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kchasm · 1 year

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Ryu Number Chart Update: Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition

Age of Empires II is the second installment in the Age of Empires series, a line of real-time-strategy games putting the player in control of various historical civilizations during various historical scenarios that play out portraying various historical events that occurred historically. Almost historically, anyway—real life doesn't care much for narrative arcs, so there's some conflation and approximation and whatnot for ludicity's sake. Imagine a movie adaption of some famous historical event—Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition is usually at least that historically accurate.

The game abounds with a historical figures you can command around a map, but that's really just the tip of the enchilada. Occasionally, other historical figures who don't actually have a presence on a given historical map poke their heads out to toss dialogue your way—which also counts as appearances. Then there are the interstitial bits that provide context for the playable scenarios, and include illustrations of even more historical characters that don't otherwise appear in levels at all. That counts, too.

Admittedly, the appearances aren't always so straightforward. Take the following screenshot, for example. (You might have to click to zoom in on it. Sorry.)

(Credit: blasteg)

At first glance, it's some questionable meat—sure, it says "Byzantine Emperor," but which Byzantine Emperor? There were a lot of them!

Do a little look-into-ing, though, and it turns out there weren't that many Byzantine Emperors who were personally irked by Freddie "Barrel Boy" Barbarossa's local stopover—just the one, mostly. That almost definitely counts! Though, if you disagree...

Well, actually, it's totally fair if you disagree. Ryu Numbers can get a lot more arbitrary than you'd expect. I'm not changing my chart, though.

I'll be real: I went through approximately two hundred playthrough videos, so it really wouldn't surprise me to hear I've missed a uniquely-named unit or two (or three, or a handful, or a league). If you see anything I'm missing, please hoot and also holler.

(It doesn't help that various updates of the game have mixed things up—for example, a Soomra unit you had to kill in Prithviraj's campaign was at one point named "Dodo Soomro"—a real dude who ruled from about 1181 to 1195—but has since been retconned in subsequent updates to the generic "Raja." Do I count him? I guess not.)

(And of course there's the regular complications, like the research I have to do whenever a name appears to make sure they're a historical figure and not not a historical figure. An example of the latter is Togortac, who appears a few times in Kotyan Khan's campaign. There was a real Cuman figure of historical note named Togortac...)

(Komnene, A. (2009). The Alexiad (E. R. A. Sewter & P. Frankopan, Trans.). Penguin Group. (Original work published ca. 1143-1153 CE))

(... but he was active around a hundred years before when the setting of this campaign takes place, which suggests to me that the game character isn't supposed to be the Togortac and is more likely an original character created for the game that the writers named after the historical Togortac because coming up with non-anachronistic names for historical figures is really friggin' hard.)

As for Ryu Numbering yourself through that topologist's nightmare, though, it's not nearly as complicated:

What's a Teppen? Teppen (stylized "TEPPƎN" because somebody in Nigeria is shouting at you I guess*), is a mobile card game, except instead of numbers, the cards have Capcom characters. And also numbers.

This creates something of a quandary. Do you count (and I'm pickin' a random character here; don't at me) Zangief as appearing in Teppen if it's allowable (even strategically advantageous even) to have a hand stuffed with hella Zangiefy (He's Russian, so I think that's the pluralization)? Sure, he's in the game, moving about within the borders for his card, even... but he's no longer unique. In fact, you could argue that he's on the same level as a generic recurring video game enemy.

Teppen clarifies and complicates the issue by classifying certain cards as "Heroes," which means that you're only allowed one in your deck. These are easier to swallow as unique, Ryu-Numberable characters. Ryu is one Hero (natch), but Oda Nobunaga... isn't.

(Side note: Yeah, Oda Nobunaga—the Japanese dude frequently credited with revving up the unification of Japan after its collapse into a bunch of warring clans—counts as a Capcom character, owing to Capcom's Sengoku Basara video game series. If you've never heard of Sengoku Basara before... well, I can't help you, actually, because neither had I. Judging from a random minute of game footage I hauled up from YouTube, though, it looks a lot like something in the same ilk as Samurai Warriors.)

(... And suddenly, I strongly suspect I've pissed someone off.)

Anyway, the whole point is moot, actually (American definition), because for most of the Heroes, Teppen also has "Hero Stories," wherein the characters are characters, and not cards at all, and Oda makes a cameo in Amaterasu's story leading a demon army alongside Nōhime and Mori Ranmaru.

