Point of having both the Huns and the Magyars in the game?

[poke_ravi]

Aren't both of them basically the same thing? No need to add both if that's the case.

[Tempires]

no they aren't

[SomeTenRandom]

I mean one gets 20% faster stables and the other doesnt thats a pretty big difference.

[Shade-O]

Eleborate why they're the same?
Like is it the culture , the gameplay , the appeal , their legacy , the color underpants?

[Xautos]

Huns were invaders from Russia, however Hungary existed before the Hun invasion and they were already living on those lands, the Romans conquered them and after their fall from grace, the Hungarians were on the map as country in it's own right, a little later on and the Huns arrived and turned those people into something, but internal infighting destroyed the Huns and that left nomadic peoples and the Hungarians to their business, but the Hungarians were on their own again before becoming a kingdom in their own right not long after these events.

Both the Romans and the Huns were invaders who had a temporary influence on it's people, but ultimately the Hungarians themselves came through these invasions and created their own kingdom.

So no, they are not the same people.

[Baywatch]

Originally posted by Shade-O:

Eleborate why they're the same?
Like is it the culture , the gameplay , the appeal , their legacy , the color underpants?

Because, given the timeframe that the game represents, they're more or less the same civ. It's not as cut and dry as Italians and Byzantines fully representing the medieval Romans (the Huns where a coalition of different tribes that dissolved long before the Magyars) but, the Magyars are as close as you can get to medieval Huns. Beyond their campaign and needing to fill the role of a cav archer civ, it was how I justified their exsistance in AoC.

The thing is, we're talking about a game where you can fight over Arabia as the Mayans or invade Texas as the Turks. I can also understand why people would want the Magyars as their own seperate entity given their historical significance which is drastically different from the Huns. You need to pick your battles with AoE II and both Huns and Magyars exsisting is something that I'm ok with.

[BuchiTaton]

Funny thing that when Ensemble was designing "The Conquerors" expansion, originally the Huns were supposed to be the Magyars, but they changed to Huns just because everybody know about "Attila the Hun".

[poke_ravi]

Originally posted by Shade-O:

Eleborate why they're the same?
Like is it the culture , the gameplay , the appeal , their legacy , the color underpants?

Huns didn't even exist for 99% of AoK's timeline so their inclusion doesn't even make any sense in the first place especially since they were primarily known for being an enemy of Rome. Furthermore many Magyars/Hungarians considered themselves to be the successors of the Huns. Whether this is actually true or not is debateable but the belief does exist.

[TheBattler]

Originally posted by Xautos:

Huns were invaders from Russia, however Hungary existed before the Hun invasion and they were already living on those lands,

There's 0 historical evidence for your claims. Only Hungarian ultra-nationalists started talking like you do in the last couple centuries.

During the Middle Ages, the Hungarians themselves never claimed to be from Europe, they said that they came from the steppe, and even pointed out that some of their relatives were still living back on the steppe (which they were, a Hungarian Monk even went out to find the "Old Magyars" during the height of the Mongol invasions).

Originally posted by Baywatch:

Because, given the timeframe that the game represents, they're more or less the same civ. It's not as cut and dry as Italians and Byzantines fully representing the medieval Romans (the Huns where a coalition of different tribes that dissolved long before the Magyars) but, the Magyars are as close as you can get to medieval Huns. Beyond their campaign and needing to fill the role of a cav archer civ, it was how I justified their exsistance in AoC.

There were plenty of "medieval Huns" who aren't the Magyars. To me, it's obvious the Huns represent all of the western Steppe peoples. Attila's sons were said to have led several Bulgar tribes after the dissolution of the Huns. Armenians talk about Huns settling in the Caucasus, where they stayed for a few hundred years. Up until the coming of the Magyars, Europeans called basically everyone that came from the steppe "Huns" (except the Byzantines, who called everybody from there Turks).

Originally posted by poke_ravi:

Huns didn't even exist for 99% of AoK's timeline so their inclusion doesn't even make any sense in the first place especially since they were primarily known for being an enemy of Rome.

Okay, that still doesn't mean Huns = Magyars.

Furthermore many Magyars/Hungarians considered themselves to be the successors of the Huns. Whether this is actually true or not is debateable but the belief does exist.

