It was a pleasure to weigh in on the presentation, Robby. I think you've put together something quite neat, and it was great to see it laid out comprehensively.
Nice, i love these! And always cool to see Robby involving knowledgeable people when needed. Also, the fact that Robby showed so many churches, is that because those are the ones best preserved? Like i can imagine a good sample pool of other types of buildings is harder to get.
@@merlinkater7756 That's a large part of it. It's also the case that the appetite for byzantine archeology is a bit muted in Turkey as opposed to, say, Greece or the rest of the Balkans.
I still find it very funny how the Mediterranean Architecture was original developed for just one civ, but got bloated to 8 over the years by adding new civs or changing the Architecture of existing ones. 8 is definitely too much, so I like the idea of an Anatolian set split up the Mediterranean ones. As usual, you did an amazing job with your research and the Anatolian style has a lot of potential with its rich history and mixture of different cultures. I really likes what you showed in the presentation and I think it would work well for the Byzantines. Sadly I guess it's not very likely.
Isn't it weird how far that set was taken? I remember the first time I saw it and being blown away by how beautiful it looked! Then it ended up being everywhere and I quickly became very desensitized to it lol In any case, really glad you enjoyed the design! I'm flattered by your words and, unfortunately, completely agree with your assessment that this is pretty much a 0 out of 10 on the likeliometer scale.
Absolutely wonderful. I have been brainstorming this more than I should possibly admit. Alot of really good ideas but I have to weigh in with some notes if that is ok. First Bulgarian medieval architecture is influenced by the Byzantine empire but developed it's own distinct flourishes and design elements. The first empire was characterized by a very monumental style of building with beautiful cut blocks of dressed stone, large walls and circular towers ornamentations of wood, marble and stone along with silver and gold flourishes. Most important are the glazed and painted ceramic tiles used in decorations for both floors and walls. We even have examples of nice sewer systems and even roman style wall heating. This is the period the Bulgarian wonder in game is from, although with a probably darker facade than needs to be lol The second Bulgarian Empire chose practicality over monumental building projects, probably as a reflection of the lack of centralization and constant outside threats. Terrain playes a HUGE role in choosing the location for foritications, castles and cities (Tsarevets and Cherven are two wonderful examples) however the small scale buildings did not fall back on luxury or at least embeleshments using patterns of masonry and hollow arches on their facades to decorate the forms beautifully. As for the suggestions you gave: Firstly houses. Using domes on a residential building is kind of too big of a strech although Byzantine and Bulgarian houses are kind of distinct, picking Byzantine for example could be the way to go since you have some examples both standing and in medieval depictions. Simple boxy forms with slanted roofs with an a frame look, columns and arches as well as multyple floors. The darker and more blue roof tiles you mentioned are not really tiles so much as lead sheets, very common in Balkan and Orthodox architecture. The castle example I dont think works because the castle in question is a Venetian castle built in Greece after Venice took several key locations in the former Byzantine empire to use as bases and trade colonies. You can tell due to the swallow tail crenels on the top that it is a more Italian style. The absolutely best example of a "Byzantine castle' with keep still standing without having to use too much conjecture is the castle of Platamon, this distinct hexagonal keep in a wide bailey. Funny enough there is a very similar castle in Bulgaria called Tsepina. Note the weird domed gatehouse on Platamon as well. People always tend to use or overuse either the Theodosian walls and just slap a castle made of big square towers or the fortress of Rumelhisar which is Ottoman. Another great castle example or examples would be the Monstaries of Mount Athos. Stravronikita is a wonderful example as well as Hilandar and the Rila Monastery the keep of which went into the Krepost. A better example for the university would be the Church of Saint Sophia in Ohrid built by the Bulgarians, it has a very University-like floor plan. For the church/monastery you have a few examples which can fit the footprint of something small: St. Demetrius in Tarnovo Bulgaria, The Boyana church, Asen's Fortress, St. George in Sofia and St. George in Kyustendil Bulgaria which is probably the best example. I also believe the Byzantines and Bulgarians need a second unique building each a Fortified church or even a new building called a Fortified Monastery and a Silk maker or Winemaker for the Byzantines, with a new UU's as well Bulgarians getting a heavy infantry to replace the champion (Longsword or maceman) and Byzantines getting probabaly a Varangian. I can also provide you with both and old book on the subject and some links to examples if you are interested, sorry for the wall of text.
