DAHH, you beat me to it! I'm working on my own version of the Chinese as well, so I'm going to be putting this on my Watch Later list for now. Extra motivation for me to finish up the project so I can enjoy your presentation, which I'm sure is excellent as always! Hope we got to see more AOM from you, Chilly.
In before anyone says anything, I'm mexican so I know what I'm talking about because I also researched it too. If only aztecs existed for more than the measily 500 years more or less.... Maybe in a medieval setting they make more sense. Hell Oxford is freaking older than the aztecs, that place got more chances to appear here than the aztecs if they do choose to go for fanservice. Mayans ARE the mesoamerican civilization to fit right in, they existed for 4000 years they've got all the material to get inspired by. And if you feel fancy, olmecs. If you feeling extra spicy, go to peru for el Caral. but ffs we have so many indigenous ethnic groups we aren't just, aztec and mayan we're sooo many more, and extra if you count the migration from other countries to make the soup that is mexico.
It's honestly so baffling that there wasn't one instead of the atlanteans. Hell, even the Norse make much less sense than the Mesopotamian gods / culture. They're far and above a much more aggressive and bloodthirsty faction culture, they have sources from the same time period of the greeks / egyptians (and not the 13th century), and gods like Aphrodite were adapted from gods like Ishtar.
@@Whatsuppbuddies only learned about them about 5 years and ago and have just been in love with their overall look and history, really hoping they get added
I really respect the design philosophy. I'm a history nerd and a realist so I'm constantly disappointed that age franchise has complete fiction over unbelievable but true history and mythology, but I acknowledge that pop culture references have their place and they do serve to make a more light hearted and cartoony experience, which definitely makes games fun and entertaining. Edit: having finished the video, your work looks 10x better than Tale of the Dragon and EE, and 3x better than the Titans. Very well thought out, a clear driving passion, and concessions made where necessary. I particularly like the scout (hero)/warrior monk system.
As a Chinese who lives in the West, I never felt more represented in what I wanted to share about my culture for non-Chinese audiences. I almost feel sad if the actual DLC end up being different than this.
Let's hope the Chinese theme is festival related, with a goofy title. The Norse, for example, have horns as part of their music and is titled 'Of Norse Not!'.
Chinese silk dress and silky flowy scraf and jewery and gold armament and flute and zither base music will be heavenly and add drum for battle will be golden.
I've got to say, this concept is so solid, it might reconcile me with the Chinese civ for AoM, I was very disappointed and bitter at the way they were handled in EE, but with what you're proposing, they feel very unique and distinct, like all the other civs feel unique, and not only do they feel like their gameplay would be super fun to manage, the idea with the heroes is a great way to showcase several mythical and cultural figures from China, which is what I lvoe most about AoM. I pray the Chinese rework turns out like this
So much potential and so many civilisations to choose from. I personally would like a sumerian (Babylonian) civ. You have so many gods to choose from and their favour gain could be from advancement in technologies, since they are one of the oldest known civilisations.
Honestly, some form of Mesopotamian civilization would be neat to see - be it Sumerian, Persian, Babylonian or Assyrian, or even something that is a sort of mix and pulls from all of these. I'd love to also see Djinn and other such mythological beings and creatures show up in AoM, same with Oni (Japanese). The Aztecs (or perhaps a Mesoamerican civ), Japanese, Celts and Slavs, along with a Hindu civ would be neat to have as well, though I think the latter might be a little too offensive given that it's still a very large religion today, so they might not ever make a Hindu civ. But those would be my top picks for new civs. I'd love to see modders take a crack at those if MS/World's Edge doesn't. Heck, there's already both an Aztec and a Japanese civ for the Extended Edition version of the game - MS could either take inspiration, hire the designers of those, or just contract them to port the civs over to Retold, with all the changes Retold makes to the original game (and perhaps some reworks and rebalancing where necessary). EDIT: The Yoruba would be great as well! There's so many to pick from!
Yeah, Chinese are the obvious first choice, but we need a mesopotamian civ, an indian subcontinent civ, a mesoamerican civ, and maybe another african civ too. I have a feeling that Japanese are going to be added instead though given how popular their mythos is even if it wasn't nearly as influential as many other potential choices, but as long as that doesn't mean we won't get these other areas I'm still fine with that.
Extremely well done! I think Nu Wa being able to train villagers for free is a bit OP, maybe a reduction in cost would be better. But I love most of your ideas.
Does anyone know if they gonna 100% copy the chinese faction from the old expansion, or are they gonna create a new Chinese expansion with new myth units? The Fox, Taotie, and Hundun are REALLY missing from that expansion and should really be inserted.
I know for a fact that the Chinese faction is coming, and that they will probably do a lot of re-balancing, but I don't know if there will be reworks or additions.
There's a couple spots here that would be difficult to balance mechanically and such, but overall this is an extremely well thought out framework, and its apparent a lot of time and effort went in to it. Well done! I'd love to see more concepts get this treatment, including a Slavic Mythology civ i'm hoping for someday (but seem to be the minority on)
31:40 Quick correction; the Jurchens formed the Jin Dynasty. The Liao Dynasty was the Khitans (a fully nomadic group from the North/North-West). Jurchens are more closely related to both Koreans and Mongolians (in fact their semi-nomadic lifestyle hints at this from a cultural perspective). Although I can see why they would be here, given it's more pop culture, and Chinese never really used the kind of super-heavy-cavalry that we see in Jurchens or further west in Persia and Europe. Overall I really like this. The presentation is amazing, and it's a lot better thought-out than the EE one. I'm very happy to see it sticking to a more concise period of Chinese history, as the presence of chariots, heavy cavalry and gunpowder all at once with the EE Chinese was really jarring and messy. On potentially Persians being added, I think their mythology isn't as well-known as the Assyrians and Babylonians. Either of those two feel like a much more likely candidate for a civ from the Middle East.
Suggestion: Instead of making Zhuge Nu do a spread (which is inaccurate to how they worked), make it 3 bolts fired in quick succession, which do little damage on their own, but apply a stacking poison. This way your Zhuge Nu become archer counters, as archers are a stationary target to hit and thus easiest to apply your stacks on (might want to put a cap on those stacks, either 3 or 6 I would think). If poison is now a Zhuge Nu base ability, Sun Piercer can be something more thematic. Either gives the Zhuge Nu higher base attack (Piercer) or replaces the poison with fire damage (Sun) which does more damage per tick.
This design for the Chinese Pantheon you've come up with is absolutely incredible. You've clearly done very thorough research, and your roster of gods and heroes is MUCH better than the official in-game version.
First off? This is INCREDIBLE, and I hope the devs either hire you to work on this or take inspiration from your work. I love the little things that reference the old Chinese design, like Nuwa or the Hundred Schools of Thought that effectively makes the Teahouses into the old Zen Gardens, in a way. This is incredible work and you should be proud of it. My sole contribution is an idea for what you could do with the three "base" units of the Ji Conscript, Chu-ko-nu, and Nomad Archer. What you could do with the base units is make it so that they flip the normal weaknesses. Traditionally in AOM, infantry beat cavalry, cavalry beat archers, and archers beat infantry. But as you point out, the Ji Conscript's weapon isn't actually very anti-cavalry; so make it so that Ji Conscripts are anti-archer! Terrible against cavalry, which they just aren't equipped to fight, but well-armored enough and good enough in a melee fight that they can reach the archers and tear through them. Following this, Nomad Archers would be *amazing* against infantry, who are usually weak to arrows anyway- but terrible against anyone who can shoot back because they aren't very armored. Finally, Zhuge Nu can do extra damage to cavalry with the "spread shot" helping counter cavalry speed, and the explanation being that they use a poison that's good against horses (whcih brings that historical element back in). But they aren't great against infantry, because of the weak power of the crossbow and the poison being more anti-horse than anti-person. That'd be a fun thing that would make the Chinese stand out a lot, and would create fun gameplay! Plus, it'd make their later units, who DO obey the standard weakness trio, stand out even more.
Actually, The "god-related-hero" mechanism could be more simple and represented If you check the Chinese Pantheon, you will found there are two typical Chinese gods, the natural gods(i.e.Hou Tu) and "hero gods"(i.e. Guan Yu) Moreover, hero gods are more and represneted than natural gods So, I think the mechanism could be: You choose one from three natural gods(i.e. Hou Tu; Zi Wei, the lord of stars; Yuanshi Tianzun, the first god) You also choose one hero from temple(i.e. Guan Yu...etc) And when the classical age achieved, the hero turn to god, and several unique techni could be use
Bro this is amazing! Honestly I don't like Chinese pantheon in EE at all, but these illustrations, units and mechanics really make me think it would be one of my favorites. Great job!!!
As long as there's a myth unit with similar abilities to the salamander, I'm happy. The mass salamanders + fire lance combo was deadly in the extended edition.
I really hope the dev team takes your ideas here into consideration. The idea, for example, that there's a specific, named hero for each minor god is SO good.