Doesn't really matter. The "Britons" are the successors of Celtic peoples in present-day England, we still have Britons and Celts. Spanish are the successors of a Visigothic nobility, we have Spanish and Goths.

[Xautos]

Originally posted by TheBattler:

Originally posted by Xautos:

Huns were invaders from Russia, however Hungary existed before the Hun invasion and they were already living on those lands,

There's 0 historical evidence for your claims. Only Hungarian ultra-nationalists started talking like you do in the last couple centuries.

During the Middle Ages, the Hungarians themselves never claimed to be from Europe, they said that they came from the steppe, and even pointed out that some of their relatives were still living back on the steppe (which they were, a Hungarian Monk even went out to find the "Old Magyars" during the height of the Mongol invasions).

alright, where do you think the huns came from and what proof do you have?

an arguement for arguement sake is not what i am interested in. since you waded into this, prove your own point.

[Shade-O]

Except the origins of the Huns is almost impossible to point due to lack of solid evidence so we cannot make an accurate judgment if the Magyars had any relation ethnicity wise. If people want discuss this further then fine but i highly doubt any of us can come up with a statisfying conclusion.

[Xautos]

Originally posted by Shade-O:

Except the origins of the Huns is almost impossible to point due to lack of solid evidence so we cannot make an accurate judgment if the Magyars had any relation ethnicity wise. If people want discuss this further then fine but i highly doubt any of us can come up with a statisfying conclusion.

then how is someone challenging any claim considered approrpriate? this is the problem with historical recordings, the debate of the philosophy of history.

there is what you are told by the victors and survivors and then there are those who can not speak for themselves because they all died out and left no account. no one person can be accused of impartiality, especially in those times where violence was a constant.

Thing is that we all came from somewhere and trying to prove that is always going to be difficult. so how can you tell which one is true or if they are all lies?

[Shade-O]

In that case we can only speak within boundries. To say that the Huns are from Anrarctica would be a violation to our common knowledge indeed. But to give legitimacy to the idea that Magyars were descendants from the Huns is while more realistic than Huns coming Antarctica , is still dubious at best. I think there is enough distinction between those 2 groups to warrant a seperate civ and recognize them as 2 seperate groups.

Now i'm not an expert historian but i think i can make an educated guess that because certain people claiming to descandant of a certain group of people doesn't mean it's correct like OP suggests.

And just because we lack evidence doesn't mean we have to take statements like that as the truth or seriously. There are limits we must impose or else everything a person says cannot be denied let alone be reasonably discussed.

[Baywatch]

Originally posted by TheBattler:

There were plenty of "medieval Huns" who aren't the Magyars. To me, it's obvious the Huns represent all of the western Steppe peoples. Attila's sons were said to have led several Bulgar tribes after the dissolution of the Huns. Armenians talk about Huns settling in the Caucasus, where they stayed for a few hundred years. Up until the coming of the Magyars, Europeans called basically everyone that came from the steppe "Huns" (except the Byzantines, who called everybody from there Turks).

I am referring to the Huns as the people that were led by Attila and his descendants, regardless of what people called other people out of ignorance. If you want to label everyone sharing an ethnicity with anyone that ever served under Atilla as Hunnic then sure, that would be a massive umbrella.

I'm talking about the Huns that settled in the area of present day Hungary, the same place the Magyar tribes settled hundreds of years later. Those hundreds of years after the (debatable) end of the Hunnic empire is the reason for the debate over Magyar hunnic heritage.

[TheBattler]

Originally posted by Xautos:

alright, where do you think the huns came from and what proof do you have?

Don't deflect the topic. You made up a bunch of **** about the Hungarians, not the Huns.

an arguement for arguement sake is not what i am interested in.

Oh, my bad. My apologies. You're interested in lying.

since you waded into this, prove your own point.

Ohhhh no no no no, you made a claim, you provide the evidence"

However, since I'm not a shyster like you, I have evidence that the Hungarians came from outside Europe.

De Administrando Imperio[homepage.univie.ac.at] was written by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, Byzantine Emperor from 913-959 AD. Arpad, considered by Hungarians to be the founder of Hungary, had died by 907 AD. In historical terms, a chronicle written within about 50-ish years is pretty good. The Byzantines had great relations with the Khazars, with both working against the Bulgars, Arabs, and Persians over the centuries, and their nobility occasionally married each other (Justinian II and Constantine V married Khazar princesses).

