This is a variety podcast btw. I love talking to people from all walks of life. You'll learn something new every episode. If i could pick another guest from the aoe community, it would be lord daut. I don't have that kind of pull tho. So if someone knows him, put in a good word 😂
As a Korean I find this hilarious. Imagine being a nerd just trying to make a good game and then suddenly you are entangled by all these sins of the fathers of all these countries lmao
@@Ratciclefan wait, I actually made an error on that comment so I redone it, and also they have been introduced in other games such as civilisation 4&5
I FINALLY understand WAR WAGONS. Koreans never used War Wagons. But now, it totally makes sense, with the corporate interference. And the initially wrong Turtle Ship designs. It just makes sense!
Listened to the full podcast. I love the part when corporate came down and said "were going to fire you all but don't tell your employees this" and everyone of the higher ups at the studio quit on the spot in response. Just a straight up "we can get a job we have the skill we don't need you." then corporate immediately went "oh, shit they haven't finished our game!" Straight Up GOLD!
If you read about the Imjin war, you begin to understand just how ridiculous politicians in Korea were. They were straight up denying the invasion while they were being conquered in order to save face. Then, they locked up their best Admiral - the only guy actually winning against the Japanese - because they didn't like how popular he was
that one baddass admiral who never had naval battle experiences and education but ended up as the only reason why Toyotomi Hideyoshi unable to invade Korea, what did they do? Accuse him for being traitor and arrest him. Then the navy he trained was led by an incompetent admiral which despite having superior number and equipments, managed to lose against Japanese navy and opened the route of invasion. The funniest thing is probably the Korean royal court reinstate Admiral Yi to his position, which means THEY ARE FULLY AWARE THAT HE'S COMPETENT AND LOYAL ENOUGH TO LEAD THE REMAINING NAVY. The audacity of those nobles man.
@@CrnaStrela The Korean turtle ships were basically ironclad ships, which is a reason the Japanese were having trouble against them. How do ironclad ships lose versus Japanese wooden vessels? The incompetent admiral who replaced the great one found a way. If I recall correctly the Japanese captured the incompetent admiral and cut some body parts off.
Argument: "We need to add Korea because Koreans bought millions of copies of Starcraft" Counterargument: "There are no Koreans in Starcraft" Argument: "Too bad, we have to pander to Koreans like Starcraft did" Counterargument: "THEY DIDN'T BUY STARCRAFT BECAUSE IT HAD KOREA IN IT, THEY BOUGHT IT FOR NON-KOREA-PANDERING REASONS!"
Argument: "And Starcraft was all the worse off for it! Imagine how many more copies would have been sold if Starcraft DID have Koreans!! That would have been an extra 33% more game!"
super interesting to hear about the industry from a guy who isn't trying to sell anything and made some of my favorite games. thanks for many years of enjoyment.
@@Fusso video game makers used to be this weird mix of super smart scientists, super creative artists, and super adventurous entrepreneurs. Now the AAA guys are so segmented. I think part of the problem is the businessmen aren't artists, the artists aren't programmers and the programmers aren't businessmen. everybody has different goals and they are all working against each other. I hope in the future there are enough guys like him to put a team together big enough to make the games of the future. doom 2016 and eternal are two examples of games that were clearly made with passion vision and fun in mind.
@@Yourmomma568 oh yeah, creativity and innovation were the driving forces back in the day, everything was new so everything was possible, now games are designed by committee, there's less space for individuality, one creative individual could make a difference back then, now or doesn't matter.
I came in the comments for this info because as a German I would have heard of Greece banning all video games. This makes it sound like it wasn't even related to gambling but just teens spending their money playing possibly mature games outside their home / parents control. I don't agree with that but I think the same happened here after some time. This surely had an influence on AoE's sales numbers judging by how many people I knew in the mid 90s that played just such titles in netcafes because they don't own a PC and / or wanted to have basically a local lan but it still makes me question the accuracy of some of his other stories.
@@raphiiii8418 Wikipedia article: Law 3037/2002. Age of Empires itself tho (and every video game) was never considered a banned product, as Sandy implies; video games selling stores' operation wasn't affected by that law. Not to mention that The Rise of Rome (1998) was launched years before that law.
As a Korean, This story is hillarious! Microsoft really surprised by Starcraft's massive hit! Happy to know the behind story of my best childhood game!
Admiral Yi Sunsin and one of his naval battles is referenced in "Parasite." I wonder how many Westerners only got that reference because of Age of Empires.
its sad tho, they kno Admiral Yi because of some spiky ships but the minority of them know him as the Chad Obliterator of the Shogunate Navy but got backstabbed by the Korean Politicians
I went to South Korea and took a ferry to an island where they were holding an Admiral Yi festival. It was awesome. My girlfriend and I were probably the only westerners on the whole island lol, but the director of the event was so friendly and nice to me. Admiral Yi was a true hero. They gave me a piece of traditionally written Korean poetry and took pictures with me too. It was particularly heartwarming to see how much respect they have for America/Americans because of the Korean War. They haven't forgotten how we fought and died together to protect their country, and I find that so admirable.
I never understood why AoE2 Koreans had a weak monastery... It's contrary to history AND AoE1. Korean evangelical missionaries even today are EVERYWHERE, and I really "appreciated" AoE1 Choson (ancient Korea) having cheap priests for that reason.
A lot of AoE2 bonuses and tech trees aren't particularly historically accurate, the decisions there are mostly done for gameplay reasons rather than historical ones. Other examples are Chinese having no gunpowder units and the Spanish having no crossbowmen.
@@greysquirrel404 The chinese having no gunpowder units is not that wrong. Yes they inventet gunpowder and used it in warfare. however the two gunpowder units in the game handcanoner and bombardcanon representing musket like guns and cannons used i siege, was not inventet in China but Europa and the ottoman empire and got to Japan before China. The Chinese gunpowder is mostly representet by there uniq tech rocketry wich was what they primerly used it for. Sure they got the unites at some point. But then there are civs that got them sooner and don't have them eather.
@@greysquirrel404 Chinese not having block printing you mean, Chinese didn't really use gunpowder in the form of cannons despite pioneered their use in warfare. But the devs relented and gave Chinese Block Printing at the cost of redemption. I understand they cannot give both redemption and block printing to Chinese but why the hell they gave them redemption?
What? Ancient Koreans should have a strong monastery because they have evangelical missionaries in the 20th century? First, that has more to do with Christianity than Korea. Second, Christianity wasn't even *introduced* in Korea until the 18th century. There is no evidence that Koreans were atypical to any other country with regards to religion. They had their folk shamanism with Confucianism/Buddhism influences. Even after Christianity exploded in Korea after WW2, Koreans went from ~90% to ~55% no religious affiliation, STILL majority non-religious. So your argument just makes absolutely no sense, historically or otherwise. And if we're going to apply modern attributes to ancient peoples, what about atheistic North Korea? Also, Choson wasn't "Ancient Korea."
When I was a kid, I was really pleased to know that Koreans were added in AoE2(I'm Korean myself). I didn't know there was a backstory like this 😂. And retrospectively speaking, his counter argument was valid. Lots of Koreans still play SC1 but only few of them play AoE2.
7:03 *Sandy said:* "At Alexander's time, the Greeks did not consider Macedonia part of Greece". Who *actually did not consider Macedonia part of Greece: Demosthenes,* because was politically hostile to them; *while Isocrates* who was politically in favor to them was saying the opposite. And Macedonians of course spoke the same language (not dialect, to the Atheneans), the Doric Greek, as everyone on this planet may know Sandy, and can actually see. *Nevertheless, the Greek Historian Herodotus tells us* that Macedonians have been normally accepted to compete in the Olympic games, where at the time only Greeks were allowed to compete, 100 years before the time of Alexander, Demosthenes, and Isocrates. *And modern archeology has answered* all these questions already, Sandy.
Macedonians spoke the same language as the rest of the Hellenic city-states(there were minor differences depending on the area but same language), worshiped the same gods and took part in the Olympic games where only Hellenes (Greeks) were allowed to compete.They considered themselves Hellenes(Greeks).
The country north of Hellas(Greece), its people decend (mostly) from the Slavs who migrated in the region in the 8th - 9th century AD and have no relation to the ancient Macedonians or the rest of Greeks for that matter.The language of that nation has been proven by linguists to be a mix of the Bulgarian and Serbian language.The claim of them relating to the ancient kingdom of Macedonia was a propaganda which started in the 1940s in order for the soviets to have a way into the aegian sea.
