This page explains how categories are used at the Age of Empires Series Wiki. It establishes our house style to help editors maintain a consistent category system which promotes clarity and structure. Users who are unfamiliar with the process of categorization should see Help:Categories for more information.
The policy for categorization works differently for articles (mainspace pages) and categories themselves.
Creating categories
- Categories must be useful. Only create categories that benefit the organization of the wiki.
- If you add a category to an article that does not already exist, do not forget to create the respective category page. That is best done by just clicking on the category (once the edit that added the category is saved). Categories without category pages can be found at Special:WantedCategories.
- The category page just briefly mentions the group of pages that belong there, e.g. All infantry units go here.
- Category pages must also be categorized. The only exception here is the root category, which has no category.
- Categories must have a group of pages. There is no point of creating a separate category for one page, and sometimes even for two to five pages.
Category names
- Categories are named in plural form.
- When naming categories of common names, avoid using capital letters, e.g. Naval technologies, not Naval Technologies. Proper names (like Ages or game names) are still written with capital letters, e.g. Delhi Sultanate and Commerce Age.
- In game-specific categories, the name of the game is not abbreviated, e.g. Civilizations (Age of Empires), not Civilizations (AoE).
- Disambiguation should be used if there is a possibility of a similar category in other games of the series. This is done to prevent people from confusing and adding content on one game in other games' categories. For example, disambiguation is used in Mongols (Age of Empires IV) to avoid the possibility of adding Mangudai (Age of Empires II), Drill, and Nomads in the category if it were named Mongols.
Renaming and changing categories
- Categories cannot be renamed. To change the name of a category, the old category must be deleted from every article, and the new one must be added to every article. Usually, this requires a lot of single edits, which is why these changes are best made by bots.
- If you wish to change the name of a category, feel free to contact an administrator for help.
Sorting page in category
Pages in categories are sorted according to the first character of the page name, excluding the namespace. For example, both Genghis Khan and Category: Genghis Khan appear under G, 10000 Bolts appears under 1, and File:---.jpg appears under -. Only the namespace is excluded, not the page structure. Therefore, Hades/Tree appears in H, not T.
It is possible to modify the characters under which they appear, as [[Category:CatName|$]], where $ (which can be any character) is the character under which one wants the page. Eg: Putting the category [[:Category:Hausa|A]] to Maigadi makes the page appear under A. Similarly, Hades/Tree can be made to appear under X, File:---.jpg can appear under #, etc. Since categories sort only according to the first character, making $ longer than one character is superfluous.
Adding categories
- Every article must be categorized. If you create a new article (including templates, files, and maps), do not forget to add categories to it. Pages without categories can be found in Special:UncategorizedPages, Special:UncategorizedCategories, Special:UncategorizedFiles, and Special:UncategorizedTemplates.
- Avoid redundancies when adding categories to articles, i.e. if a subcategory is already assigned, then the head category of that category is redundant. Example: The 'Cavalier' is in the category 'heavy cavalry', so adding the head category 'cavalry' to the article is redundant and wrong.
- If you intend to add one or more categories (no matter if the category is new or not) to a lot of pages, start with a small number of pages (one to three). Then ask around if your category/categories get the community approval before adding the category/categories to the remaining pages. Note that a bot may be effective here.
Categorizing articles
OR relation: All categories that accurately describe the subject of the article are fundamentally justified to be added. In other words, any category which satisfies any part of the article can be added.
For example, the Genghis Khan page has to be categorized with the following categories: Age of Empires II, Age of Empires IV, ranged cavalry heroes, Genghis Khan, and The Age of Kings. The former two come from the game he appears in. In both games he appears as a mounted archer hero/leader, hence the third category. The page also covers the campaign of the same in Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, hence the fourth category. The fifth category arises since the unit Genghis Khan was introduced in Age of Empires II with The Age of Kings, despite the Genghis Khan category already being under The Age of Kings category.