1. If you want to make the treb mechanically unique, give it a setup time like AOW2 Trebs. 2. Imperial Garrison training rate aura should not buff other imperial Garrison or there is a strong incentive to stack them in a blob. 3. Chinese Titan should def be a dragon in case, so India could have a heavenly king / Arhat in case they get added. 4. You forgot a fishing ship and a transport, perhaps merge the two ? 5. Monsoon could also buff output of allied farms and debuff the output of enemy farms in area. 6. Daji is also Tamamo no Mae and Chang'e may be Kaguya, might have some conflict with a possible Japanese Pantheon.
Let me say something that has nothing to do with theAOM. The weapon called "nest of bees" in Age of Empires 4 was widely used in China after the Song Dynasty. In addition to those placed on vehicles, there were also handheld and heavy ones. The peak was in the early 15th century when Zhu Di, who was still a rebel king, used it in large quantities in his rebellion against his nephew Zhu Yunwen. The "Shenjiying" was established in the Ming Dynasty, so this type of rocket weapon is also called "Shenji Arrow" (God-like clever arrows). Later, it was introduced to the vassal state of Korea. And many people don’t know that before Sid Meier’s Civilization 3 introduced “Hwacha” as a special unit of Korea, even in Korea, few people knew about it. Before the year 2001, searching for “Hwacha” in Korean almost all turned up “flower tea（花茶）” and “truck（貨車）”, which are homophones with（火車）. With the introduction of European artillery in large quantities during the Ming Dynasty, this traditional rocket weapon was quickly eliminated in China because they were different from the game and were actually very difficult to use.
While this is quite ballanced, it isnt very orginial, its more like a mix of existing pantheons. I would love to see something more original to age of mythology, such as specialised villagers for building, and maybe something like generalist units, that have good stats and damage, but take increased damage from for example archers.
Great concept. The favor generation based on social harmony makes so much sense. The heroes unique to each god is a nice and novel system. I will update this comment as I watch the rest of the vid lol, only halfway done. Btw that image of the farmer is actually a fisherman. Those birds are trained cormorants (that type of fishing is actually called Cormorant Fishing there's a wikipedia article on it too and you can see Chinese fishermen in AoE3 doing it).
They should hire him. He has shown the compassion, skill, knowledge and execution of making a chinese mythology concept. I love that kind of compassion !
As someone who spends a wacky amount of time making spec RTS rosters, this was really cool and earned a subscribe! All the future pantheons you listed are really interesting, but a sleeper pick I'm hoping for is the Inca. The Mayans and Aztecs have a lot of awesome mythology, but South America is often forgotten in that conversation!
First opinion in the middle of the video (if i wait till the end i moght forget): I dont think you should give the chieroballista arrow spread to the chukonu. Keeping them as in aoe2 is the better choice. Fully upgraded with 4 bolts (maybe before mythic age it always has 3... Or it starts with 2 in classical and you add one more per age) where the total damage they can give is 12 but its divided by the place of the bolt. 1st bolt gives 4 damage, the 2nd 2, the 3rd and 4th give 3 damage each. And only the first 2 have 100% accuracy, while the 3rd has 80% and the 4th has 75%. From the few videos i saw of aom retold there will be a poison mechanic. Maybe the chukonu, from a minor god or a hero buff could have a poison tic per bolt? Multishot is the age series chukonu thing, now a wide shot like the chieroballista. Edit: 1:15:41 the white horses were used because the nomad tribe that usually attack the northen regions believed them sacred. Gongsun started to use them because the nomad wouldnt dare to attack them because misfortune would fall on them
I know this has nothing to do with the video and I’m late but I have an idea for an Age Of Empires 4 Civ concept and that concept is the Irish. It would be very cool to see them and plus they have a very very unique military history including… cattle raidings? Any ways I absolutely love the way You design Civ concepts. Chilly if You see this, please do it.
49:22 maybe the word junk came from the ship/boat used in indomalayan archipelago.. the "jong", and maybe because both chuan & jong had some similarities, they called both ship as a "junk", which they also used for japanese ship
I like this rework already! However there's some changes I would make to make the Chinese Units more better (specially in the later stages of the game) * Would make the Dagger Axe upgrade grant the Ji Conscript both the Spear Tip and the ability to asume 2 additional stances: - Armor Breaker Stance in which the Conscript uses the Ji as if it is an Axe to break armor. Specially good to deal with Armored Infantry like Huskarls and Upgraded Hoplites, something the Zughe Nu will struggle against. - And the Spear wall stance which grants the Ji Conscript the ability to deal extra damage against Charging Calvary * Would make an new upgrade for the Zhugue Nu that allows it to shoot Poisoned Bolts and instead make the Sun Piercer Upgrade deal half of the bolt's damage as Divine Damage (but the upgrade itself would not be researchable until Mythic Age is reached despite being from a Classical Age God and requires Poisoned Bolts be researched first) * Would give Hou Tu another Upgrade that would grant the Nomadic Horseman (better name for the Horse Archer) a melee attack (a Mace) or to grant it the Bow and Arrow so you can use the Bow and Arrow for harassing Infantry and the Mace to deal with Archers
If possible would you be willing to do one of these based on Rome? Yes, I know people say that they are just Greece again. But I argue that there are indeed enough differences to justify them being added. I would love to see your take on how Rome could be added to AoM Retold.
I really like your concept. You made a huge work there, so well done ! I think Horse archer should be good against infantry (and chinese basic range unit counter archers like slinger is for egyptians), so hit and run playstyle would be allowed. It can be strong in age 2 (classical), but with good balance it's probably fine.
Im not necessary a fan that chinese heroes in melee revive. I think this should be for campaign heroes only ! It's not balanced for PVP I think. would be too punitive if you loose the hero far away and can't revive him at all and at the same time it's too strong if you can just revive him and heal him too fast, if not fast enough (or without any healing) you just won't have him full hp at all. I think that for the favour, something more original could be found. In extended you had a building that generate ressources (like hephaistos god power but weaker) then was the only way to generate favour. I think linking favour with buildings is a good idea but the are hybrid beetween egyptian and greek i don't know. We need to think more about it ! Something that could be more unique. The economic idea is very good. Nothing to say more on that, it's just way better than extended edition. The idea of buffing the villagers is very cool. I like the idea of having ''2'' villagers units and the fact that chinese is really good at building. Im not a huge fan of too much gunpowder for China in AOM, of course it's very thematic (and I love it in games like AOE who has a later timeline) but I prefer them to stay the more related to ''ancient'' era and not going too much into middle ages. So despite the fact rocket cart could be a cool unit, i think it's better to stick to 3 kingdoms kind of timeline or even earlier (han timeline). For the same reason, not sure about the wonders : ming dynasty is very recent tho, more middle age/renaissance timeline. Fire lance is probably enough to represent the ''powder/explosive'' technology, let's not go too far. So yeah, despite understanding and liking the idea of doing ''pop-mythology'' I think it's better if we stick to the ancient era instead of more recent one. Maybe im wrong about that but's that's just my opinion ! About the pantheon i think it's interesting, I miss probably some knowledge (as someone who knows well western/mediterannean mythology but not that much chinese) to give deep proposal about mythological units/heroes and god figures, my only complain is that you didn't explained enough why some EE choices were bad, you mention it sure but not going deeply why some gods they choose in Tale of the dragon were a bad choice ! As someone who is not that well aware of chinese pantheon I would have liked some ''history/legends'' explanations. The idea of each god giving a unique hero is also very cool, even if i doubt it will come sadly. Same for each major god giving a unique building, I like the idea ! I think it's easier to do than each minor god having a unique hero. Something you didn't talked at all is the Tale of the dragon campaign, so you will abandon it totaly ? Im unsure they will.
This whole video is fantastic and very educational to me, but I particularly love the buddha's palm god power! An idea I had for it that works with the mountain dropping part of the story, is maybe it could drop the impassable cliff/rocky terrain texture in the shape of a hand... would damage and push all units off of it and destroy any building it touched, but then also leave a PERMANENTLY impassable area on the map. You could potentially use it defensively too, blocking most of the pass on jotunheim for example, though youd have to be careful with how big it was. Would have to size it so it couldnt softlock the maps with passes or make a settlement completely unreachable.
have each of the basic units counter themselves, so ji for infantry, zhugenu for archers, and nomads for cav. Also it would be cool if we hot a west African civ with anansi as one of the gods
Never played the AoM Extended Edition so I had no idea there was a Chinese pantheon ever. I’m familiar with some of the characters and references you made since I’ve played Smite and League. I really enjoyed your planning, and I’d definitely play it. I too would love an Aztec or Mesomoptian(spelling?) or one of the African pantheons make it into the game.
