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Byzanitnes are NOT the same as the Western ROmans. They cliamed to be the heirs of the Roman Empire, but they were radiclaly different, particularly in their military systems.\
As for the whole Romans don't belong in AOE 2, answer is Easy: If you don't want them, don't buy the expansion.Me I have always wantes AOE 1 up graded to AOE II levels. This mightnot be exactly that, but it is a step in that direction.
In this game there are ampitheaters, the Colosseum, the arch of Constantine, late legionaries, Christian centurions and depiction of the sack of Rome and the catalaunian fields battle. Romans are in aoe2 in all except the name because it's still somehow an historical taboo to have them in a medieval game. General audience is still attached to the idea learned in school of the fall of Rome provoked by odoacer like some kind of world-changing event while things were largely different starting from waaaay before (or after depending on pov)... Of course this is a very simple, naive and even childish approach, like a single man can decide the fate of things. Can happen for sure but not for events of this scope, maybe the biggest trauma in western history in the current era.
So first, define medieval and ancient.
From an historical perspective, Romans starting from Commodus begin to lose the plot on many issues. The apex was probably during the famous crysis of the third century where classical culture started to crumble having exausthed all its propulsion and social meaning.
Before Constantine, Aurelian adopted the sol Invictus cult (but many emperors like eliogabal already inflicted mortal wounds to classical Roman polytheism), probably the first official monotheistic cult. Why monotheism? Because in a moment where the empire was disintegrating (palmyrians and gallic empire seceding, this vaguely depict in aoe1), Roman emperors needed a cultural weapon to affirm a sense of centralisation and power grip. From the severian dynasty, emperors started to give more and more power to the military while detracting it from senatorial aristocracy and ancient elites (that would eventually lead to the military anarchy), at the point that by the time of gallienus the senate power was more or less just formal. Aristocracy and the military were definitely divided, Roman warfare started to change and complete the process of transformation during Constantine, from the typical classical slow shielded phalanx-like infantry to a more mobile unit, cavalry became a major part of it starting only from here. Constantine also abolished the Praetorian guard after defeating massentius, the last emperor who tried to revive Rome and ancient cults (excluding Julian who was more of a curious exception by his time). The praetorians were linked to Rome as a city while Constantine invented the scholae Palatine, precursors of byzantine kuriopalates, which as the name suggests were linked to the emperor "god-like" figure and his imperial family, Palatine guards were legatii of the emperor, not of the capital and people of Rome: this is crucial, along with monotheism, to prove the total switch of mentality that divide classical antiquity from middle ages. Constantine started the middle ages under almost any aspect. Indeed some historian consider the edict of Milan as a watershed date more than uninfluential kid-emperor being deposed in 476. Constantine before adopting Christianity was a sol Invictus propagandist like Aurelian but Christianity had a better state apparat and administration than other ancient cults and in a time of great decadence it was desperately needed a sense of man-power and structure. Call it whatever you want, the point is not Christianity in itself, it's the power structure that allowed it. But I don't wanna sound like a Marxist orthodox so I'll say that ideology played a role, for example the fact Christians were very stubborn and resilient, they resisted the atrocious Diocletian persecution until galerius accepted them on his death bed out of exhaustion (edict of serdica, a couple years before Constantine).
By this time we are in fact in middle ages in every aspect expect name. Classical antiquity had already exhausted all possible chances for a comeback and was just becoming a conservative and decadent attitude. It's not a case most senators were still pagan in the IV century but reality was rapidly evolving leaving them out of "the crowd that really mattered". The last Roman emperor to style himself as an Egyptian pharaoh was maximinus daia in 313. The ancient world was ideologically and factually gone.
The capital of the empire was not Rome anymore since the third century crysis but emperors clinged to it until Constantine for a matter of cultural symbolism. The need to constantly be at war, defending the frontiers from barbarians since the times of Marcus Aurelius (maybe the last purely "classical-minded" emperor and philosopher who already foresaw possible problems in Rome but still adopting a typically classical stoic posture in front of that bleak future) made emperors never able to actually live in Rome. Diocletian just accepted the change by putting Milan as the de facto empire capital in 284 to better get an army fast and cross the Alps to stop barbarians. Another middle age indicator is indeed the shift of the western world center of gravity from the Mediterranean to east and north Europe coordinates (a shift that will be completed only by the times of Charlemagne and which is often referred to late antiquity or migration period). It was in fact a decay of the western world. Diocletian also styled himself and his colleague maximianus as deities (this would have been unthinkable during the republic and early empire, for example Augustus did everything to present himself just as "primus inter partes", not a king or an absolute monarch which Romans despised since the times of monarchy, but just as the head of the senate), To be honest this was a process that started way before but Diocletian simply legitimated it and this is where historians usually divide the Roman empire, from early to late empire, from principatus to dominatus, from emperor being representative of Rome to them being masters of it like the empire was their property (completely against any classical sense of state). Finally Diocletian established the famous tetrarchy where the empire was for the first time officially divided (again nothing new but this time it was official). Constantine would complete this transformation by funding Constantinople, the "new Rome", sign that things have definitely changed and it was time for Rome to gradually be abandoned. Last big monument in it was indeed the arch of Constantine (which I think should be the wonder for aoe2 Romans instead of aoe1 having the Colosseum) that was built anyway with remains of a previous arch of Marcus Aurelius (late Roman architecture is often made by reused ancient pieces, another huge switch from classicity). Aesthetics changed with the later Roman empire as well but that is such a big issue that would need another paragraph... Let's just say that from here middle ages art start as well. Any serious college course of medieval art history starts by analysing the arch of Constantine and its ideological and cultural meaning.
