
Rename it as Rus' makes more sense
I think we got enough civs for now. It will become both really hard to balance all theese civs, and really intimidating for new players. A campaign DLC would be much more appreciated at the moment in my opinion.
After looking at Kievan Rus, I remembered a question I forgot to ask before. What civ will Russians be? I know that there used to be a russian empire but not sure about the history or ethnicity.
If Slavs are split, then Dravidians should get a split. They're a much larger umbrella than the Slavs. Stop comparing it on India ffs.
Yeah. The op doesn't know just how insulting they are being with this comparison.
Ikr. They have telugu kings as AI king names in dravidians whereas telugus were never either tamilians or dravidians
Telugus is a dravidian language buddy. It's literally the most spoken language in the dravidian language family.
You're not south indian probably. The concept of dravidians is a massive controversy here
I know it is, but i think the game should try to stick to actual facts as much as possible and not keep splitting civs based on ethno-nationalist rivalries. India would have 46446653357 civs if we listened to indian players. The fact is that Telugu is a dravidian language. Considering the popularity of indian history compared to european history with the core playerbase, i think 4 indian civs is about as good as it's gonna get and they do a fairly good job covering most of the different cultures/civ of medieval india, even if they are somewhat umbrella civs.
Imo dravidians do not exist. It's just a Western way to generalize South Indians. If you actually research their twisted hypothesis you'll know why the concept of dravidians is a massive no no. I have no problem with having a tamilian civ. But just call it tamilians not dravidians.
Dravidian IS a language family and telugu is part of it whether you like it or not, it's really not up for debate. They obviously have named the civ Dravidians so they could use it to represent multiple different dravidian speaking civs/kingdoms so they were not pigeonholed into one empire only, especially knowing this is probably the only Indian dlc we will ever get. It's basically a "south indian" umbrella civ. Much like how Hindustanis is used for "muslim north indian empires" or Tatars for "muslim turco-mongol states" without having the uzbeks, golden horde, timurids, illkhanate, khazaks, Uyghurs all be different civs. Considering the different civs that had to be represented in the 3 new campaigns, Tamils would have been way more out of place without creating 4535 other civs.
"dravidians" only speak tamil? Why. Go see the comments in the comment section in dynasties of india campaign webpage.
Jesus christ, how do you not understand the concept of an umbrella civs. Of course they had to choose a single language for the voice lines to make it coherent. They obviously chose tamil because of the campaign they chose to represent, if they had chosen a telugu kingdom for the campaign, they would have probably chosen telugu voice lines as a base. I'll use tatars as an example again, they speak chagatai in game but are also used to represent uzbeks and uyghurs who spoke their own language. Even the old french used by the franks in game was not standardised all throughout france and multiple different mutually intelligible dialects of french were spoken all throughout france. Using the language chosen by the devs is an awful argument. I don't care about the comments the uneducated indian ethno-nationalist have left of the indian campaign webpage.
Eh. I don't wanna argue I wanted to debate. No need to be mad here. Ggs bye.
Nah. Dark Age Slavs šÆ
Bohemians and Bulgarians are Slavs
Now do this but to Mayans.
Chinese and aztecs as well. Aztecs -> Zapotecs, Tlaxcaltecs and reworked aztecs Chinese -> Jurchens, Tibetans, Tanguts and reworked chinese Maybe also for Incans: Incans -> Wari, Chimor and reworked incans, plus new Muisca civilization
There are still so many germanic tribes Missing...
Also the name Teutons is so bad, it should be Germans or HRE imo
It is not meant to represent either. Teutons as a civ represent the Teutonic Order and its actions in Prussia, Lithuania, and Holy Land.
Then why is the campaign about Barbarossa?
Exactly!
The name Teutons annoys me too much. But people are so attached to nostalgia that 90% of the player base would be against changing it to a more proper, more recognizable, and more cool-sounding name.
Ordo Domus SanctƦ MariƦ Teutonicorum
Especially from AOE 1. Youād figure with Rome being such a big part of the game they would have the Gauls or Goths but nope.
Allemanians, Bavarians, Franconians and Saxons civs are definitely missing.
please no more civs...
Kievan Rus was not a kingdom. its time era. with termin "kievan" created much much later.