@@ch.patenas9646 I agree with you because Modern Macedonians are Slavs and not related to ancient Macedonians. Greeks are closer, but ancient Greeks didn’t consider Macedonians to be Greek, only modern ones do. They did not allow Macedonians to participate in the Olympic Games unless they could prove they had Greek ancestors or until Macedon dominated them with military. Read the accounts of real ancient Greeks and they make it clear they didn’t consider Macedonians Greeks, but barbarians. Don’t get me wrong, Greeks are closest to Macedonians like Italians to romans, but not the same.
@@ch.patenas9646 The land has always been known as macedonia for a long time. People should just get over the name. Lots of places on earth have been resettled.
So funny that Rise of Rome almost didn't get made because some moron business guy thought nobody buys expansions. I learned so much from Rise of Rome! And it was a great addition to the campaign. Many of the missions were highly memorable. Anyways, I'll have to tell this story to my korean friend.
Not just enthuastic, he's a good storyteller too and very articulate. I wish the interviewer wouldn't interrupt him so often with meaningless filler comments like "Oh wow so awesome", "NO WAY" etc. Just shut up and let him speak.
That was an insane miscommunication between the lawmakers and law enfkrcement, where the ones passing the law were (as usual) behind their own time and did no effort to differentiate between money gambling games and common games, so they accidentally banned everything.
It's not really "microsoft", it's executive and marketing teams against developers, it's always been like that, and it still is. No developer in the world will tell you they loved their HR / Marketing department, becausen they're the guy pushing them to meet goals set by contracts... They're the annoying people that push deadlines, deadlines you sadly need to have otherwise no contract would happen ... And without contract, it's hard to get money... Especially back then.
@@crysosisback7115 It's like my English-teaching job in Asia. I told my stupid manager who barely knows English, that the book is wrong because it prescribes a certain stroke order for children to learn how to write, but English isn't Chinese, so that's entirely ARBITRARY, and the boss takes the side of the book because he doesn't think for himself, being a typical Asian with the herd mentality and no creativity. So I'm bound to a very limited and boring selection of words to keep repeating to children... when if I had creativity, I could actually teach much better and they could learn much more, much faster and actually have fun doing it, but the people with the money tend to be idiots.
@@crysosisback7115 there are publishers that enforce deadlines, but have a brain and are reasonable, adn then there are publishers taht want koreans in aoe so they sell , because starcraft sold well there.
Amazing interview! There's actually a really rare Korean release of Age 2: TC. Back in the day, Microsoft had to change the original retail cover art of The Conquerors Expansion just to add a Korean warrior to it to sell in the Korean market! ;)
lol they send one scout/villager and it’s spinning around doing a dance in front of all your towers, walks into the fog, gets hit by stray arrow so you just see this dead body appear in the fog. Then they send another to the same spot. Don’t get me started on the repairmen they’d waste every single one of their villagers to repair a dock or house in the middle of nowhere
The only medieval war wagons I know of are Hussite war wagons used as mobile fortifications on the battlefield during 5 crusades against Hussites. However nobody else was fully capable of using this strategy in that time or even later (The Hussite leader Zizka was extremely talented strategist and is to this day one of very few generals that were never defeated in battle. Perhaps it only worked because of his tactical thinking.).
The people who call themselves Macedonians speak a language that's a mix of Bulgarian and Serbocroatian. Basically it was more of a Bulgarian dialect, but because they were in Yugoslavia under Tito, they got their language Serbified. If you ask a Bulgarian, they will tell you that the people of Northern Macedonia are basically Bulgarians. Either way, their language is Slavic and the people are of Slavic origin. The thing is the Slavic migration to the Balcans happened IIRC in the 6th or 7th century; that's 700-800 years after Alexander the Great. I am pretty sure things got pretty heated when Macedonians started dominating Greece with some people being in their favor and some opposing them. But you have Alexander's father participating and winning in the Olympics. And then you have Alexander going to the Olympics to compete, having his Greek ethnicity contested and then him proving that he was Greek and being allowed to compete. And of course he was tutored by Aristotle. Regardless. You can say whatever you want about Alexander the Great. Maybe he was Greek, maybe he was Greek-adjucent. A Slav he was not because it was physically impossible. So, us Greeks tend to be understandably touch about this subject. FWIW, at the time that Age of Empires was released NBA legend Karim Abdul Jabar sued an NFL athlete Kareem Abdul Jabar for infringing on his commercial rights and he won. That was what Greece was essentially doing against Northern Macedonia. And yes we reach a settlement that allows them to be called Northern Macedonia as an indication of their geography.
From what I gather, Albania has to do with Epirus where Alexander's mother was from, so Alexander was half-barbarian and half-Greek which explains that claim about his hair being like an (Asiatic) lion's mane: black and blond together. My name is Alejandro. Check out my realistic map of the ancient world for the original Age of Empires. I love Greece, and I plan to learn classical and biblical Greek. ua-cam.com/video/aYy80ojsnj0/v-deo.html&ab_channel=SCINTILLAMDEI
@@NC7491 What I hate seeing is northern European types like Germanics and Celts claiming that ancient Romans and Alexander looked exactly like them because the culture vultures covet southern European glory, when the ancients of southern Europe always said the northern savages look very different. In history channels on youtube like Kings & Generals, they often portray ancient Romans as brunette with blue eyes or other nonsense like that. It's propaganda.
@@NC7491 While it's a silly claim, there is some truth to it. Slavs didn't just massacre and replace the native population. They displaced the ruling class and the common people intermarried.
I hadn't heard this story before, but I always suspected that's why the Koreans were added. It helps when your country loves rts's. The turtle ships are cool so it wouldn't feel the same if they were absent.
4:08 That counter argument, hits it more then anything. What those Publishers need to understand, do not buy a game because they are represented. I would not ... not buy a game, because it doesn't represent my Country. I feel it is similar with allot other stuff.
"deny you ever stopped an invasion so the invaders can't claim they've ever been in your country and thus have the right to go back" When they don't have that right anyway
Awesome. I hope he understands how much the game he worked on shaped thoes of us who played it as kids. I attribute a large amount of historical understanding to AoE making me more interested in thoes periods.
As a Korean, I figured as much. Not just StarCraft, but the deep gaming culture of Korea. All that said, Korea is such a fun civ, and I love using them. :)
No, South Koreans don't call it "Sea of Korea", the North does. South Korea calls it the "East Sea", what I think is pretty fair. And as a Macedonian myself I found his thoughts on the Greece/Macedonian "Issue" interesting.
That thing about the body of water East (hehe) of Korea and West of Japan is a huge political issue in the former. There is an islet in that water and it is the closed thing to sacred in Korea. When a politician wants a distraction, he uses the great power of the Liancourt Rocks. The thing is such a big issue that if you take the train from Incheon into town, you'll always be greeted with a video of how it is Korean and not Japanese. It is impossible to overstate how important that water and those rocks are to Korean nationalism and national identity and political importance.
I played exclusively against the age 2 ai. The trick was to get the walls up before the enemy sent units and they would get stuck at the walls and you could just kill em over the wall with ranged units lol was pretty tough to get the walls up in time for the hardest computer though
I'll just preface this by saying I'm not Greek, I have no ties to Greece, and am merely someone who knows and cares about history. He's wrong about the Macedonians, they absolutely did speak a Hellenic language, either Ancient Greek or a dialect of it, and were also absolutely a Hellenic people. There's no argument about that. The people in modern North Macedonia are a Slavic people completely unrelated to the (Greek) Macedonians, people who arrived in that region about a thousand years after the original Greek Macedonians were active in the area.
Man I came to the comment section to find this comment. I'm not Greek or Macedonian or anything ethier but I do like when people get the history straight lol.
weeeel, the greeks from back then didnt consider macedonians to be greek. for this very reason it was forbidden for macedonians to partake in the Olympic games. in fact, king of macedonia (not alexander, his great grandfather i think) had to petition to the council overseeing the games to allow him to participate since HIS ANCESTORS were greeks (and so had the right to participate), irrespective of the fact that he was ruling over a basically barbaric kingdom.
It's entirely dumb, RTS REALLY were popular in Korea, and still are due to the pro scene Culturally it's still strong, hence the attract young gamers have to many pro scenes ! So to be honest, even tho their point didn't stand back then, i'm pretty sure it was worth it tbh And what players minds another civ in the game anyway ?
