So Armenians as a civilization was released several months ago in Age of Empires 2: DE and since it’s release of the Mountain Royals expanion (which includes both Georgians and Armenians as playable civilizations), the Armenian civilization (AoE2 wiki link to the Armenian civilization for more details about them) depiction has been subjected to jokes within the AoE2 community for historical inaccuracy (the other joke with the AoE2 community is the Chinese not having access to two gunpowder units despite gunpowder being an obvious Chinese invention). As someone who’ve played Age of Empires 2 since childhood, I was personally excited that Armenians were finally added in AoE2 and are one of my most requested civilizations to be added into the game (alongside with Tibetans, Jurchens, etc., although those two will never be added in AoE2 because of Chinese censorship issues). However, I was disappointed that developers decided to make them an infantry/navy focused civilization in order differentiate from the Georgian civilization (who is depicted as a defensive and cavalry civilization).

That being said, I want to hear this community’s thoughts on the depiction of Armenians in the game for those who’ve played Age of Empires 2: DE (or at very least familiar with it). Here’s a few key historical discussions to bring up:

  • As mentioned earlier, from what I’ve done research about medieval Armenia, medieval Armenia has a reputation of cavalry (more specifically heavy cavalry and cavalry archers) since the antiquity times, even to the point that Armenian kingdoms provided heavy cavalry and mounted archers as part of elite troops for the Sassanid Empire (source). In-game, however, the Armenians are depicted with very weak cavalry and mounted archers and instead are more focused on infantry and navy (the Armenians in-game have an Imperial Age unique tech that gives their non-Spearmen line infantry units +30 hit points and a civilization bonus where they can upgrade most of their infantry units an age earlier than their opponents). In fact, most of the civilization design is based on Cilician Armenia (which is reflected with several naval bonuses they have). And into the topic of Cilician Armenia, I’ve even read somewhere the Cilicia Armenia even adopted heavy cavalry equipment and tactics from Frankish crusaders at one point (hence further highlighting medieval Armenia’s tradition on cavalry) If anyone who has knowledge of medieval Armenian history, do you find this to be inaccurate or not?
  • In terms of their architecture set, the Armenians use the Mediterranean architecture set (the same architecture used by the Byzantine, Romans, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese civilizations), which the Georgian civilization also share (I’m assuming the developers used the Medieterranean set instead of making a unique "Caucasus" architecture set that could have been shared with the Georgians to reflect on Byzantine Empire’s influence on medieval Georgia and Armenia). However, ever since Lords of the West expansion, the DE expansion civilizations have their own unique Castle architecture alongside their obvious own unique Wonder (in the Armenian case, their Castle is based on Levoncle and their Wonder is the Etchmiadzin Cathedral). Do you find the choice of Castle, Wonder, and architecture feels appropriate for medieval Armenia or not?
  • In terms of unique units, the Armenians have Composite Bowman) that they can train from the Castle, and the Warrior Priest) from the Fortified Church (a unique building shared with the Georgians). The former is a foot archer unit that can ignore pierce armor while the latter is a "warrior monk" type unit that can heal, take Relics, and engage in combat all in-one (but cannot convert units like a regular Monk in-game). The funny thing is that the attire the Warrior Priest wears happen to be one of the traditional attire of the Khevsur people in Georgia, yet this was given to Armenians for some reason. While I do heard about medieval Armenia having a reputation of archery from time to time, I didn’t hear anything Armenian clergy getting involved in military combat. Normally when people associate with "warrior monks"they often associate with the East Asian cultures (i.e. Chinese Shaolin monk and Japanese Ikko-Ikki). Can anyone give some historical insight regarding to the Warrior Priest and composite bowmen unique units (especially the former, because I felt this is kinda off for the Armenians) if they are historically accurate or not?
  • In terms of a single-player campaign, the campaign focuses on Thoros IIwho was the sixth lord of Cilician Armenia. Do you him as fitting historical figure to represent medieval Armenia in Age of Empires 2, or do you think there are more fitting historical figures in medieval Armenia?

Anyways, if anyone have good insight about medieval Armenian history as well having played Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition with the Armenian civilization, I wanted to hear the Armenian community’s thoughts and opinions on the depiction of the Armenian civilization as a whole in the game.

https://old.reddit.com/r/armenia/comments/1drf8o2/any_armenians_who_play_age_of_empires_2_de_or/

Posted by DarkPaladinX

3 Comments

  1. AnhaytAnanun on

    Uhuh, I actually started writing a big post about Armenians in AoE2 vs Armenians in real history, from a prompt by another Redditor back when the DLC still just came out, but hadn’t had time to finish it. Very ashamed, I hope that guy will forgive me once I finally publish it 😀

    I will answer you here about the cavalry. Yes, it would be great to make Armenia a cavalry civ – there are historical records about Armenians being good both with melee and ranged cavalry in different historical periods. But. Given that in-game Armenia is based on Cilician Armenia and in-game Georgia is based on the golden-age-era medieval Georgia, it is the in-game Georgia’s real-life counterpart for whom cavalry played a crucial role, as it was the Georgian and Kipchak cavalry whos maneuvers and attack predetermined the Georgian victory at the Battle of Didgori, effectively opening the Georgian Golden Age. I don’t know if the AoE2 decs had considered this, but in this context, given they would not launch 2 cavalry civs in the same DLC, giving Georgia the cavs is an ok solution. Pity for us Armenians since there are a lot of lost possibilities with Armenian cav units and cav-centric Armenian custom scenarios, but giving cav to Georgians isn’t unjustified.

    Edit: However, I think Armenians should have been an archer civ, since there is enough historical evidence of our archers and skirms doing a great job. Even the navy bonuses should have been archer-related.

  2. I will comment and say the pronunciation of Thoros irritates me to no end and the accent they use for English is not at all an Armenian accent though the units speaking Armenian is cool because its the first game ive ever played with characters speaking Armenian

    I have no idea where they got Thoros when it should be Toros. Its even spelled Թորոս which is Toros in the wiki

    In terms of the units i have no idea where they drew the inspiration or historical record from. I never play these games hoping for historical accuracy

    Shit like having etchmiadzin being the wonder for Cilicia’s Armenia is just them taking modern recognizable landmarks and mixing it to fit within the historic region. 99% of people wont know or care to know if it makes sense or not. They were Armenian orthodox

    If my knowledge is accurate the Cilician Armenians were orthodox but had due to the crusader era recognized the authority of the catholic pope in Rome

  3. I’m not much of a historuly buff, so I can’t give you a nuanced answer. It’s not accurate and a mishmash of things. But most civs are. I actually started playing again after a hiatus when tge DLC dropped.

    Making Armenians a Cavalry civ makes sense, but if the main inspiration is Cilicia – naval also makes sense.