Tuesday Talking Points: Two Descriptions for Every Civilization

Summary: Adding descriptions so that all Age of Empires II civilizations are characterized by two specialties, analyzing the results, and a request for feedback and constructive criticism.

Background: Of the 35 Age of Empires II civilizations, only 15 are described as specializing in two different areas. For example, Aztecs are described as an Infantry & Monk Civilization, while Britons are only described as an Archer Civilization, and to be verbatim, Foot Archer. Because I like organization and order, I wanted to add a description to those civilizations that only have one so that all civilizations would have two descriptions.

Method: The first step is to make the list of all possible descriptions. These specialties are what are shown under the civ’s name in the Tech Tree, and generally indicate that a civilization is known for that kind of unit. Below are the descriptions, with ones in Bold the descriptions that I added (descriptions to follow);

Archer

Camelry

Cavalry

Cavalry Archer

Defense

Economy

Elephantry

Gunpowder

Infantry

Monk

Navy

Ranged Infantry

Siege

Skirmisher

Spearmen

Most of these are straight-forward, like an Archer civ would have good Archer units or bonuses that pertain to Archers, but don’t necessarily need to have a Unique Unit that is an Archer. Defense is a very broad description that could mean they have good towers, walls cost less, their buildings have higher HP, etc. The one outlier is Economy, which is kind of a catch-all I made for when I felt a civ did not have a clear second-best military option, and instead had things like villager gather rate bonuses, unit cost discounts, and other similar bonuses.

I broke out Camelry and Elephantry from Cavalry since those units have clear differences, and a case could be made that Cavalry should be further divided into Light Cavalry and Heavy Cavalry, but I thought that was maybe getting a little more pedantic than I already was. I had similar lines of thought when I separated Archer and Skirmishers, and Spearmen from Infantry, since again those units serve different roles. I felt like Ranged Infantry was different enough from Infantry to justify making it their own category, but I can see why some people might say it is not.

I did not make Trash a category, although it arguably could be an adept description of several civ’s specialties. I thought that was too general, and when I think of what a civ specializes in, it makes me think of their idealized best units for a knockout punch, not their ability to win a post-Imperial war of attrition. Similarly, this thought experiment was solely looking at what units a civ specializes in, and not more conceptual specialties like a Tower/Scout Rushing civ, or a Fast Castle one, or a Booming one, etc.

As a final note before sharing the results, it was not the intention that these two descriptions would be the only things that the civ is good at. For example, the Koreans are described as a Navy and Defense civilization, but they have excellent Siege too.

Results: So without further ado, here is my list of all civ’s with two descriptions. If the second name is in Bold, that means that I added it to a civilization that previously only had one, or in the case of Berbers, I changed it from the original description.

Aztecs – Infantry & Monk

Berbers – Cavalry & Camelry (changed from Cavalry & Navy)

Britons – Archer & Economy

Bulgarians – Infantry & Cavalry

Burmese – Monk & Elephantry

Byzantines – Defense & Monk

Celts – Infantry & Siege

Chinese – Archer & Economy

Cumans – Cavalry & Cavalry Archer

Ethiopians – Archer & Infantry

Franks – Cavalry & Ranged Infantry

Goths – Infantry & Economy

Huns – Cavalry & Cavalry Archer

Incas – Infantry & Economy

Indians – Camelry & Gunpowder

Italians – Archer & Navy

Japanese – Infantry & Navy

Khmer – Siege & Elephantry

Koreans – Defense & Navy

Lithuanians – Cavalry & Monk

Magyars – Cavalry & Economy

Malay – Navy & Infantry

Malians – Infantry & Cavalry

Mayans – Archer & Defense

Mongols – Cavalry Archer & Cavalry

Persians – Cavalry & Economy

Portuguese – Navy & Gunpowder

Saracens – Camelry & Navy

Slavs – Infantry & Siege

Spanish – Gunpowder & Monk

Tatars – Cavalry Archer & Cavalry

Teutons – Infantry & Monk

Turks – Gunpowder & Cavalry Archer

Vietnamese – Archer & Skirmisher

Vikings – Infantry & Navy

​

Analysis

1) Civs with Two Descriptions per Age of Empires II Game Version

Here is a breakdown by Version of the civs that the developers originally gave two descriptions;

Age of Kings (3/13) – Celts, Saracens, Vikings

Age of Conquerors (3/5) – Aztecs, Koreans, Spanish

The Forgotten (3/5) – Indians, Italians, Slavs

African Kingdoms (2/4) – Berbers, Portuguese

Rise of the Rajas (2/4) – Burmese, Khmer

Last Khans (2/4) – Bulgarians, Lithuanians

I’m not sure if there was a conscious effort by the developers to increase the percentage of civs they added that had two descriptions in the expansions, or it just is a coincidence the two or three of each expansion merited giving two descriptions. I’ve long argued that these descriptions are important because for developers adding new civs, they want to be sure they aren’t crafting a new civ that specializes in and feels like one or more existing civ. Which brings me to my next point.