When the article is supposed to be the center of the category, it is sorted at top using a white space. For example, Genghis Khan is categorized as [[Category:Genghis Khan| ]]. Support pages may be sorted by *. For example, expansion pages are considered support pages of the main game.
Categorizing categories
AND relation: The super-category of a category is assigned such that all sub-categories and articles which come under that category also come under the super-category. In other words, all super categories must satisfy some part of every page and sub-categories under them.
Speaking of the previous example, the category ranged cavalry heroes is categorized as ranged cavalry and heroes, because Genghis Khan along with other ranged cavalry heroes are both ranged cavalry and heroes. This is obviously ignoring the fact that Genghis Khan is also categorized as a campaign, because only the "unit" aspect of the page is looked at here.
Categorizing campaigns and scenarios
- Since all scenarios of a campaign are released in the same expansion, expansion categories can be dropped from individual scenario pages and also the main campaign page (only if the campaign page covers the campaign, like Algirdas and Kestutis, but not Jadwiga), and instead be placed on the campaign category. For example, instead of categorizing every Genghis Khan scenario in The Age of Kings category, the Genghis Khan category is itself categorized as The Age of Kings.
- While all content of a particular civilization may also be released in the same expansion, this practice is avoided since it will not be consistent across civilizations. One civilization may reuse content released in a previous expansion, while another may receive new content in a later expansion.
- Since Genghis Khan is supposed to be in both categories The Age of Kings and Campaigns (Age of Empires II), we are allowed to create a new category Campaigns (The Age of Kings), whose super-categories are the aforementioned categories.
- This rule again follows the rule of creating categories: Despite The Sultans Ascend campaign being in categories Campaigns (Age of Empires IV) and The Sultans Ascend, we do not create a category for the intersection, because there will be only one category page in that category, since there is only one campaign released with the expansion.
- Despite individual scenarios of a campaign not being campaigns themselves, they are considered campaigns for the purpose of categorization, hence there is no problem in categorizing them as campaigns.
- Standalone scenarios have to be categorized as a campaign for that game, as well as, as a standalone scenario.
- Event scenarios have their own category, which is itself categorized in standalone scenarios.
- Sometimes, the name of an expansion is the same as that of a campaign. In these cases, the expansion is given the priority (wider category), while the campaign category is given a reference for disambiguation. Such cases are: Category: The Rise of Rome campaign (the specific campaign), Category: Campaigns (The Rise of Rome) (campaigns released with Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome), Category: Tale of the Dragon campaign, and Category: The Sultans Ascend campaign.
- In these cases, the name of the campaign category is singular, and the word campaign is in lower case.
Other remarks
- Any article about general topics which is universal or near-universal should not be added to any game category, e.g. hit points and stone.
- Any article about specific topics is assigned the respective game and, if applicable, expansion categories, e.g. Sheep and Black Forest.
- Every article that is not universal but game-specific is assigned the respective game and, if applicable, expansion categories (except when categorizing campaigns and scenarios), e.g. Olive Oil and tags.
- If available through normal gameplay, every unit, building, technology, god, and god power is assigned their respective Age category.
- Campaign categories are only added to the respective campaign pages and their scenarios - not the hero units, other special units, special buildings, or special technologies.
- Civilization categories are not used for Age of Empires and Age of Empires II. Civilization categories are pointless for the former since they do not have unique units or technologies. Following the fifth rule of creating categories, civilization categories are not needed for Age of Empires II civilizations either, since they have three to five unique aspects. Hence, they are exclusive for Age of Mythology, Age of Empires III, and Age of Empires IV. Features exclusively available to them are assigned to the respective categories.
- As a special case, non-generic buildings, units, and technologies, available in Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings are also categorized under Category: The Age of Kings. This includes campaigns, unique units, maps, and heroes. This rule is applicable only for Age of Empires II since it is the only game with an expansion name for its base game.
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