I have wasted your time.

*The Venn diagram of "People Reading This Post" and "People Who Understand This Joke" has an intersection that is at most the size of an atom, within which is fully contained a third circle titled "People Reading This Post Who Understand This Joke and Additionally Find This Joke Humorous." The population of this third circle is 1.

The Genpei War* was a late 12th-century civil war between the Taira and Minamoto clans over which one of them would be the power behind the Emperor of Japan. There was a lot of drama involved, but the end result was that the Taira lost, the Minamoto won, and the Japanese Emperor effectively became a figurehead with the shogun—Minamoto no Yoritomo, at this point—being the actual dude wearing the boss shoes (which is what you call a "shogunate").

Unfortunately, according to the Namco game Genpei Tōma Den, Yoritomo's tyrannical rule resulted in Japan becoming overridden with demons, and ultimately required the resurrection of previously deceased Taira samurai Taira no Kagekiyo in order to put the land (violently) to rights.

... Maybe forget that last paragraph before you take your history quiz or your teacher will be very annoyed at you.

But anyway that's why Minamoto no Yoshinaka/Kiso Yoshinaka appears in Namco × Capcom.

*Who was Genpei? Nobody was Genpei. If you take "Minamoto," i.e. "源," and "Taira," i.e. "平," and mash 'em together, you get "源平," which is pronounced... "Genpei." This is because kanji often have multiple pronunciations, including what's descended from the native Japanese pronunciation(s) they used and assigned that character to, and what's descended from the Chinese pronunciation(s) of that character.

Oh and Rollo was a Viking who did attacks on France. Then Charles the Simple (i.e. Charles the Straightforward, from the misleading Latin "simplex") of West Francia (sort of the precursor to France) was all, "Look, if I let you have Rouen (and you swear allegiance to me) will you quit it with the ruckus?" and Rollo was all, "'Kay," and that's how the Duchy of Normandy became a thing. He's also known as "Hrólf the Walker" (or "Hrólf the Ganger," which means "Hrólf the Walker"), and he's a skin in the Norse Mythology Mash-Up Minecraft DLC.

Look, sometimes it's not complicated.

There are a few points of curiosity attached to this game and the historical population within, that deserve attention, though. For example, there's the oddly overachieving Mr. Motamid of the Moors.

If you play through the El Cid campaign, the relevant bits go something like this:

King Alfonso takes advantage of the instability caused by a political assassination in Toledo, sending in his army—headed by El Cid—to fold the locale into his empire. While on the scene, El Cid meets Motamid of the Moors, who can only react with gratitude when he hears that the Emperor of Spain has come to restore order to the land.

On a side note, the primary function of the superior rectus muscles is to effect elevation of the eyeballs.

It turns out that Motamid is actually the lord of Zaragoza, which means that El Cid has somewhere to serve when he's exiled by King Alfonso. El Cid, ever-loyal to King Alfonso, eventually convinces Motamid to ratify a treaty that makes Zaragoza part of King Alfonso's empire as well, since, uh… well, the story doesn't actually give a reason for Motamid to have done that, but rest assured that it was a Good Thing That Happened!

Keep working those superior rectus muscles!

King Alfonso is still pretty leery about Motamid and El Cid being the cool kids in Spain, though, so he ends up sending an army down to Zarazoga anyway. El Cid, still loyal to King Alfonso for some reason, cannot fight against his lord/former lord/it's complicated, and so avaunts, forcing Motamid to seek help from the Almoravid Dynasty just past Gibraltar instead.

El Cid comes to King Alfonso's aid, driving back the Almoravid forces, and Alfonso recognizes El Cid's loyalty by, uh, exiling him again. El Cid, once more needing somewhere to hang out, ends up conquering Valencia for himself—Motamid's no longer in the picture, unfortunately, as when the Almoravid folks moved in, they sent Motamid on his own bout of exile into the desert.