But after that it was Constantinople that was beginning to be adorned with any kind of churches, basilica and even some pagan temples being restructured and preserved (to represent the continuation of Rome in an act of propaganda and to keep the pagan senate at bay). One could argue that byzantines start from here as a civ, even if they really are still just late Romans at this point.
I planned to continue, sorry if it's so long but I want to make serious arguments based on logic and facts, not just say why Romans should not be in aoe2 based on what my primary school teacher said or because the game stated in 2000 that "Rome has fallen and is up for grab" lol
That joke is on you
Dinosaurs have been in the game since 1999. You can sometimes see them flying across the map.
The cultural and political impact of Constantine is far from being doubted I think and having him in an ancient game like aoe1 which used to depict stone age to iron age (not even classical antiquity before rise of Rome) feels kinda silly. If there's someone who should explain something is people who would like to see him in aoe1, this makes less sense to me than aoe2 (even if I'm in no way against it since I agree that late antiquity is a very muddled period and it's relatively a new history field still to be explored and defined, specially in pop culture). And this not based on my taste alone, as I hope I'm proving. I don't like the sentence "facts don't care about your feelings", I think it's very dishonest, everybody has tastes but that's not the point of the discussion. I'm talking mostly about facts, still I'm not a fact myself, I just try to be honest, I reject polarizations and tunnel vision. People can read and hopefully make their own opinion without either being parrots or passive aggressive ignorants doing humour of something they don't clearly know because of just being close minded. You have all the rights of the world to go against logic but for the sake of honesty you should simply recognize it, stating that you prefer aesthetics and personal tastes, and that simply to you Romans in aoe2 "feels" wrong. No objection to it, just that of course I can't take that as seriously as I would take a real argument, I can consider it a whim and you're entitled to it, we all have ours. Just stop to pretend you're saying something that makes sense, tastes are subjective and it's a beautiful thing we have both them and objective reasoning (sometimes lines are blurry and that's where we can disagree, and anyway there's no shame to change your mind, it happened to myself, I know it may sound crazy but yeah it's real).
On matters of aesthetics I can suggest you to simply search for legionary evolution on Google and look at images while asking yourself if really the legion of Trajan (rectangular shield still largely based on ancient greek warfare) in your opinion bare any resemblances to the one of the V century or even just the III one. Do the IV century legionary reminds you more of classical antiquity or of middle ages? To me it's clearly the second but I may be blind. And this is not secondary since as I said the army is the core of the game, even more than politics and stuff.
I would have doubts including the third century crysis in aoe2 because even if there's very little that it's still classical by then, aoe1 already has palmyrians in it and it's probably the last century that game was seriously trying to depict (I don't consider the coming of the Huns/Yamato serious by any means). I have little doubts about the IV century because of the reasons I already stated and I think the V century should be out of discussion when you have goths and Huns. So it's also a matter of what aoe1 depict rather poorly (late antiquity) leaving the duty to do it for its successor, which has more barbarian civs and can do a better job at showing the migration period and this is also a fact. For how things are now I don't see how aoe1 would present this era better than aoe2, if not by adding many civs to the former while for the latter you'll probably need to add just vandals, Saxons and some others and you'll have a decent showcase of Western Europe at the start of middle ages. So having late Romans in aoe2 instead of having byzantines in aoe1 is by now even more convenient for Devs, still I'm not against having an aoe1 representation of the very same period (up until 750 circa since Yamato are in game and that's probably the most you can stretch late antiquity concept) in the future since aoe3 covers the same period at the end of aoe2 (early modern, age of discovery, Aztecs etc) but does it in a different way (I admit it would be harder to differentiate aoe1 and 2 gameplay wise but one can always try with creativity).
I also suggest to take a look at Wikipedia pages for info, specially about "Roman people" and "late Roman army". You have names of Roman people up until the VIII century (and someone says later but at that point it's practically meaningless for the scope of the game, like goths still existing in aoe3 timeframe), for example search flavius Paulus, a Roman general of the second half of the VII century in the Visigothic kingdom, usurper against a gothic king in Spain.