So now that we've had an official trailer for the Chinese pantheon I would absolutely love to see your reaction to it - I noticed a few things in there you were asking for, in particular a certain headless hero :3
Wow, I am Zoroastrian Persian with massive interest to Chinese history and literature and I am amazed how even as american you know basically all the important bits in history of China, this looks amazing tbh
@@adrianjamesdelfin7414 I guess it would look weird as Zoroastrianism is henotheistic, ie, one god is most supreme, but you can worship ahriman like how u can worship loki maybe, ahriman is god of evil and ahura mazda is god of good and zurvan, which is time itself is their father so maybe these 3 as main gods? Feels weird in henotheism
Honestly, if you are wanting to make more and want assistance, I'd love to help out. I'm a game designer and I've played Age of Mythology a lot. I'm also really into RTS games. I think you could do any of the following TBH: - Mesopotamia (Assyrian, Persian, Babylonian and/or Sumerian) - Aztec - Mesoamerican - Japanese - Celts - Slavs - Hindu (I reckon that there may never be an official one made by MS, though) - Yoruba
This got a sub from me, enjoyed it a lot, hope to see more AoM content. I hope for a Celtic Pantheon too! And Slavic as well would be nice. Other than that the major ones with some presence in popular knowledge, as well as civilisational distinctiveness, would be Mesopotamian of some kind (Sumerian or Babylonian seems the most famous, though they might blend different Mesopotamian cultures together), Japanese, Indian/Hindu, North American Indian. I wouldn't expect to see nore obscure mythologies like Baltic, Polynesian or subsaharan African. At least not for a long time, depending on how much longevity the series has and how many expansions they do (how hard they try to milk us lol) Everyone seems to expect Aztecs to be next, and their pantheon is indeed awesome, but it would be interesting how they would tie it in to the original campaign? Given the original was all on the contiguous Eurasiafrican landmass. Or maybe it'll just be its completely separate own thing.
This was amazing! I think this is a really well designed Pantheon from a flavor perspective, and while some of the abilities and technology may need to be changed for gameplay and balance reasons, I think something like this could work really well in AoM! I would love to know what you think the most likely candidate is for the unrevealed 6th Pantheon and do a fan concept of that one!
@@ChillyEmpire I was thinking Aztec too since so many people have requested it, but I don't know if they'd go that far away from the original setting that quickly. My guess, and this may be a little far fetched, is that with the new version of the Chinese, they will tie the campaign into the OG story in some way because travel between Asia and Europe wasn't unheard of even in ancient times. So, I would expect another Asian or European nation next as well.
For mythological characters for a campaign either Daji or Sun wukong would be great characters to have (maybe both). The myth units of the previous version are mostly good/popular picks like the jiangshi, monkey warrior, pixiu, qilin, dragon turtle, long dragon, terracotta soldier, with the exceptions of vermillion bird & white tiger which i would change for the fenghuang and nine-tail fox. I would keep the war salamanders since i like them and their hybrid water-land movement a lot lol.
@@ChillyEmpire i think they are based on the real chinese giant salamanders rather than a entirely mythological creature. i just kept them alongside the dragon turtles because i found them neat, perhaps make them way squishier but cheaper than the turtle as well as better against buildings rather than human units ans ships to make them more different in role and use.
In your design, gods are mainly based on Daoist mythology, especially the Celestial Court system. In Greek mythology, gods have blood ties, like a huge family. In the Daoist Celestial Court system, it is more like a bureaucratic system, with the gods having hierarchical relationships. The Jade Emperor(YU HUANG) is the CEO, not founder but management, while YAN LUO is just one of the ten officials in charge of the underworld, a subordinate employee of the Jade Emperor, and not suitable to be parallel with the Jade Emperor. Nuwa is an ancient goddess, in mythology she created humans from mud and repaired the sky with stones after it collapsed, belonging to the "creation gods" , like founders, also not suitable to be parallel with the Jade Emperor. If you want to refer to "Journey to the West", it is best to start with the "Celestial Court" in Daoist mythology. The main gods can be chosen as the Jade Emperor, the Queen Mother of the West (from Mount Kunlun, looks like but actually not the wife of the Jade Emperor), and the Lord of Dao (aka "LAO ZI", historically the ancestor of Daoist thought). These three together are more harmonious, with no clear subordinate relationship between them and they all once presented in the same scene. Then for the secondary gods, you can choose Li Jing, Nezha (father and son with a contradictory relationship), Erlang Shen (the nephew of the Jade Emperor, born through the Jade Emperor's sister’s liaison with a mortal, has a bad relationship with the Jade Emperor, established his own position outside the Celestial Court), Sun Wukong (self-proclaimed Great Sage Equal to Heaven, sent by the Jade Emperor to manage the horses, but escaped due to low official position, eventually causing chaos in the Celestial Court), as well as the Giant God (basically a super huge god, defeated by Sun Wukong), and the Four Great Heavenly Kings (actually originate from Buddhism, but they are arranged as guardians in the Celestial Court.) Chang'e is an extremely aloof and beautiful goddess, with a cold and solitary personality, representing the moon. Her divine power may be related to the night and the moon, a tragic deity. She stole the elixir of immortality from her husband, Houyi, and flew to the moon where she resides in the Palace of the Moon alone, with a rabbit as her pet. On the moon, there is also Wu Gang constantly cutting down cinnamon trees. The Jade Emperor punished him to cut down cinnamon trees on the moon, but the cinnamon trees grow faster than he can cut them down, similar to Sisyphus. "Tang Sanzang" is not responsible to the Jade Emperor, nor does he fall under the jurisdiction of the Jade Emperor. He is a Buddhist and only obeys the Buddhas like Tathagata and Bodhisattva Guanyin in the Buddhist system. Additional secondary gods that can be included are: the Northern True Martial Great Emperor (representing the Big Dipper with a symbol of serpent and turtle, symbolizing water, black color, and military affairs), Marshal Tianpeng (in Journey to the West, he was banished to the mortal realm for harassing Chang'e while drunk, and later became Zhu Bajie, also a military general), the Four Great Marshals (Ma, Zhao, Wen, Guan, among which Guan is Guan Yu from the Three Kingdoms history, known for unparalleled loyalty and morality, becoming a god after death), Lei Gong and Dianmu (in charge of thunder and lightning), the Four Sea Loong Kings (overseeing the four seas in the east, west, south, and north, responsible for rainfalls according to the Jade Emperor's orders, where once the Jing River Loong King was beheaded for not precisely following the Jade Emperor's instructions), the General of Turning the Curtain (literally means lifting the curtain, also a role of guardian and warrior, who was banished to the mortal realm in Journey to the West and later became Sha Wujing), and finally, some functional immortals such as "Thousand-Mile Eye" and "Wind-Listening Ear" which are basically information gathering roles mentioned in Journey to the West. If this logic arrangement is too heavily based on "Journey to the West" or Daoist mythology, there is another approach called "Three Ancestors of China," which are: the Yellow Emperor（HUANG DI), the Red/Fire Emperor (YAN DI), and Chi You. The Yellow Emperor, also known as Xuanyuan, invented the calendar, arithmetic, and political system, as "Xuanyuan" represents chariot, could be designed to have chariot combat units. The Yan Emperor, also known as Shennong, used to apear in EE version, excelling in agriculture, inventing the plow, growing the Five Grains, laying the foundation for agriculture and solving food problems, which could be designed as various agricultural bonuses. Chi You is skilled in combat and metalworking, and could be designed to have many military bonuses. Additionally, Chi You is depicted more like a monster (possibly because he was the common enemy of the Fire Emperor and the Yellow Emperor, with Chi You defeating the Fire Emperor, prompting the Fire Emperor to seek help from the Yellow Emperor, leading to their joint defeat of Chi You), and could be configured to provide more bonuses to mythological units. In the EE version, the Yellow Emperor and the Jade Emperor have been mixed up, which is a massive mistake and they are completely unrelated deities.
15:53 Little peckish with this one, but I believe you are thinking favor generation a little bit wrong. Instead of looking at what gives China its identity, you should look at what Chinese religious people did to "pray" to their gods. Ask yourself what they would do, when they needed to ask their gods for their favor or in the mythos' what their deities demands from their subjects to earn their favor. I don't think building production reflects that quite well. Granted this is me just being peckish. I could see constructing shrines, but they are too similar to monuments. But perhaps you could combine your idea with shrines, where nearby production around placed shrines is what generates the favor. In essence you would want a shrine near your town center as it produces villagers and also one near your military buildings and your docks. You would only need as many shrines as you have production buildings to fit around it, but unlike the Egyptians, they don't scale with each one built, they don't generate favor on their own and you can build as many shrines as you need. Just an idea.
Yeah a shrine-focused model could work as well. I echoed that idea in my "Ancestral Shrine" unique building for Yan Luo. My thought process was: what can the Chinese do that's different from what's already in the game (and that also would feel meaningful/fun) => take inspiration from the tax system in AOE4 => Theme it around "Social Harmony" which is basically the Confucian concept of everyone fitting in their place in society to make for a productive state (massive oversimplification mind you) as I don't really incorporate Confucianism elsewhere in this concept despite it being the third major religion of China.
