Talk:Italians/@comment-106.105.136.18-20160702133451/@comment-24444169-20161123105224

I can confirm on what most of the user above said. Italy and the Roman Empire are two very different things. As you would expect with any other country, 1500 years of history do change people and regions quite a bit. (we would have to add at least another century if we were to include the time the empire was divided and thus weakened). Modern italians, as things stand, have nothing to do with ancient rome. The civilisation in-game, as the developers state in the historical section in the aoe Menu, is a make up of germanic and italic peoples, inhabiting the medieval Comunis of Northern Italy for the most part.

I can tell you because I have visited many towns of the area, and have studied well the period, that what is involved here is the macro-region of present-day Northern Italy plus Tuscany and Marche. Basically, whenever the Lombard League and the Comuni spread, or wherever the Ghibelline and Guelph conflict was fought.

Though I do not understand the Roman thing, they are not present as a civilisation in AOE2, how could they be using unints inspired after armies of the high and late medieval period (1250-1350 circa) when the Empire fell around 470 AD. That's 9 centuries after the fall of the WRE...