AI is actually a misnomer since it is impossible for anything physical to think because thinking requires the FREEDOM to make decisions, but all "AI" is just puppets doing as their masters predetermined, with the only "freedom" being the "random" which-predetermined-instructions-shall-be-used-this-time? Since the mind is free to think, that proves the mind is spirit, not physical, and thereby that there is a God, for our spirts had to come from at least one Great Spirit. More in my series crushing atheist myths.
@@scintillam_dei Not at all. There is nothing to prove that the mind is unlike AI in that regard. Many argue it is merely an issue of complexity: if a person understood the human mind well-enough, they would be able to predict how that mind would react to every possible scenario just as a game developer could predict how a primitive AI would act
@@kingstarscream320 You are saying that something that is a slave to physics is actually free to think. That's a contradiction. Using "complexity" is a smokescreen for your wishful thinking that something physical and therefore a puppet of nature, is actually not a puppet.
@@kingstarscream320 Also, you're moving the goalpost from "free to think" to "predictable." Thinkers are always predictable if you know enough about them, and you don't even need omniscience to get predictions right most of the time.
@@scintillam_dei I am talking about predictions right all of the time. If something can be predicted with 100% accuracy on a consistent basis, it indicates that the person predicted couldn’t have acted any differently than he did, which implies a lack of free will.
Pandaren were in Warcraft 3 but they decided to go all out and do an expansion about them because of China. Honestly it was a cool theme, a nice break from the usual demons, orcs and undead.
They're more rounded with added stuff but their tower bonuses have also shifted later into the game. Only feudal bonus now is stone mining. And in addition the base tower before guard tower is much weaker in DE (hitpoints). So yes they still have great towers but tower RUSHING, specifically, is a lot weaker now. (full disclosure, notwithstanding the above, did get my ass handed to me last night by a Korean tower rusher)
People who play the game for fun as opposed to merely having a high ELO, play any civilization no matter how low-tier. In Super Smash Bros. Melee, I would use Roy, but I would eventually find his face to be far too childish to represent me since I prefer bearded protagonists 'cause they're cooler.
War wagons existed in the late medieval/ early renaissance in Bohemia, Poland, Russia and such where people will use wagons as either cover or would load themselves up in wagon and shoot from inside it under cover against opponents. Bohemia invented it but Poland and Russia followed suit. A weapon like Singijeon would have been more appropriate for Koreans
@@akapbhan well yes, but technically no..not in form of ballista cabin charriot; is positional tool, not assault weapon. Imagine mobile palisades, that eliminated shock advantage of enemy on horse, also prevented flanking and formation breaking, while providing bit of cover for "hand canonneers" and "halberds", even cannons. Not a gamechanger tho, just odd fixer against bigger numbers or against undisciplined mounted army
@@akapbhan hate to be that guy with "well actually.." but the Singijeon weapon you are speaking of also origins from China ("神机箭" in Ming dynasty). It doesn't really matter as they are not going to add another weapon for either civ in the game.
True, Korean basis for War Wagon was partly based on the Hwach, and partly to fit with their theme of pop-efficient 'mech' units like the Turtle ship. No unique siege existed in the game at that point.
I was literally thinking in the back of my head "Was it because starcraft was big and they were hoping that including Koreans would....somehow give it appeal there" and I cant believe that was right, thats such a 2iq marketing department decision lmao. The Sea of Korea/Japan thing though....thats definitely a localization thing, it makes sense why that would be a big issue re: colonization.
the macedonians spoke greek and took part in the olympic games (strictly for greeks) they considered themselves very much greeks alot of the rest of the greeks hated them but i mean greeks hating and fighting each other is nothing new... the reason macedonia took over so easily is in large part due to central and southern greece being engulfed in continuous war for years on end macedonia managed to get out of the persian wars relatively unharmed and remained neutral and out of trouble during the peloponnesian wars anyway, the issue with north macedonia has been resolved, its been renamed "North Macedonia" and renounced any claims of being related to ancient macedonia
Its kind of strange that this guy is like the Usain Bolt of game development. I don't think it really registers with everyone that this guy is a world leader at something really big, and maybe even more important.
I don't think adding Koreans to AIEII because Starcraft was popular over there is bad logic per se. They simply realized that Korea was a market worth going for and thought that pandering to them could've made the game even more popular. The fact that Starcraft didn't have Koreans yet still got popular over there only means that having Koreans in your game isn't a prerequisite to popularity in Korea, not that pandering doesn't help.
Slight correct for history. Korea did kick Japan out in there invasion but thats becasue of an absolute chad at sea. Korean and China lost almost every single land battle however.
As for the Macedonia thing. I think the issue is that ancient Macedonians were a Hellenic culture while modern Macedonians are a Slavic culture. So the Greeks are at least somewhat correct to claim Alexander and ancient Macedonia as their own.
Please ask him next time if the lack of different civilization skins for units (architectures have different skins) is because they didnt have the time to add them.
From a gameplay perspective I find it better to have the same skin for the same unit, even accross different civilizations. Age of Empires 3 did it, it looked awesome, and you never knew which unit countered what because you had no idea what categories did the units belong to. It just eases the learning curve a bit, which in RTS is usually quite steep already.
@@karlhans6678 yes it is. Condotierri, Huskarls, berserks and longswords have the same weapons (well, berserks have axes) but not really the same counters. Same with pikes/eagles, light cav/paladin, mamelouk/camel or even cannon galleon/turtle ship
@@Tergaim lol mostg of those are easy to distinguish, eagles carry their spears forward, light cav arnt armored, turtle ships are fat, berserks carry an axe. You might need to memorize the few that are very similar. Starcraft 2 is an RTS and it has skins, it doesnt create a problem.
@@karlhans6678 Starcraft doesn't have skins. Starcraft has completely different units with different abilities. So yes, when playing AoE you need to memorize that a longbow, a plume, a chukonu, a rattan, a genoise crossbow and an arbalest all have different use cases, counters, etc. That's not that hard because they all have a different skins. But you propose to have 11 arbalests (assuming one per achitecture style) that all have a different skin but this time, they all behave and are countered the same. Leaving out unique units, a full tech tree has 61 units (villagers count double). Time that by 11 - even if all civs don't have access to all units, I can't see why it would be interesting nor fun.
I feel like Sandy is a lot more sensible of a guy & a more honest designer, but him & Peter Molyneux both got put through the Microsoft sub-studio destruction zone.
This is probably an obvious question after watching this interview, but is this the reason Koreans speak modern Korean in-game and not an ancient or colonial version? given how they were introduced 6 weeks before release
Possibly, but the AOE2 Koreans aren't the only ones who speak a modern language. The AOE2 Chinese speak Mandarin, which didn't exist until the Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911), which would be late in the AOE3 timeframe. In fact, the AOE2 Chinese should have spoken something much closer to Cantonese (Tang: 618 - 907) or Hakka (Song: 960 - 1279) if we're going for historical accuracy. Also, what do you mean by colonial? Korea was colonized by Japan in 1905 - 1945, which is close enough to being modern.
@@ScottyShaw fair point; and shouldnt have said colonial as every civilization have their own periods; I meant like early 1500s which is when the Aztecs were colonized by the Spanish.
@@yutuvefan4ever Yeah, it would be pretty cool to hear languages from that time period. It would really increase the historical experience. Maybe they'll be able to do this in AOE4 :D
Corporate interface ruin everything, would explain why a lot of modern games aren't creative or original. Even the definitive edition of AOE2 has been dumbed down; cartoon like graphics, no blood, no skeletons, monotone voice actors 🙄and being on steam they can change the content any time they like.
The best part of this is that Koreans are the ONLY ancient civilization that still exists today that never properly conquered anyone in its history. It is commonly thought by Koreans that they have a sadness embedded in their genes which in turn creates the most sad and tragic tales to be told in all their entertainment mediums, which was caused by the never ending invasions they endured for thousands of years. Sure Gogureyo conquered the Manchu territories for a period of time, but Shilla gave that to the Tang in exchange for support in their unification war. This backstory to why they were in the game is hilarious. I myself was like Chosun? There's no way this is Kor.... OHMYGODWTFITIS.
I'm still here waiting for the Poles. We have literally everyone else around them, but Poland has to share with all the other slavic tribes throughout kieven russia, ukraine, etc.
Lords of the East: Bohemians: Wagon forts and Hussite gunners Poles: Winged Hussars, duh Ruthenians: Cossacks and raiding bonuses Maybe Swedes to fight the Poles and Lithuanians (like how Sandy said Aztecs were added to fight the Spaniards) but that starts to tread pretty far into Age 3 territory. If they made it into the game I bet they'd have Hakkapells or Leather Cannons
@Tomáš Staněk I'm just brainstorming some ideas based on surface-level research I've done. I just thought it would be a novel idea to have a knight-like UU that would be resistant to conversion unlike a knight. Age 2 already doesn't have the best historical accuracy, but since I assume you're an actual Czech, I bet you'd appreciate good representation of your history :) so we shall see how Forgotten Empires handles it. A Bohemian civ should have good gunpowder techs too, since the Hussites were among the first in central Europe to make use of early firearms.
