CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS: - Albanians ARE NOT SLAVIC. This is a flat goof on my part. - Some civs that I forgot to mention but could be viable include... > Volga Bulgars (NOT Slav; pre-migration Bulgarians) > Transylvanians (also NOT Slav; another branch of Vlachs with their own state) > Nitrans (Slavic principality within modern Slovakia; midpoint between Moravians and hypothetical Austrians) > Pomeranians (Baltic coastal Slavs, though might not have enough material; German Pomeranians might be more apropos and could maybe also include references to Slavic progenitors?) - Peoples of the Baltic and adjacent regions (Finns, Estonians, etc.) are being saved for another split video on Northern Europe. - I know that "Magyar" & "Hungarian" are synonymous -- I see it as comparable to timesplitting the earlier Franks and later French (which is something I'm a huge proponent of, as well as similar). I think a Later Hungarian civ would be more similar to the current Magyars, while an Earlier Magyar civ would likely play very differently from how the civ looks now. - I couldn't find any other Uralic civilizations that seemed to have enough material to merit civilizations, but if you all know of any please do share them! Huge thanks to everyone catching errors and contributing to the discussion. Hope you all have enjoyed the video!
- Slovenes are South Slav not West Slav - Stradiot being a Hussar replacement generally feels weird; the Hussars originally came from Serbia and were widely used in Eastern Europe (most famously Hungary and Poland, other Eastern European civs). I'd say they are better off being a unique unit for Albanians specifically
Yeah, Albanians are NOT SLAVS by way of linguistics, and along with GREEK and ARMENIAN speak one of three Indo-European language ISOLATES. This suggests they are a SIGNIFICANTLY DIFFERENT to the people to the SOUTH--Greeks--and those surrounding what is Albania--different Slavic groups. Albanian is a crazy language
Good, the Volga Bulgars and Old Great Bulgaria are almost definitely NOT Slavic considering the Avars and Slavs had an alliance against them, which if one understands that the Avars are considered a proto-mongol people from the Rouran Khaganate who lorded over the MANY TURKIC peoples, it suggests they have roots in both the First (Gokturk) and Second Turkic Khaganates, the Khazar Khaganate which followed, and the Oghuz state in the ponto-caspian regions. If speaking of Old Great Bulgaria in particular, the Khazars put an END to them, essentially. I believe there is much more in common with the Magyars and various Turkic steppe peoples than the Slavs
The Russians had great influence from the ancient Sarmatians and later Cumans and Mongols, for this reason they should have good horse archers with armband technology just as the Cumans also used for their horse archers. This technology was a nerf for both as they used compound bows with great range.
Yeah, that was a pretty baffling decision. I could maybe see the Ruthenians (or whatever other civilization represented the Kievan Rus) missing Bracer, depending on what my research ends up revealing about their archery tradition.
Nice! Heads up that Mantis AOE had made a build for Wallachians/Vlacks and also Serbs. Two interesting builds I thought! Also: You've mentioned the ottomans enough that it reminds me that the "turks" are pretty much another historical mashup between the earlier seljuks and the later ottomans... (over 1000+ years of history) I'm sure it's on your todo list as well, but one of those days, I'd like to hear your take on splitting the turks :) When you get the chance to get to it of course :)
Yep! I haven't watched those videos of his, but I am aware he's done them and look forward to seeing how he approached it differently for me! And I can promise you that a Turk split is also coming down the line, though it is likely to be one of the biggest and most complicated ones I have ever done hehehe
Just like the paladin, Russia was known for its heavy infantry and cavalry, they could have access to the paladin. They said it was a nerf to game balance because of the boyar and even so I don't understand how the Lithuanians have the Leitis being the strongest cavalry unit in the game as a single unit and also have the paladin!
@halbarad6924 don't really know anyone who counts that one. All I know is I'm tired of "split slavs, split Italy, more civs in europe". If we treated the rest of the world the way we treat europe this game would have hundreds of civs.
I love the idea of adding all of these to the game! I do think everything before the mega long shots will be added to the game eventually for representation sake, minus the Hungarians since they kind of are already represented by the Magyars. I love that you added the stradiot as well, since it’s one of my favorite units in AoE3. I could see them as both a regional mercenary or even just a unique unit for the Albanians. Excellent format and presentation as always my friend!
