Can each architecture get its own monk design please?

[mickeyjim2]

I know there are plenty of examples of unfitting skins in the game (Aztec arbalests, Malian cavaliers etc) and that giving every unit for every civ appropriate appearances would take forever and realistically won't happen outside of mods unless we maybe get an 'AoE2 Ultimate Edition' or something years from now.

That being said, I think giving each architecture its own monk appearance wouldn't be asking for much and would be a really fun addition that everyone would appreciate. The American civs already have their own design which is cool. The default monk that we all know could become the Western European's one.

The Indian set could get a Hindu monk.

The South East Asians could get a Buddhist monk.

The Middle Eastern set could actually use the Imam skin that is already in the scenario editor.

Eastern Europeans could get an Orthodox Christian monk.

African set could get a black monk in white robes with their shirt or scarf showing their civ colour (Mali is Muslim while Ethiopia is Christian so its 50/50; leave the design simple so it can be interpreted either way).

East Asians could get a Japanese monk wearing a conical hat (chose this to differentiate it a bit more from the South East Asian monk).

Central Asians would get some sort of Islamic/Turkic monk.

Only ones I'm not sure of how to visually differentiate from the default monk are the Central European and Mediterranean sets since both would be Catholic if I'm not mistaken. Maybe the Mediterranean monks could look a bit like the cardinals as they appear in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood? Feel free to suggest your own ideas.

[Thor II]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Thor II:

There are several problems implementing sets of skins for units.

For start, there are many heroes that would serve as skins for units, but nowhere near all of them. There are only a few, many skins would need to be created from scratch.

Some civilizations would be part of the unity skin set of one region, and the architectural set of another region. In fact, it may even happen that the barracks units are more suitable for the set of units in one region, as long as the stable units are more suited to another region for example. And some civilizations may need a exclusive set of units, not just the Indians.

More or less as with the Byzantines, Mediterranean architecture? Okay, perfect, but this comes at the cost of Catholic sails instead of orthodox sails, while orthodox architecture doesn't match them. And the old (Middle East) was bad both the architecture and the sails of the ships.

Ships and siege weapons would be a case apart, since not all civilizations used them.

There are cases where you can't switch. How to make elephants and camels for a European or American set in a game of Full Tech Tree? Strange as it may seem, there are even Aztec warriors riding horses in the editor.

And finally, there's the monks' case. Perhaps there are some bad unit names that would also be better if they were swapped in another set of units, such as the Paladin and hussar, but none of them are as serious as the monk.

The monk would need to change not only the Skin, but also the name of the unit (which is a predominantly Christian name) and the name of the building (which is a Christian name as well).

We have in the game the religions Catholic, Orthodox, Christianity Coopta (Ethiopia), Islamic, Buddhist (Asian Civ), Hinduism (India), American and Pagans (Asian and European civs that do not fit the others).

Then we would have 3 different visual sets for each civ, the architectural, the units and the religious/sails.

To be perfect, some civs would have to be part of 4, 5 different visual sets. It would be really confusing to implement and they would certainly argue that with different visuals it would become more difficult to recognize the units in the MP, although this kind of detail would certainly help strengthen the AOE II DE in the scenario of E-Sport.

But if we stop to see, even the set of architecture still has several errors, such as the aforementioned case of catholic sails for the Byzantines.

It also has the case of the Vikings, everyone has played Age of Mythology or built the Viking wonder, know how their architecture should look, maybe the Nordic Catholic kingdoms could use the architecture of northern Europe, but these are the Vikings and should use the classic and well-known Viking architecture.

And there's the case of the Huns and Goths, who certainly don't fit the architecture of northern Europe, although they don't fit well into any other. Perhaps the Huns fit better into the architecture of Central Asia.

[Thor II]

I've been defending this idea for years, I've posted several times in the forum about it, only that you are complicating unnecessarily in some points and forgetting others.

It is necessary to change 3 things, not only the monk's skin. It is necessary to change the monk's skin, the monk's name and the name of the building where it is made. Monk and Monasteries are predominantly Christian names.

American civilizations already have their Monk Skin and it is already being used. The Islam already have their Skin (Imam), the name (Imam) and the name of the building (Mosque).

We don't need a religious set/ship sails for each architectural set, it's exaggerated and unnecessary, we just need one set for each religion.

The religions present in the game are:

Catholicism: Franks, Goths, Italians, Portuguese, Teutons, Spanish, Magyars, Britons, Celts.

Orthodox: Byzantines, Bulgarians, Slavs.

Christianity Coopta: Ethiopians.

Islam: Saracens, Berbers, Malians, Tartars, Turks, Persians.

Buddhism: Burmese, Khmer, Malay, Mongol, Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, Koreans.

Pagans: Cumans, Huns, Vikings, Lithuanians.

American Religions: Aztecs, Mayans, Incas.

Hinduism: India.