Although i dont agree with all your design, I MOSTLY LIKE IT BRO :3 well done, i hope devs implement some of your GOOD ideas in the next patch (but yeah, they are the devs at the end of the day, and players will decide if the result is good or not)
A few questions- first- where will chinese heal their units- The monk could probably do that, but it already has enough going on. Second, you are missing the Chinese mythic sea myth unit. Third, the nine tailed fox, though iconic to the Chinese is probably more so to Japan, so it will probably be "saved" for them.
In terms of accumulating favor, I would like the villagers to generate 0.1 favor everytime they deposit resources much like the tax system of the aoe4 chinese. Historically, the Chinese would gift offerings and tributes to their gods and ancestors to gain their favor. This practice is tied to the Mandate of Heaven.
This was a very thorough and comprehensive list. I think the only issue I had was thematically some of the Unique Heroes did not match the God per se. Like Guan Yu for Ao Kuang in which I think it is arguable with how popular Guan Yu became he may be on that level of Sun Wukong. But its also just hard because there are so many different characters from different eras. But also because you can argue Ne Zha for Ao Kuang as well his dad.
My thinking was: assuming only age 4 heroes have abilities, which of these heroes is most deserving of an ability from a thematic point of view? Guan yu is a powerful fighter but ne zha has like all these interesting magical items. Would much rather see ne zha for that reason. But you’re right. Some heroes fit their gods better than others thematically
@@ChillyEmpire still a really good list nonetheless, actually learned a bit on some of these peoples since i never really finished the 80s xi you ji although i plan to eventually. It's hard when you're trying to complement journey to the west, water margin, fengshen yanyi and rotk
Very impressive video! Still watching ATM. A few years ago I made an outline for a Hindu civ for a mod, but they were still focused on their other civs, and the server got hacked so I left. I still have the basic notes for the civ idea, I'd love to see what you think of them somehow.
One thing about major gods: I think 2 other gods other than Jade emperor should be one from Buddhism and one from Daoisim. There's an argument to be made if Buddhism should be given to China or India but it beats Yanluo (who is really a guy doing his job and nothing dramatic ever happens to him, never worshipped) and Nvwa (who is a primal god and is dead at the end of her own story, similar to pangu. Also never worshipped except in the truly acient times) imo.
You're more likely to get the star god trio of Fuxing, Luxing and Shouxing in a unison than those three, and FuLuShou aren't just those figures your Chinese significant other gifts you for birthday or Christmas. Also applies to the artisan god trio of Goibniu, Creidhne and Luchtaine (spellings may vary) for the Irish Celts pantheon.
The gate guardian unit , i think usually they called as Devas in some manga translation into english , i only know a bit though from Shaman King manga iirc But perhaps if it use Devas it kinda lean into Hinduism god , perhaps AoM can expand into other like that , would be aweaome
Just finished the video and I got to say it all look pretty solid, a lot more thought was put into this than the original that's for sure! 😅. The only feedback I can think of is that there is a lack of variety when it comes to human units and I feel like this pantheon would be really weak in age 2 because they only get 3 units that each need their own buildings. Every other faction has 2-3 of each human unit type, but yours only has 1-2. I feel like you will end up with a lot of buildings that can only recruit 1 unit from it (Conscripts barracks, crossbow manufactory, nomadic camp, imperial bastion). I feel like you could probably get rid of the imperial foundry and just have the fire lance and rocket cart train from the imperial bastion once you enter mythic age. That's my only critique though, everything else looks really good and if this version of the civ dropped as is I would definitely enjoy it more than the original.
to be fair, making Chinese Units weaker might seem distasteful but that's what makes the Chinese Powerful both in Historical and in most Age of Empires game. Basically while historically they do have Elite Soldiers, the bulk of their army are still levied Peasants defending over a wide space of territories, there's no single win button soldier type for the Chinese like the Greek Hoplites, Medieval Knights and Japanese Samurai as every soldier types would need to work together, which is what AoE2 and AoE3 does, making the Chinese Unit Option wide where AoE2 allows you to get slight Technological Superiority on a few units due to their Cheaper Techs while AoE3 forces your army to be a mix of different unit which are weak but will be hard to counter as there are other weak unit that cover their weakness.
The only "problem" is, I believe, that an overwhelming majority would exlusively only choose Guan Yin to the detriment of the other two, because Sun Wukong. And of course the rest of the cast of Journey to the West. Meta be damned. Though I might be biased because I just binged Overly Sarcatic Productions' videos of it. You know you are in for shenaningans when one of your heroes is quadruple immortal. Speaking of, how would that be represented in game?
I remember my biggest beef with the Chinese DLC of the old game as a Chinese, is just how lazy it was It felt like the Dev just Google searched Chinese gods and put a bunch of random shit in it, like I remember I felt offended seeing Sun Wukong as a minor god, as he isn't even a Chinese god, he's a character from a novel At the end, Tale of the Dragon didn't add a new civilization, as the Chinese in the game isn't Chinese at all
I would love to see this, the only things I didn't like are the ablities for the bird, he should be about wind, and the Qilin, I would like the healing abilities of the old one back, for the rest it is perfect! White tigers should be just rare animals that walk around the map. I would also switch the bird with the Dijiang/Hundun, they should be more powerful in my opinion, the chaos they bring is pretty powerful and devastating.
I am Chinese. We plays game Call "AOM", not "AOE". There should not be any game units later than the Qin Dynasty.Guandao and ZhugeNu and hand cannons are not fit the theme.
DAHH, you beat me to it!
I'm working on my own version of the Chinese as well, so I'm going to be putting this on my Watch Later list for now. Extra motivation for me to finish up the project so I can enjoy your presentation, which I'm sure is excellent as always!
Hope we got to see more AOM from you, Chilly.
Thanks mate! Can’t wait to see your vid on them I always learn something new
@@ChillyEmpire Much appreciated bud!
Hey I love both your channels. Shout out to the amazing content you guys both do!
@@birdganginc Thanks very much! It's an honor to hear you say so
You sick at theorycrafting
I would love to see the Aztec Pantheon!
P.S.: Nice presentation!
The Duke Of Dorks Has Some Good Ideas For That
aztecs would be really interesting since they got some weird gods
Ud gain favors from blood sacrifices
Sounds very unique playstyle
@@MazuiLakon yeah sacrificing units for favor or even villagersand such
In before anyone says anything, I'm mexican so I know what I'm talking about because I also researched it too.
If only aztecs existed for more than the measily 500 years more or less.... Maybe in a medieval setting they make more sense. Hell Oxford is freaking older than the aztecs, that place got more chances to appear here than the aztecs if they do choose to go for fanservice.
Mayans ARE the mesoamerican civilization to fit right in, they existed for 4000 years they've got all the material to get inspired by.
And if you feel fancy, olmecs.
If you feeling extra spicy, go to peru for el Caral.
but ffs we have so many indigenous ethnic groups we aren't just, aztec and mayan we're sooo many more, and extra if you count the migration from other countries to make the soup that is mexico.
Honestly would love to see an assyrian pantheon added
The theme will be 'Sumer Vacation' or 'Mess of Potamia'
It's honestly so baffling that there wasn't one instead of the atlanteans. Hell, even the Norse make much less sense than the Mesopotamian gods / culture. They're far and above a much more aggressive and bloodthirsty faction culture, they have sources from the same time period of the greeks / egyptians (and not the 13th century), and gods like Aphrodite were adapted from gods like Ishtar.
@@Whatsuppbuddies only learned about them about 5 years and ago and have just been in love with their overall look and history, really hoping they get added
@@adrianjamesdelfin7414 summer vacation for a empire theme goes hard
You gotta remember its MYTHOLOGY. Not focused on reality and history like other crappy AGE OF games.
going in i had no intention of staying for 2 hours but man, you sounded so passionate the whole way through. I really like what you've cooked up here
Wow thanks for listening that means a lot
I really respect the design philosophy. I'm a history nerd and a realist so I'm constantly disappointed that age franchise has complete fiction over unbelievable but true history and mythology, but I acknowledge that pop culture references have their place and they do serve to make a more light hearted and cartoony experience, which definitely makes games fun and entertaining.
Edit: having finished the video, your work looks 10x better than Tale of the Dragon and EE, and 3x better than the Titans. Very well thought out, a clear driving passion, and concessions made where necessary. I particularly like the scout (hero)/warrior monk system.
That Nu Wa artist name is definitely Daniela Ivanova, sounds like an Eastern-European woman's name.
As a Chinese who lives in the West, I never felt more represented in what I wanted to share about my culture for non-Chinese audiences. I almost feel sad if the actual DLC end up being different than this.
Let's hope the Chinese theme is festival related, with a goofy title.
The Norse, for example, have horns as part of their music and is titled 'Of Norse Not!'.
Chinese silk dress and silky flowy scraf and jewery and gold armament and flute and zither base music will be heavenly and add drum for battle will be golden.
