Holy hell. 12k views and 230 comments in less than 3 days. This video's success is completely unprecedented on my channel. Thank you all so much for taking the time to watch it! I will be trying to respond to as many comments as I can, apologies if I do not get to yours.
Sadly “ideas designer” ain’t a position in any games studio. Would need to be doing something else also for the team. -from someone that likes designing extra stuff for games
Hey man amazing work really cool to see what other folks are thinking about for the Sumerians! My main thoughts: - love the history deep dives super cool to learn new things! - really interesting town center focus - Not fully understanding the drop off system. Seems like TCs are the main drop off but you can also drop off at your hero like the Norse ox cart? - most civs have 6-7ish human units and 2 siege units. This civ currently has 8 human units, 3 of which are chariots. For the sake of gameplay readability and flavor, I disagree with this decision. - There are quite a few “overcomplicated” mechanics, at least from what I can tell from reading the design. Stuff like buff auras and drop off bonuses seem to be overly ubiquitous with this faction and it’s hard to keep track. Maybe if it was in game it’d feel different. Ultimately, the thing we differ on most is whether to adhere to pop mythology or “historical” mythology. I myself am a firm believer that AOM should be about pop mythology. Existing civs are all based on pop mythology, so having a “fully accurate” civ would stand out like a sore thumb. But as a design concept it’s fun to imagine a more true to history kind of design. Overall it’s amazing the amount of work you put into this great job!
Hey, thanks so much for the kind words man! I would love to discuss some of these points more, particularly the difference between pop mythology and authentic mythology, but I'm not really sure you want to read an essay in the RUclips comments hehehe Would you be open to talking more over discord or email or something? I'm a big fan of your work and would be delighted to talk further, seeing as you're one of the very few people who are in a similar niche to mine.
@@mercerholt8299Unfortunately, your Polynesian idea is from a disorganized group of people, more scattered than the Celtic nations, and you can't bring up only Maui and his hook forever.
@royasturias1784 True sad, but true that said, I wouldn't mind them bringing back the Chinese if done well. I know a lot of people seem to hate them, but I think it could be fun if done right.
If you want the mesopotamian/levantine pantheon to be introduced, I'd prefer doing this under the auspices of Babylon/Akkadians rather than Sumer as Babylon is not only better know, it was also around for longer.
Definitely, not to mention you can get away with much more unit potential variety with Babylonians as a lot of units from the Assyrians can be used (Heavy Cavalry, Siege Towers and Horse Archers) as for historical reference; the Sumerians would have an too similar human unit listing to combining the Egyptian and Atlantean unit lists.
Just make it Mesopotamian, that allows you to pull from the whole region - it's not like the Greek pantheon is specific to a single Greek culture, hell, it includes Macedonian-inspired cavalry units!
@@RowanDrake47 The things is that all of Greek myth comes filtered to use through the Attican tradition since they were the only ones who took care to write things down. No such luck with Mesopotamian religion since we have several traditions to choose from. One example, would you have the goddess of love be called Ishtar or Astarte?
Great content. One can really see the effort and attention to detail that went into this. A few comments and questions: 1. It is kind of counterintuitive that a civilization that in real life had a lot of food and little wood in your game ends up needing a lot of food and little wood, essentially creating the opposite effect. Any generic player will end up either floating wood and being food starved or still having the forests intact in the late game, making their area more wooded than the enemy's. The historic fun fact of them celebrating the conquest of hardwood would also not be present in any way. 2. Building a Fortress forward or at important locations (choke points, hills and natural entrances to bases) is a very important strategy for pretty much any civ. Since the Sumerians you envisioned can't make any use of that strategy, how are they compensated for that? How do they contest strategic battlefield positions? 3. I believe that for reasons of readability it makes much more sense to increase the amount of population they get (both raw population from houses and pop cap from TCs) instead of lowering the amount needed per unit. Functionally/mathematically it would be the same, but it prevents the fiddly use of fractional population numbers. It also makes it seem like their TCs are special instead of making it seem like their people are lesser in needs. 4. The human army seems to be slow in both mobility and DPS while paradoxically also relying on swarm tactics. Do you have any experience with how such a faction would feel to play in practice in an RTS game? Combined with their inflexibility in Fortress positioning will make it really hard for them to contest the map. And with their higher tier units emphasizing numbers and tankiness it would also make playing against them a slow moving slugfest. What is your vision of how they would feel to play off paper? 5. When designing the major and minor gods, did you imagine how strategies and build orders and gameplay styles would likely differ between them in the game proper? It would be cool to include some of that in your video. In general more attention to the impact of your design ideas on gameplay loops over just on paper stats and flavorful lore could be an interesting design challenge and make your visions more realistic. 6. Does Inanna's Patronage mean that with the War Goddess (who one would think of as aggressive) you are kind of shoehorned to upgrade your first TC into a Fortress as early as possible? 7. How will you be able to know/remember which Lugal in your army comes from the right TC, let alone which Ziggurat (which you can place anywhere on the map) has spawned the Ensi associated with Sirsir? Overall having only two specific units in your whole army, one of which is a raider hero and one of which is a buffer hero, be amphibious is a very fiddly bonus. Same goes for Gula's Ensi. At the very least the three units in question must have a slight but visible differentiation in their unit model and icon. 8. I have no idea how one is supposed to use Ereshkigal's God Power in practice. Maybe because I am imagining it just a bit bigger than a normal gate building? By age 4 it seems very easy for anyone to circumvent, even if placed with walls to its left and right. It sure doesn't seem to compare to the powers of other gods of that age, both among the Sumerians and among canon deities. 9. It seems strange for Ninlil not to be available to Enlil if she ends up being in the game at all (through the DLC). Is there a mythological reason for this? 10. I am very curious about your source for all the artwork. It looks more polished than I would expect from AI (maybe even more polished than the Retold art that the fanbase pushed to be replaced). 11. If you ever want to make your own actual playable project, I really recommend Blizzard RTS games for modding. They are modding friendly and yet allow for powerful changes to the base game. Even WarCraft 3 could essentially be modded to near unrecognizability, with even unit control and UI being different from the base game. Also, mythologies aren't copyrighted. You could make your own versions of the base three AoM cultures, featuring the 2-3x bigger thing and more mythological accuracy. And completely throw out the Atlanteans.
I had two suggestions based on your queries For point number 2, how about: Make it so the ziggurats get a late game upgrade that makes them comparable to fortresses but slightly weaker and they provide an aura to nearby towers that make them more effective. I don't have a mythical reason for this. But from a strategic point of view, I can't see another way of getting around the map control that other civs will have on you. For point 4: I kind of see it like the Abbasids(Aoe4) who have an aura based around a singular House Of Wisdom. While having the aura effects of the Byzantine faction.
Thank you so much! Such an extensive comment, I absolutely love to see it. Unfortunately I just do not have time to respond to all of these points in full, much though I would like to and profoundly appreciate your input and attention to detail, so I'm just going to answer the last point because I think it's extremely important: I lived on Warcraft 3 in high school, it was actually one of my main introductions to theorycrafting as a hobby. I completely agree it is an incredibly powerful platform for creating designs, but it is so far beyond my knowledge and free time to do so that I personally prefer to stick with theory for now. Maybe someday we can upgrade in that way though! If you want to go through your other points in more detail I would genuinely love to hear them. Are you on the Discord? If so, ping me there, and let's go through them one by one.