WOW, what a wealth of information! This is glorious. Thank you so much for sharing all of your knowledge on this subject. If you don't mind, would you mind sending a summary of all these suggestions as an email to the address associated with my UA-cam account? I love the comments and certainly don't mind the wall of text, but UA-cam's system makes it very hard for me to easily find these sort of messages when I need them. Plus it would enable us to continue the conversation long form more easily. Totally fine if you prefer not, but if so I look forward to hearing from you. Really glad you enjoyed the video!
This was fun to watch. Thanks, Robby and GearDirector! The TC in particular was nice, seeing how it might develop through the ages. I can just envision how it'd look ingame with an evergrowing, almost tower-like main structure with archways protruding to the sides.
Having an architecture set that geographically streches from Portugal all the way to Georgia/Armenia really doesn't seem right, so I'm certainly all for this. I do have to wonder how the Turks would fit into this given how they're a reccuring theme with Anatolia according to the campaigns. Also giving this Architecture presentation a "generic" Castle design doesn't really seem right given that, since Lords of the West, all new civs in the current game have their own unique Castle designs.
I'm not yet sure about the Turks. There is zero doubt in my mind that I will be splitting them into many different civilizations, and maybe the one that represents the Ottomans could have a hybrid architecture set with elements of this, but I'm just not sure yet. I see your point about the generic Castle. In that case we can assume that the castle is meant for the Byzantines here!
Yeah, something like Anatolian, although I wouldn't be against it being called Greek or Byzantine either. Something specific like that wouldn't devalue its ubiquity, imo. Theoretically, Serbs would probs be using this architecture as well, whereas something like Croats might use it as well? We did incorporate Byzantine architecture along the Adriatic coast, but the current Mediterranean architecture might also work? I'm not that well acquainted with it, but I do know some of the most significant period-wise structures would be similar to what you showed, although later on there was some more western influence, either through Venice or Hungary and Austria. And on the west end of the Med, Iberian/Hispanic architecture set. Making the Med set specifically Apennine. A pretty elegant three way division of the Mediterranean architecture set. I've considered making Romans and Byzantines use same architecture, but that left out other nations influenced by the Byzantines. I also considered specifically giving unique Dark Age architecture to some of the ancient civs, like Persians, Romans, Byzantines, Chinese and Japanese, to denote that they didn't go through the Dark Ages the same way other civilizations did. Instead having a continuity with their AoE1 development. But DA unique architecture per set is another way to go, I guess.
Agree on Romans having the same architecture of byzantines! I see almost nobody acknowledging this but look at Ravenna architecture between the 5th and 6th century or what is called paleo Christian art, even earlier starting from the end of the 3rd and for all the 4th century: the maxentius basilica, the mausoleum of galerius, saint Costanza... It's all clearly proto byzantine. The division between post Romans and byzantines happened later after the exarchate of Ravenna fell and the papal states were born (8th century) so it makes sense that the Italians use a Mediterranean set (representing a later timeframe) but not the Romans imo.
Nice! Cool video, that'd be a good idea! I had seen a post in your discord I think of another anatolian architecture for AOE1. Besides that, Please feel free to make other architecture videos if you have the time and energy to spare! I think you had cool ideas like nomadic, etc!
Mediterranean architecture is the one with the most civilizations. Having Portugese and Georgians with the same style is lame. This set looks great. It would be a good add to the game.
Nice video but byzantine architecture was same in anatolia and balkans and cyprus…..basic in the greek/eastern roman world…..even in south italy mainly are same as in anatolia cause of same culture the greeks…now in eastern anatolia to persia is diferent persia/georgia/armenia near caucasus but i know they also have plenty same cause of the same religion orthodox christians…..so it depents many things
Oh this is no doubt greatly simplified. But I think it's definitely a damn sight more accurate than the current Mediterranean architecture, and would hopefully represent all the regions that you rightly bring up in a more faithful manner.
