will the Aztecs actually ever speak their own language in this game??!

[Frequens]

Cualli tonalli! Cuix amo titlatoa mācēhualcopa? Them Aztecs in this game be like, bruh do you even Nahuatl??

Ok all jokes aside, it's a great thing that one of the most epic games ever is still getting so much love with new DLCs, patches and reworks, but will there actually ever be an update tackling some of those weird lingo faults? I mean, come on devs, it's been two decades now and the Aztecs are still stuck in this strange, twilight sphere of linguistic secrecy where we don't even know what language or dialect they are supposed to speak. Btw, has anyone actually ever identified their lines and what language they originate from? A Mayan vernacular? Is it maybe an idiolect of some sorts?

Dunno about the other players, but the Aztecs have always been my favorite civ since they were first introduced with the Conquerors expansion, and it would be beyond awesome to finally hear them respond to commands in their own language. Somehow their lines make them appear out of place as a faction that is supposed to be, well, 'Aztec'.

Auh in īn, mā ixquich motlahpaltzin xicmochīhuili. Niquihtlani in mā xicchīhuacān! Yes please?

[Quarantined_villager]

Totally agree, the devs missed their chance fixing Aztecs lines with DE
I don't think they will fix it

[Whakahoatanga]

Aztecs ingame speak a completely incorrect Maya language which is not Quiché which the Maya speak.

It would be incredible if they'd update Aztecs, Goths, Byzantines and Huns to speak Nahuatl, Gothic, Greek and Chuvash respectively.

Huns might be the most desperate case considering linguist as far as I know don't know what type of language they spoke. I just picked Chuvash because this is the language they picked in Civ V for the Huns.

Italians I feel could remain the same considering Italians represent Lombards, the Papal State and the Merchant Republics equivalently so letting them remain speak Latin doesn't feel that wrong considering Bulgarians and Slavs also speak a Church language (Church Slavonic).

[Kampfschwein Fjonda]

If you scroll down in this article https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Aztecs_(Age_of_Empires_II)
there is a description of all Aztec lines. Seems to be a mix of Mayan dialects.

I would say 99% of players and 95% of devs neither notice nor care that this is "wrong".

So I'm 100% sure it will never get changed.

[DMg Halt]

There's no demand for it, so I can say with 99.9% confidence that the development team is not going to fix the aztec language.

One of two things would have to happen for it to get fixed.

1. There has to be some financial incentive for the dev team to put time and effort into this.

2. A modder would have to create their own fix for the aztec language via a sound mod of some sort. And it would have to be done well enough for the developers to notice and make it part of an official update. Which would require little to no effort on their part.

[Zarrr]

Aztecs are from Mexico so devs don't care. The same situation are in AoE 3 where all 3 indian civs spoke incorrect language, civs from USA got new names and correct language while devs leave Aztecs from Mexico with wrong language and name.

[Frequens]

Ihui, ca no zotzin

Yeah I know you guys are right, it's just kinda depressing as Classical Nahuatl is the best researched language of the pre-Columbian Americas and there's been so much academic work and literature that you could fill entire libraries with. And in this day and age, the devs would have hundreds of thousands of native speakers and more than enough experts to whom they could easily reach out..

But then again, reality check: As Fjonda said, probably the vast majority of the playerbase doesn't care about these details anyway and the devs won't invest a single cent here if it isn't somehow profitable several hundred times over, even if a couple linguistics enthusiasts volunteered to compile a list of ready-to-read lines, LOL

And picking up what Whakahoatanga said, a number of other civs could certainly use a good update too! They did a great job with Middle High German, English and French. Now the time seems ripe to begin to consider updating Gothic, Byzantine Greek, Middle Japanese and Nahuatl as well.

[DMg Halt]

Keep in mind that this game was developed in the mid 90s, so it's possible that they simply didn't have the resources to gather the research back in the day. The Internet barely existed back then and perhaps the information wasn't available, or was not easy to access.

"Age of Empires 2 is tagged as an RTS game, not a medieval history simulator."

- DMg Halt

[Frequens]

Originally posted by DMg Halt:

Keep in mind that this game was developed in the mid 90s, so it's possible that they simply didn't have the resources to gather the research back in the day. The Internet barely existed back then and perhaps the information wasn't available, or was not easy to access.

"Age of Empires 2 is tagged as an RTS game, not a medieval history simulator."