17:17 Instead of serving as a drop point, we could make conventional drop off points accumilate gold as your villagers drop resources off, which the Ensi can collect. Make it work the same way tax does for Chinese in Age of Empires 4. Additionally we could also have a toggle for collecting favor instead of gold. I also don't think we should be breaking population cost into decimals. The house cap should instead be increased to accommodate a larger population. Other than that, I enjoy many of the ideas you are presenting for a unique approach to a new pantheon that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the others.
Thanks very much, I'm glad you enjoyed! Taxes were not handled in that way in Sumeria, not only was gold not typically the currency but it was actually usually food by which taxes were paid, and these things were usually brought directly to the ziggurat (And by extension the Ensi) since that was where excess stores for the city were typically held. I see what you mean about wanting to utilize existing mechanics, but I just don't think it fits the grounding nearly as well as I would like. Also, fractional population is actually precedented! Civilizations in Age of Empires 2 have it, particularly the new Georgians with their imperial age UT. Appreciate your feedback my friend, just wanted to explain why I stand behind these decisions.
@@robbylava Don't worry, but I got an idea for favor generation that aligns much with yours. I like the Ziggurat being a drop-off point, but when you use it as such, you convert the resources into favor and since this pantheon don't use wood as much, it would be ideal to set up your first ziggurat as a drop off point next to a treeline. In later stages of the game you could set up ziggurats around farms, as that resource becomes plentiful. The only problem with this idea, is that the Ensi is not a part of the process, but I think that's a fair trade off for the sake of game design. With that said, you are also right about fractional population existing in Age of Empires 2, with the Karambits only taking up half a space, but I think it can be avoided in this game, as all population space is dictated by the cap on your houses and the total settlements you can acquire, and to me it is much cleaner to display. ore interesting idea for favor which would suit them much better than my previous idea.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dearie me. This was an absolute epic of a video, and very enjoyable to watch. Well done, Robby! Thanks for taking the time to make such a behemoth. The pictures in particular are fantastic. I know you didn't make them, but you've done an excellent job picking them out. Especially the round picture with all three major gods - it'd fit right into the game. And more Age of Mythology builds? Yes please!
You know, With Inanna, you reminded me how both Aphrodite and Athena have their origin in Mesopotamia, and thus are linked to the Sumerians. Inanna is Ishtar who is Attart who is Aphrodite. Same with Athena and Anat. It's fascinating how much gods "Travel"
nice! this was really cool, the gameplay dynamic would be interesting and I really like the god powers, the temporary conversion thing in particular is very interesting, it hasn't been tried yet. Kudos!
To answer the question at the end of the video : YES. Of course I would love to see more of this ! I am quite unknowledgeable (dunno if its a word, I am french) in fertile crescent culture, and I love to learn about them this way and seeing how you adapt pieces of mythos into gameplay :) Great work, thank you Robby !
Hey Robby, awesome video! We know you were worried about the length but we all knew the size of this one from the get go, honestly you can stop apologising while recording it :)
Greetings. I have just found you, and this is incredible. Not only would I highly encourage you to eventually complete all of your follow-up ideas, but I would highly like and recommend you to work on other cultures entirely: Celtic; Shinto/Japanese; Hindu; and Aztec are obvious choices off the top of my head. Again, this is incredible: while I have found other projects of this kind, none have been so in-depth and well-researched. Also, they are almost all for the original age of mythology, not Retold. I thank you heartily my friend, and leave you with these suggestions.
Exceptionally kind of you to say! Thanks for the recommendations, all of the above are absolutely on my radar, and I really hope you continue to enjoy the content to come.
@@robbylava There is no problem my friend, this deserves no less. I am glad you are already planning all of these. I thank you heartily, and eagerly await your future work.
Literally never heard of this channel before, but this is what I have always wanted in an AOE Content channel. Subbed, can't wait to see more of your content!!!
I am very impressed by the level of details and research you have done of the original myths. I feel that you could make some mythology lore videos now.
We will likely get a Mesopotamian Civ instead of separate Sumerian, Assyrian, and Babylonian. The same with the Aztecs, many people confuse and think that the Aztecs are equivalent to Norse or Greek, but they were just one faction of a wider culture, the Nahuas, or the regional: "Mesoamericans," which would include Toltecs, Olmecs, Tlaxcalans, Mexica, etc... So Aztecs would be more akin to Peloponnesian or Spartans. This allows them to pick from a wider pool of myths, gods, eras, buildings, warriors, and peoples.
Well done Robbie, this is a fantastic build - designing for AOM must be much harder than aoe2 but I love that you leaned into it. I will probably never pick up Retold (too deep into aoe2), but this was a delight to listen to
I love this! One suggestion is to maybe limit Enlil’s god power so that it cannot be applied to titans. Maybe it won’t make that much of a difference. I would love to see a DLC Video!
Thanks so much for saying so my friend! You make a decent point about the Titans... I didn't think of that at all. I will keep it in mind for sure! Maybe someday if we get to test this we can see whether it would be busted hehehe
If Greeks can have named heroes each age then I'd really want bigshots like Humbaba, Ziusudra, Gilgamesh and Enkidu. I never liked that only the greeks got that special treatment just because they were the main cast of the campaign. It would be really funny if the OG Dinamic Duo is available under Inanna and then Eresh. Someone already mentioned that you've limited the construction of the fortress type building to 1 by TC, but these sort of games require those to be built in several strategic positions or you lose so you'd have to rework that idea and there's also the counterintuitive food/wood relationship, if you really want to put it to use then you should flip it so that you have to get more wood and lower the food cost, that way you'd reflect their conquest on hardwood.
I do wish that named heroes were more pervasive. I didn't want to steal the Greek gimmick though, and if nothing else they could absolutely still appear in campaigns. I see what you mean about the fortress thing. A lot of other commenters have pointed it out, and I think I have a plan for it that I will talk about whenever I get around to making that DLC video for this build. The food/wood dynamic, however, I think works quite well as is. Even though wood was very valuable, it was more considered a luxury. They were very much able to do good work without it. And if, like I propose, we prioritize food very highly for the civilization, it means that your eco is going to have tons of farms, which is extremely historically accurate and much more appropriate to their actual composition historically then having dozens of lumberjacks
I don’t know much about the legality of crowdsourcing mod development, but I would totally throw a few dollars towards this (assuming Sumerians aren’t announced as an expac civ for retold)
Exceptionally kind! I have no idea what the modding landscape will be for AOM, but if it ever looks at all possible I will certainly be trying to put together a team to implement some stuff. In the meantime, I really appreciate you supporting my work through your viewership. Hope you enjoy what's to come!
Sumerian was a bit of a blind spot in my mythology knowledge, as I thought it was just Babylonian. This video has really given me inspiration to look more into their culture.
Rather than having units cost less pop. How about giving a bonus to population size? It can be a bit confusing to have fractional pop units. It has about the same effect. With some slight edge cases, that might not even be of a deterrent for the theme. So rather than removing 10% of a unit pop cost, you add support limit to your TC and housing. Which also would fit thematically I think as the first city builders.