If you take a look at VI century Britain and Gaul you'll see how Roman culture was very alive, specially among the elite and the army of barbarian kingdoms. Indeed early barbarian laws still maintain for many centuries in middle ages a distinction between Roman and germanic ethnicity and barbarian kings pledged allegiance to the eastern emperor coining solidi in his name. The decaying of Roman ethnicity only started in the next century but before that Germanic peoples usually just were considered governors of ex Roman provinces in the name of Byzantium (see the ostrogothic kingdom in Italy before Justinian). The same Justinian is sometimes referred to the last Roman born emperor of the east. The late Roman army is indicated by Wikipedia having lasted from 284 (Diocletian's reforms) to 640 (Heraclius reign) completely omitting the geographical difference. I think that indeed it makes sense to start talking about proper byzantines only by the VII century, during the so called byzantine dark age, where they definitely lost former Roman provinces in the east and in Africa to Muslims. This also marks the end of the Sassanid empire, their ancient enemy, and the switch from Latin to greek as official language (even if people always have spoken greek there since ancient Roman times). The last legion, the V Macedonica, seems to have been destroyed sometime during the Arab conquest of Egypt. The Mediterranean was not the mare Nostrum/internum anymore after the final fall of ancient Carthage in 698. The new system of themata, more feudal and based on conscripted and levies taking arms to defend their lands rather than foederati and professional armies, replaced destroyed legions with stratioti, optimatoi, tagmata and other greek-named units until 1204.
If you need other dates you have the last monument being erected by a Roman emperor in Rome being the column of phocas in 608 which also one of the last mention of the Roman senate (the curia Iulia, their "parliament" since the times of Augustus would be transformed into a church in 630). The pantheon in Rome was converted into a Christian basilica in 610 circa after phocas gave it to the Pope. The Heraclius reign is also when it's last attested the tradition of making Hellenic sculptures and celebrating triumphs in the old fashioned Roman way.
Last ordinary consuls were elected in mid VI century after which the emperor himself always took the consulate de facto abolishing it. The last mention of a Praetorian prefect in Rome was in 599 and Praetorian prefectures were abolished by that time to unite civil comes and military powers of the magister militum into one man (the Dux in remaining western exarchates which would evolve in medieval duke).
The exarchate of Ravenna in Italy would fall to the Lombards only in 751, also the date when the papal states where established once imperial control was completely lost, two century after Justinian reconquest. Constans II was in fact the last emperor to visit Rome (mostly to sack it and grab gold for his army) in mid VII century.
After this you just have the byzantine empire which I consider just a Greek empire, no matter what they call themselves. You can call yourself a table, that doesn't make you one right? Of course it was just a matter of propaganda and political legitimisation in the west where they were losing their grip. From the VIII century onward their empire was reduced to Constantinople and surroundings, sometimes Balkans, Anatolia and for a while some territory in south Italy. They became a regional power, virtually not having anything Roman anymore and eventually lose their desire to reconquer the west, simply struggling to survive.
Late Romans in aoe2 are precisely made to feel the gap between ancient Romans in aoe1 and byzantines (300 circa to 700?). I alway say that you won't need Romans in aoe2 if byzantines were not so focused on their later history as they currently are. So to me again this is not a western / eastern Roman split as it is a time split.
Thank you if you took the time for reading. If you have counter-arguments I'm willing to listen. Otherwise you can just state your taste and then we can agree to disagree. I hope to at least having convinced you that it's not so simple as dismissing Romans as ancient and byzantines as medieval.
I also think we should reframe when the Middle Ages began, and when they finished.
476 makes sense from a purely national point of view (Rome was no longr under teh control of actual romans), but it does fall short in every other regard.
Constantine adopting Christianity does make more sense, since it radically changed the culture, and the future of the whole continent and the Mediterranean.
I would also posit that the Middle Ages actually ended in 1618, when the 30 Years War began, as the results of that conflict broke the absolute power of the last Medieval institution, the Church, and completely changed the politics of Europe, and it's worldview.
It is when armies completely changed, from Late Medieval to Modern, the Church lost it's monolithic position in the continent, the HRE started going into remission, and the Colonial future of the European powers was set in stone, because after the 30 Years War, most conflicts in the continent became about maintaining the balance of power, rather than complete conquest and erradication, all the way until WW1.
someone always says something like this and it's not helpful or productive to the discussion by itself, i mean you are either in there debating or you don't take part. I could say you are butthutt over other people being butthurt, but what does that accomplish other than causing more trouble?
what people choose to buy or not is up to them, not up to you. Let each one make their own minds up.
So instead of that we could add the Classical Age, to represent the latter ages of the AoE time period that aren't really represented adequately with the Iron Age. But alas, that's not the case.
adding a faction that is unbeatable because it never fell in history.