- DMg Halt

yeah, won't argue with that. But then again, times have changed and we're more than 20 years in the future now. We've seen that the active support and continuous improvement for AoE 2 is far from over. The sheer passion this game still galvanizes in the community is encouraging and next year we have some interesting new content heading our way

who knows, maybe one day, the unthinkable happens and we hear some authentic Nahuatl lines after all. Keeping my fingers crossed.

[Vonklyce]

Originally posted by Frequens:

yeah, won't argue with that. But then again, times have changed and we're more than 20 years in the future now. We've seen that the active support and continuous improvement for AoE 2 is far from over. The sheer passion this game still galvanizes in the community is encouraging and next year we have some interesting new content heading our way :ib_happy:

Minor additions like these will always be welcome and they are what made this game age like wine. But unfortunatelly, there are two kinds of "community" we're talking here.
One that wishes to see the game getting improvements, and other that only cares about how Franks can be more effective in Arabia and thinks any other change in the game are pointless or unnecessary. Guess which one gets the priority in Santa's list.

It's been a while that we've been asking for better historical representation, like, asian monks as actual... monks, you know? not fair how only mesoamericans can have their unique ones, and the skins are actually there already in the scenario editor, but we gotta rely on mods for this (that gets broken with every update).

[DMg Halt]

Originally posted by Vonklyce:

One that wishes to see the game getting improvements, and other that only cares about how Franks can be more effective in Arabia and thinks any other change in the game are pointless or unnecessary. Guess which one gets the priority in Santa's list.

This made me laugh, it's funny, yet at the same time, there's an element of truth to it.

[Jenzu]

fam i think one of the civs literally have their old voice lines because the audio quality when they spoke were so horrible compared to the other civs unless they just didnt polish all the voice lines

[Frequens]

Originally posted by DMg Halt:

Originally posted by Vonklyce:

One that wishes to see the game getting improvements, and other that only cares about how Franks can be more effective in Arabia and thinks any other change in the game are pointless or unnecessary. Guess which one gets the priority in Santa's list.

This made me laugh, it's funny, yet at the same time, there's an element of truth to it.

same, LOL

But yeah, Vonklyce pretty much nailed it. That's how it's been these past 20 years when it comes to us various AoE player types.

They keep cranking out new updates, like this latest one - several gigabytes in size, yet once again a lack of attention to the small but important details.. getting the languages right would definitely be something worth working on, not to mention a serious rework of civ-specific buildings, unit skins etc. This game has repeatedly proven that it can consistently attract old and new players alike, and adding new small details over time would certainly further strengthen AoE's momentum and improve its appeal for a lifetime.

[☪︎ Leinad Zdc ˚ ☾]

Originally posted by Quarantined_villager:

Totally agree, the devs missed their chance fixing Aztecs lines with DE
I don't think they will fix it

They will have to remove something from their tech tree, to balance that buff that allows them to talk in their own language... 11

[Elhnada]

With the release of DE I was also disappointed that the Aztecs did not get accurate Nahuatl voice lines. That would have been the best moment to rectify it.
I don't see that they will do it anytime soon, it is high cost and little reward situation. (With the chance of angering the player base that love the current lines.)
Even AoE III use the same AoE II voice lines.

However the next best opportunity to add proper Nahuatl is when they will do a Mesoamerica DLC.

The Aztecs are one of my favourite civ and played as a kid often through the Montezuma campaign.
For nostalgic sake I would also be sad if you can never hear the current voice lines in game anymore.
If a new Mesoamerica DLC civ could use the current Aztec voices while the Aztecs get proper Nahuatl, that would be perfect.
(but an extra Mayan speaking civ is not the most logical choice for Mesoamerica DLC, I am also aware of that.)

[Proofster]

So, the list of civs with wrong languages:
-Aztecs (speak a mishmash of Mayan languages)
-Byzantines (speak Latin, which however by AoE II's timeframe hadn't been the language of the Empire for centuries)
-Goths (Medieval German is close, but no cigar, we do have a reconstruction of Visigoth and Ostrogoth, so maybe...)
-Huns (while Chuvash is a rare language, the devs also had Cumans speak Cuman, an entirely dead language with no known descendants , while Chuvash is a living language with literature bigger than one (1) dictionary)
-Italians (yes, I know that Italy didn't speak a single language at the time, but, since the Sicilians already cut off half of the options, might as well make them speak Florentine, since that's insanely well-documented unlike Medieval Milanese or Medieval Genoese; or at least have them speak a form of Vulgar Latin, them using Augustus-tier "Impero" for "Command me" is just odd)