@@adrianjamesdelfin7414 "Bring out the fine China"?
@@oneaustrodude Any other punny names for the Chinese theme? I like it though.
@@adrianjamesdelfin7414 A chink in the armor. 🥸
Having unique heroes for each god is such an amazing idea. The heroes you have chosen and the myth units seem so cool. If only the devs could see this
A glorious 2 hour epic from the ChillyEmpire. Your videos are always much appreciated.
I've got to say, this concept is so solid, it might reconcile me with the Chinese civ for AoM, I was very disappointed and bitter at the way they were handled in EE, but with what you're proposing, they feel very unique and distinct, like all the other civs feel unique, and not only do they feel like their gameplay would be super fun to manage, the idea with the heroes is a great way to showcase several mythical and cultural figures from China, which is what I lvoe most about AoM. I pray the Chinese rework turns out like this
Holy shit this is crazy high quality for just being a fan presentation, Could've been the official content. Great job :O
So much potential and so many civilisations to choose from. I personally would like a sumerian (Babylonian) civ. You have so many gods to choose from and their favour gain could be from advancement in technologies, since they are one of the oldest known civilisations.
Honestly, some form of Mesopotamian civilization would be neat to see - be it Sumerian, Persian, Babylonian or Assyrian, or even something that is a sort of mix and pulls from all of these. I'd love to also see Djinn and other such mythological beings and creatures show up in AoM, same with Oni (Japanese).
The Aztecs (or perhaps a Mesoamerican civ), Japanese, Celts and Slavs, along with a Hindu civ would be neat to have as well, though I think the latter might be a little too offensive given that it's still a very large religion today, so they might not ever make a Hindu civ.
But those would be my top picks for new civs. I'd love to see modders take a crack at those if MS/World's Edge doesn't. Heck, there's already both an Aztec and a Japanese civ for the Extended Edition version of the game - MS could either take inspiration, hire the designers of those, or just contract them to port the civs over to Retold, with all the changes Retold makes to the original game (and perhaps some reworks and rebalancing where necessary).
EDIT: The Yoruba would be great as well! There's so many to pick from!
The theme will be 'Sumer Vacation' or 'Mess of Potamia'.
Yeah, Chinese are the obvious first choice, but we need a mesopotamian civ, an indian subcontinent civ, a mesoamerican civ, and maybe another african civ too. I have a feeling that Japanese are going to be added instead though given how popular their mythos is even if it wasn't nearly as influential as many other potential choices, but as long as that doesn't mean we won't get these other areas I'm still fine with that.
Palm of the Buhdda could be renamed to Heavans Palm if it upsets people, and it would still be understood.
This is a beautiful piece of work! Already the fact that you're Chinese and tried to represent the culture/philosophy better caught my ear.
Lets make sure this gets to the developers, very well done
or, I don't know, the devs (and their appropriate culture experts) had already been ahead of the development
It's too late for that at this point, really. It's a really, really awesome video though.
This is really well thought out honestly. I'd take this any day of the week over the lazily designed tale of the dragon pantheon we got
Extremely well done! I think Nu Wa being able to train villagers for free is a bit OP, maybe a reduction in cost would be better. But I love most of your ideas.
I think in Japan, those "godly floating divine robes" are called hagoromo
I did not know so many people were so passionate ab this game. Good video
Mythologly civs I would like to see in the future. Aztecs, Mesopotamians, Persians, Vedic Indians, Shinto Japanese and Celts
Does anyone know if they gonna 100% copy the chinese faction from the old expansion, or are they gonna create a new Chinese expansion with new myth units? The Fox, Taotie, and Hundun are REALLY missing from that expansion and should really be inserted.
I know for a fact that the Chinese faction is coming, and that they will probably do a lot of re-balancing, but I don't know if there will be reworks or additions.
Only 2 minutes in but couldn't resist the impulse to say I love your choice of art for the Chinese, with the background and everything. Oh God. HYPE!
There's a couple spots here that would be difficult to balance mechanically and such, but overall this is an extremely well thought out framework, and its apparent a lot of time and effort went in to it. Well done! I'd love to see more concepts get this treatment, including a Slavic Mythology civ i'm hoping for someday (but seem to be the minority on)
31:40 Quick correction; the Jurchens formed the Jin Dynasty. The Liao Dynasty was the Khitans (a fully nomadic group from the North/North-West).
Jurchens are more closely related to both Koreans and Mongolians (in fact their semi-nomadic lifestyle hints at this from a cultural perspective). Although I can see why they would be here, given it's more pop culture, and Chinese never really used the kind of super-heavy-cavalry that we see in Jurchens or further west in Persia and Europe.
Overall I really like this. The presentation is amazing, and it's a lot better thought-out than the EE one. I'm very happy to see it sticking to a more concise period of Chinese history, as the presence of chariots, heavy cavalry and gunpowder all at once with the EE Chinese was really jarring and messy.
On potentially Persians being added, I think their mythology isn't as well-known as the Assyrians and Babylonians. Either of those two feel like a much more likely candidate for a civ from the Middle East.
Chilly: this is a two-hour video.
Me: oh. :(
Chilly: here's my pick for the major gods.
Me: okay. dinner will have to wait.
🤣
One thing i would add from a western perspective is a Jade myth unit of some sort, like a Jade lion
Suggestion: Instead of making Zhuge Nu do a spread (which is inaccurate to how they worked), make it 3 bolts fired in quick succession, which do little damage on their own, but apply a stacking poison. This way your Zhuge Nu become archer counters, as archers are a stationary target to hit and thus easiest to apply your stacks on (might want to put a cap on those stacks, either 3 or 6 I would think).
If poison is now a Zhuge Nu base ability, Sun Piercer can be something more thematic. Either gives the Zhuge Nu higher base attack (Piercer) or replaces the poison with fire damage (Sun) which does more damage per tick.
I like that idea! I also like the idea of Zhuge Nu being anti-archer archers. Then Ji can be anti-infantry infantry and horse archers can be anti cav.
Amazing job, i am glad that there are still many people that has the same enthusiasm as you.
This design for the Chinese Pantheon you've come up with is absolutely incredible. You've clearly done very thorough research, and your roster of gods and heroes is MUCH better than the official in-game version.
First off? This is INCREDIBLE, and I hope the devs either hire you to work on this or take inspiration from your work. I love the little things that reference the old Chinese design, like Nuwa or the Hundred Schools of Thought that effectively makes the Teahouses into the old Zen Gardens, in a way. This is incredible work and you should be proud of it.
My sole contribution is an idea for what you could do with the three "base" units of the Ji Conscript, Chu-ko-nu, and Nomad Archer. What you could do with the base units is make it so that they flip the normal weaknesses.
Traditionally in AOM, infantry beat cavalry, cavalry beat archers, and archers beat infantry. But as you point out, the Ji Conscript's weapon isn't actually very anti-cavalry; so make it so that Ji Conscripts are anti-archer! Terrible against cavalry, which they just aren't equipped to fight, but well-armored enough and good enough in a melee fight that they can reach the archers and tear through them.
Following this, Nomad Archers would be *amazing* against infantry, who are usually weak to arrows anyway- but terrible against anyone who can shoot back because they aren't very armored.
Finally, Zhuge Nu can do extra damage to cavalry with the "spread shot" helping counter cavalry speed, and the explanation being that they use a poison that's good against horses (whcih brings that historical element back in). But they aren't great against infantry, because of the weak power of the crossbow and the poison being more anti-horse than anti-person.
That'd be a fun thing that would make the Chinese stand out a lot, and would create fun gameplay! Plus, it'd make their later units, who DO obey the standard weakness trio, stand out even more.
Thank you so much and I love these ideas. A very solid direction to take the base units!
Actually, The "god-related-hero" mechanism could be more simple and represented
If you check the Chinese Pantheon, you will found there are two typical Chinese gods, the natural gods(i.e.Hou Tu) and "hero gods"(i.e. Guan Yu)
Moreover, hero gods are more and represneted than natural gods
So, I think the mechanism could be:
You choose one from three natural gods(i.e. Hou Tu; Zi Wei, the lord of stars; Yuanshi Tianzun, the first god)
You also choose one hero from temple(i.e. Guan Yu...etc)
And when the classical age achieved, the hero turn to god, and several unique techni could be use
Also just a tip, there's no 'a' in Foundry ;)
Bro this is amazing! Honestly I don't like Chinese pantheon in EE at all, but these illustrations, units and mechanics really make me think it would be one of my favorites. Great job!!!
Awesome concept. Although most likely it isn't getting into AOM, I'd love to see a concept for Hindu Mythology next.
As long as there's a myth unit with similar abilities to the salamander, I'm happy. The mass salamanders + fire lance combo was deadly in the extended edition.
This was such an awesome video to watch! Very professional and well built. It's really inspiring me to make my own major gods/civilisations for fun.
Let's see it yo!