When a piece of media gets adapted, it's not uncommon for characters to be simplified for the sake of narrative ease, but it feels a little hinkier when it's real history it's happening to. In this case, Motamid is an amalgamation of at least a coupla different folks:

Yusuf al-Mu'taman ibn Hud, the actual ruler of Zaragoza who was served by the mercenary troops of El Cid, and

Al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad (note the name), the ruler of Seville and vassal to King Alfonso until the taxation got onerous, at which point he stopped paying and also asked the Almoravid folks for help to keep not paying. This ended up being a Very Bad Decision, as the Almoravid folks decided that the best way to help was by making Al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad not the ruler of Seville anymore and exiling him to Morocco.

That said, the in-game character is at least named "Motamid," which I've ultimately arbitrarily decided means he's a vagarious portrayal of Al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad rather than being a fictional character created by the writers to serve the function of multiple non-fictional characters. Don't at me.

Ludovico Trevisan and Pietro Giampaolo Orsini appear in Francesco Sforza's campaign, except for the fact that they don't appear in Sforza's campaign at all. What an apparently self-contradictory statement! Don't you feel the piquing of your interest?

If you've never heard either of these names before—which, fair—suffice to say they were a coupla folks around during the time when the Italian Peninsula was a buncha states jockeying amongst each other for power. Trevisan was a Catholic bishop, serving the Papal States—the Pope was basically another king, back then, with his own kingdom and whatnot—while Orsini was a condottiero, which is Italian for "worked for whoever paid him." Both men participated in the Battle of Anghiari in 1440, a battle immortalized by Leonardo da Vinci...

Or at least it woulda been. Unfortunately, da Vinci's The Battle of Anghiari was infamously unfinished and also infamously lost. The most notable remainder we have of the work is actually a drawing by Peter Paul Rubens (who, you might have noticed, is a totally different person)—a copy of a copy of the central portion, which would have featured, among other elements, a bunch of horses having a very bad time.

Now, I'm really not that learned in Italian history, or Italian art (or non-Italian of either of those, for that matter), but I've been informed by The Art Books that those two folks in the upper right hand portion of the sketch are, in fact, Trevisan and Orsini.

(Metropolitan Museum of Art. (2003). Leonardo da Vinci: Master draftsman (C. C. Bambach, editor). Metropolitan Museum of Art. Zöllner, F. (2000). Leonardo da Vinci: 1452–1519 (F. Elliott, trans.). Benedikt Taschen.)

Names are different, but those are the same guys. I'm pretty sure.

(Also, before anyone chimes in, I'm aware Wikipedia says the rightmost guy is Giovanni Antonio Orsini del Balzo instead, but the Wikipedia pages have no sources for that. If I'm gonna be wrong, I'm gonna be wrong post-doing-the-research, dammit.)

So why is this relevant at all to Ryu Numbers, considering that neither of these folks appear in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition at all, even plotwise? It's relevant because of the dude just to the left of those two, who, if you've read those little snippets rather than just taking my word for it, you already know is Niccolò Piccinino, who does appear in the campaign and the plot of the campaign. And when it came time to illustrate Piccinino...

(Credit: ClearSights)

(You could argue the faces look different enough to throw identification into doubt past the margin of error, and you know what? That's fair. I wanna give you the option, at least.)

Yes, Joan of Arc is in Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate.

(Credit: Xaldin)

That might seem weird, but it's already a game about significant historical and pseudohistorical figures from Japan's Sengoku period and China's Three Kingdoms Period getting isekaied into a temporary crossover thanks to the shenanigans of Greek deities et al., so sure, why not? She's actually in from a previous Koei game, Bladestorm: The Hundred Years' War, which I'm given to understand is a Hundred Years' War musou and which I really have to watch at some point. It's on my List. I'll get to it. Eventually. Probably.

Point is:

Something something but it's weird that it happened thrice, right?

Wait, isn't Robin Hood in Fate/Grand Order?

No, he's not.

Yes, I know it says his name is—

Okay, listen. I know what it looks like, but this isn't Robin Hood. This is a totally unrelated guy who lived in a forest, dressed in green, used a yew bow, and fought against the local feudal lord.

If you're thinking that that sounds pretty Robin-Hood-like, you're not the only one who noticed. He ended up being another guy to bear that name, and was eventually betrayed (Robin-Hood-like) and shot one final arrow to mark his burial preferences (Robin-Hood-like!) before dying. All this Robin-Hoodedness was apparently enough such that when the Character Gacha Device went rummaging for any Robin Hoods it had in stock this guy met all the qualifications and got the moniker all slapped up on into him once more.