Not a bad idea! I could see that working. I'm probably going to stick with the fractional one for now though, specifically because AOE2 already has set precedent for that being a thing with stuff like the Georgians imperial UT.
Would be nice to have some way to represent some pantheons as not playable civs, but something minor. Age3 players will probably understand what I'm talking about.
My only concern for the base abilities of the Sumerian economy is that 10% increased drop-off resources may not be enough to make up for travel time. Spirit of the Law does a lot of math on this sort of thing, and I recommend either reaching out to him or studying some of his videos on economic bonuses in practice.
I personally want to see civs come to the game that are already alike to existing civs. Sumeria would slot in nicely with Egypt. I'd love to see Celts which would be akin to Norse. I suppose Greeks already have Atlantis but there's huge DLC potential elsewhere. Indians, Africans, Meso civs, etc
The art of Banda Arali, one of the unique techs of Ereshkigal looks like a old Magic The Gathering Art. I don't know which of than, but I have this feeling.
I really want a Mesoamerican pantheon. Polynesian would be neat too as a sort of nomadic naval civilization whose fishing ships can build new docks and repair.
Excellent so far, I haven't finished but I'm going to be "that nerd" and push back on some of the points in the historical intro. It's not clear that the Sumerian cities were the first. There are several large settlements in what is now Ukraine dating back to the the 5th millenium BC. These are often called "megasites" as if they don't qualify as urban, but there are recent challenges to this view that deserve attention. Among these challengers: the archaeologist Bisserka Gaydarska, and the anthropologists David Graeber and David Wengrow. There are also challengers to the notion that urbanization, agriculture, leisure time, top-down authority, and cultural development come together as a package. There are many sites around the world that challenge this narrative, but the most obvious one I can point to is the cultures of the North American Pacific Northwest coast (civ idea btw!). Abundant marine resources combined with trade networks led to a flourishing of complex culture and authority networks, without the development of extensive agriculture or urbanization. Evidence points to limited cultivation of crops, and access to grain crops through trade, but they didn't pursue large-scale agriculture; it seems they chose not to. On the other hand, there are examples of cities in Mesoamerica and China (I think) that seemed to be supported by agriculture, but lack the kinds of architectural differences and concentrations of material wealth that would indicate centralized authority. I'm not criticizing your assessment and what I wrote above may be erroneous; I'm not an archaeologist or anything of the sort. I'm just fascinated with the complexities of human history and stoked that there are always new discoveries that challenge our conception of the past. Anyway I appreciate this video and the effort that went into it. I'm looking forward to watching the rest.
You are completely right, and I do not contest what you say on any count! I just have to simplify very often when I'm doing these videos, both for time and because I very often forget the nuances of things when I am recording.
Good presentation 👍 I'm not against talk about Atlanteans as not having a fitting place in the game but the previous video I watched of yours you kept mentioning it like it was going out of fashion, I swear I could have made a drinking game based on it😂
Seems like not having dropoff points is a VERY steep price. My intuition says you'd need more than 10% dropoff bonus esp for gold. Some ideas are wild, but I love the concept of Sumerians.
Really glad you enjoyed! If we ever got to actually test this thing out someday I would of course be more than happy to make tweaks to compensate for balance, but I'm very partial to the no drop camp idea, even if it means needing to increase the TC return past 10%
Awesome build, looking forward to others like it. Definitely brings new and exciting things to the table. Although Enkis bonus for early tech upgrades and cheaper cost is like Gaias. Also a cavalry that does bonus damage against infantry seems odd since the majority of infantry counter cavalry. Seduce seems a bit strong haha, like a traitor god power but in archaic age.
Oh wow, this was a pretty good build. Like really, you mentioned the salting (which happens chiefly due to how mineral rich the rivers of the Tigris and Euphraties are) the beer and everything. I will just say that the resource drop off mechanic is kind of iffy, I think it probably needs to be examined further. Maybe crunch the numbers better. They would definately need some nice guard towers though, maybe a high tier or they can build guard towers an age early. Another suggestion is to give them an eco/market building in the form of a "Inn" or "drinking hall" A unique building that you can build in age 3 and maybe upgrade in age 4 to make it bigger so maybe tavern to drinking hall What it does is basically giving you eco bonus upgrades maybe some of them a type of beer or drinking related upgrade to help your human units and peasants fight harder, better, faster, stronger HA! Or the building can act like a Portuguese Feitora, you can build one per TC you have and over time it gives you a small trickle of gold and food i.e. Sumerians loved beer and exporing it. Finally yes, some more AoM content would be nice, since Assyria and Babylon would have rather robust and interesting military, especially the former and not to mention the architecture. Spoilers give the Assyrians a library building unique and to the Babylonians a Temple archive for some cool techs. Since we agree on the Atlanteans can you try just because to see what the Romans would be like as a civ since the community just writes if off as "greek knockoff" and just stop the brainstorming altogether. Still have to contact you but IRL stuff is just crazy. Apologies and I have to get to that. Cheers Robby!
That was very well thought out. I hope the devs are taking note. I also wanted to see if you mentioned the only two Sumerian gods I'd heard about before. I knew one named Sin whom I suspect might be Enkil. And of course, there was Ishtar. So, yeah, I learned a lot more about this subject. You and I disagree about the Atlantians, but I will concede that the culture is probably total fiction.
A mesopotamian expansion with Sunerians and Babylonians would be great. I would love to see a theorycraft of a Yoruban or Polynesian style civ with its vast and varied mythologies.
I dont think the Lugal battlecry needs nerfing considering that Summerian troops are susposed to be cheaper but weaker than the units of the other civ. They need as much support as possible
I agree these would work the best both because the civ is geographically close to the orignal four and because I don't think we've seen many representations of their mythology before.
Realistically, "Mesopotamian" composite civ is the only chance that Sumer/Babylon etc. has of appearing. Other than that, kudos on the effort and interesting design.
Adding a invisible unit would not be to bad of an idea. However, adding a whole category of counter units would have issues. Especially since it is a mechanic that only related to one unit. What one could do is for example make it invisible until it get close to the enemy. This might even be based on the LOS ability of the unit. So you would not add a whole new counter system that happened to be specific to that. (I would even try to make it so that the unit looks less corporal when first coming in to line of sight. So at long range you just see this vague transplant, shadowy thing.) Part of why invisible unit often get a bad rep in game is just this hard counter system you have to deal with. And the more niche something is, the great the chance you will have an ability that swings too hard. From being totally useless to being exceptionally hard to deal with. My suggestion I think will solve that issue. One can also play around with the idea that their special active ability of that unit is a power that blind enemies, lowering their LOS. Meaning you could attack like the lone Oracle from the Atlantean who would not be hard counted. And in general attack small groups in ambushes who would have a hard time to fight back. But a fair bit of play testing I feel would be need to get it down right. But at least this avoids having to add special mechanics to other cultures in the game just to deal with one unit that you may not encounter that often.