Maybe there could be Shinto for Japan.

Well, I must admit I'm not sure where to put the Lithuanians since at first they were pagans and then became Christians, and I'm not even sure if they became Catholic (I think that was it) or Orthodox.

The Set of ships sails does not always have 100% to do with religion, but often this is the case. As you can see, civilizations like Byzantines (with Catholic sails), Indians (with Islamic sails) and Magyars (with Orthodox sails), are already wrong at this very moment. If the religious set/sails were along with the architectural set, Lithuanians would probably be wrong too.

Also seems essential a specific skin for the Malians, which can be identical at all to Islamic only black.

It's the Vikings. They may serve as an umbrella for all Nordic civilizations (Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland) but they are still the Vikings, so they are still pagans and so must be represented both in their monastery and in their sails. Again, its architecture also does not correspond to the Vikings.

[mickeyjim2]

You're making it way more complicated than it needs to be, and you're missing the point somewhat. A monk is tied to an architecture set, nothing more. They do not represent every religion in the game. Your logic that says Lithuanians need a different monk appearance to Slavs, Magyars etc. is the same that would argue that every civ needs its own architecture in the first place, which isn't happening.

Things have never lined up 100% with every civ in the game. That's always been the case. Having a monk tied to an architecture set is simple and makes sense to anyone who has played AoE2. The monastery does not need to be renamed since its always just been the name for any civ's religious building. A Britons' monastery looks like a church, a Saracens' like a mosque, a Japanese's like a shrine etc. Again because the appearance of the building is tied to that civ's architecture. Essentially every unique monastery appearance has its own monk appearance as well.

[Thor II]

Opprinnelig skrevet av mickeyjim2:

. Again because the appearance of the building is tied to that civ's architecture. Essentially every unique monastery appearance has its own monk appearance as well.

I know what the proposal is about, I've been proposing it for over a decade. I've done several posts here on the forum about the subject.

Western Europe: Franks, Britons, Etc.
Mediterranean: Portuguese, Spain, Etc.
Eastern Europe: Magyars, Slavs, Etc.
Northern Europe: Teutons, Vikings, Etc.
Middle East: Saracens, Persian, Etc.
Asia: Chinese, Japanese, Etc.
Southeast Asia: Burmese, Khmers, Etc.
Central Asia: Cumans, Tartars.
America: Aztecs, Incas, Etc.
Africa: Malians, Ethiopians.
India: India.

There are 11 architectural sets at the moment, while I'm proposing 8 religions, maybe 9. In my proposal, it takes fewer skins of monks to be created than in yours, only 8, and has a much greater historical accuracy, since it is more than proven that not all of the same architectural set have the same religion.

Maybe it wasn't clear, but everyone of the same religion wears the same monk skin. Lithuanians and Magyars will not have the same skin as the other civilizations with this architectural set, but their skin will not be entirely new and unique, they will use the same skin as all other civilizations of their religion.

The only exclusive skins are going to be the Indians and Ethiopians and honestly, I think Ethiopians could be the Orthodox Skin only with a Black Monk, and the Malians will only change that he will be black. Less skins than if you were going to have one for each architectural set.

Catholicism, Orthodox, Coopta and maybe Budhism won't even need to change the names, they can keep calling from Monk and Monastery.

Islam already has the name of the unit and the name of the Monastery ready, it is until it is an offense not to use something that is already ready to 20 years. Then only Pagan, Hinduism and American Religions would really need new names.

I admit that there may be a certain technical difficulty in changing the names, it would be like creating a new unit and a new construction according to the criteria of the game. But putting the religious set/sails different from the architectural set has no difficulty at all, an experienced programmer should not spend even 5 minutes doing this.

Forgetting the names and focusing only on the skin:

Being as economical as possible, in my proposal would be created 4 new skins of monk, for the Orthodox, Budhism, Pagans and Hinduism. Catholicism, Islam and American skins already exist. It would also take two simple recolors to make a black Orthodox monk for the Ethiopians and make a black Islam monk for the Malians.

Being as exaggerated as possible, there would be 6 new skins, for the Orthodox, Budhism, Pagans, Hinduism, Coopta and Shinto, plus a simple recolor to make a black Islam monk for the Malians.

Your proposal is not historically accurate and still need the creation of two new skins more than mine proposal.

[Juggernaut]

We don't even have unique kings per architecture set. Also one architecture set (i.e. Indians) doesn't even have unique Ship Sails.

[Thor II]

Why would we need unique skins for kings? In some specific matches, you will have one of them only, which will probably pass the entire match inside a castle, and they arrived at the game after the monks.

The Monks are a basic unit that can be made the tens and has a real utility in the game, it is obviously infinitely more relevant than a simple and useless king.

The problem with India Sails, as far as I know, is that the Indians were not very close to navigation, the Hindu religion has a serious problem with the sea from what I remember. So all Indian navigation was done by Muslims, so islamic sails.