I wholeheartedly agree Slavs are not enough to represent all of the Rus, Poles, Ruthenians, Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, &c. Poland so-so-def deserves a special mention cos of Casimir and Jadwiga and the Commonwealth.
I know in his mind that was a good rebuttal that Starcraft didn't have Koreans in it but it kinda logically makes no sense because Starcraft also didn't have nations from upon the earth lol. So if theres people of many nations, it would make sense to have Koreans which would made them feel included amongst the other nations. I know I would want to see my own people in there it would be neat. So yeah, that didn't make sense as a counter argument to wanting to entice Koreans to play and be able to play as their people which would be a decently sound selling point. It was rather he who didn't "understand" lol.
But Koreans are not known for conquering other nations which is the theme for the expansion. It is businessmen messing with the art. Luckily, they managed to be put in as defearing the conquerors and that fitted in.
@@Account.for.Comment well I was more talking about his rudimentary logical fallacy that "Starcraft didn't have Koreans in it" since Starcraft had no nations at all in it, and that if you start including nations of people, Koreans would thus enjoy seeing themselves be included amongst the quite numerous nations. As for being known for conquering, thats also a bit of a logical fallacy because in fact the "theme" is technically still age of empires and within that realm there are many nations including those who conquer but you also need to code the people who are getting conquered by nature of war having both sides of the battle so the idea that you don't want a nation coded in the game because they didn't conquer enough is a weird take and taking the title of the expansion wayy too literally. Like we got the expansion because it was more AOE2 not because it only features conquering nations. Thats just a title dude. Of course thats why programers like this have leaders to help them with the big picture because they get caught up in logic circles that don't make sense. That same neurotic logic also makes them good at coding I guess so thats why different people have different roles in the team.
@@nutellabrah6718 Here what you don' t understand. The programmers got told that they need to make an expansion. They decided on what it would be, then the ones upstair suddenly told them that they need to put another civ in that is not involved in their previous thought process. Their reasonings with is Starcraft had been sold highly in that country. Except Starcraft did not have that country in it and so the inclusion the of country are not yet a good, proven reason for the design decision. This showcased more on the business people cluelessness on the market they are in rather than the need for them. Had they said their analytics showed that an inclusion of that civ would greatly boost advertisement in a market less prone to pirate it. It would have shown that they did their research instead of bringing a halfbaked decision to the programmers and made everyone worked more. Without Korea, there could have been Khmer or Incans. I doubt the people would bought the products as much as Korea does but the gameplay would have fit the Conquerers as the theme would suggest.
@@nutellabrah6718 Also you do not understand the design process. The theme or motto or pillar is not just a title. It is a unifying process. Everyone want to put different things in a product. The design theme saved them time, arguments, etc by giving them all an objective. So the frustration is that after it had been decided and work toward, you got a lazy dumbass who arrived and told you change the roads to the product instead of telling you first hand what he want. I.e. In Rise of the Rajas, the new civs are all Southeast Asian. The designers design for those theme. If suddenly they were told midway that they need to include the Cumans because of Egyptian market, who would not be frustrated?
@@Account.for.Comment Im not sure you realize this but you just literally repeated the same thing from the first paragraph that I already responded to. You added no response to what I said or added any logic to the conversation. I can tell your IQ is extremely low. Understandable for foreign/european people. Have a good day.
To all the new people. Welcome!
Plenty more of these awesome clips on my channel if you're interested. I've had 2 amazing AOE guests!
This is a variety podcast btw. I love talking to people from all walks of life. You'll learn something new every episode. If i could pick another guest from the aoe community, it would be lord daut. I don't have that kind of pull tho. So if someone knows him, put in a good word 😂
Man this is awesome where did you find this guy?
Realistically you could talk with T90Official (very very large AOE2 content creator) who can then get you into contact with basically anyone.
@@bukem01 yup on my channel! link at the start of the video
Thank you, I just subscribed today!
As a Korean I find this hilarious. Imagine being a nerd just trying to make a good game and then suddenly you are entangled by all these sins of the fathers of all these countries lmao
XD
But at the same time, I hope that as a result of this, the devs still include the Koreans in aoe4.
@@forgotmyusername2 Well, they never appeared in any game since AoE2, so your wish might have already been fullfilled.
@@Ratciclefan wait, I actually made an error on that comment so I redone it, and also they have been introduced in other games such as civilisation 4&5
@@forgotmyusername2 And I meant Age of Empires games specifically.
I FINALLY understand WAR WAGONS. Koreans never used War Wagons. But now, it totally makes sense, with the corporate interference. And the initially wrong Turtle Ship designs. It just makes sense!
Hussite war wagons would be cool tho.
@@kilercola at least we have them in Age of Empires 3!
I don't.
@@davidjiao2517 :(
@@Imperiused D:
Listened to the full podcast. I love the part when corporate came down and said "were going to fire you all but don't tell your employees this" and everyone of the higher ups at the studio quit on the spot in response. Just a straight up "we can get a job we have the skill we don't need you." then corporate immediately went "oh, shit they haven't finished our game!" Straight Up GOLD!
Which podcast is this one in?
@@ahmetturkmen0011 Whatever podcast this excerpt was taken from, likely.
The virgin moon landing conspiracist vs. The Chad Imjin war denier
If you read about the Imjin war, you begin to understand just how ridiculous politicians in Korea were. They were straight up denying the invasion while they were being conquered in order to save face. Then, they locked up their best Admiral - the only guy actually winning against the Japanese - because they didn't like how popular he was
that one baddass admiral who never had naval battle experiences and education but ended up as the only reason why Toyotomi Hideyoshi unable to invade Korea, what did they do? Accuse him for being traitor and arrest him. Then the navy he trained was led by an incompetent admiral which despite having superior number and equipments, managed to lose against Japanese navy and opened the route of invasion.
The funniest thing is probably the Korean royal court reinstate Admiral Yi to his position, which means THEY ARE FULLY AWARE THAT HE'S COMPETENT AND LOYAL ENOUGH TO LEAD THE REMAINING NAVY. The audacity of those nobles man.
@@CrnaStrela The Korean turtle ships were basically ironclad ships, which is a reason the Japanese were having trouble against them. How do ironclad ships lose versus Japanese wooden vessels? The incompetent admiral who replaced the great one found a way. If I recall correctly the Japanese captured the incompetent admiral and cut some body parts off.
Argument: "We need to add Korea because Koreans bought millions of copies of Starcraft"
Counterargument: "There are no Koreans in Starcraft"
Argument: "Too bad, we have to pander to Koreans like Starcraft did"
Counterargument: "THEY DIDN'T BUY STARCRAFT BECAUSE IT HAD KOREA IN IT, THEY BOUGHT IT FOR NON-KOREA-PANDERING REASONS!"
Today it is with China
To be fair to microsoft. I bought civ V because they had Brazil in it...
thanks for writing what he just said...
Argument: "And Starcraft was all the worse off for it! Imagine how many more copies would have been sold if Starcraft DID have Koreans!! That would have been an extra 33% more game!"
@@Snacman8 "Zerg rush kekekekekeke"
"Korean tower defense lololololol!"
super interesting to hear about the industry from a guy who isn't trying to sell anything and made some of my favorite games. thanks for many years of enjoyment.
He made three of my favorite games. The AoE series, Doom and Quake
@@Fusso video game makers used to be this weird mix of super smart scientists, super creative artists, and super adventurous entrepreneurs. Now the AAA guys are so segmented. I think part of the problem is the businessmen aren't artists, the artists aren't programmers and the programmers aren't businessmen. everybody has different goals and they are all working against each other. I hope in the future there are enough guys like him to put a team together big enough to make the games of the future. doom 2016 and eternal are two examples of games that were clearly made with passion vision and fun in mind.
@@Yourmomma568 oh yeah, creativity and innovation were the driving forces back in the day, everything was new so everything was possible, now games are designed by committee, there's less space for individuality, one creative individual could make a difference back then, now or doesn't matter.
Greece didn't ban videogames altogether but videogames in public spaces. Basically the problem was that it became illegal to play games in netcafes.