Look, I don't make this stuff up.

Speaking of Fate/Grand Order lore, Attila the Hun is—okay, actually, this is gonna need another tangent. Like, more than that Robin Hood stuff did. You know that part in Captain Underpants where the narrator's all, "But before I can tell you that story, I have to tell you this story"? Steel yourself.

In Fate/Grand Order lore, the "Velber" is an observational device created by an ancient alien race. It works on a set orbit, passing through the Milky War Galaxy once every fourteen thousand years, selectively targeting and destroying all intelligent life in its path. Why? lol aunno.

Inside the Velber are "Anti-Cells," organic life forms developed from the data of destroyed civilizations, which are specifically designed to be deployed and actually do the intelligent-life-destroying until there isn't any intelligent life left to destroy, at which point the Anti-Cell effectively starves to death.

One such Anti-Cell was deployed to Earth in 12,000 BC, where it proceeded to destroy much of Earth's earlier civilizations, including Atlantis. Fortunately for us (but unfortunately for you, since you have to read this explanation), the Anti-Cell was killed by a human wielding of Excalibur—yes, that Excalibur, the one King Arthur would end up lugging about later. It was made by fairies, but that's not important right now. Don't worry about it.

Bits and bobs of the Anti-Cell remained on Earth, giving rise to a number of mythological characters and mechanisms. One particular piece of the Anti-Cell was discovered by the descendants of the Xiongnu people, woken, and—yeah, you see where this is going by now—dubbed "Attila." Attila, acting on instinct beyond understanding, went on to destroy civilizations until expiration.

Also she was a girl, because Type-Moon keeps doing that. We probably can't stop them anymore.

Oda Nobunaga was a girl, too. That's right, scroll up. Bet you thought that was just a bishounen aesthetic, right?

Anyway, the only problem with counting Fate/Grand Order's Attila as Attila—okay, the only relevant problem—is: Does this count as "Attila," or does this count as "the Anti-Cell that already had a distinct identity, but was referred to as 'Attila' by the Huns"? (That is a difference, as far as The Chart is concerned.) Is this still the Anti-Cell? Would this be more like a piece of the Anti-Cell given its own ego? Does that make her a different character than the original Anti-Cell?

lol aunno.

But of course, you can neatly sidestep that entire issue by just going through Age of Empires instead.

I have wasted your time again!

Here's a question: Can we use Tamerlane to get to Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem?

Context: Roberto Bianchi's level in Eternal Darkness starts off with him captured by a warlord and to ordered to apply his architectural knowledge to a monument the guy is having constructed. Spoilers: Things get worse for Bob.

The armor the warlord and his folks are sporting have a real Timurid inspiration about them, but the most Tamerlaney resemblance comes at the scenario's ending cutscene:

(Credit: NineWheels)

This admittedly awesome quote didn't come from anyone at Silicon Knights—it's a thing the real-life Tamerlane/Timur/whatever he wants to be called said himself, according to Bertrando de Mignanelli (and the guy who translated him in 1956):

(Fischel, W. J. (1956). A New Latin Source on Tamerlane's conquest of Damascus (1400/1401): (B. de Mignanelli's "Vita Tamerlani" 1416). Oriens, 9(2), 201-232. https://doi.org/10.2307/1579274)

Also an issue of Nintendo Power straight up says he's Tamerlane, so.

(Nintendo of America Inc. (2003, January). Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. Nintendo Power (164), 134-137)

There's kind of a serious issue here, though, which is that Timur died in 1405 (at nearly 70 years old), and Bianchi's level takes place in 1460. A couple of years off is one thing to overlook, but fifty plus is more than a little difficult.

"But you know, K.C.," I hear the version of you I made up entirely within my own imagination say and also it is past midnight so I am not feeling very gracious toward the construction of imaginary-you right now, "Eternal Darkness is a game where reality Gets A Little Wonky, including potentially time. Is there a possibility you can count this as Tamerlane nevertheless?"

And the answer remains a definite no for the most important reason of all: Whether this warlord is supposed to be Timur or not, it doesn't change the fact that—and spoilers, here—he doesn't exist. The dramatic irony, unbeknownst to Bobby (but beknownst to us), is that this warlord is just another identity taken up by Pious Augustus, who technically isn't the Big Bad of the game but is the closest thing the player has considering that his direct boss is one of three of four (of five?) eldritch Lovecraftian ancients. So no, that's not Tamerlane, even if it is Tamerlane. At best, that's Pious Augustus Who Has Taken On The Name of Tamerlane, and as far as The Chart is concerned, that's Different.