Very reasonable! I tend to prefer invisibility that drops when you get too close to any enemy but has certain enemies that can pierce it further. Part of my plan for invisibility was to give the mechanic to more units on more factions though, so it wouldn't be an entire counter system just implemented for this one thing.
Sumerians, Incas, Slavs. My top three wishlist for new pantheons in AoM retold. Incas weirdly being the most likely out of all of them since they were in the running for being the new pantheon in the titans expansion, so they likely have 20 year old plans that they can use to flesh things out
Ideas specific to Town Centers are a bit iffy, given that their limited availability was kind of a problem with the Atlanteans (hence their rework) and the fact that Retold lets you build downgraded versions anywhere (called Village Centers). Sure, for the latter you could just argue that they won't apply for these mechanic ideas but what if a player researches a new Age in one? The original also kinda had the issue with campaigns in particular, given how many Atlantean campaign missions only gave you like one or two TCs, or none at all. Having a limited build campaign mission would be really hard to pull off with this civ as a result, without kinda cheating (ie giving you capturable Égals with the TC functionality disabled for the mission). All that said, I love the ideas on display and learning about cultures like this is always really exciting to me.
I read you loud and clear. I have ideas for how to fix this issue while keeping the original flavor that I will get into when I get around to a DLC follow up to this proposal!
@@royasturias1784 One thing that SMITE avoids is the abrahamics. However i can see the Hebrew as a monotheistic civilization, something like a one god civilization instead of 3. And instead of minor gods they can have prophets. Wanna see an Exodus campaign? I totally would!
Love it. Why did you not include in the panthon Nanna-Suen the god of the moon and Utu-Shamash the god of the sun? Will they be featured in the primordial civ build?
Glad you enjoyed! Those two were by far and away the hardest cuts I made. My plan is to add them to the Babylonia / Assyria build, and my rationale is that, while these two were both important in Sumeria, they became even more important in these later nations, where they arguably came close to the status of enlil.
A lot of works here ! Well done, it's astonishing ! First impression is that it should be quite overpowered in some ways, weak in others. In multiplayer for example, the amount of town center is very limited so ressources gathering would maybe become a (too big ?) problem. In other way, the terrifying effect is cool but terribly powerful. Quick thought, the Titan idea is cool, but why not put Gilgamesh as the Titan already !? :D Nice work, would love to play a mod like that !
Very detailed and cool culture concept! How do Village Centers factor in into the Sumerians' design, given their heavy emphasis on TC-focused infrastructure? Would they be generic, have the same resource-drop off bonus as TCs, or be unavailable altogether?
An excellent question! To be honest, I started working on this design before I knew that VC's were going to be a thing, and I largely neglected discussing them in this build. I think that they would probably still be available and probably wouldn't be changed, meaning that this Culture would if nothing else have some other drop points available and wouldn't be as boned if they had fewer settlement options on a given map. Do you see any potential missing pieces to that or solutions that could fit better with the rest of the design I've presented? Great point! Thanks for taking the time to watch.
@@robbylava I agree that it would be okay for the Sumerians to have access to generic Village Centers. They cost the same amount as a Town Center, so they wouldn't be a cost-effective workaround for the Sumerian's intended gameplay except in some niche situations. Back to actual Town Centers, you said that a Sumerian player would have to think strategically about which TC should research each age up, to benefit from the minor god TC aura. I just want to confirm, can one TC benefit from multiple god auras, if that TC researched multiple age ups? If a TC can only benefit from a single god aura for aging up, then a Sumerian player's age advancements would be tied to expansion and significantly affected by the number and location of settlements.
I feel like there was a missed mechanical opportunity to have the Sumerians create statues and transport them to battlefields to watch the combat happen. Especially when you introduce how important that was in history then the only statue variant is a myth unit. Plus, I don't think any civilization has really explored the "Unit has to observe deaths" idea in Age of Mythology so far.
Holy hell. 12k views and 230 comments in less than 3 days.
This video's success is completely unprecedented on my channel. Thank you all so much for taking the time to watch it! I will be trying to respond to as many comments as I can, apologies if I do not get to yours.
Can you do about the Celts for age of mythology
Robby, you got to be hired by microsoft, my friend.
Sadly “ideas designer” ain’t a position in any games studio.
Would need to be doing something else also for the team.
-from someone that likes designing extra stuff for games
@raquetdude "content designer" is definitely a position in most studios, they usually work with the programmers
I appreciate the compliment! Seriously, it's very kind of you to say.
I don't know man, they seem like they would sell bad copper of questionable origin
Hey man amazing work really cool to see what other folks are thinking about for the Sumerians!
My main thoughts:
- love the history deep dives super cool to learn new things!
- really interesting town center focus
- Not fully understanding the drop off system. Seems like TCs are the main drop off but you can also drop off at your hero like the Norse ox cart?
- most civs have 6-7ish human units and 2 siege units. This civ currently has 8 human units, 3 of which are chariots. For the sake of gameplay readability and flavor, I disagree with this decision.
- There are quite a few “overcomplicated” mechanics, at least from what I can tell from reading the design. Stuff like buff auras and drop off bonuses seem to be overly ubiquitous with this faction and it’s hard to keep track. Maybe if it was in game it’d feel different.
Ultimately, the thing we differ on most is whether to adhere to pop mythology or “historical” mythology. I myself am a firm believer that AOM should be about pop mythology. Existing civs are all based on pop mythology, so having a “fully accurate” civ would stand out like a sore thumb. But as a design concept it’s fun to imagine a more true to history kind of design.
Overall it’s amazing the amount of work you put into this great job!
Hey, thanks so much for the kind words man!
I would love to discuss some of these points more, particularly the difference between pop mythology and authentic mythology, but I'm not really sure you want to read an essay in the RUclips comments hehehe
Would you be open to talking more over discord or email or something? I'm a big fan of your work and would be delighted to talk further, seeing as you're one of the very few people who are in a similar niche to mine.
This is my dream pantheon even more than the Aztecs.
An Aztec faction would be neat honestly I would love to see that or a Polynesian faction.
@ivancarrillo8809 Fair, everyone has different tastes. I just would love to see what crazy abilities the Atec gods and monster would have.
Me too because I had played the mod return of the gods.
@@mercerholt8299Unfortunately, your Polynesian idea is from a disorganized group of people, more scattered than the Celtic nations, and you can't bring up only Maui and his hook forever.
@royasturias1784 True sad, but true that said, I wouldn't mind them bringing back the Chinese if done well. I know a lot of people seem to hate them, but I think it could be fun if done right.
This Civ definitely needs an Ea-Nasir hero unit!
I see him more of a relic. The wrath of Ea Nasir, makes your opponent gather gold slower or something.
Or a relic that makes trade gather more gold
@@mza3764cringe
Cringe dead meme
One of the campaign missions is Ea-Nassir scamming the player.
@@matthiasvancauteren3107 Yes, but make it as subtle as possible. I don't want that mission to be known as "the meme mission"
What an incredible, meticulously crafted project. Thank you for sharing this and your dedication and love of the myths, cultures, and the game.
My absolute pleasure! Thank you so much for taking the time to watch and share your thoughts, my friend
This is a masterpiece - we are used to great quality but I am particularly amazed by this build.