Ah Greece west but very east XD
I came in the comments for this info because as a German I would have heard of Greece banning all video games. This makes it sound like it wasn't even related to gambling but just teens spending their money playing possibly mature games outside their home / parents control. I don't agree with that but I think the same happened here after some time.
This surely had an influence on AoE's sales numbers judging by how many people I knew in the mid 90s that played just such titles in netcafes because they don't own a PC and / or wanted to have basically a local lan but it still makes me question the accuracy of some of his other stories.
Dumbest thing ever
@@raphiiii8418 Wikipedia article: Law 3037/2002. Age of Empires itself tho (and every video game) was never considered a banned product, as Sandy implies; video games selling stores' operation wasn't affected by that law. Not to mention that The Rise of Rome (1998) was launched years before that law.
As a Korean, This story is hillarious! Microsoft really surprised by Starcraft's massive hit!
Happy to know the behind story of my best childhood game!
It worked boys. A Korean person bought the game!!!
Keep these coming! This guy is a gold mine!
P.S. where did you get "the Kramer"? 11
It was a gift long time ago
Lol need more gold mine
This guy ain't no gold mine hes a relic. Keeps giving never runs out.
...and you have to send someone special to find him.
They added Sicilians to the game because the Cosa Nostra came to Microsoft and threatened the employees with no more buying of Rise of Nations copies
What ?
He is probably jokingly saying that the Mafia threatened the devs to add Sicilians
Rise of Nations borders: crayon marks with expiration dates about a minute long or less.
Age of Empires 2 borders: rows of houses or walls.
Admiral Yi Sunsin and one of his naval battles is referenced in "Parasite." I wonder how many Westerners only got that reference because of Age of Empires.
its sad tho, they kno Admiral Yi because of some spiky ships but the minority of them know him as the Chad Obliterator of the Shogunate Navy but got backstabbed by the Korean Politicians
I went to South Korea and took a ferry to an island where they were holding an Admiral Yi festival. It was awesome. My girlfriend and I were probably the only westerners on the whole island lol, but the director of the event was so friendly and nice to me. Admiral Yi was a true hero. They gave me a piece of traditionally written Korean poetry and took pictures with me too. It was particularly heartwarming to see how much respect they have for America/Americans because of the Korean War. They haven't forgotten how we fought and died together to protect their country, and I find that so admirable.
I watched that weird movie and I got the reference :) haha
I haven't played Age of Empires or seen Parasite. But I did watch The Admiral: Roaring Currents which is about Yi Sunsin lol
I never understood why AoE2 Koreans had a weak monastery... It's contrary to history AND AoE1. Korean evangelical missionaries even today are EVERYWHERE, and I really "appreciated" AoE1 Choson (ancient Korea) having cheap priests for that reason.
A lot of AoE2 bonuses and tech trees aren't particularly historically accurate, the decisions there are mostly done for gameplay reasons rather than historical ones. Other examples are Chinese having no gunpowder units and the Spanish having no crossbowmen.
@@greysquirrel404 or the African civs having 90% of the stuff they have
@@greysquirrel404 The chinese having no gunpowder units is not that wrong. Yes they inventet gunpowder and used it in warfare. however the two gunpowder units in the game handcanoner and bombardcanon representing musket like guns and cannons used i siege, was not inventet in China but Europa and the ottoman empire and got to Japan before China. The Chinese gunpowder is mostly representet by there uniq tech rocketry wich was what they primerly used it for. Sure they got the unites at some point. But then there are civs that got them sooner and don't have them eather.
@@greysquirrel404 Chinese not having block printing you mean, Chinese didn't really use gunpowder in the form of cannons despite pioneered their use in warfare. But the devs relented and gave Chinese Block Printing at the cost of redemption. I understand they cannot give both redemption and block printing to Chinese but why the hell they gave them redemption?
What? Ancient Koreans should have a strong monastery because they have evangelical missionaries in the 20th century? First, that has more to do with Christianity than Korea. Second, Christianity wasn't even *introduced* in Korea until the 18th century. There is no evidence that Koreans were atypical to any other country with regards to religion. They had their folk shamanism with Confucianism/Buddhism influences. Even after Christianity exploded in Korea after WW2, Koreans went from ~90% to ~55% no religious affiliation, STILL majority non-religious. So your argument just makes absolutely no sense, historically or otherwise. And if we're going to apply modern attributes to ancient peoples, what about atheistic North Korea?
Also, Choson wasn't "Ancient Korea."
Real Reason why Koreans are in AOE2: 3:42
Because AOE2 sell very well on Korea
Thanks
When I was a kid, I was really pleased to know that Koreans were added in AoE2(I'm Korean myself). I didn't know there was a backstory like this 😂. And retrospectively speaking, his counter argument was valid. Lots of Koreans still play SC1 but only few of them play AoE2.
But think about how many Koreans would play SC1 if there would have Koreans :o
@@Just_a-guy ah, yes, the zerg rush is easily countered by medieval Korea's classic tower rush
@@BunnyOnASnuman They could have just redone protoss as koreans. Imagine the carrier as a cyber space turtleship
Koreans are everywhere, but I believe Chinese players are easier to encounter than Korean ones when it comes to Ranked multiplayer games in AoE II.
These interviews are just insane thx !
The guest is entertaining, and it's best when the host is quiet, but at least for when he needs to talk, I feel like Nelly should prepare more
Randomly got suggested your video. Solid content. Needs more views
7:03 *Sandy said:* "At Alexander's time, the Greeks did not consider Macedonia part of Greece". Who *actually did not consider Macedonia part of Greece: Demosthenes,* because was politically hostile to them; *while Isocrates* who was politically in favor to them was saying the opposite. And Macedonians of course spoke the same language (not dialect, to the Atheneans), the Doric Greek, as everyone on this planet may know Sandy, and can actually see.
*Nevertheless, the Greek Historian Herodotus tells us* that Macedonians have been normally accepted to compete in the Olympic games, where at the time only Greeks were allowed to compete, 100 years before the time of Alexander, Demosthenes, and Isocrates. *And modern archeology has answered* all these questions already, Sandy.
Macedonians spoke the same language as the rest of the Hellenic city-states(there were minor differences depending on the area but same language), worshiped the same gods and took part in the Olympic games where only Hellenes (Greeks) were allowed to compete.They considered themselves Hellenes(Greeks).
The country north of Hellas(Greece), its people decend (mostly) from the Slavs who migrated in the region in the 8th - 9th century AD and have no relation to the ancient Macedonians or the rest of Greeks for that matter.The language of that nation has been proven by linguists to be a mix of the Bulgarian and Serbian language.The claim of them relating to the ancient kingdom of Macedonia was a propaganda which started in the 1940s in order for the soviets to have a way into the aegian sea.
@@ch.patenas9646 I agree with you because Modern Macedonians are Slavs and not related to ancient Macedonians. Greeks are closer, but ancient Greeks didn’t consider Macedonians to be Greek, only modern ones do. They did not allow Macedonians to participate in the Olympic Games unless they could prove they had Greek ancestors or until Macedon dominated them with military. Read the accounts of real ancient Greeks and they make it clear they didn’t consider Macedonians Greeks, but barbarians. Don’t get me wrong, Greeks are closest to Macedonians like Italians to romans, but not the same.
@@FlippableFlappy truth.
@@ch.patenas9646 The land has always been known as macedonia for a long time. People should just get over the name. Lots of places on earth have been resettled.
@@FlippableFlappy inaccuracies here and there. You can check the *Ancient Macedonians* article from Wikipedia, for further information.
I love the stories that Sandy has from his experiences.
"why would anyone buy an expansion?" That sentence cracked my chair.
Is that because your chair got an expansion?
@@RennieAsh no because my chair got korean and split in half.
So funny that Rise of Rome almost didn't get made because some moron business guy thought nobody buys expansions. I learned so much from Rise of Rome! And it was a great addition to the campaign. Many of the missions were highly memorable.
Anyways, I'll have to tell this story to my korean friend.
This guy is so enthusiastic, I love it.
Not just enthuastic, he's a good storyteller too and very articulate. I wish the interviewer wouldn't interrupt him so often with meaningless filler comments like "Oh wow so awesome", "NO WAY" etc. Just shut up and let him speak.
Came here for the Korean story,
Stayed for the Greeks banning video games.
That was an insane miscommunication between the lawmakers and law enfkrcement, where the ones passing the law were (as usual) behind their own time and did no effort to differentiate between money gambling games and common games, so they accidentally banned everything.
But actually video games stores' operation didn't get affected; only that of internet cafes did get affected. So Sandy's product wasn't ever banned.