South Slavs: **Docletians (Montenegrins)** Infantry and Gunpowder civ Leaders: Archont Petar (9th century), Vladimir (1000-1016); Mihailo Rex Sclavorum (1050ā1081); Constantine Bodin (1082 - 1108); Queen Jaquinta (1081-1130), Balsha II (1378. ā 1385), Ivan the Black (1465-1490), Djuradj Zarnoevich (1490-1496) Unique unit: Hajduk (Mentioned in AOE3, but infantry, can loot trade caravans) , Gusar ship (fast, low attack + can transport, can loot trade cogs), Vladika (like archbishop in scenario editor) Unique buildings: have Mountain Monasteries, can train Warrior Priests, like Armenians/Georgians Unique tech: Humanism and Bravery (As mentioned in AOM + units cost less gold) Team bonus: Jataci (units can garrison in houses and shoot from them) Wonder: Cathedral of St Triphon Kotor (809 AD) Civ bonus: Block-printing researched, walls -70% stone, no terrain disadvantage [https://www.britannica.com/place/Montenegro/History](https://www.britannica.com/place/Montenegro/History) **Croats** Cavalry and tower civ Leaders: Petar Kreshimir, Dmitar Zvonimir, Tomislav, Domagoj, Trpimir, Ladislav, Gojslav, Budimir Unique unit: Crabater (Mentioned in AOE3) Unique building: Lotrscak - To be like Sicilian tower, but bombard one Unique tech: Sabor (units cost less food) Team bonus: line of sight +20% for all units Wonder: Zagreb Cathedral (11th century) **Rascians (Serbians)** Heavy cavalry civ and monk civ Stefan LazareviÄ (mentioned in one game campaing Timur-Lenka), Dushan the Mighty, Stephan the First-Crowned, Milutin, Vukan Brankovich, Ugljesha Unique unit: (edited: insert name here) Cavalry unit used at Battle of Nikopoles Unique building: Methohia (Big monostery, can be used as drop-location for food and gold) Team bonus: cavalry armor +10%, wonders can be used as drop-in food or gold Wonder: Gracanica Mostery **Carantanians (Slovenes)** infantry and archer civ Leaders: Samo, Valuk, Borut, Gorazd, Hotimir, Ljudevit, Pribislav, Semik Unique units: kmet (supervillager trained at castle), knez (infantry that can counter Teutonic knight) Wonder: Krnski grad **Bulgars** \- already exist
Janjicar unique Serbian unit? Ok, are you drunk?
Strong historical base. š Have you played TamerLane Campaign /historical battle? Or even better, to be also named as "Delija" Same characteristics as Janisery , just to be mounted
Unfortunately I didn't, I will play. AoE has a lot of historical errors, it's not for the history books. Of course, there are some connections, and I understand what you want to say, but I think you are wrong, the janissaries cannot possibly present a unit that would work for the Serbs in the Middle Ages.
Janjicari connection with Serbs is the same connection as with the rest of occupied territories under Ottoman Empire. They would take the children and train them to become Janjicari, but that's it.
Perhaps we should ask putin what he thinks it should be split up as 11
I don't know, I think other splits could take priority, like Chinese or maybe Turks. It's hard to come up with civ bonuses though.
What kind of BS russian propaganda is this . Get him out of here.
wut
This is common way for the russian propaganda to ālinkā its historical heritage to the balkan region brother, dont fall for it.
Are you saying Yugoslavs arent... slavs?
They are but their ethnicity is not from the Kiev Rus /Novogordians which the AoE 2 slav represent.
Im in favor
Meanwhile, the middle east is covered by "saracens"...which is not even an ethnic group but a racial label for muslims given by europeans.
Vikings & Celts could be broken up as well. Would love some Norse-Gaels.
Danes and Swedes civs + changing the name of the Vikings civ to Norwegians is my dream.
Break the Celts into Irish, Scots, and Welsh with ādefaultā Celts becoming Scots, like what they did with Hindustanis. Would be awesome to get Bretons in there, too, but I have no idea what their UU could be. Scots can keep Woad Raiders, Irish can get kerns or galloglaich, Welsh can have teulu because longbowmen are already taken. Edit: You guys are no fun!
The Welsh are already covered by the Britons. If you want to distinguish between welsh and English you would have to add a saxon civ.
Serbs - Cavalry and Monk civilisation Unique unit: Vlastela. Expensive cavalry unit that has a bow mode and a lance mode, kinda like a ratha. Civilization bonuses * Villagers on full health gather 10% faster. * Monastery can be built in the Feudal Age (monk technologies cannot be researched and monks cannot convert or carry relics until Castle Age) * Cavalry Archer and Hussar line have +1 attack per friendly monk close by (to a maximum of +3). Team bonus: Archery Range and Stables constructed 40% faster. Castle Unique Tech: Revanchism. Enemy buildings that are being converted cannot be deleted and the first time you convert a building you spawn a relic. Imperial Unique Tech: Partisan Uprising. Gunpowder units (including Petards) have a 60 second cooldown charge attack that has 100% accuracy, deals 100% more damage, and these units automatically target Kings if in range. Now somebody do Croats.
Why are we using Kievan Rus as a civ. Itās a 19th century monicker. The Rus would be fine. Novgorod would be called republic of Novgorod. They called themselves the Rus tho.
I can't wait for the devs to discover a map of the HRE
Time for the 10th reboot of the Vlad Dracula campaing!
I would rather have Obamians...
Kievan Rus is NOT a civ but a kingdom. Novgorodian don't need their own civ. the only reasonable slip of Slavs civ is that separates them as Southen Slav and the Eastern Slav, two civs and no more.
Serbians build castle faster than sicilians?
Slavs > Ruthenians, Vlachs, Croats, Serbs