What a compliment! Thank you so much for saying so my friend
If you want the mesopotamian/levantine pantheon to be introduced, I'd prefer doing this under the auspices of Babylon/Akkadians rather than Sumer as Babylon is not only better know, it was also around for longer.
Definitely, not to mention you can get away with much more unit potential variety with Babylonians as a lot of units from the Assyrians can be used (Heavy Cavalry, Siege Towers and Horse Archers) as for historical reference; the Sumerians would have an too similar human unit listing to combining the Egyptian and Atlantean unit lists.
Just make it Mesopotamian, that allows you to pull from the whole region - it's not like the Greek pantheon is specific to a single Greek culture, hell, it includes Macedonian-inspired cavalry units!
@@RowanDrake47 The things is that all of Greek myth comes filtered to use through the Attican tradition since they were the only ones who took care to write things down. No such luck with Mesopotamian religion since we have several traditions to choose from. One example, would you have the goddess of love be called Ishtar or Astarte?
I'm surprised Pazuzu wasn't utilized somewhere.
" Macedonian inspired" So the greek pantheon includes greek inspired units??? Who would have known??
2 HOUR CIV BUILD FROM ROBBY???????? THERE GOES MY AFTERNOON.... LFGGGGGGGGGG
Great content. One can really see the effort and attention to detail that went into this.
A few comments and questions:
1. It is kind of counterintuitive that a civilization that in real life had a lot of food and little wood in your game ends up needing a lot of food and little wood, essentially creating the opposite effect. Any generic player will end up either floating wood and being food starved or still having the forests intact in the late game, making their area more wooded than the enemy's. The historic fun fact of them celebrating the conquest of hardwood would also not be present in any way.
2. Building a Fortress forward or at important locations (choke points, hills and natural entrances to bases) is a very important strategy for pretty much any civ. Since the Sumerians you envisioned can't make any use of that strategy, how are they compensated for that? How do they contest strategic battlefield positions?
3. I believe that for reasons of readability it makes much more sense to increase the amount of population they get (both raw population from houses and pop cap from TCs) instead of lowering the amount needed per unit. Functionally/mathematically it would be the same, but it prevents the fiddly use of fractional population numbers. It also makes it seem like their TCs are special instead of making it seem like their people are lesser in needs.
4. The human army seems to be slow in both mobility and DPS while paradoxically also relying on swarm tactics. Do you have any experience with how such a faction would feel to play in practice in an RTS game? Combined with their inflexibility in Fortress positioning will make it really hard for them to contest the map. And with their higher tier units emphasizing numbers and tankiness it would also make playing against them a slow moving slugfest. What is your vision of how they would feel to play off paper?
5. When designing the major and minor gods, did you imagine how strategies and build orders and gameplay styles would likely differ between them in the game proper? It would be cool to include some of that in your video. In general more attention to the impact of your design ideas on gameplay loops over just on paper stats and flavorful lore could be an interesting design challenge and make your visions more realistic.
6. Does Inanna's Patronage mean that with the War Goddess (who one would think of as aggressive) you are kind of shoehorned to upgrade your first TC into a Fortress as early as possible?
7. How will you be able to know/remember which Lugal in your army comes from the right TC, let alone which Ziggurat (which you can place anywhere on the map) has spawned the Ensi associated with Sirsir? Overall having only two specific units in your whole army, one of which is a raider hero and one of which is a buffer hero, be amphibious is a very fiddly bonus. Same goes for Gula's Ensi. At the very least the three units in question must have a slight but visible differentiation in their unit model and icon.
8. I have no idea how one is supposed to use Ereshkigal's God Power in practice. Maybe because I am imagining it just a bit bigger than a normal gate building? By age 4 it seems very easy for anyone to circumvent, even if placed with walls to its left and right. It sure doesn't seem to compare to the powers of other gods of that age, both among the Sumerians and among canon deities.
9. It seems strange for Ninlil not to be available to Enlil if she ends up being in the game at all (through the DLC). Is there a mythological reason for this?
10. I am very curious about your source for all the artwork. It looks more polished than I would expect from AI (maybe even more polished than the Retold art that the fanbase pushed to be replaced).
11. If you ever want to make your own actual playable project, I really recommend Blizzard RTS games for modding. They are modding friendly and yet allow for powerful changes to the base game. Even WarCraft 3 could essentially be modded to near unrecognizability, with even unit control and UI being different from the base game. Also, mythologies aren't copyrighted. You could make your own versions of the base three AoM cultures, featuring the 2-3x bigger thing and more mythological accuracy. And completely throw out the Atlanteans.
I had two suggestions based on your queries
For point number 2, how about:
Make it so the ziggurats get a late game upgrade that makes them comparable to fortresses but slightly weaker and they provide an aura to nearby towers that make them more effective. I don't have a mythical reason for this. But from a strategic point of view, I can't see another way of getting around the map control that other civs will have on you.
For point 4:
I kind of see it like the Abbasids(Aoe4) who have an aura based around a singular House Of Wisdom. While having the aura effects of the Byzantine faction.
Thank you so much! Such an extensive comment, I absolutely love to see it.
Unfortunately I just do not have time to respond to all of these points in full, much though I would like to and profoundly appreciate your input and attention to detail, so I'm just going to answer the last point because I think it's extremely important: I lived on Warcraft 3 in high school, it was actually one of my main introductions to theorycrafting as a hobby. I completely agree it is an incredibly powerful platform for creating designs, but it is so far beyond my knowledge and free time to do so that I personally prefer to stick with theory for now. Maybe someday we can upgrade in that way though!
If you want to go through your other points in more detail I would genuinely love to hear them. Are you on the Discord? If so, ping me there, and let's go through them one by one.
17:17 Instead of serving as a drop point, we could make conventional drop off points accumilate gold as your villagers drop resources off, which the Ensi can collect. Make it work the same way tax does for Chinese in Age of Empires 4. Additionally we could also have a toggle for collecting favor instead of gold.
I also don't think we should be breaking population cost into decimals. The house cap should instead be increased to accommodate a larger population.
Other than that, I enjoy many of the ideas you are presenting for a unique approach to a new pantheon that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the others.
Thanks very much, I'm glad you enjoyed!
Taxes were not handled in that way in Sumeria, not only was gold not typically the currency but it was actually usually food by which taxes were paid, and these things were usually brought directly to the ziggurat (And by extension the Ensi) since that was where excess stores for the city were typically held.
I see what you mean about wanting to utilize existing mechanics, but I just don't think it fits the grounding nearly as well as I would like.
Also, fractional population is actually precedented! Civilizations in Age of Empires 2 have it, particularly the new Georgians with their imperial age UT.
Appreciate your feedback my friend, just wanted to explain why I stand behind these decisions.
@@robbylava Don't worry, but I got an idea for favor generation that aligns much with yours.
I like the Ziggurat being a drop-off point, but when you use it as such, you convert the resources into favor and since this pantheon don't use wood as much, it would be ideal to set up your first ziggurat as a drop off point next to a treeline.
In later stages of the game you could set up ziggurats around farms, as that resource becomes plentiful.
The only problem with this idea, is that the Ensi is not a part of the process, but I think that's a fair trade off for the sake of game design.