I am big history fan, but at the same time I feel this is impossible to implement. AOE is so good because it basically makes you feel vibe of that "age" you are currently in. People from all around the world without any basic history knowledge come and enjoy the game and understand that mechanic of being in certain age from 1 (worst) to 4 (best). So having such robust buildings in every single age since dark age doesnt make any sense if you want to follow this "aging mechanic". There is no strong visible "aging element", which would set apart visuals of buildings in different ages. It would be beautiful touch for history fans, but nightmare for fast players and ordinary people. So I guess history fans are not majority in this case and it would better serve as optional mode. Or maybe there is a way how to visualize this architecture, but it would require a lot of work and skill to re-do such robust buildings into darker looking ages like feudal age. From my perspective, I dont think its possible. I think it would require a lot of imagination and in that case you are creating way too imaginary architecture style, which is in the end missing your point and its not worth even to start with. Cheers, sceptical Dave :D
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Skeptical Dave! Game readability is something that many people have brought up as potential issues for designs like this in the past, but I actually think there's a pretty clean solution to it, even beyond just slightly simplifying the core inspirations: color scheme! Buildings in earlier ages can have simpler, more drab color schemes, while buildings and later ages can have more vibrant and eclectic ones. It's something we already see in game, and it works quite well. The sheer cosmetic variety AOE2 has was largely unprecedented when it released, and yet people picked up on its conventions extremely quickly and they became beloved. So I think we can do something very similar, just starting from a different base of convention! Hope that makes some amount of sense, I'd love to hear more thoughts if you have any.
For some reason AoE2 called them "Turks." Before someone lectures me on the difference: I know, I'm Turkish. :-) My point is that the "Turks" in AoE2 are clearly Ottomans. There are other Turkish (or Turkic) civs in the game, like Tatars and Cumans, which makes it even weirder. Anyhow. I also wondered why Turks wasn't in the list of civs that might get an Anatolian architecture, but I guess it makes more sense to give them the Middle Eastern architecture, since the Ottomans were primarily Muslim and their art was usually based on Islamic art if I'm not mistaken.
Yeah, as the other commenter mentioned I wasn't really comfortable giving this set to the current Turks since they (claim to) represent such a drastic range of history. When I get around to splitting them then I could totally see giving the later Ottoman Turks maybe a hybridized set between this and the Middle Eastern one or something like that.
It was a pleasure to weigh in on the presentation, Robby. I think you've put together something quite neat, and it was great to see it laid out comprehensively.
Nice, i love these! And always cool to see Robby involving knowledgeable people when needed.
Also, the fact that Robby showed so many churches, is that because those are the ones best preserved? Like i can imagine a good sample pool of other types of buildings is harder to get.
@@merlinkater7756 That's a large part of it. It's also the case that the appetite for byzantine archeology is a bit muted in Turkey as opposed to, say, Greece or the rest of the Balkans.
The pleasure was mine my friend! I really appreciate you having taken the time.
I still find it very funny how the Mediterranean Architecture was original developed for just one civ, but got bloated to 8 over the years by adding new civs or changing the Architecture of existing ones. 8 is definitely too much, so I like the idea of an Anatolian set split up the Mediterranean ones. As usual, you did an amazing job with your research and the Anatolian style has a lot of potential with its rich history and mixture of different cultures. I really likes what you showed in the presentation and I think it would work well for the Byzantines. Sadly I guess it's not very likely.
Isn't it weird how far that set was taken? I remember the first time I saw it and being blown away by how beautiful it looked! Then it ended up being everywhere and I quickly became very desensitized to it lol
In any case, really glad you enjoyed the design! I'm flattered by your words and, unfortunately, completely agree with your assessment that this is pretty much a 0 out of 10 on the likeliometer scale.
Absolutely wonderful. I have been brainstorming this more than I should possibly admit. Alot of really good ideas but I have to weigh in with some notes if that is ok.
First Bulgarian medieval architecture is influenced by the Byzantine empire but developed it's own distinct flourishes and design elements. The first empire was characterized by a very monumental style of building with beautiful cut blocks of dressed stone, large walls and circular towers ornamentations of wood, marble and stone along with silver and gold flourishes. Most important are the glazed and painted ceramic tiles used in decorations for both floors and walls. We even have examples of nice sewer systems and even roman style wall heating.
This is the period the Bulgarian wonder in game is from, although with a probably darker facade than needs to be lol
The second Bulgarian Empire chose practicality over monumental building projects, probably as a reflection of the lack of centralization and constant outside threats.
Terrain playes a HUGE role in choosing the location for foritications, castles and cities (Tsarevets and Cherven are two wonderful examples) however the small scale buildings did not fall back on luxury or at least embeleshments using patterns of masonry and hollow arches on their facades to decorate the forms beautifully.