Damn, every story about Aoe that I’ve heard involved Microsoft being absolute asses
Thats just big publishers in general
That's how I know they actually happened. If he said Micro$oft cared about players, I would be like... nah....
It's not really "microsoft", it's executive and marketing teams against developers, it's always been like that, and it still is.
No developer in the world will tell you they loved their HR / Marketing department, becausen they're the guy pushing them to meet goals set by contracts... They're the annoying people that push deadlines, deadlines you sadly need to have otherwise no contract would happen ... And without contract, it's hard to get money... Especially back then.
@@crysosisback7115 It's like my English-teaching job in Asia. I told my stupid manager who barely knows English, that the book is wrong because it prescribes a certain stroke order for children to learn how to write, but English isn't Chinese, so that's entirely ARBITRARY, and the boss takes the side of the book because he doesn't think for himself, being a typical Asian with the herd mentality and no creativity. So I'm bound to a very limited and boring selection of words to keep repeating to children... when if I had creativity, I could actually teach much better and they could learn much more, much faster and actually have fun doing it, but the people with the money tend to be idiots.
@@crysosisback7115 there are publishers that enforce deadlines, but have a brain and are reasonable, adn then there are publishers taht want koreans in aoe so they sell , because starcraft sold well there.
Amazing interview! There's actually a really rare Korean release of Age 2: TC. Back in the day, Microsoft had to change the original retail cover art of The Conquerors Expansion just to add a Korean warrior to it to sell in the Korean market! ;)
Great interview. He's got a ton of energy for a man his age! Huge fan of his work.
The only way i ever won was to absorb the AI attacks then build huge army when the AI just sends 1 trooper at a time
lol they send one scout/villager and it’s spinning around doing a dance in front of all your towers, walks into the fog, gets hit by stray arrow so you just see this dead body appear in the fog. Then they send another to the same spot.
Don’t get me started on the repairmen they’d waste every single one of their villagers to repair a dock or house in the middle of nowhere
As a Korean, I've always wondered what the war wagon's made after. I haven't seen any similar historical stuff so far.
The only medieval war wagons I know of are Hussite war wagons used as mobile fortifications on the battlefield during 5 crusades against Hussites. However nobody else was fully capable of using this strategy in that time or even later (The Hussite leader Zizka was extremely talented strategist and is to this day one of very few generals that were never defeated in battle. Perhaps it only worked because of his tactical thinking.).
I think they're meant to be hwacha, not convinced though
I have to say just the fact that they had the Turtle Ships made me want to get the expansion pack. One of the coolest warships of history.
Should've added Terrans, Zerg and Protoss. That would have attracted a Korean audience.
Eh, you can already zerg rush with Goths and Malay, and don't get me started on Ethiopian reaver drops
The people who call themselves Macedonians speak a language that's a mix of Bulgarian and Serbocroatian. Basically it was more of a Bulgarian dialect, but because they were in Yugoslavia under Tito, they got their language Serbified. If you ask a Bulgarian, they will tell you that the people of Northern Macedonia are basically Bulgarians. Either way, their language is Slavic and the people are of Slavic origin.
The thing is the Slavic migration to the Balcans happened IIRC in the 6th or 7th century; that's 700-800 years after Alexander the Great. I am pretty sure things got pretty heated when Macedonians started dominating Greece with some people being in their favor and some opposing them. But you have Alexander's father participating and winning in the Olympics. And then you have Alexander going to the Olympics to compete, having his Greek ethnicity contested and then him proving that he was Greek and being allowed to compete. And of course he was tutored by Aristotle.
Regardless. You can say whatever you want about Alexander the Great. Maybe he was Greek, maybe he was Greek-adjucent. A Slav he was not because it was physically impossible.
So, us Greeks tend to be understandably touch about this subject. FWIW, at the time that Age of Empires was released NBA legend Karim Abdul Jabar sued an NFL athlete Kareem Abdul Jabar for infringing on his commercial rights and he won. That was what Greece was essentially doing against Northern Macedonia. And yes we reach a settlement that allows them to be called Northern Macedonia as an indication of their geography.
From what I gather, Albania has to do with Epirus where Alexander's mother was from, so Alexander was half-barbarian and half-Greek which explains that claim about his hair being like an (Asiatic) lion's mane: black and blond together. My name is Alejandro. Check out my realistic map of the ancient world for the original Age of Empires. I love Greece, and I plan to learn classical and biblical Greek. ua-cam.com/video/aYy80ojsnj0/v-deo.html&ab_channel=SCINTILLAMDEI
@Tomáš Staněk The opposite is happening. People who are of slavic origin claim themselves to be Alexander's descendants.
@Tomáš Staněk Well, that's the Macedonian issue for you. And people get their veins popping up out of anger over this .
@@NC7491 What I hate seeing is northern European types like Germanics and Celts claiming that ancient Romans and Alexander looked exactly like them because the culture vultures covet southern European glory, when the ancients of southern Europe always said the northern savages look very different. In history channels on youtube like Kings & Generals, they often portray ancient Romans as brunette with blue eyes or other nonsense like that. It's propaganda.
@@NC7491 While it's a silly claim, there is some truth to it. Slavs didn't just massacre and replace the native population. They displaced the ruling class and the common people intermarried.
That's why there is no Korean Campaign in Conquerors...only one battle. I love to hear one of the fathers of the game that changed my life!
So this guy started all the paywall DLC shenanigans? No joking, love this guy.
I hadn't heard this story before, but I always suspected that's why the Koreans were added. It helps when your country loves rts's. The turtle ships are cool so it wouldn't feel the same if they were absent.
I love when devs from legendary games talk about these said games
Immensely interesting! Those are the kind of stories that usually never see the day of light.
These are fantastic! Thank you for doing these!!!
I loved the unofficial Age of Chivalry mod :D
4:08 That counter argument, hits it more then anything. What those Publishers need to understand, do not buy a game because they are represented. I would not ... not buy a game, because it doesn't represent my Country. I feel it is similar with allot other stuff.
4:03 I absolutely despise corporate reasoning. Typical microsoft and business management graduates.
Koreans never conquered anything!
Microsoft: Well... Koreans conquered Starcraft
"deny you ever stopped an invasion so the invaders can't claim they've ever been in your country and thus have the right to go back"
When they don't have that right anyway
Awesome. I hope he understands how much the game he worked on shaped thoes of us who played it as kids. I attribute a large amount of historical understanding to AoE making me more interested in thoes periods.
I discovered my Spanish identity thanks to the inspiration of this game as well as my beard beginning to grow in college years.
this is awesome! Sandy really should make an AoE podcast telling all the stories 11
100%
As a Korean, I figured as much. Not just StarCraft, but the deep gaming culture of Korea. All that said, Korea is such a fun civ, and I love using them. :)
This is a case study in why companies should not be politcal and only focus on good product at good price.
No, South Koreans don't call it "Sea of Korea", the North does. South Korea calls it the "East Sea", what I think is pretty fair.
And as a Macedonian myself I found his thoughts on the Greece/Macedonian "Issue" interesting.
안녕하십니까 (Annyeong Hasimnikka)
You're doing an amazing job! Keep them coming
That thing about the body of water East (hehe) of Korea and West of Japan is a huge political issue in the former. There is an islet in that water and it is the closed thing to sacred in Korea. When a politician wants a distraction, he uses the great power of the Liancourt Rocks.
The thing is such a big issue that if you take the train from Incheon into town, you'll always be greeted with a video of how it is Korean and not Japanese. It is impossible to overstate how important that water and those rocks are to Korean nationalism and national identity and political importance.
I played exclusively against the age 2 ai. The trick was to get the walls up before the enemy sent units and they would get stuck at the walls and you could just kill em over the wall with ranged units lol was pretty tough to get the walls up in time for the hardest computer though
5:30 "I googled it but idk, man"
I'll just preface this by saying I'm not Greek, I have no ties to Greece, and am merely someone who knows and cares about history.
He's wrong about the Macedonians, they absolutely did speak a Hellenic language, either Ancient Greek or a dialect of it, and were also absolutely a Hellenic people. There's no argument about that. The people in modern North Macedonia are a Slavic people completely unrelated to the (Greek) Macedonians, people who arrived in that region about a thousand years after the original Greek Macedonians were active in the area.
Finally someone that knows, thank you for clarifying :)
Man I came to the comment section to find this comment. I'm not Greek or Macedonian or anything ethier but I do like when people get the history straight lol.