With that said, you are also right about fractional population existing in Age of Empires 2, with the Karambits only taking up half a space, but I think it can be avoided in this game, as all population space is dictated by the cap on your houses and the total settlements you can acquire, and to me it is much cleaner to display.
ore interesting idea for favor which would suit them much better than my previous idea.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dearie me. This was an absolute epic of a video, and very enjoyable to watch. Well done, Robby! Thanks for taking the time to make such a behemoth.
The pictures in particular are fantastic. I know you didn't make them, but you've done an excellent job picking them out. Especially the round picture with all three major gods - it'd fit right into the game.
And more Age of Mythology builds? Yes please!
dude you put so much thought into this. I'd love to see the sumerians become a team! You have my vote!
Awesome.
The answer to all of the "do you want to see..." questions in this video is yes, we want to see it all.
For that reason, those big-eyed statues are the most relatable thing in this video.
Thanks very much for saying so my friend, I read you loud and clear!
You know, With Inanna, you reminded me how both Aphrodite and Athena have their origin in Mesopotamia, and thus are linked to the Sumerians. Inanna is Ishtar who is Attart who is Aphrodite. Same with Athena and Anat. It's fascinating how much gods "Travel"
nice! this was really cool, the gameplay dynamic would be interesting and I really like the god powers, the temporary conversion thing in particular is very interesting, it hasn't been tried yet. Kudos!
1:15:34 "but still an archer"
Throwing axeman: 💀
To answer the question at the end of the video : YES. Of course I would love to see more of this ! I am quite unknowledgeable (dunno if its a word, I am french) in fertile crescent culture, and I love to learn about them this way and seeing how you adapt pieces of mythos into gameplay :) Great work, thank you Robby !
Wonderful! Thank you so much for saying so, I will be doing so at some point in the future! Thank you very much for the feedback
Fantastic job, quite agree there is a ton of things that can still be done with AoM. The devs have a golden opportunity.
Amazing work. Very thoroughly envisioned and great presentation. Keep the amazing work. 🎉
Thank you so much for saying so, it means a lot
What a video. Holy hell you lay it all out this is so beautiful and what I've always wanted?!
Heheheh thanks bud!
Alright I am so excited about this Concept! Sumeria is an interesting pantheon to add because it shares the near-east area with egypt!
I hope you consider doing something like this for the Celts.
Hey Robby, awesome video! We know you were worried about the length but we all knew the size of this one from the get go, honestly you can stop apologising while recording it :)
Greetings. I have just found you, and this is incredible. Not only would I highly encourage you to eventually complete all of your follow-up ideas, but I would highly like and recommend you to work on other cultures entirely: Celtic; Shinto/Japanese; Hindu; and Aztec are obvious choices off the top of my head. Again, this is incredible: while I have found other projects of this kind, none have been so in-depth and well-researched. Also, they are almost all for the original age of mythology, not Retold. I thank you heartily my friend, and leave you with these suggestions.
Exceptionally kind of you to say! Thanks for the recommendations, all of the above are absolutely on my radar, and I really hope you continue to enjoy the content to come.
@@robbylava There is no problem my friend, this deserves no less. I am glad you are already planning all of these. I thank you heartily, and eagerly await your future work.
Literally never heard of this channel before, but this is what I have always wanted in an AOE Content channel. Subbed, can't wait to see more of your content!!!
What a compliment! Thank you so much for saying so my friend, can't wait to hear what you think of what's to come!
I am very impressed by the level of details and research you have done of the original myths. I feel that you could make some mythology lore videos now.
This is such a compliment. Thank you so much for saying so!
Maybe if I get more interest I'll try something like that out at some point.
I'm really into the Marduk/Ashur mechanic. Waiting to hear more!
We will likely get a Mesopotamian Civ instead of separate Sumerian, Assyrian, and Babylonian. The same with the Aztecs, many people confuse and think that the Aztecs are equivalent to Norse or Greek, but they were just one faction of a wider culture, the Nahuas, or the regional: "Mesoamericans," which would include Toltecs, Olmecs, Tlaxcalans, Mexica, etc... So Aztecs would be more akin to Peloponnesian or Spartans. This allows them to pick from a wider pool of myths, gods, eras, buildings, warriors, and peoples.
I love the sumerian concept robby I'm hoping alot of pantheons find the spot in age of mythology sumerians African Asian mesoamericans
Thanks so much for saying so my friend. Really glad you enjoy it!
Good effort
Keep moving forward
Best wishes and regards
Well done Robbie, this is a fantastic build - designing for AOM must be much harder than aoe2 but I love that you leaned into it. I will probably never pick up Retold (too deep into aoe2), but this was a delight to listen to
Thank you so much for saying so my friend! The fact that you listen through despite not being interested in playing yourself means a lot to me.
I love this! One suggestion is to maybe limit Enlil’s god power so that it cannot be applied to titans. Maybe it won’t make that much of a difference. I would love to see a DLC Video!
Thanks so much for saying so my friend!
You make a decent point about the Titans... I didn't think of that at all. I will keep it in mind for sure! Maybe someday if we get to test this we can see whether it would be busted hehehe
Very cool, maybe a little over complicated but it’s really hard to say without actually playing it
Always like theory crafts and with this one i get to learn more about a topic im not very acquainted with :)
Perfect, couldn't ask for a better response! I really hope you enjoyed
If Greeks can have named heroes each age then I'd really want bigshots like Humbaba, Ziusudra, Gilgamesh and Enkidu. I never liked that only the greeks got that special treatment just because they were the main cast of the campaign.
It would be really funny if the OG Dinamic Duo is available under Inanna and then Eresh.
Someone already mentioned that you've limited the construction of the fortress type building to 1 by TC, but these sort of games require those to be built in several strategic positions or you lose so you'd have to rework that idea and there's also the counterintuitive food/wood relationship, if you really want to put it to use then you should flip it so that you have to get more wood and lower the food cost, that way you'd reflect their conquest on hardwood.
Named heroes is something that Retold should've fixed. It is really not "Retold" but just a remaster, a great one, but still.
I do wish that named heroes were more pervasive. I didn't want to steal the Greek gimmick though, and if nothing else they could absolutely still appear in campaigns.
I see what you mean about the fortress thing. A lot of other commenters have pointed it out, and I think I have a plan for it that I will talk about whenever I get around to making that DLC video for this build.
The food/wood dynamic, however, I think works quite well as is. Even though wood was very valuable, it was more considered a luxury. They were very much able to do good work without it. And if, like I propose, we prioritize food very highly for the civilization, it means that your eco is going to have tons of farms, which is extremely historically accurate and much more appropriate to their actual composition historically then having dozens of lumberjacks
if the sumerians were added a dark spooky-themed archipelago map called "abzu" would be a very nice addition i think
That sounds so cool
I don’t know much about the legality of crowdsourcing mod development, but I would totally throw a few dollars towards this (assuming Sumerians aren’t announced as an expac civ for retold)
Exceptionally kind!
I have no idea what the modding landscape will be for AOM, but if it ever looks at all possible I will certainly be trying to put together a team to implement some stuff.