... I mean, not that you can't still get to Eternal Darkness anyway. You just can't use Tamerlane. You can use Charlemagne instead, since there's a whole level about catching up to him before he can get hit with All The Curse.

(Credit: Super Best Friends Play)

Spoiler: You fail, and he gets hit with All The Curse. Route still works, though!

Also you don't need Age of Empires in the first place. Just use Civilization.

I continue to waste your time!

(A non-Ryu-Number-related tangent, for a sec: Maximillian Roivas was voiced by the great William Hootkins, who appeared in the flesh in a bevy of supporting movie roles, but who you might especially remember as one of the many doomed X-wing pilots going through the Death Star run at the end of the original Star Wars. Specifically, he plays Porkins, who actually gets identified by name shortly before becoming unidentifiable. If you still can't recall (or if you're stuck the sound off and no subtitles), he's the pilot who, if you already knew one of the pilots was named "Porkins," you'd expect to be the one named "Porkins." Someone in production was mean.)

Finally, at the bottom of this post, I want to talk about a particular connection through Minecraft and The Cursed Crusade that isn't on the chart, actually, because it is Very Iffy At Best and iffy on two fronts besides. Why bring it up, then? Because this is my post, and I'm allowed to ramble fuddy-duddily about the things that interest me if I want.

Anyway, this one depends on two particular appearances: the "Grim Reaper" skin from the Minecraft Halloween Mash-up DLC, and, uh... this other guy from Cursed Crusade.

(Credit: LoadingReadyRun)

Right, so, who exactly is this guy? Well, the game calls him "Death," and he calls himself "Death," subtitled with a capital D and everything, but can you really say an armor-clad depiction of the personification of Death and the Grim Reaper are the same character? Yeah, they're both incarnations of Death, but are they really the same?

(Credit: LoadingReadyRun)

It doesn't help that The Cursed Crusade is so irritatingly vague when it comes to its own lore. For those who have never had the misfortune of experiencing this game, The Cursed Crusade takes place during the Fourth Crusade to Jerusalem, i.e. the one where they ended up sieging Christian cities for money. The protagonist of the game, Denz de Bayle, is Cursed, which effectively means that every now and then someone sets the "Hell" layer to visible in Photoshop and the guy with the slightly techno armor in the screenshots there starts hunting Denz down.

Alright, so that's the big obvious symptom of Being Cursed. But what is the Curse actually doing?

Game doesn't say.

Why is Denz Cursed in the first place?

Game doesn't say.

What is the nature of the knight of Death that seeks to drag Denz to Hell (if he has any nature, beyond simply "Death"), and what tasks him to this duty?

lol aunno.

... Yeah, no, that really doesn't work (hence the asterisk, which usually marks ungrammaticality, but which has taken a part-time job here). If you want to Ryu Number your Cursed Crusade, you have to get in the other way around:

The Cursed Crusade ends in a very And-The-Adventure-Continues! fashion, with the protagonist on his way to Egypt to find his father and said father in Egypt being confronted cliffhangerily by the game's primary baddie. It's all very Hinting At A Sequel, but considering that the game came out in 2011 and, more importantly, Wasn't Very Good, I seriously doubt explanations are forthcoming anytime soon. Or just "anytime," really.

Still, speaking as the dude who made a monstrous Historical Figures Ryu Number Chart in the first place, it's kind of a loss. The Cursed Crusade had a bevy of historical figures, and I can only imagine that a sequel would have done similarly—

(Credit: LoadingReadyRun)

On second thought we are all worse off for this game's existence.

... Wait, am I done? Hey, I'm done! This post took a lot longer than I thought it would to put together, and I thought it was going to take a long time in the first place. Watching two-hundred-plus Age of Empires II videos will make anyone's brain melt, even with the Firefox extension that lets you play YouTube videos at quintuple speed.

But you know what this means, right? It means I never have to watch an Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition video again. Thank goodness.

... Sorry, what's a "turnarome"?

"Return of Rome"? What's "Return of Rome"—

Oh.

Oh huh.

Motherf—

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