I really hope the dev team takes your ideas here into consideration. The idea, for example, that there's a specific, named hero for each minor god is SO good.
1. If you want to make the treb mechanically unique, give it a setup time like AOW2 Trebs.
2. Imperial Garrison training rate aura should not buff other imperial Garrison or there is a strong incentive to stack them in a blob.
3. Chinese Titan should def be a dragon in case, so India could have a heavenly king / Arhat in case they get added.
4. You forgot a fishing ship and a transport, perhaps merge the two ?
5. Monsoon could also buff output of allied farms and debuff the output of enemy farms in area.
6. Daji is also Tamamo no Mae and Chang'e may be Kaguya, might have some conflict with a possible Japanese Pantheon.
I really just listened to the AoM soundtrack for 2 hours lol, but really great video man!
Very neatly compiled & presented! Super thoughtful as well, esp your comments re realism vs pop-recognisability.
Let me say something that has nothing to do with theAOM. The weapon called "nest of bees" in Age of Empires 4 was widely used in China after the Song Dynasty. In addition to those placed on vehicles, there were also handheld and heavy ones. The peak was in the early 15th century when Zhu Di, who was still a rebel king, used it in large quantities in his rebellion against his nephew Zhu Yunwen. The "Shenjiying" was established in the Ming Dynasty, so this type of rocket weapon is also called "Shenji Arrow" (God-like clever arrows). Later, it was introduced to the vassal state of Korea. And many people don’t know that before Sid Meier’s Civilization 3 introduced “Hwacha” as a special unit of Korea, even in Korea, few people knew about it. Before the year 2001, searching for “Hwacha” in Korean almost all turned up “flower tea（花茶）” and “truck（貨車）”, which are homophones with（火車）. With the introduction of European artillery in large quantities during the Ming Dynasty, this traditional rocket weapon was quickly eliminated in China because they were different from the game and were actually very difficult to use.
While this is quite ballanced, it isnt very orginial, its more like a mix of existing pantheons. I would love to see something more original to age of mythology, such as specialised villagers for building, and maybe something like generalist units, that have good stats and damage, but take increased damage from for example archers.
Amazing video! I hope the devs see it and take inspiration
Bro put in a ton of effort! Love the ideas!
Great concept. The favor generation based on social harmony makes so much sense. The heroes unique to each god is a nice and novel system. I will update this comment as I watch the rest of the vid lol, only halfway done.
Btw that image of the farmer is actually a fisherman. Those birds are trained cormorants (that type of fishing is actually called Cormorant Fishing there's a wikipedia article on it too and you can see Chinese fishermen in AoE3 doing it).
They should hire him. He has shown the compassion, skill, knowledge and execution of making a chinese mythology concept. I love that kind of compassion !
As someone who spends a wacky amount of time making spec RTS rosters, this was really cool and earned a subscribe! All the future pantheons you listed are really interesting, but a sleeper pick I'm hoping for is the Inca. The Mayans and Aztecs have a lot of awesome mythology, but South America is often forgotten in that conversation!
First opinion in the middle of the video (if i wait till the end i moght forget):
I dont think you should give the chieroballista arrow spread to the chukonu. Keeping them as in aoe2 is the better choice. Fully upgraded with 4 bolts (maybe before mythic age it always has 3... Or it starts with 2 in classical and you add one more per age) where the total damage they can give is 12 but its divided by the place of the bolt. 1st bolt gives 4 damage, the 2nd 2, the 3rd and 4th give 3 damage each. And only the first 2 have 100% accuracy, while the 3rd has 80% and the 4th has 75%. From the few videos i saw of aom retold there will be a poison mechanic. Maybe the chukonu, from a minor god or a hero buff could have a poison tic per bolt? Multishot is the age series chukonu thing, now a wide shot like the chieroballista.
Edit: 1:15:41 the white horses were used because the nomad tribe that usually attack the northen regions believed them sacred. Gongsun started to use them because the nomad wouldnt dare to attack them because misfortune would fall on them
I know this has nothing to do with the video and I’m late but I have an idea for an Age Of Empires 4 Civ concept and that concept is the Irish.
It would be very cool to see them and plus they have a very very unique military history including… cattle raidings? Any ways I absolutely love the way You design Civ concepts.
Chilly if You see this, please do it.
Dude this is good stuff.
49:22 maybe the word junk came from the ship/boat used in indomalayan archipelago.. the "jong", and maybe because both chuan & jong had some similarities, they called both ship as a "junk", which they also used for japanese ship
Yeah I think that’s right
If you call their ships "junk" people will just laugh at them, regardless of authenticity or chinese pronunciations. Same with "Long wang".
I like this rework already!
However there's some changes I would make to make the Chinese Units more better (specially in the later stages of the game)
* Would make the Dagger Axe upgrade grant the Ji Conscript both the Spear Tip and the ability to asume 2 additional stances:
- Armor Breaker Stance in which the Conscript uses the Ji as if it is an Axe to break armor. Specially good to deal with Armored Infantry like Huskarls and Upgraded Hoplites, something the Zughe Nu will struggle against.
- And the Spear wall stance which grants the Ji Conscript the ability to deal extra damage against Charging Calvary
* Would make an new upgrade for the Zhugue Nu that allows it to shoot Poisoned Bolts and instead make the Sun Piercer Upgrade deal half of the bolt's damage as Divine Damage (but the upgrade itself would not be researchable until Mythic Age is reached despite being from a Classical Age God and requires Poisoned Bolts be researched first)
* Would give Hou Tu another Upgrade that would grant the Nomadic Horseman (better name for the Horse Archer) a melee attack (a Mace) or to grant it the Bow and Arrow so you can use the Bow and Arrow for harassing Infantry and the Mace to deal with Archers
If possible would you be willing to do one of these based on Rome?
Yes, I know people say that they are just Greece again. But I argue that there are indeed enough differences to justify them being added.
I would love to see your take on how Rome could be added to AoM Retold.
I really like your concept. You made a huge work there, so well done !
I think Horse archer should be good against infantry (and chinese basic range unit counter archers like slinger is for egyptians), so hit and run playstyle would be allowed. It can be strong in age 2 (classical), but with good balance it's probably fine.
Im not necessary a fan that chinese heroes in melee revive. I think this should be for campaign heroes only ! It's not balanced for PVP I think. would be too punitive if you loose the hero far away and can't revive him at all and at the same time it's too strong if you can just revive him and heal him too fast, if not fast enough (or without any healing) you just won't have him full hp at all.
I think that for the favour, something more original could be found. In extended you had a building that generate ressources (like hephaistos god power but weaker) then was the only way to generate favour. I think linking favour with buildings is a good idea but the are hybrid beetween egyptian and greek i don't know. We need to think more about it ! Something that could be more unique.
The economic idea is very good. Nothing to say more on that, it's just way better than extended edition. The idea of buffing the villagers is very cool. I like the idea of having ''2'' villagers units and the fact that chinese is really good at building.
Im not a huge fan of too much gunpowder for China in AOM, of course it's very thematic (and I love it in games like AOE who has a later timeline) but I prefer them to stay the more related to ''ancient'' era and not going too much into middle ages. So despite the fact rocket cart could be a cool unit, i think it's better to stick to 3 kingdoms kind of timeline or even earlier (han timeline). For the same reason, not sure about the wonders : ming dynasty is very recent tho, more middle age/renaissance timeline.
Fire lance is probably enough to represent the ''powder/explosive'' technology, let's not go too far.
So yeah, despite understanding and liking the idea of doing ''pop-mythology'' I think it's better if we stick to the ancient era instead of more recent one. Maybe im wrong about that but's that's just my opinion !
About the pantheon i think it's interesting, I miss probably some knowledge (as someone who knows well western/mediterannean mythology but not that much chinese) to give deep proposal about mythological units/heroes and god figures, my only complain is that you didn't explained enough why some EE choices were bad, you mention it sure but not going deeply why some gods they choose in Tale of the dragon were a bad choice ! As someone who is not that well aware of chinese pantheon I would have liked some ''history/legends'' explanations.
The idea of each god giving a unique hero is also very cool, even if i doubt it will come sadly. Same for each major god giving a unique building, I like the idea ! I think it's easier to do than each minor god having a unique hero.
Something you didn't talked at all is the Tale of the dragon campaign, so you will abandon it totaly ? Im unsure they will.
This whole video is fantastic and very educational to me, but I particularly love the buddha's palm god power! An idea I had for it that works with the mountain dropping part of the story, is maybe it could drop the impassable cliff/rocky terrain texture in the shape of a hand... would damage and push all units off of it and destroy any building it touched, but then also leave a PERMANENTLY impassable area on the map. You could potentially use it defensively too, blocking most of the pass on jotunheim for example, though youd have to be careful with how big it was. Would have to size it so it couldnt softlock the maps with passes or make a settlement completely unreachable.