2) Unique and Repeat Descriptions

Overall I came up with 24 unique descriptions with 8 repeats, which are:

Archer & Economy (2) – Britons, Chinese

Cavalry & Cavalry Archer (4) – Cumans, Huns, Mongols, Tatars

Cavalry & Economy (2) – Magyars, Persians

Cavalry & Infantry (2) – Bulgarians, Malians

Infantry & Economy (2) – Goths, Incas

Infantry & Navy (3) – Japanese, Malay, Vikings

Infantry & Monk (2) – Teutons, Aztecs

Infantry & Siege (2) – Celts, Slavs

This is not to say that civs that share a description with another civ are exactly the same, since the developers included other bonuses, units, or playstyles to ensure variety, but it does show that some combinations are more prevalent than others.

3) Unique Unit Not Always Civ Specialty

There aren’t many civs with a Unique Unit created at the Castle that is not the same type as one of their civ’s specialties:

Burmese – Monk & Elephantry UU – Arambai, Cavalry Archer

Byzantines – Monk & Defense UU – Cataphract, Cavalry

Indians – Gunpowder & Siege UU – Elephant Archer, Cavalry Archer & Elephantry

Koreans – Navy & Defense UU – War Wagon, Cavalry Archer

*Malians – Cavalry & Infantry UU – Gbeto, Ranged Infantry

Persians – Cavalry & Economy UU – War Elephant, Elephantry

Slavs – Infantry & Siege UU – Boyar, Cavalry

*Malians would not be included if you do not think Ranged Infantry is different from Infantry

While a military unit probably would not be considered Defense or Economy, certain Unique Buildings could be, like the Krepost or Feitoria. An interesting specialty though is Navy, which could be a Unit or Building. Of the seven civs that specialize in Navy, three do not have a Navy Unique Unit, three do have a Navy Unique Unit, and Malay have a Navy Unique Building.

4) “Main 3” Military Specialties

If you consider the “Main 3” specialties in Age of Empires II to be Archer, Cavalry, and Infantry, six civs specialize in Archer, eleven are Cavalry, and twelve are Infantry. Subtracting the two that double up as Infantry & Cavalry and the one that is Archer & Infantry, these Main 3 military categories cover 26 of the 35 civs. For the remaining nine civs that do not already fall into one of those Main 3 categories, Gunpowder is the most frequent specialty with four civs, since all six Economy civs fall into one of the Main 3 and four of the five Cavalry Archer civs are also Cavalry civs.

Archer – 6

Camelry – 3

Cavalry – 11

Cavalry Archer – 5

Defense – 3

Economy – 6

Elephantry – 2

Gunpowder – 4

Infantry – 12

Monk – 6

Navy – 7

Ranged Infantry – 1

Siege – 3

Skirmishers – 1

Spearmen – 0 :(

Motivation and Conclusion

What was my motivation for doing all of this? Besides my borderline obsessive-compulsive desire for organization, I am like a lot of people on this sub in that I like to think about new civilization concepts. I like reading any New Civ concept post on this sub (at least those that aren’t made in jest or as memes), but I think I enjoy them far greater if they are well thought out, researched, and meet these criteria, in this order:

#1) Did that civ exist in the general time frame of Age of Empires II (500 AD - 1500 AD)?

#2) Does this civ do something differently than one of the existing civs?

#3) Was there an attempt to make that civ balanced for gameplay?

#4) Is this civ not closely related to, or a sub-culture of, a civ that currently exists in the game?

#5) Did that civ exist for several hundred years, or have a large impact on Medieval history?

I hope that people know that AoE2 is largely based on history, and since this is a historical-based game, any new civ must fall into the general time frame of AoE2. But the second one on the list is also extremely important, because I feel like a lot of the New Civ posts I see are just modified versions of ones that already exist. By organizing the civs this way, it is clear that there are niches that new civs should try to fit into. Ranged Infantry, Skirmishers, and Spearmen seem to be ones that could be applied to a variety of new civs in all areas of the world, while Camelry is confined to the Middle East and Elephantry is only for South East Asia (not Africa, there were no tamed African Elephants during the Medieval period. Hannibal and the Romans literally drove the North African Elephant to extinction by using them in war and circuses in Antiquity).

And to address Ranged Infantry a final time, one of the reasons for including it was units that throw Tomahawks (Puebloans) or Boomerangs (Aboriginals) have a corresponding and fitting description. But that is information for a later Tuesday Talking Point.

Conclusion:

So what do you guys think? Would you describe any of the civilizations differently than I did? What is your threshold for saying a civilization specializes in a type of unit? Did anything from the Analysis section surprise you, or are there other conclusions that you guys see? If you were using my 5 Criteria for New Civ concepts, would you order them differently? Are there types of units you think should be more prevalent in the game?