As for the suggestions you gave:
Firstly houses. Using domes on a residential building is kind of too big of a strech although Byzantine and Bulgarian houses are kind of distinct, picking Byzantine for example could be the way to go since you have some examples both standing and in medieval depictions. Simple boxy forms with slanted roofs with an a frame look, columns and arches as well as multyple floors.
The darker and more blue roof tiles you mentioned are not really tiles so much as lead sheets, very common in Balkan and Orthodox architecture.
The castle example I dont think works because the castle in question is a Venetian castle built in Greece after Venice took several key locations in the former Byzantine empire to use as bases and trade colonies. You can tell due to the swallow tail crenels on the top that it is a more Italian style. The absolutely best example of a "Byzantine castle' with keep still standing without having to use too much conjecture is the castle of Platamon, this distinct hexagonal keep in a wide bailey. Funny enough there is a very similar castle in Bulgaria called Tsepina. Note the weird domed gatehouse on Platamon as well. People always tend to use or overuse either the Theodosian walls and just slap a castle made of big square towers or the fortress of Rumelhisar which is Ottoman.
Another great castle example or examples would be the Monstaries of Mount Athos. Stravronikita is a wonderful example as well as Hilandar and the Rila Monastery the keep of which went into the Krepost.
A better example for the university would be the Church of Saint Sophia in Ohrid built by the Bulgarians, it has a very University-like floor plan.
For the church/monastery you have a few examples which can fit the footprint of something small: St. Demetrius in Tarnovo Bulgaria, The Boyana church, Asen's Fortress, St. George in Sofia and St. George in Kyustendil Bulgaria which is probably the best example.
I also believe the Byzantines and Bulgarians need a second unique building each a Fortified church or even a new building called a Fortified Monastery and a Silk maker or Winemaker for the Byzantines, with a new UU's as well Bulgarians getting a heavy infantry to replace the champion (Longsword or maceman) and Byzantines getting probabaly a Varangian.
I can also provide you with both and old book on the subject and some links to examples if you are interested, sorry for the wall of text.
WOW, what a wealth of information! This is glorious. Thank you so much for sharing all of your knowledge on this subject.
If you don't mind, would you mind sending a summary of all these suggestions as an email to the address associated with my UA-cam account? I love the comments and certainly don't mind the wall of text, but UA-cam's system makes it very hard for me to easily find these sort of messages when I need them. Plus it would enable us to continue the conversation long form more easily.
Totally fine if you prefer not, but if so I look forward to hearing from you. Really glad you enjoyed the video!
@@robbylava Sounds good I will try and contact you within another day or so. Busy with IRL stuff.
@RLDragonStrider totally. Take a month if you need to! Real life always comes first
This was fun to watch. Thanks, Robby and GearDirector!
The TC in particular was nice, seeing how it might develop through the ages. I can just envision how it'd look ingame with an evergrowing, almost tower-like main structure with archways protruding to the sides.
Having an architecture set that geographically streches from Portugal all the way to Georgia/Armenia really doesn't seem right, so I'm certainly all for this. I do have to wonder how the Turks would fit into this given how they're a reccuring theme with Anatolia according to the campaigns.
Also giving this Architecture presentation a "generic" Castle design doesn't really seem right given that, since Lords of the West, all new civs in the current game have their own unique Castle designs.
I was thinking in a similar idea for the Turks the same civilization can represent the Seljuks and similars and the Otomans of 1400-1600 ?
I'm not yet sure about the Turks. There is zero doubt in my mind that I will be splitting them into many different civilizations, and maybe the one that represents the Ottomans could have a hybrid architecture set with elements of this, but I'm just not sure yet.
I see your point about the generic Castle. In that case we can assume that the castle is meant for the Byzantines here!
Yeah, something like Anatolian, although I wouldn't be against it being called Greek or Byzantine either. Something specific like that wouldn't devalue its ubiquity, imo.
Theoretically, Serbs would probs be using this architecture as well, whereas something like Croats might use it as well? We did incorporate Byzantine architecture along the Adriatic coast, but the current Mediterranean architecture might also work? I'm not that well acquainted with it, but I do know some of the most significant period-wise structures would be similar to what you showed, although later on there was some more western influence, either through Venice or Hungary and Austria.
And on the west end of the Med, Iberian/Hispanic architecture set. Making the Med set specifically Apennine. A pretty elegant three way division of the Mediterranean architecture set.