[Lilim]

Do you remember the Independent Architecture Mod from AoE2HD?

It came with 2 additional monk skins (Imam and asian Monk).

I would like to see both added to AoE2DE.

To keep it as simple as possible:

• all european civs use the default Monk
  
• the american civs already have their unique Monk skin
  
• all arabic, african and central asian civilizations as well as the Indians use the Imam
  
• all east asian and south east asian civilizations use the asian Monk

I don't think it is necessary to change any unit or building names.

[Morvana]

What should be done, is some little changes to the game files, to be able to mod that at will.

At the moment, there a unit which is the "monk", an other which is "American monk" (I don't rember the real name), so you can freely change the apparence of the monk and the "Amrican monk", but you can't change the apperance of the Teutonic monk for example, you will change the appearance of all the generic monks.

What should be done is making each civ unit for each civ unique (in the files at least), allowing the creators to make cosmetic mods which would work without evry players having it, and that for all units.

[Juggernaut]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Thor II:

The problem with India Sails, as far as I know, is that the Indians were not very close to navigation, the Hindu religion has a serious problem with the sea from what I remember. So all Indian navigation was done by Muslims, so islamic sails.

You are incredibly wrong:
https://www.myindiamyglory.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Indian-ships-1.jpg

Vasco da Gama, from Portugal, came eastwards, in 1498, searching for India.


Very interesting….How Vasco da Gama reached India?

He reached Cape of Good Hope by sailing along the west coast of Africa, keeping sight of land, for fear of getting lost. From his own account, he then reached Malabar on the West coast of India only after being escorted in mid seas, by Indian ships.

He further writes that while he had brought the largest, then known ship in Portugal, the Indian ships, which had come for trade to Cape of Good Hope, the southern coast of Africa, were 10 times as large as his own ship.

The making of these large ships prove that the Indian Shipping Industry was highly developed and formed the backbone of Indian trade then.

Unfortunately, the British destroyed Indian ship building industry to make way for the modern ships of the English, for their shipping industry and economy to prosper.

[Thor II]

I just read it in a text I studied at the History College. Most castes in Hindu society developed a religious taboo that prevented them from crossing the ocean and if they crossed the ocean they would have to perform very expensive purification rituals, and increasingly had to resort to ships of Muslims or Europeans for this, which would make them have contact with unclean people. The vast majority of Hindus only shipped their goods on Muslim ships to transport them across the ocean.

This same text says that at the time of Vasco da Gama, after crossing the Cape of Good Hope until the Portuguese arrived in Japan, there were no armed ocean ships and that they probably never existed in large numbers.

I didn't say at any time that they didn't have ships, I said that Indian ships were manned by Indians who followed the Islamic religion, which perfectly matches the sails that the Indians are using, however much I also want an excuse to give new sails to the Indians.

So as much as I also want unique sails to Indian architecture, Muslim sails make total sense

[Juggernaut]

the thing you are refering to is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kala_pani_(taboo)
this taboo developed in british era

i have two examples for you:
one from south india: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chola_Navy
one from east india: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_history_of_Odisha

[Thor II]

In fact, the text was very clear in saying that this taboo did not yet exist at the time of the Chola and that it already existed when Vasco da Gama arrived in India, that at this time, only the Hindu Tamil merchants of Kalinga and Coromandel did maritime trade.

Look, I want exclusive sails for the Indians as much as you do, I'm just saying that unfortunately it makes sense for them to have Muslim sails.

Opprinnelig skrevet av "History" section of Age of Empire II DE:

Not only the Chola Empire rule the south at their peak; it was one of the few that broke the maritime boundaries of India by conquering overseas territories and estibilishing trade with Arabia and China

"One of the few that broke the maritimes boundaries of India", the history section of the DE itself says that few Indian kingdoms ventured into the sea.

[SlothPaladin]

I like the idea of one monk per architecture, not a big fan of changing names or anything crazy, when new players jump in they need to be able to figure out what every unit is right away, I would be OK with name changes in campaigns but not in multiplayer.

[Gunlord]

As long as they say Wololo, does it matter what they look like?

[mickeyjim2]

Opprinnelig skrevet av SlothPaladin:

I like the idea of one monk per architecture, not a big fan of changing names or anything crazy, when new players jump in they need to be able to figure out what every unit is right away, I would be OK with name changes in campaigns but not in multiplayer.

Exactly. I actually tried out the historical skins mod yesterday which gives new appearances to aztec champions etc. Honestly I didn't like it because I now had no clue which unit was which. A lot of civ's champions now fight with spears so you'd easily mistake them for pikemen and so on.

Some things in AoE2 need to remain consistent otherwise it all gets way too confusing and too much to memorise. Everyone knows the monastery is just "the religion building" for every civ. They don't all need to be renamed. Just like Huns get a university because its just the research building for all civs.