In the meantime, I really appreciate you supporting my work through your viewership. Hope you enjoy what's to come!
the sumerians and the canaaites are my dream civs for AOM
This is awesome you have my vote
Sumerian was a bit of a blind spot in my mythology knowledge, as I thought it was just Babylonian. This video has really given me inspiration to look more into their culture.
Sumer is in history textbooks as the first civilization, arising 6kya, before the Bronze Age.
I'm absolutely delighted to hear this. Genuinely could not hope for a better response to this video, thank you so much for saying so.
Rather than having units cost less pop. How about giving a bonus to population size? It can be a bit confusing to have fractional pop units. It has about the same effect. With some slight edge cases, that might not even be of a deterrent for the theme. So rather than removing 10% of a unit pop cost, you add support limit to your TC and housing. Which also would fit thematically I think as the first city builders.
Not a bad idea! I could see that working. I'm probably going to stick with the fractional one for now though, specifically because AOE2 already has set precedent for that being a thing with stuff like the Georgians imperial UT.
I also appreciate the callout Robby!!!! Will add it to the counter!
Heheheh I think it might have to end up being a running theme!
Well you have me convinced. I'm all in on the subpar copper train now!
Would be nice to have some way to represent some pantheons as not playable civs, but something minor. Age3 players will probably understand what I'm talking about.
I'm amazed by your work!
Thanks friend!
Nagar is still how you say carpenter in Hebrew. Nagarut is carpentry as a profession, while Nagaria is a carpentry workshop.
That's so cool!
My only concern for the base abilities of the Sumerian economy is that 10% increased drop-off resources may not be enough to make up for travel time. Spirit of the Law does a lot of math on this sort of thing, and I recommend either reaching out to him or studying some of his videos on economic bonuses in practice.
I personally want to see civs come to the game that are already alike to existing civs. Sumeria would slot in nicely with Egypt. I'd love to see Celts which would be akin to Norse. I suppose Greeks already have Atlantis but there's huge DLC potential elsewhere. Indians, Africans, Meso civs, etc
Finns also
Congratulations! Amazing work
Thanks for saying so! Really Glad you enjoyed
give us the Babylon, give us the Ninurta DLC, give us ALL THE CONTENT
Sir yes sir!
Iraq though, great that you studied our history ❤
is it a coincidence that Enlil looks like Dr. Irving Finkel, one of the foremost scholar on Sumer?
Complete coincidence but now that you mention it that's hilarious
Would be cool if the Slavs got in like Veles, Perun...
The siege ramp is epic! Should also be Roman!😊
The art of Banda Arali, one of the unique techs of Ereshkigal looks like a old Magic The Gathering Art. I don't know which of than, but I have this feeling.
I really want a Mesoamerican pantheon. Polynesian would be neat too as a sort of nomadic naval civilization whose fishing ships can build new docks and repair.
Excellent so far, I haven't finished but I'm going to be "that nerd" and push back on some of the points in the historical intro. It's not clear that the Sumerian cities were the first. There are several large settlements in what is now Ukraine dating back to the the 5th millenium BC. These are often called "megasites" as if they don't qualify as urban, but there are recent challenges to this view that deserve attention. Among these challengers: the archaeologist Bisserka Gaydarska, and the anthropologists David Graeber and David Wengrow.
There are also challengers to the notion that urbanization, agriculture, leisure time, top-down authority, and cultural development come together as a package. There are many sites around the world that challenge this narrative, but the most obvious one I can point to is the cultures of the North American Pacific Northwest coast (civ idea btw!). Abundant marine resources combined with trade networks led to a flourishing of complex culture and authority networks, without the development of extensive agriculture or urbanization. Evidence points to limited cultivation of crops, and access to grain crops through trade, but they didn't pursue large-scale agriculture; it seems they chose not to.
On the other hand, there are examples of cities in Mesoamerica and China (I think) that seemed to be supported by agriculture, but lack the kinds of architectural differences and concentrations of material wealth that would indicate centralized authority.
I'm not criticizing your assessment and what I wrote above may be erroneous; I'm not an archaeologist or anything of the sort. I'm just fascinated with the complexities of human history and stoked that there are always new discoveries that challenge our conception of the past. Anyway I appreciate this video and the effort that went into it. I'm looking forward to watching the rest.
You are completely right, and I do not contest what you say on any count! I just have to simplify very often when I'm doing these videos, both for time and because I very often forget the nuances of things when I am recording.
Good presentation 👍
I'm not against talk about Atlanteans as not having a fitting place in the game but the previous video I watched of yours you kept mentioning it like it was going out of fashion, I swear I could have made a drinking game based on it😂
Seems like not having dropoff points is a VERY steep price. My intuition says you'd need more than 10% dropoff bonus esp for gold.
Some ideas are wild, but I love the concept of Sumerians.
Really glad you enjoyed! If we ever got to actually test this thing out someday I would of course be more than happy to make tweaks to compensate for balance, but I'm very partial to the no drop camp idea, even if it means needing to increase the TC return past 10%
Awesome build, looking forward to others like it. Definitely brings new and exciting things to the table. Although Enkis bonus for early tech upgrades and cheaper cost is like Gaias. Also a cavalry that does bonus damage against infantry seems odd since the majority of infantry counter cavalry. Seduce seems a bit strong haha, like a traitor god power but in archaic age.
bro huge work!!!!!
Amazing! ⭐
Oh wow, this was a pretty good build. Like really, you mentioned the salting (which happens chiefly due to how mineral rich the rivers of the Tigris and Euphraties are) the beer and everything. I will just say that the resource drop off mechanic is kind of iffy, I think it probably needs to be examined further. Maybe crunch the numbers better.
They would definately need some nice guard towers though, maybe a high tier or they can build guard towers an age early.
Another suggestion is to give them an eco/market building in the form of a "Inn" or "drinking hall"
A unique building that you can build in age 3 and maybe upgrade in age 4 to make it bigger so maybe tavern to drinking hall
What it does is basically giving you eco bonus upgrades maybe some of them a type of beer or drinking related upgrade to help your human units and peasants fight harder, better, faster, stronger HA!
Or the building can act like a Portuguese Feitora, you can build one per TC you have and over time it gives you a small trickle of gold and food i.e. Sumerians loved beer and exporing it.
Finally yes, some more AoM content would be nice, since Assyria and Babylon would have rather robust and interesting military, especially the former and not to mention the architecture. Spoilers give the Assyrians a library building unique and to the Babylonians a Temple archive for some cool techs.
Since we agree on the Atlanteans can you try just because to see what the Romans would be like as a civ since the community just writes if off as "greek knockoff" and just stop the brainstorming altogether.
Still have to contact you but IRL stuff is just crazy. Apologies and I have to get to that.
Cheers Robby!
That was very well thought out. I hope the devs are taking note. I also wanted to see if you mentioned the only two Sumerian gods I'd heard about before. I knew one named Sin whom I suspect might be Enkil. And of course, there was Ishtar. So, yeah, I learned a lot more about this subject.
You and I disagree about the Atlantians, but I will concede that the culture is probably total fiction.
I personally would love to see an Aztec or Mayan civ
On one hand I love the ideas and the videos.
On the other hand I'm sad they aren't real.