It's more than that you're both wrong on some stuff.
weeeel, the greeks from back then didnt consider macedonians to be greek. for this very reason it was forbidden for macedonians to partake in the Olympic games. in fact, king of macedonia (not alexander, his great grandfather i think) had to petition to the council overseeing the games to allow him to participate since HIS ANCESTORS were greeks (and so had the right to participate), irrespective of the fact that he was ruling over a basically barbaric kingdom.
The ignorance and disconnect of gaming companies towards their audience existed this blatantly back then already?
Geezus
And it only went downhill from there...
It's entirely dumb, RTS REALLY were popular in Korea, and still are due to the pro scene
Culturally it's still strong, hence the attract young gamers have to many pro scenes !
So to be honest, even tho their point didn't stand back then, i'm pretty sure it was worth it tbh
And what players minds another civ in the game anyway ?
The stragey games are popular in korea due to their dna, culture and luck
Also exists in movies. Just see what happened with first version of justice league
i bet this is the reason the original was not on the steam store in the korean region looool
Ahh, the full stone walling AI that would cut all of its woodlines and not patch the gaps afterwards
AI is actually a misnomer since it is impossible for anything physical to think because thinking requires the FREEDOM to make decisions, but all "AI" is just puppets doing as their masters predetermined, with the only "freedom" being the "random" which-predetermined-instructions-shall-be-used-this-time? Since the mind is free to think, that proves the mind is spirit, not physical, and thereby that there is a God, for our spirts had to come from at least one Great Spirit. More in my series crushing atheist myths.
@@scintillam_dei Not at all. There is nothing to prove that the mind is unlike AI in that regard. Many argue it is merely an issue of complexity: if a person understood the human mind well-enough, they would be able to predict how that mind would react to every possible scenario just as a game developer could predict how a primitive AI would act
@@kingstarscream320 You are saying that something that is a slave to physics is actually free to think. That's a contradiction. Using "complexity" is a smokescreen for your wishful thinking that something physical and therefore a puppet of nature, is actually not a puppet.
@@kingstarscream320 Also, you're moving the goalpost from "free to think" to "predictable." Thinkers are always predictable if you know enough about them, and you don't even need omniscience to get predictions right most of the time.
@@scintillam_dei I am talking about predictions right all of the time. If something can be predicted with 100% accuracy on a consistent basis, it indicates that the person predicted couldn’t have acted any differently than he did, which implies a lack of free will.
thats why there was a panda expansion in WOW, to cater to the chinese.
You mean to pander to the Chinese
@@RatelHBadger Nice
Pandaren were in Warcraft 3 but they decided to go all out and do an expansion about them because of China. Honestly it was a cool theme, a nice break from the usual demons, orcs and undead.
@@RatelHBadger nice one.
Pandaren were in the game since wc3 and they were first planned to come out as a playable race n tbc
I’m glad they added Koreans-fascinating medieval history, and they interacted with all the major East Asian powers (Mongols, China, Japan).
I've played this game since the 90's, this story is absolutely amazing
IIRC, Korea was a target of quite a few conquests so it's only fair they were represented
it's still a very weird faction to add, it would have made far more sense to make the japanese the conquerors themselves lmao.
Why corporate goons should never have any say on game development
Now Koreans are only used for Tower rushes.
Koreans are more well rounded now with archer line bonuses and war wagons, the Tower rush strat now belongs to Incas 😂😂
@@OgedeiKhanOKOK Yeah Koreans are better for Archers into castle drop or Wagons
They're more rounded with added stuff but their tower bonuses have also shifted later into the game. Only feudal bonus now is stone mining. And in addition the base tower before guard tower is much weaker in DE (hitpoints). So yes they still have great towers but tower RUSHING, specifically, is a lot weaker now.
(full disclosure, notwithstanding the above, did get my ass handed to me last night by a Korean tower rusher)
@@neildutoit5177 well to be fair to u, the ass handing potential is there with any civ tower rush 😂
People who play the game for fun as opposed to merely having a high ELO, play any civilization no matter how low-tier. In Super Smash Bros. Melee, I would use Roy, but I would eventually find his face to be far too childish to represent me since I prefer bearded protagonists 'cause they're cooler.
Fun fact: the Koreans unique unit "war wagon" is totally made up, never existed.
At least that's what I've heard in some video
War wagons existed in the late medieval/ early renaissance in Bohemia, Poland, Russia and such where people will use wagons as either cover or would load themselves up in wagon and shoot from inside it under cover against opponents. Bohemia invented it but Poland and Russia followed suit. A weapon like Singijeon would have been more appropriate for Koreans
@@akapbhan well yes, but technically no..not in form of ballista cabin charriot; is positional tool, not assault weapon. Imagine mobile palisades, that eliminated shock advantage of enemy on horse, also prevented flanking and formation breaking, while providing bit of cover for "hand canonneers" and "halberds", even cannons. Not a gamechanger tho, just odd fixer against bigger numbers or against undisciplined mounted army
@@akapbhan hate to be that guy with "well actually.." but the Singijeon weapon you are speaking of also origins from China ("神机箭" in Ming dynasty). It doesn't really matter as they are not going to add another weapon for either civ in the game.
True, Korean basis for War Wagon was partly based on the Hwach, and partly to fit with their theme of pop-efficient 'mech' units like the Turtle ship. No unique siege existed in the game at that point.
@@dcurareru it doesn´t matter who invented it, as long as it was used by that nation. the spanish have not invented horseriding or guns either.
Wow these stories are amazing.
And hilarious at the same time.
I love everything about this video, the tales, the koreans, aoe and cosmo kramer
I remember installing age of empires demo just so i could run the age of empires rise of rome expantion. And it worked!
I was literally thinking in the back of my head "Was it because starcraft was big and they were hoping that including Koreans would....somehow give it appeal there" and I cant believe that was right, thats such a 2iq marketing department decision lmao. The Sea of Korea/Japan thing though....thats definitely a localization thing, it makes sense why that would be a big issue re: colonization.
the macedonians spoke greek and took part in the olympic games (strictly for greeks)
they considered themselves very much greeks
alot of the rest of the greeks hated them but i mean greeks hating and fighting each other is nothing new... the reason macedonia took over so easily is in large part due to central and southern greece being engulfed in continuous war for years on end
macedonia managed to get out of the persian wars relatively unharmed and remained neutral and out of trouble during the peloponnesian wars
anyway, the issue with north macedonia has been resolved, its been renamed "North Macedonia" and renounced any claims of being related to ancient macedonia
In the dictionary under nerd it doesn't have a description just a picture of this guys face
The greats first players are Koreans.
This is dope! AOE 2 is a masterpiece!
Leave it to corporate to not understand what will sell lol
Its kind of strange that this guy is like the Usain Bolt of game development. I don't think it really registers with everyone that this guy is a world leader at something really big, and maybe even more important.
The shock that hit his face when it dawned on him things aren’t publicized haha.
Good video tho I always wondered why Koreans were in conqs.
So how many Starcraft Korean players actually took the bait?
@@scintillam_dei not much
@@scintillam_dei We were too busy playing Starcraft, obviously
Now I understand why AOE 4 is taking so long.
They need to figure out how to fit black people and woman in Fredrick the great's army.
@@GingerSpy2 lmao I can't wait
I don't think adding Koreans to AIEII because Starcraft was popular over there is bad logic per se. They simply realized that Korea was a market worth going for and thought that pandering to them could've made the game even more popular. The fact that Starcraft didn't have Koreans yet still got popular over there only means that having Koreans in your game isn't a prerequisite to popularity in Korea, not that pandering doesn't help.
Slight correct for history. Korea did kick Japan out in there invasion but thats becasue of an absolute chad at sea. Korean and China lost almost every single land battle however.
They don't call it sea of Korea. They call it East Sea. Super interesting story though.
Its the Sea of Japan on almost every english speaking chart.
@@NoxLegend1 so? Did I say otherwise? Does that mean it is correct?
Because it's East of Korea. Same as Baltic in German
@@NoxLegend1 East Sea
I would have wanted Sorceress.
As for the Macedonia thing. I think the issue is that ancient Macedonians were a Hellenic culture while modern Macedonians are a Slavic culture. So the Greeks are at least somewhat correct to claim Alexander and ancient Macedonia as their own.
Weren't the Koreans in the first Age of Empires? Why were they left out in the second one till the expansion?
too repetitve I guess?
This is why Msft went backwards to Age of Mythology after this because they weren't prepared to deal with this type of debacle again
Can't just make a game without some sensitives imbeciles arguing over shit.
Love AoE2 and love stories about it's development.
