![]() ![]() The announcement post for the Definitive Edition reads "While developing Age III: DE, we realized that we weren’t upholding that value as well as we could regarding our Native American cultures so we set out to fix that: working directly with tribal consultants to respectfully and accurately capture the uniqueness of their peoples, history, and cultures. There's clearly a lot that can be done to improve the portrayal of Native American civilizations, but it's not clear exactly how things are going to change yet. Related: What Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition's PC Requirements Are It's a neat mechanic that plays to the history of each civilization, even if it is steeped in mythology. The Greeks gain it by praying at a temple, the Egyptians by construction idols, and the Norse by having heroes in combat. In Age of Mythology for example the three main civilizations gain favor in different ways. If the series wants better representation it needs to implement unique gameplay mechanics that are more fitting for the real civilizations. At the same time, it's strange to hear units in the Native civilizations shouting the same lines that the European ones do, in the same voice.Īs a more modern RTS, it's a problem that all of the civilizations in Age of Empires 3 use the same mechanics, buildings, etc. The big problem is that all of the Native civilizations use the same lines, and there's no variation based on their individual languages. The Native civilizations use a mix of English and only a few local language lines. Looking at that and the visual representation, Age of Empires 3 falls into that stereotypical representation of "Indians." Equally egregious are the voice cues that play whenever players select or move a unit. These civilizations also have no unique buildings, as the only real unique gameplay feature is a Fire Pit that villagers can dance around to unlock unique powers. Journal for Computer Game Culture, Native American civilizations aren't given any options for replanting trees, which seems odd considering how many Native cultures revere nature. Take wood as a resource for example, as all civilizations have to gather wood by chopping down countless trees.Īs Beth LaPensée points out in an essay for Eludamos. The core ideas of Age of Empires revolve around Western ideas of colonialism, right down to the way resources are gathered and traded. The root of the problem is that the same mechanics are applied to these civilizations as the European civilizations. Their villagers gather food faster from sheep, and their Town Centers are cheaper than usual, which helps their economy and gives them the possibility of expanding in the mid-game much faster.The Age of Empires series has always dealt with various civilizations from across the globe, but Age of Empires 3 is the first title to feature Native American civs, despite Age of Empires 2 featuring the Aztecs and the Mayans. Their unique unit is the Longbowman which can out-range virtually every other unit in the game as well as towers and castles once fully upgraded. Their archery ranges produce units considerably faster than the average civilization, and their archers in general have a longer range. The first entry in our list happens to be the Britons, a classic civilization with a focus on archery for their military strategies. So without further ado, here are the best civilizations with the highest win-rate in AoEII: HD Edition. To simplify this I’ve turned to aoestats.io, an independent project that monitors the game’s competitive scene and provides easy to understand data such as win rate, overall usage, and average game score for each civilization. Some may do better on certain maps, some benefit from 1v1 settings or are good in team games, and the list of variables goes on making it hard to make a simple ranking. With the HD version came several new civilizations to control and develop into bustling empires, complicating the ever-controversial question of which civilization is the best. It’s been going strong since 1999 and with the release of the HD Edition in 2013 and the arrival of the Definitive Edition in November 2019, it doesn’t look like that’s going to end anytime soon. ![]() Few franchises in the history of gaming have been as long-standing as Age of Empires, Ensemble Studios’ classic historical RTS.Īnd very few games have been played for such a long time as Age of Empires II, arguably the most beloved installment in the series. ![]()
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