A mesopotamian expansion with Sunerians and Babylonians would be great. I would love to see a theorycraft of a Yoruban or Polynesian style civ with its vast and varied mythologies.
Absolutely. Both planned for future, even if it might take me a little while to get to them!
I dont think the Lugal battlecry needs nerfing considering that Summerian troops are susposed to be cheaper but weaker than the units of the other civ. They need as much support as possible
Love the concept. Keep it up! Maybe an Igbo pantheon? :)
Thanks man! Underrated culture for sure. I would probably start with the Yoruba in Africa, but the Igbo are a really cool option too
Man, this makes my silly AOE2 build for them look like novice research
I wouldn't say so at all! AOM is just a much, much more complicated game
@@robbylava Fair enough!
I agree these would work the best both because the civ is geographically close to the orignal four and because I don't think we've seen many representations of their mythology before.
I thought i would hate it, but I kind of love it
We love to hear it
Congratulations for your work.
Just do it, Microsoft. JUST DO IT!
Realistically, "Mesopotamian" composite civ is the only chance that Sumer/Babylon etc. has of appearing.
Other than that, kudos on the effort and interesting design.
Appreciate you saying so!
Yes!!!
love it
Great idea !
Adding a invisible unit would not be to bad of an idea. However, adding a whole category of counter units would have issues. Especially since it is a mechanic that only related to one unit. What one could do is for example make it invisible until it get close to the enemy. This might even be based on the LOS ability of the unit. So you would not add a whole new counter system that happened to be specific to that. (I would even try to make it so that the unit looks less corporal when first coming in to line of sight. So at long range you just see this vague transplant, shadowy thing.)
Part of why invisible unit often get a bad rep in game is just this hard counter system you have to deal with. And the more niche something is, the great the chance you will have an ability that swings too hard. From being totally useless to being exceptionally hard to deal with. My suggestion I think will solve that issue.
One can also play around with the idea that their special active ability of that unit is a power that blind enemies, lowering their LOS. Meaning you could attack like the lone Oracle from the Atlantean who would not be hard counted. And in general attack small groups in ambushes who would have a hard time to fight back. But a fair bit of play testing I feel would be need to get it down right. But at least this avoids having to add special mechanics to other cultures in the game just to deal with one unit that you may not encounter that often.
Very reasonable! I tend to prefer invisibility that drops when you get too close to any enemy but has certain enemies that can pierce it further.
Part of my plan for invisibility was to give the mechanic to more units on more factions though, so it wouldn't be an entire counter system just implemented for this one thing.
Sumerians, Incas, Slavs. My top three wishlist for new pantheons in AoM retold.
Incas weirdly being the most likely out of all of them since they were in the running for being the new pantheon in the titans expansion, so they likely have 20 year old plans that they can use to flesh things out
I so wish for this to be implemented!
Ideas specific to Town Centers are a bit iffy, given that their limited availability was kind of a problem with the Atlanteans (hence their rework) and the fact that Retold lets you build downgraded versions anywhere (called Village Centers).
Sure, for the latter you could just argue that they won't apply for these mechanic ideas but what if a player researches a new Age in one?
The original also kinda had the issue with campaigns in particular, given how many Atlantean campaign missions only gave you like one or two TCs, or none at all.
Having a limited build campaign mission would be really hard to pull off with this civ as a result, without kinda cheating (ie giving you capturable Égals with the TC functionality disabled for the mission).
All that said, I love the ideas on display and learning about cultures like this is always really exciting to me.
I read you loud and clear. I have ideas for how to fix this issue while keeping the original flavor that I will get into when I get around to a DLC follow up to this proposal!
Oh shit Baal Hadad! 1:13:24
that a lot of passion
Hell yeah brother
There are many possibilities. They just have to not make SMITE's mistake to add "Arthurian" and "Voodoo" or even worse... Lovecraftian...
Also guest fighters from TMNT and RWBY
Developer Titan Forge Games was hesitant to bring other polytheistic options like Tagalog deities
Oh Lord, let's try to avoid that!
@@royasturias1784 One thing that SMITE avoids is the abrahamics. However i can see the Hebrew as a monotheistic civilization, something like a one god civilization instead of 3. And instead of minor gods they can have prophets.
Wanna see an Exodus campaign? I totally would!
amazing video
Love it.
Why did you not include in the panthon Nanna-Suen the god of the moon and Utu-Shamash the god of the sun?
Will they be featured in the primordial civ build?
Glad you enjoyed!
Those two were by far and away the hardest cuts I made. My plan is to add them to the Babylonia / Assyria build, and my rationale is that, while these two were both important in Sumeria, they became even more important in these later nations, where they arguably came close to the status of enlil.
Their Babylonian counterparts are easier to remember, thanks to pop culture covering them more.
I want to play it.
Holly shit robby
A lot of works here ! Well done, it's astonishing !
First impression is that it should be quite overpowered in some ways, weak in others. In multiplayer for example, the amount of town center is very limited so ressources gathering would maybe become a (too big ?) problem. In other way, the terrifying effect is cool but terribly powerful.
Quick thought, the Titan idea is cool, but why not put Gilgamesh as the Titan already !? :D
Nice work, would love to play a mod like that !
this would be perfect
Very detailed and cool culture concept! How do Village Centers factor in into the Sumerians' design, given their heavy emphasis on TC-focused infrastructure? Would they be generic, have the same resource-drop off bonus as TCs, or be unavailable altogether?
An excellent question! To be honest, I started working on this design before I knew that VC's were going to be a thing, and I largely neglected discussing them in this build. I think that they would probably still be available and probably wouldn't be changed, meaning that this Culture would if nothing else have some other drop points available and wouldn't be as boned if they had fewer settlement options on a given map.
Do you see any potential missing pieces to that or solutions that could fit better with the rest of the design I've presented?
Great point! Thanks for taking the time to watch.
@@robbylava I agree that it would be okay for the Sumerians to have access to generic Village Centers. They cost the same amount as a Town Center, so they wouldn't be a cost-effective workaround for the Sumerian's intended gameplay except in some niche situations.
Back to actual Town Centers, you said that a Sumerian player would have to think strategically about which TC should research each age up, to benefit from the minor god TC aura. I just want to confirm, can one TC benefit from multiple god auras, if that TC researched multiple age ups? If a TC can only benefit from a single god aura for aging up, then a Sumerian player's age advancements would be tied to expansion and significantly affected by the number and location of settlements.
A British mythology too..
Dragons, griffins, ogres, hob goblins, cu-sith l...
There's loads
The possibilities for new pantheons in AoM is just staggering: Celtic, Japanese, Polyneasian, Slavic, The Orisha, just so much potential
Hindu, Ainu, Meso, Japanese, Fenni
I feel like there was a missed mechanical opportunity to have the Sumerians create statues and transport them to battlefields to watch the combat happen. Especially when you introduce how important that was in history then the only statue variant is a myth unit. Plus, I don't think any civilization has really explored the "Unit has to observe deaths" idea in Age of Mythology so far.
Rome & Sumerians are perfect fits for the two expansions
No we don't need Romans when we have Greeks
Oh yeah, I have what to listen to at work now