Page 171 of De Administrando Imperio (page 177 of the PDF), Constantine talks about "the Turks" being under the suzerainty of the Khazars but mentions that Almos and Arpad as eventually becoming their Kings, with Lebedia being next to Chazaria. These "Turks" are obviously the Magyars as a group of steppe peoples calling themselves Magyars entered Europe led by a King Almos and later a King Arpad.

By the way, most Hungarians call Arpad the founder of their country, which implies that Hungary didn't exist until after the Magyars were led to Europe which implies they weren't from Europe in the first place.

Constantine Porphyrogenitus and His World by Arnold Joseph Toynbee, available at most libraries in the United States, talks about the journey of Friar Julian on the eve of the Mongol invasions. I couldn't find a translation of Friar Julians' handwritten account on the internet because it's locked up in a Catholic library somewhere, but there are numerous books that have cited the account so you can trust it. According to Julian, Old Hungary is 2 days journey from Volga Bulgaria (named because their capitol is on the Volga River)...right next to where Chazaria used to be! What a coincidence! Julian could even communicate with the Old Magyars, as their language had not completely separated. How would the Hungarians, without communication for 400 years, guess that known their cousins were there had they not been from there?

Here's a translation of The Gest Hunnarorum et Hungarorum[discovery.ucl.ac.uk], written in the 1200s by a Hungarian named Simon of Kesza. The whole text deals with how the Magyars came from outside Europe and how they were descended from the Huns. Now, the claims are fairly dubious because there's a wide gap of records between the Huns and the Magyars, but the point is that the Hungarians wanted to create a link between themselves and the Huns for prestige. The Huns were known to be invaders from outside Christendom/Roman Empire/Europe. Why, if they were original to the land, wouldn't they come up with some link or legend about how they have always been in Hungary?

Your turn buddy.

You're gonna have a hard time finding sources like I can, because mainstream scholarship does not take the idea of the the Hungarians being native to Hungary seriously.

Originally posted by Baywatch:

I am referring to the Huns as the people that were led by Attila and his descendants, regardless of what people called other people out of ignorance. If you want to label everyone sharing an ethnicity with anyone that ever served under Atilla as Hunnic then sure, that would be a massive umbrella.

Uhhh kind of like the Saracens? Or the Turks? Or the Slavs...or the Vikings...or the Celts...to a lesser extent Italians and Spanish...

You realize we're talking about Age of Empires 2, right?

I'm talking about the Huns that settled in the area of present day Hungary, the same place the Magyar tribes settled hundreds of years later. Those hundreds of years after the (debatable) end of the Hunnic empire is the reason for the debate over Magyar hunnic heritage.

Well first, the Huns settled all over the place, and they were in the Caucasus mountains (500s to about the 700s) longer than they were in Hungary (from about 380 to the 450s). I mean, the Ostrogoths lived in present-day Hungary for a time and fought mainly on horseback, why don't we talk about how they might be predecessors of the Magyars? Incidentally, Roman records show that the Hunnic Empire's common language was Gothic, too, and the few Hunnish words we have on record seem to be Gothic.

The debate over Magyar-Hunnic heritage is mainly because the Magyars, about 200-300 years after they entered Europe, started claiming they were descended from Attila even though Byzantine sources from around the same time the Magyars entered Europe don't mention this connection. Furthermore, because we don't have much of an idea of who the Huns were, that leaves alot of room for fanciful interpretation.

The Byzantines specifically called the Magyars "Turks," even though they were dealing with a bunch of other Turkic tribes by name (Pechenegs, Black Bulgars, Khazars), aren't we gonna talk about how both the Magyars and Turks shouldn't be in the game?

[FlipperTime]

I partially agree.

I agree that having added the Huns to the game is nonsense (from a historical standpoint). There are civs that deserve that place: Polish, Serbians, Caucasians, Austrians, Bulgarians, Tibetans, &c...

The Huns don't have an "enemy" but the Goths & the Franks, & they weren't even the main enemy. Having the Huns creates the need of having Romans as well.

I think that Hungarians are a really good addition to the game though... They can be counter for the Turks, from my perspective, as these have no other serious enemy but the Byzantines (& these last fought against everybody).