Great video. I hope we'll see similar to Dynasties of India expansions where umbrela-civs will split in more concrete. Slavs definitely need this the most.
The Serbs under Stefan Dusan were a SERIOUS power, but upon his death the polity rapidly shrunk, but the massive territorial gains by Dusan are some of the most impressive of the 14th century in Europe and would make for a very fun build and destroy conquest-type campaign a la Tamerlane 8:45
I definitely think splitting up some of these overly broad civs like Slavs or Chinese to incorporate some regional variation for those civs would be a great thing, but before we get bogged down with 80 civ options, I think we need to go back and shine some love on the older OG civs. I’ve noticed a lot of newer civs have 2-3 unique units and even unique buildings, and I think the older civs need that too. I know perhaps an upgrade to base game civs won’t quite help the devs sell another dlc, but I think it would bring renewed interest and attention if the older civs had more options and more unique play styles.
I think, given FE's track record of each expansion does 3 civs, I'd love to see Serbians, Muscovites and Ruthenians added to the game, with Vlachs as an outside pick for a Forgotten 2.0 expansion. Those 3 (4) give the largest about representation on the map and will also have likely the most variety in playstyle.
If you include Silesia then you could also consider Pomerania and Mazovia. In simplification core lands of medieval Poland for the most time were Greater Poland, Lesser Poland and Kuyavia. Silesia, Pomerania and Masovia were also part of the Duchy/Kingdom of Poland, but often only temporarily - it happened that they returned to the state, only to separate again after a few years. Due to this and the fact that the lands had such a location (influence of German settlers in Pomerania and Silesia and frequent invasions of the Baltic peoples into Masovia), they managed to maintain a high degree of cultural autonomy. (there's a lot of reasons like "fragmentation period", dynastic rivalries, influences of Teutonic Order, Bohemia, Denmark and Brandenburg). If we're talking about this area, the Prussians (they are balitc, not slavic), Teutonic Order and Brandenburg (split/rework of Teutons into Order, Brandenburg, Austria and HRE) would also be a nice addition for the sake of potential campaing of Fragmentation Period (1138-1333). Same goes for Samo's State (as early slavic representation) and Avars. Also Polabian Slavs (Veleti + Obodrities + Sorbs + Rani) as the westernmost Slavic peoples from 8th-11th century could be very interesting.
I bundled the various Western Slavic peoples into the Wends build I did a little while back, but you're totally right that the Pomeranians would also be an excellent inclusion! I do have them on my radar but I'm waiting on talking about them until I do a Germanic add/split video
Everything looks good, Robby. The colours are okay, the font is big, not too much text, pretty pictures (and an equally pretty man) to distract my eyes. You forgot the asterix for Albanians though.
Hehehe Glad to hear it my friend! The add/split videos have a slightly different format than the core builds -- specifically the picture backgrounds and abundance of additional art. I have a smaller build dropping next week that will demonstrate what I'm talking about, and hopefully that is also easier on your eyes than the Koreans one was. If you wouldn't mind letting me know your thoughts on that when it happens that would be grand , but if you prefer not that's totally fine as well!
Kinda going hard on non-Slavs here, even pushing in one into the Must Haves. Sclavenes are a group from which most West Balkan Slavs originate from as an umbrella term for most. But Carantanians are the one group I'd label as NOT being Sclavenes. Sclavenes is a foreign word (Byzantine, I think) for Slavs of western Balkans and would be umbrella for all but Bulgarians and Carantanians, to my understanding. An alternate term couls be Slavonians, but this is wildly inaccurate historiographically. With the focus on statehood, I'm surprised you didn't try and make Ruthenians separate from Kievites, as Ruthenia initially referred to Galicia-Volhynia and other such west states close to Poland. While Kievites ends up being those states focused on Kiev? As such later on, Ruthenia as concept ovetakes Kievites. A thing to be considered among South Slavs is that a concept of unity among us didn't exist until the Illyrian movement, way after the AoE2 time period. And the linguistic differences were lessened only after eastern Herzegovinian was chosen as a common dialect (again, after the AoE2 time period), before which we used different ones. In the time period we were separate, fully. In hard terms I think you can divide us roughly into Serbs and Croats, with Bosnia being mostly founded by people closer to Croats culturally, whereas Serbs would encompass the few proto-Montenegrin states that existed, iirc. It also neatly divides us into Catholic and Orthodox. I don't deny the possibility of just using an umbrella anyway, but I do think a division here is possible. Also, it's Bosniaks in English, I think. The k at the end is based on local language term. Same as how it's Croats and Serbs rathar than Croatians or Serbians. Ragusa, eh? I always saw it as a mixed Venetian-Croatian state. While Dubrovnik is fully Croatian now, there's no denying the period relevant Latin influence there. Funnily enough, I've more expected you to favour Transylvanians rather than Moldovans in a case of Vlachs being separate.