Love that idea
have each of the basic units counter themselves, so ji for infantry, zhugenu for archers, and nomads for cav. Also it would be cool if we hot a west African civ with anansi as one of the gods
I like these ideas a lot
Please I really need to know, what program did you use to create the Chinese overview. It looks incredible.
You gained a follower!
Do you speak mandarin? your pronunciation is so good!
I’m Chinese American so I grew up with it but my mandarin is pretty trash in general.
@@ChillyEmpire so your mandarin costs just food and wood
Never played the AoM Extended Edition so I had no idea there was a Chinese pantheon ever. I’m familiar with some of the characters and references you made since I’ve played Smite and League. I really enjoyed your planning, and I’d definitely play it.
I too would love an Aztec or Mesomoptian(spelling?) or one of the African pantheons make it into the game.
This is amazing!!! Now that might sound cruel but I think you put more time and effort into research than the actual devs.
So now that we've had an official trailer for the Chinese pantheon I would absolutely love to see your reaction to it - I noticed a few things in there you were asking for, in particular a certain headless hero :3
Just posted!
I appreciate the amount of work you must have put into this.
Well done sir! Loved this redesign proposal.
Wow, I am Zoroastrian Persian with massive interest to Chinese history and literature and I am amazed how even as american you know basically all the important bits in history of China, this looks amazing tbh
Well, what would a Persian civ be like, though?
Just in case, the theme music will be titled 'Purse of Police', a pun of version of Persepolis.
@@adrianjamesdelfin7414 I guess it would look weird as Zoroastrianism is henotheistic, ie, one god is most supreme, but you can worship ahriman like how u can worship loki maybe, ahriman is god of evil and ahura mazda is god of good and zurvan, which is time itself is their father so maybe these 3 as main gods? Feels weird in henotheism
Honestly, if you are wanting to make more and want assistance, I'd love to help out. I'm a game designer and I've played Age of Mythology a lot. I'm also really into RTS games.
I think you could do any of the following TBH:
- Mesopotamia (Assyrian, Persian, Babylonian and/or Sumerian)
- Aztec
- Mesoamerican
- Japanese
- Celts
- Slavs
- Hindu (I reckon that there may never be an official one made by MS, though)
- Yoruba
The intro feels like a storyline in Battle Realms AND I LOVE IT. Really wanted to see more of Asian Civilizations in the game
This got a sub from me, enjoyed it a lot, hope to see more AoM content. I hope for a Celtic Pantheon too! And Slavic as well would be nice. Other than that the major ones with some presence in popular knowledge, as well as civilisational distinctiveness, would be Mesopotamian of some kind (Sumerian or Babylonian seems the most famous, though they might blend different Mesopotamian cultures together), Japanese, Indian/Hindu, North American Indian. I wouldn't expect to see nore obscure mythologies like Baltic, Polynesian or subsaharan African. At least not for a long time, depending on how much longevity the series has and how many expansions they do (how hard they try to milk us lol)
Everyone seems to expect Aztecs to be next, and their pantheon is indeed awesome, but it would be interesting how they would tie it in to the original campaign? Given the original was all on the contiguous Eurasiafrican landmass. Or maybe it'll just be its completely separate own thing.
This was amazing! I think this is a really well designed Pantheon from a flavor perspective, and while some of the abilities and technology may need to be changed for gameplay and balance reasons, I think something like this could work really well in AoM! I would love to know what you think the most likely candidate is for the unrevealed 6th Pantheon and do a fan concept of that one!
Japan, Mayan/Aztec, and something near east maybe Persia or Babylon would be my best guesses.
@@ChillyEmpire I was thinking Aztec too since so many people have requested it, but I don't know if they'd go that far away from the original setting that quickly.
My guess, and this may be a little far fetched, is that with the new version of the Chinese, they will tie the campaign into the OG story in some way because travel between Asia and Europe wasn't unheard of even in ancient times. So, I would expect another Asian or European nation next as well.
For mythological characters for a campaign either Daji or Sun wukong would be great characters to have (maybe both).
The myth units of the previous version are mostly good/popular picks like the jiangshi, monkey warrior, pixiu, qilin, dragon turtle, long dragon, terracotta soldier, with the exceptions of vermillion bird & white tiger which i would change for the fenghuang and nine-tail fox.
I would keep the war salamanders since i like them and their hybrid water-land movement a lot lol.
I replaced the war salamander’s role with the dragon turtle. I’m not really sure what war salamanders are. I’ve never heard of them in the mythology.
@@ChillyEmpire i think they are based on the real chinese giant salamanders rather than a entirely mythological creature.
i just kept them alongside the dragon turtles because i found them neat, perhaps make them way squishier but cheaper than the turtle as well as better against buildings rather than human units ans ships to make them more different in role and use.
i would love if you made more of these
Just for you boss we gonna make it happen soon
@@ChillyEmpire im so glad to hear
This design is very solid and it will be super cool if the developers add all the myths part
In your design, gods are mainly based on Daoist mythology, especially the Celestial Court system. In Greek mythology, gods have blood ties, like a huge family. In the Daoist Celestial Court system, it is more like a bureaucratic system, with the gods having hierarchical relationships. The Jade Emperor(YU HUANG) is the CEO, not founder but management, while YAN LUO is just one of the ten officials in charge of the underworld, a subordinate employee of the Jade Emperor, and not suitable to be parallel with the Jade Emperor. Nuwa is an ancient goddess, in mythology she created humans from mud and repaired the sky with stones after it collapsed, belonging to the "creation gods" , like founders, also not suitable to be parallel with the Jade Emperor.
If you want to refer to "Journey to the West", it is best to start with the "Celestial Court" in Daoist mythology.
The main gods can be chosen as the Jade Emperor, the Queen Mother of the West (from Mount Kunlun, looks like but actually not the wife of the Jade Emperor), and the Lord of Dao (aka "LAO ZI", historically the ancestor of Daoist thought). These three together are more harmonious, with no clear subordinate relationship between them and they all once presented in the same scene.
Then for the secondary gods, you can choose Li Jing, Nezha (father and son with a contradictory relationship), Erlang Shen (the nephew of the Jade Emperor, born through the Jade Emperor's sister’s liaison with a mortal, has a bad relationship with the Jade Emperor, established his own position outside the Celestial Court), Sun Wukong (self-proclaimed Great Sage Equal to Heaven, sent by the Jade Emperor to manage the horses, but escaped due to low official position, eventually causing chaos in the Celestial Court), as well as the Giant God (basically a super huge god, defeated by Sun Wukong), and the Four Great Heavenly Kings (actually originate from Buddhism, but they are arranged as guardians in the Celestial Court.)
Chang'e is an extremely aloof and beautiful goddess, with a cold and solitary personality, representing the moon. Her divine power may be related to the night and the moon, a tragic deity. She stole the elixir of immortality from her husband, Houyi, and flew to the moon where she resides in the Palace of the Moon alone, with a rabbit as her pet. On the moon, there is also Wu Gang constantly cutting down cinnamon trees. The Jade Emperor punished him to cut down cinnamon trees on the moon, but the cinnamon trees grow faster than he can cut them down, similar to Sisyphus.
"Tang Sanzang" is not responsible to the Jade Emperor, nor does he fall under the jurisdiction of the Jade Emperor. He is a Buddhist and only obeys the Buddhas like Tathagata and Bodhisattva Guanyin in the Buddhist system.
Additional secondary gods that can be included are: the Northern True Martial Great Emperor (representing the Big Dipper with a symbol of serpent and turtle, symbolizing water, black color, and military affairs), Marshal Tianpeng (in Journey to the West, he was banished to the mortal realm for harassing Chang'e while drunk, and later became Zhu Bajie, also a military general), the Four Great Marshals (Ma, Zhao, Wen, Guan, among which Guan is Guan Yu from the Three Kingdoms history, known for unparalleled loyalty and morality, becoming a god after death), Lei Gong and Dianmu (in charge of thunder and lightning), the Four Sea Loong Kings (overseeing the four seas in the east, west, south, and north, responsible for rainfalls according to the Jade Emperor's orders, where once the Jing River Loong King was beheaded for not precisely following the Jade Emperor's instructions), the General of Turning the Curtain (literally means lifting the curtain, also a role of guardian and warrior, who was banished to the mortal realm in Journey to the West and later became Sha Wujing), and finally, some functional immortals such as "Thousand-Mile Eye" and "Wind-Listening Ear" which are basically information gathering roles mentioned in Journey to the West.