Game designers and programmers always have some interesting "war stories" so to speak.
I INSTANTLY knew this would be the answer.
Corporate heads are so predictable sometimes.
Please ask him next time if the lack of different civilization skins for units (architectures have different skins) is because they didnt have the time to add them.
From a gameplay perspective I find it better to have the same skin for the same unit, even accross different civilizations. Age of Empires 3 did it, it looked awesome, and you never knew which unit countered what because you had no idea what categories did the units belong to. It just eases the learning curve a bit, which in RTS is usually quite steep already.
@@Tergaim its not that hard, just by looking at what weapon they're carrying then you know if its an archer, pikeman etc.
@@karlhans6678 yes it is. Condotierri, Huskarls, berserks and longswords have the same weapons (well, berserks have axes) but not really the same counters. Same with pikes/eagles, light cav/paladin, mamelouk/camel or even cannon galleon/turtle ship
@@Tergaim lol mostg of those are easy to distinguish, eagles carry their spears forward, light cav arnt armored, turtle ships are fat, berserks carry an axe. You might need to memorize the few that are very similar. Starcraft 2 is an RTS and it has skins, it doesnt create a problem.
@@karlhans6678 Starcraft doesn't have skins. Starcraft has completely different units with different abilities.
So yes, when playing AoE you need to memorize that a longbow, a plume, a chukonu, a rattan, a genoise crossbow and an arbalest all have different use cases, counters, etc. That's not that hard because they all have a different skins. But you propose to have 11 arbalests (assuming one per achitecture style) that all have a different skin but this time, they all behave and are countered the same.
Leaving out unique units, a full tech tree has 61 units (villagers count double). Time that by 11 - even if all civs don't have access to all units, I can't see why it would be interesting nor fun.
I feel like Sandy is a lot more sensible of a guy & a more honest designer, but him & Peter Molyneux both got put through the Microsoft sub-studio destruction zone.
This is probably an obvious question after watching this interview, but is this the reason Koreans speak modern Korean in-game and not an ancient or colonial version? given how they were introduced 6 weeks before release
Possibly, but the AOE2 Koreans aren't the only ones who speak a modern language. The AOE2 Chinese speak Mandarin, which didn't exist until the Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911), which would be late in the AOE3 timeframe. In fact, the AOE2 Chinese should have spoken something much closer to Cantonese (Tang: 618 - 907) or Hakka (Song: 960 - 1279) if we're going for historical accuracy.
Also, what do you mean by colonial? Korea was colonized by Japan in 1905 - 1945, which is close enough to being modern.
@@ScottyShaw fair point; and shouldnt have said colonial as every civilization have their own periods; I meant like early 1500s which is when the Aztecs were colonized by the Spanish.
@@yutuvefan4ever Yeah, it would be pretty cool to hear languages from that time period. It would really increase the historical experience. Maybe they'll be able to do this in AOE4 :D
Corporate interface ruin everything, would explain why a lot of modern games aren't creative or original. Even the definitive edition of AOE2 has been dumbed down; cartoon like graphics, no blood, no skeletons, monotone voice actors 🙄and being on steam they can change the content any time they like.
So basically nobody can be happy with whatever decision was made lol
The best part of this is that Koreans are the ONLY ancient civilization that still exists today that never properly conquered anyone in its history. It is commonly thought by Koreans that they have a sadness embedded in their genes which in turn creates the most sad and tragic tales to be told in all their entertainment mediums, which was caused by the never ending invasions they endured for thousands of years. Sure Gogureyo conquered the Manchu territories for a period of time, but Shilla gave that to the Tang in exchange for support in their unification war. This backstory to why they were in the game is hilarious. I myself was like Chosun? There's no way this is Kor.... OHMYGODWTFITIS.
6:10 Did you just both sides world war 2?
I'm still here waiting for the Poles. We have literally everyone else around them, but Poland has to share with all the other slavic tribes throughout kieven russia, ukraine, etc.
Lords of the East:
Bohemians: Wagon forts and Hussite gunners
Poles: Winged Hussars, duh
Ruthenians: Cossacks and raiding bonuses
Maybe Swedes to fight the Poles and Lithuanians (like how Sandy said Aztecs were added to fight the Spaniards) but that starts to tread pretty far into Age 3 territory. If they made it into the game I bet they'd have Hakkapells or Leather Cannons
Tibetans are also sorely missing. They were no joke in the Middle Ages.
@Tomáš Staněk I'm just brainstorming some ideas based on surface-level research I've done. I just thought it would be a novel idea to have a knight-like UU that would be resistant to conversion unlike a knight. Age 2 already doesn't have the best historical accuracy, but since I assume you're an actual Czech, I bet you'd appreciate good representation of your history :) so we shall see how Forgotten Empires handles it.
A Bohemian civ should have good gunpowder techs too, since the Hussites were among the first in central Europe to make use of early firearms.
I wholeheartedly agree Slavs are not enough to represent all of the Rus, Poles, Ruthenians, Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, &c.
Poland so-so-def deserves a special mention cos of Casimir and Jadwiga and the Commonwealth.
@@Leitis_Fella Winged Hussaes was after the AOE2 time frame
where is the full video?
On the channel
Really interesting!
Hooolymoly, all that drama for nothing :D
Sandy Petersen is a cool guy for sure!
This guy is really good!
well, at least we got Koreans as civs thanks to the ignorant corpos and most importantly the hardworking programmers of the game. thx
Videogames where never banned in Greece. Arcades where banned because of illegal gambling. We still have Videogames like the rest of the world.
I know in his mind that was a good rebuttal that Starcraft didn't have Koreans in it but it kinda logically makes no sense because Starcraft also didn't have nations from upon the earth lol. So if theres people of many nations, it would make sense to have Koreans which would made them feel included amongst the other nations. I know I would want to see my own people in there it would be neat. So yeah, that didn't make sense as a counter argument to wanting to entice Koreans to play and be able to play as their people which would be a decently sound selling point. It was rather he who didn't "understand" lol.
But Koreans are not known for conquering other nations which is the theme for the expansion. It is businessmen messing with the art. Luckily, they managed to be put in as defearing the conquerors and that fitted in.
@@Account.for.Comment well I was more talking about his rudimentary logical fallacy that "Starcraft didn't have Koreans in it" since Starcraft had no nations at all in it, and that if you start including nations of people, Koreans would thus enjoy seeing themselves be included amongst the quite numerous nations. As for being known for conquering, thats also a bit of a logical fallacy because in fact the "theme" is technically still age of empires and within that realm there are many nations including those who conquer but you also need to code the people who are getting conquered by nature of war having both sides of the battle so the idea that you don't want a nation coded in the game because they didn't conquer enough is a weird take and taking the title of the expansion wayy too literally. Like we got the expansion because it was more AOE2 not because it only features conquering nations. Thats just a title dude. Of course thats why programers like this have leaders to help them with the big picture because they get caught up in logic circles that don't make sense. That same neurotic logic also makes them good at coding I guess so thats why different people have different roles in the team.
@@nutellabrah6718 Here what you don' t understand. The programmers got told that they need to make an expansion. They decided on what it would be, then the ones upstair suddenly told them that they need to put another civ in that is not involved in their previous thought process. Their reasonings with is Starcraft had been sold highly in that country. Except Starcraft did not have that country in it and so the inclusion the of country are not yet a good, proven reason for the design decision. This showcased more on the business people cluelessness on the market they are in rather than the need for them. Had they said their analytics showed that an inclusion of that civ would greatly boost advertisement in a market less prone to pirate it. It would have shown that they did their research instead of bringing a halfbaked decision to the programmers and made everyone worked more.
Without Korea, there could have been Khmer or Incans. I doubt the people would bought the products as much as Korea does but the gameplay would have fit the Conquerers as the theme would suggest.
@@nutellabrah6718 Also you do not understand the design process. The theme or motto or pillar is not just a title. It is a unifying process. Everyone want to put different things in a product. The design theme saved them time, arguments, etc by giving them all an objective. So the frustration is that after it had been decided and work toward, you got a lazy dumbass who arrived and told you change the roads to the product instead of telling you first hand what he want.
I.e. In Rise of the Rajas, the new civs are all Southeast Asian. The designers design for those theme. If suddenly they were told midway that they need to include the Cumans because of Egyptian market, who would not be frustrated?
@@Account.for.Comment Im not sure you realize this but you just literally repeated the same thing from the first paragraph that I already responded to. You added no response to what I said or added any logic to the conversation. I can tell your IQ is extremely low. Understandable for foreign/european people. Have a good day.