Beautiful summary. I think I follow what you are saying about the Balkan civilizations. I would very much be a proponent of NOT lumping them into an umbrella, so what you are saying is very congruent with my own plans. I decided to skip the Baltic civilizations because I was planning on sticking them into a North European video of this nature! Not because the Balts are necessarily better fit for the Scandinavians, but more because that video would be a little sparse without them.
I personally wanted to see Sclavenians as a civ that can diversify into Serbia or Croatia through the adoption of unique techs, which could reference the alphabet (though admittedly the croats adopted the latin alphabet fairly late), system of administration and adherence to catholicism or orthodox christianity. I did talk to Robby about the possibility of making Ruthenians separate, representing mostly Belarus and western Ukraine, the conclusion was that they however make for the best placeholder for the current civs called "Slavs"
@tomasstanek2982 Yes, usually when these talks go the term Sclavenes is where consensus lands at, as it is the only term that was used in the period for Balkan Slavs in general. I believe in the more experimental builds you guys are privy to it could work. Potentially with the name of the civ changing as you choose the branch. Personally, I've come to avoid the term as it's non-specific. By same metric you could' named Poles as Lechites since they're currently encompassing them all, or Antes for the current Slavs. I would personally just make Serbs and then use them for the rest of the Balkan Slavs barring a potential addition of Croats (and even further Bosniaks by some miracle).
Of all of these, I think the Serbs and maybe the Vlachs are most viable to be put into the game based on the devs' own apparent standards for new civs (comprehensive, long timespan, had a large independent nation/empire at some point during their history). I do disagree on splitting up the Magyars and Hungarians into two different civs, since the Age time frame covers everything from 400 to 1600 AD and having Imperial Magyars and Dark Age Hungarians would be bizarre if we were to start separating civs chronologically within the same ethnicity/region. Would definitely like to see a full breakdown of the potential Serb civilization (whether LAVAnilla or LAVAnte-garde), since I think it even more likely to show up than the Wends or Silesians as in earlier builds.
Good video. Indeed, putting in Russia/Muscovy as a gunpowder-centric one'd be good, with the Streltsi maybe being a great archer or gunpowder unit that can also fight very well in melee. Russia also can have its own unique building, the Kremlin or the Lavra, to replace the church? Both Serbia and Russians/Ruthenians would work very well with bonuses to monks. Serbs have been known for their light cavalry throughout the whole of the middle ages - the Gussars, the predecessors to Hussars, and in late middle ages were known for great heavy cavalry that withstood the Mongols at Angora in 1402, cut through their encirclement and managed to get out. They played decisive roles as Turkish vassals, and later on constituted the majority of the population across Hungary's, and then Austria's frontier with the Ottomans, mainly as cavalry. Knights were a big thing too, routing the Crusaders at Nicopolis for instance, and having such an impactful charge that at the battle of Kosovo the Ottomans nearly broke under the initial charge. So, cavalry and skirmisher-centric would be a nice, nearly unique combination? Skirmisher due to many successes fighting as guerillas at just about any point. The battle of Bar in 1042 - a small Serbian army destroyed 40k romans in a valley around the city of Bar. Matteo Vilani, a venetian merchant was travelling with the Hungarian army in 1348 in their attack on Serbia and documented how they were harassed heavily by Serbian villagers from the woods and hills. Bosnians are a little irrelevant to put in. The country was mostly ran by Serbs who sometimes married with some Croatian houses. If we go down to Herzegovina and think of it as Bosnia too (incorrect but generous) we can see that the later leaders of Herzegovina start with Vuk Kosaca, a Serbian mercenary in the army of Dusan the mighty. They really weren't really that different from what Serbia had been, with its rulers styling themselves as Kings of Serbs too, primarily, before kings of Bosnia.