If this logic arrangement is too heavily based on "Journey to the West" or Daoist mythology, there is another approach called "Three Ancestors of China," which are: the Yellow Emperor（HUANG DI), the Red/Fire Emperor (YAN DI), and Chi You. The Yellow Emperor, also known as Xuanyuan, invented the calendar, arithmetic, and political system, as "Xuanyuan" represents chariot, could be designed to have chariot combat units. The Yan Emperor, also known as Shennong, used to apear in EE version, excelling in agriculture, inventing the plow, growing the Five Grains, laying the foundation for agriculture and solving food problems, which could be designed as various agricultural bonuses. Chi You is skilled in combat and metalworking, and could be designed to have many military bonuses. Additionally, Chi You is depicted more like a monster (possibly because he was the common enemy of the Fire Emperor and the Yellow Emperor, with Chi You defeating the Fire Emperor, prompting the Fire Emperor to seek help from the Yellow Emperor, leading to their joint defeat of Chi You), and could be configured to provide more bonuses to mythological units. In the EE version, the Yellow Emperor and the Jade Emperor have been mixed up, which is a massive mistake and they are completely unrelated deities.
The pagoda power sounds fun to play with. These changes sound a lot more fun than EE Chinese
Coming back to rewatch this after the Immortal Pillars trailer
15:53 Little peckish with this one, but I believe you are thinking favor generation a little bit wrong. Instead of looking at what gives China its identity, you should look at what Chinese religious people did to "pray" to their gods. Ask yourself what they would do, when they needed to ask their gods for their favor or in the mythos' what their deities demands from their subjects to earn their favor. I don't think building production reflects that quite well. Granted this is me just being peckish.
I could see constructing shrines, but they are too similar to monuments. But perhaps you could combine your idea with shrines, where nearby production around placed shrines is what generates the favor. In essence you would want a shrine near your town center as it produces villagers and also one near your military buildings and your docks. You would only need as many shrines as you have production buildings to fit around it, but unlike the Egyptians, they don't scale with each one built, they don't generate favor on their own and you can build as many shrines as you need.
Just an idea.
Yeah a shrine-focused model could work as well. I echoed that idea in my "Ancestral Shrine" unique building for Yan Luo.
My thought process was: what can the Chinese do that's different from what's already in the game (and that also would feel meaningful/fun) => take inspiration from the tax system in AOE4 => Theme it around "Social Harmony" which is basically the Confucian concept of everyone fitting in their place in society to make for a productive state (massive oversimplification mind you) as I don't really incorporate Confucianism elsewhere in this concept despite it being the third major religion of China.
I think nu'wa's trade bonus should remain making trading builds able for this game. Something like being able to build caravans in second age
Although i dont agree with all your design, I MOSTLY LIKE IT BRO :3 well done, i hope devs implement some of your GOOD ideas in the next patch (but yeah, they are the devs at the end of the day, and players will decide if the result is good or not)
Amazing work! Aztecs would be also a perfect civ in AOM.
A few questions- first- where will chinese heal their units- The monk could probably do that, but it already has enough going on.
Second, you are missing the Chinese mythic sea myth unit.
Third, the nine tailed fox, though iconic to the Chinese is probably more so to Japan, so it will probably be "saved" for them.
Does every civ have a mythic sea unit too now?
Yes
@@nobodyspecial2053 Ah I didn't know. I don't have any strong opinions right now. Open to your suggestions. Maybe a water dragon of some sort?
In terms of accumulating favor, I would like the villagers to generate 0.1 favor everytime they deposit resources much like the tax system of the aoe4 chinese.
Historically, the Chinese would gift offerings and tributes to their gods and ancestors to gain their favor. This practice is tied to the Mandate of Heaven.
This was a very thorough and comprehensive list. I think the only issue I had was thematically some of the Unique Heroes did not match the God per se. Like Guan Yu for Ao Kuang in which I think it is arguable with how popular Guan Yu became he may be on that level of Sun Wukong. But its also just hard because there are so many different characters from different eras. But also because you can argue Ne Zha for Ao Kuang as well his dad.
My thinking was: assuming only age 4 heroes have abilities, which of these heroes is most deserving of an ability from a thematic point of view? Guan yu is a powerful fighter but ne zha has like all these interesting magical items. Would much rather see ne zha for that reason.
But you’re right. Some heroes fit their gods better than others thematically
@@ChillyEmpire still a really good list nonetheless, actually learned a bit on some of these peoples since i never really finished the 80s xi you ji although i plan to eventually. It's hard when you're trying to complement journey to the west, water margin, fengshen yanyi and rotk
Very impressive video! Still watching ATM. A few years ago I made an outline for a Hindu civ for a mod, but they were still focused on their other civs, and the server got hacked so I left. I still have the basic notes for the civ idea, I'd love to see what you think of them somehow.
Yeah feel free to share on my discord would love to read
One thing about major gods: I think 2 other gods other than Jade emperor should be one from Buddhism and one from Daoisim. There's an argument to be made if Buddhism should be given to China or India but it beats Yanluo (who is really a guy doing his job and nothing dramatic ever happens to him, never worshipped) and Nvwa (who is a primal god and is dead at the end of her own story, similar to pangu. Also never worshipped except in the truly acient times) imo.
Imagine in the Aztec civ you have to sacrifice your vills for favor. That be so sick.
What did you use to create the presentation? Just photoshop? Looks really nice
Thanks! I used Photoshop + figma.
In portuguese the junk boat is called "junco".
when talking about the 3rd major god, perhaps using nu wa, shennong and fu xi as one would be a solution?
You're more likely to get the star god trio of Fuxing, Luxing and Shouxing in a unison than those three, and FuLuShou aren't just those figures your Chinese significant other gifts you for birthday or Christmas. Also applies to the artisan god trio of Goibniu, Creidhne and Luchtaine (spellings may vary) for the Irish Celts pantheon.
How did you make this graphic? I made Slavic civ concept and I would love to put it in a graphic similar to how you made it.
I made it in figma highly recommend
@@ChillyEmpire thank you so much, it looks fantastic
The gate guardian unit , i think usually they called as Devas in some manga translation into english , i only know a bit though from Shaman King manga iirc
But perhaps if it use Devas it kinda lean into Hinduism god , perhaps AoM can expand into other like that , would be aweaome
Thank you for the video, it was a very good listen as I don't know alot about Chinese mythology 👍
Just finished the video and I got to say it all look pretty solid, a lot more thought was put into this than the original that's for sure! 😅. The only feedback I can think of is that there is a lack of variety when it comes to human units and I feel like this pantheon would be really weak in age 2 because they only get 3 units that each need their own buildings. Every other faction has 2-3 of each human unit type, but yours only has 1-2. I feel like you will end up with a lot of buildings that can only recruit 1 unit from it (Conscripts barracks, crossbow manufactory, nomadic camp, imperial bastion). I feel like you could probably get rid of the imperial foundry and just have the fire lance and rocket cart train from the imperial bastion once you enter mythic age. That's my only critique though, everything else looks really good and if this version of the civ dropped as is I would definitely enjoy it more than the original.
I love these ideas. Pity that devs either have their own plans or don't see this video...
0:09 - I mean... why wouldn't I?
to be fair, making Chinese Units weaker might seem distasteful but that's what makes the Chinese Powerful both in Historical and in most Age of Empires game.
Basically while historically they do have Elite Soldiers, the bulk of their army are still levied Peasants defending over a wide space of territories, there's no single win button soldier type for the Chinese like the Greek Hoplites, Medieval Knights and Japanese Samurai as every soldier types would need to work together, which is what AoE2 and AoE3 does, making the Chinese Unit Option wide where AoE2 allows you to get slight Technological Superiority on a few units due to their Cheaper Techs while AoE3 forces your army to be a mix of different unit which are weak but will be hard to counter as there are other weak unit that cover their weakness.
The only "problem" is, I believe, that an overwhelming majority would exlusively only choose Guan Yin to the detriment of the other two, because Sun Wukong. And of course the rest of the cast of Journey to the West. Meta be damned. Though I might be biased because I just binged Overly Sarcatic Productions' videos of it. You know you are in for shenaningans when one of your heroes is quadruple immortal. Speaking of, how would that be represented in game?
I remember my biggest beef with the Chinese DLC of the old game as a Chinese, is just how lazy it was
It felt like the Dev just Google searched Chinese gods and put a bunch of random shit in it, like I remember I felt offended seeing Sun Wukong as a minor god, as he isn't even a Chinese god, he's a character from a novel
At the end, Tale of the Dragon didn't add a new civilization, as the Chinese in the game isn't Chinese at all
i think it would be interesting to add a theme of cultivation (like in allot of daoist literature) to it, perhaps as an idea for gaining favor
I would love to see this, the only things I didn't like are the ablities for the bird, he should be about wind, and the Qilin, I would like the healing abilities of the old one back, for the rest it is perfect! White tigers should be just rare animals that walk around the map. I would also switch the bird with the Dijiang/Hundun, they should be more powerful in my opinion, the chaos they bring is pretty powerful and devastating.
I am Chinese. We plays game Call "AOM", not "AOE". There should not be any game units later than the Qin Dynasty.Guandao and ZhugeNu and hand cannons are not fit the theme.
Norse: Oh sorry?
AOM is not so strictly in history timeline.
@@deedarfan8559not historically accurate but hand cannons would be cool
i would love indian patheon, it will be super expansive people dont seem to know much about it outside of india but its so deep and interesting