I've considered making Romans and Byzantines use same architecture, but that left out other nations influenced by the Byzantines. I also considered specifically giving unique Dark Age architecture to some of the ancient civs, like Persians, Romans, Byzantines, Chinese and Japanese, to denote that they didn't go through the Dark Ages the same way other civilizations did. Instead having a continuity with their AoE1 development. But DA unique architecture per set is another way to go, I guess.
Agree on Romans having the same architecture of byzantines! I see almost nobody acknowledging this but look at Ravenna architecture between the 5th and 6th century or what is called paleo Christian art, even earlier starting from the end of the 3rd and for all the 4th century: the maxentius basilica, the mausoleum of galerius, saint Costanza... It's all clearly proto byzantine.
The division between post Romans and byzantines happened later after the exarchate of Ravenna fell and the papal states were born (8th century) so it makes sense that the Italians use a Mediterranean set (representing a later timeframe) but not the Romans imo.
An Iberian architecture set is a great idea, that's definitely going on my list
Nice! Cool video, that'd be a good idea! I had seen a post in your discord I think of another anatolian architecture for AOE1.
Besides that, Please feel free to make other architecture videos if you have the time and energy to spare! I think you had cool ideas like nomadic, etc!
Well thank you very much my friend! I'm really glad you like it and definitely intend to make more.
"I'll keep an eye on you" - Basil II to the Bulgarians
Mediterranean architecture is the one with the most civilizations. Having Portugese and Georgians with the same style is lame.
This set looks great. It would be a good add to the game.
Thanks so much for saying so my friend!
Nice video but byzantine architecture was same in anatolia and balkans and cyprus…..basic in the greek/eastern roman world…..even in south italy mainly are same as in anatolia cause of same culture the greeks…now in eastern anatolia to persia is diferent persia/georgia/armenia near caucasus but i know they also have plenty same cause of the same religion orthodox christians…..so it depents many things
Oh this is no doubt greatly simplified. But I think it's definitely a damn sight more accurate than the current Mediterranean architecture, and would hopefully represent all the regions that you rightly bring up in a more faithful manner.
I am big history fan, but at the same time I feel this is impossible to implement.
AOE is so good because it basically makes you feel vibe of that "age" you are currently in. People from all around the world without any basic history knowledge come and enjoy the game and understand that mechanic of being in certain age from 1 (worst) to 4 (best).
So having such robust buildings in every single age since dark age doesnt make any sense if you want to follow this "aging mechanic". There is no strong visible "aging element", which would set apart visuals of buildings in different ages.
It would be beautiful touch for history fans, but nightmare for fast players and ordinary people. So I guess history fans are not majority in this case and it would better serve as optional mode.
Or maybe there is a way how to visualize this architecture, but it would require a lot of work and skill to re-do such robust buildings into darker looking ages like feudal age. From my perspective, I dont think its possible. I think it would require a lot of imagination and in that case you are creating way too imaginary architecture style, which is in the end missing your point and its not worth even to start with.
Cheers, sceptical Dave :D
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Skeptical Dave!
Game readability is something that many people have brought up as potential issues for designs like this in the past, but I actually think there's a pretty clean solution to it, even beyond just slightly simplifying the core inspirations: color scheme!
Buildings in earlier ages can have simpler, more drab color schemes, while buildings and later ages can have more vibrant and eclectic ones. It's something we already see in game, and it works quite well.
The sheer cosmetic variety AOE2 has was largely unprecedented when it released, and yet people picked up on its conventions extremely quickly and they became beloved. So I think we can do something very similar, just starting from a different base of convention!
Hope that makes some amount of sense, I'd love to hear more thoughts if you have any.
ottomans?
For some reason AoE2 called them "Turks." Before someone lectures me on the difference: I know, I'm Turkish. :-) My point is that the "Turks" in AoE2 are clearly Ottomans. There are other Turkish (or Turkic) civs in the game, like Tatars and Cumans, which makes it even weirder. Anyhow. I also wondered why Turks wasn't in the list of civs that might get an Anatolian architecture, but I guess it makes more sense to give them the Middle Eastern architecture, since the Ottomans were primarily Muslim and their art was usually based on Islamic art if I'm not mistaken.
Yeah, as the other commenter mentioned I wasn't really comfortable giving this set to the current Turks since they (claim to) represent such a drastic range of history. When I get around to splitting them then I could totally see giving the later Ottoman Turks maybe a hybridized set between this and the Middle Eastern one or something like that.
First!
Epic