Would love to see Albanian civ. Nice catch on Albanians not being Slavic. Would've called you out on it. LOL Stradiot as regional unit could work for Balkans though them being unique unit for Albanians. I think to the Albanian civ would be more Defense and tenacity then monk. I had an idea where as a bonus they would get more attack when surrounded by more enemy units and like the closer enemy units are to ur buildings the slower they are. The stradiot could be a good light cavalry that generates gold as it fights or it steals it from ur opponents.
Cool! I'm sure your ideas here have a ton of merit, but since I haven't done the research yet I really don't know what would be best for me at least. Hopefully when I do get around to this build you'll enjoy it!
Magyars => Full horse archers, light cavalry, no siege engineers, not even capped ram, never saw a pike in their life. Hungarians => heavy horse men with horsemen that are heavy + some pretty heavily armored men on horseback. Why not? I 100% agree on your civilizations choices. Serbs and Wallachians must have their own factions. Moscow could also have but I fear that the current Slavs are made to showcase them. Unique unit for the Permians: dimetrodon You just forgot the star next to the Albanians as they are not Slavic.
Ragusans: Could be named Dalmatians and instead of just including the city-state of ragusa it includes all the eastern adriatic coast of the now extinct dalmatian language, of which ragusan was part of. The focus of the civilization could be the same.
I'd still prefer like 3 Chinese factions, leaving this huge Empire as just one civ while splitting Europe into 20+ makes no sense to me. Still nice theorycrafting of course. That said, what I'd REALLY prefer was 5 new skins (vills and basic units) for Mezoamerica, Africa, Arabia, India+Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia. Anyway, new civs might sell better than just cosmetics though I'm of cozrse aware you did this video as a fellow nerd and not a board member trying to squeeze as much money out of AOE2 as possible. 😂
Totally agree! Regional unit skins are very, very high on my list of priorities. And I also agree with you that the Slavs are not the most important umbrella to tackle! I've done a couple of these videos on my channel already, and intend on doing many more, but I would love to see more love given to other parts of the world before we return to Europe as well.
I certainly have! Even discussed them directly in the last add/split video I did before this one on the Persians. Would love to hear your thoughts if you got a chance to check it out!
Yes, the Moravians are a HUGE omission and they should have a 6 scenario Sviatopluk the Great campaign 2:50 Yes, the WENDS are an enormous omission due to the lack of historical data but once they introduced the CUMANS... the devs showed they could do any civ without hesitation 3:50 This is also necessary. The fact the Vlachs are represented by Magyars, Turks, and Slavs in the Dracula campaign is RIDICULOUS LMAO. ROMANian is a ROMANce language ahahahahahahah. smfh. They need inclusion. EDIT: I agree, Wallachian is more of an optimal term than Vlach as that is more time-specific and limits the scope of what a civ is intended to represent
The Eastern Slavs appear to me to be the crux of the issue. They are intended to represent ALL of the MANY groups of Slavic people in Eastern Europe/Eurasia. The fact these states were at war with each other and had significant, unique cultural identities, albeit similar, leads me to agree and even say the SLAVS NEED TO BE THE NEXT GROUP SPLIT UP. The Turks have a number of Turkic civs to complement the Turkic peoples but the Slavs... not so much. The difference between Novgorod and Kievan Rus is large, both temporally and culturally. I don't even mention any but the TWO most historically significant, yet there were many other polities. I also must say that the TEUTONS are the most FARCICAL civ in the game. Where is TEUTONIA? When was this TEUTONIC EMPIRE? Oh, it never happened and they are supposed to represent the 5,000 different Germanic groups following the split of Charlemagne's realm 1:22
NOT Slavic but to make many Slav campaigns you NEED the Khazars, period. It is imperative if depicting most any "Near-Eastern" campaign between ~600-1000, considering Sviatoslav toppled, not conquered, the Khazar Khaganate in 969. The Turkic Khazars are necessary
For Moldavians, I said It should be more of a monk civ which emphasizes a monastery having some sort of bonus or aura effect. I believe that the golden age of Moldavian was under Stephen the Great and here is a list of churches and monasteries attributed to him en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_churches_established_by_Stephen_the_Great
I feel like it becomes overly messy when too many civs that aren't too culturally distinct get added, Moravians being a pretty big overlap with Bohemians. I think a good split like how they handled the Indians would be Illyrians/Vlachs/Wends and renaming the Slavs to Ruthenians.
I think many people would agree with you, but I would caution you against saying something like the Bohemians and Moravians aren't too culturally distinct! Also, I would strongly disagree with using Illyrians as a blanket term for Balkan civilizations -- that term was pretty much never endogenously used after the classical era up until a neo illyrian movement in the late 18- and early 1900s, as best I can tell at least.
@@robbylava I agree with you for both of these cases, my thoughts on this are more of how the Teutons are depicted in game as an anachronistic coverall German civ or how the Burgundian civ (loosely) covers the dutch despite the two cultures being very distinct from each other.
Absolutely! Quite a weird design, in my book at least. But I didn't want to include redesigns on this list, since if I did we'd be here for at least another half hour!
@@sjetong lmao yeah. But bekrija as unique unit. High attack, but low accuracy and slow because full on lepine and rakija. Maybe change mill to lepine bakery, makes every unit regain health faster but slower
Ragusa - Could be new eco bonus, building market, which generates gold, research make gold generated faster. All gold cost units have half the blacksmith upgrades (0.5 and 0.5 armor and pierce armor for a tech) to balance it out.
You know what, they need another Baltic civ. The Lithuanians alone do not cover it. Anyone who has played the campaign will understand what I mean. Other civs or even Lithuanians subbed in for nonexistent ones 2:24
Serbs should be Monk (because of faith and many churches), Cav because of Gusar (Hussar) mercenary knights and of course gunpowder units (novo brdo have If im not wrong FIRST in this part of Europe gunpowder factories) and serbs use alot javelins (Sulica) in skirmish and ambush tactics.
What is people's infatuation with splitting Slavs? If you want to split the slavs this much, do you realize how much you'd have to split the Indian civs?
So, there is a problem you seem to lack accounting... It should be fair to split italians, chinese, japanese, aztecs, spanish, koreans, and all the civs resulting would be waaaaaaaay too many to choose from, like, damn. We already have a frick ton of them, and many civs or nations didn't had any relevancy in game at the point it justifyied a whole civ, like Moravians, wich appear only in Honfoglalas and for 5 min until you erase them with the magyar in nomads (they were falling apart, tho :|) Other that could worth would be russian with strelet (cheap trashy archer that cost food and wood and is easy to mass, the karambit recruit of archers) and maybe rutenians with cossacks, maybe 3 more natives? Templar Crusaders, split the Sarracens...
Again, too many civs 50 is like, waaaay too much, imagine having to buy a dlc for each 3 civs they add, at the end I would end up spending a fortune in dlcs xD
As a Hungarian… Hungarian in our language is Magyar. To this very day. We are the same people, same language, same history, same state. So.. what was that nonsense?
Same nonsense that makes me think that the Britons should also be split with a new "English" civilization that could represent their later states. Same with the Franks, the Chinese, the Persians, and many others besides. When a single civilization tries to represent over a thousand years of history, it just ends up being an unfocused mess that does no justice to ANY part of that history.
Silesians makes no sense the germans have already there civ as teutons. The first people to sattle on this land in Form of germanic tribes and the rightful owner.
Not sure how non-Slavs like Wallachians and Ruthenians are must-have, and Croatians which were a strong regional power for a few hundred years, and one of earlier Slav kingdoms is mid-tier? The video is called - How much can AoE2 split the Slavs.
@@tomasstanek2982 sure, but my point still stands, how are non-slav civs are placed higher than slav civs in a video called How much can AoE2 split the SLAVS?
@@tisucitisin1 because this is talking about the stupidly named aoe2 civ, which currently exists as an umbrella for anything eastern, including Wallachians for example.
