You’re severely understating age of empires 3 here
Age 3 vastly outperforms age 4 in terms of unit diversity
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What a weirdly unfounded point. AOM had nine civilizations at release. You’re talking as if AOE2 only had one civilization. AOE3 civs at launch already had a large variety of cards which make them vastly different.
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Do you mean AoE 3 at launch? Or as it is now with all the expansions that brought 90% of the diversity?
Aside from siege, AoE 4 has no units that are visually the same across civilizations - for AoE 3, this was the case for the majority of units at launch.
In terms of raw unique units (unique stats & visuals), I am not sure which game had more at launch, but I doubht that the difference is significant.
@ArrivedLeader22 AoM had 3 civilizations with culturally destinct units - which was what we were talking about.
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I can comfortably say age 3 at launch yes,
A few examples would be Janissaries, Spahi, and the little cannon dudes (I can’t remember their names) for Ottomans
Redcoats, rockets, kings hussars for British
Cossacks, the later iterations of stretsly(forgot their name too) for the Russians
And the Asian dynasties did even more
The Japanese samurai, agashuru musketeers
The Indian elephants, little hand sword dudes
Every civ had at least two unique units, either unlocked by age or via the “guard” upgrades. A lot of them had more, and they usually also each had a special artillery piece of some sort.
Here’s a handy screenshot showing all the launch civs and their respective unique units. - note this is not a complete list, it appears things that are upgrade units and also specials (like redcoats) arent included in this list.
British also had redcoats and kings hussars
Dutch had a special broadsword unit pretty big omission also
Note: swedes weren’t base game, but removing them we still get more at launch that age 4 has
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AOM had 3 civs at release. Selecting a god does not equal a new civ by a long shot.
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The ‘Royal Guard’ units such as the British Redcoat or King’s Hussar were simply stat boosts they had no unique properties or apperance, they looked identical to any of the other Musketeers upgraded to the same level. I hesitate to call them unique units.
Britain only had two unique units, the longbowman and the rocket. For most civs it was just two units we can really say were unique units. Only Ottomans, Russia and Germany had more than two I think.
AOE4 civs are definitely more unique than AOE3’s base civs.
Selecting a god gives you some distinct bonuses, unique unit/techs and a different roster of minor gods, which you can choose from but cannot change in one game.
Not being called a “civilization” does not mean it is in practice essentially not a civilization.
Again, does AOE2 only have one civilization?
If you only mean “unit visual groups” maybe yes.
But in terms of overall diversity, AOE4 has visually distinct units for all 8 civilizations but most of them are from one unit set with stat tweaks. AOM has three very different unit sets and each has 3 other sub-civs whatever you call it with their internal stat tweaks.
The overall gameplay of AOM is at least no less diverse between factions or whatever you call it.
Beg to differ. The asymmetry in AoE3 launch civs was very similar to what AoE4 has now. Plus AoE3 had cards. There were many unique cards for civs that made many viable gameplay options.
In AoE3, these are the economic bonuses for each civ at launch (not even going into cards):
Spanish: faster XP, faster shipments
British: a free villager with each house made
French: stronger vils
Dutch: vils cost coin, can build banks but vil count capped at 50, early skirmishers
Portuguese: free TC with age up. Spyglass ability for explorer.
Germans: more expensive shipments but free cavalry with each shipment
Russians: batch training. Combined barracks and outpost
Ottomans: Free settlers that spawn slowly.
Compare this with AoE4 and it’s similar (and mind you there’s no card system granting further asymmetry, but landmarks which so far need better design):
English: network of castles. Keeps produce units.
French: cheaper vils and eco.
HRE: prelates
Mongols: ovoo, mobile civ, early horseman
Delhi: free techs, infantry construct defenses
Abbasids: golden age… an extra “age up”
Chinese: faster construction, more landmarks
Rus: bounty system, hunting cabins
But this isn’t even the point. The point is whether the present game compares in diversity to the pre-existing diversity and design in the franchise at the time, and the answer is that it doesn’t. Why compare the launch of AoE4 to the launch of its predecessor. We should compare the launch of AoE4 to the latest of its predecessor.
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We weren’t talking about the civs tho, we were talking about units, and while it may be true that the guard units sometimes did not have special graphics (redcoats did in fact have, well, Red coats, regardless of player color)
But also the unit details sheet, literal biographies and historical notes on the units and their uses.
I still firmly believe age 3’s units were and felt more unique.
On the flip side, I appreciate that age 4’s civs do feel genuinely unique and not just a template with some distinctions, which I will agree is how the launch civs in age 3 felt (expansion civs really fixed this)
But even the french and English, although being both western European, do feel different to play, and I will admit that aspect is better than 3.
I will however refer also the the post directly above this one, which makes good points about the civ bonuses and home city bonuses.
(redcoats did in fact have, well, Red coats, regardless of player color)
None of the guard units have unique models, DE might have given the skirmisher a unique guard model but that’s it. The guard units are just a name change and stats. Even then the stat boosts themselves arn’t unique with the Portugese also getting a guard musket just with a different name.
As for DiplexBoss’s post I dont think its being entirely fair.
English: network of castles. Keeps produce units.
Thats missing villagers fight with bows and cheaper farms. There are also the unique techs. AOE3 base civs don’t have unique techs normally its built into the card system with unique cards and a card that unlocks unique techs in the church however the vast majority of the church techs land firmly on the side of dull with a few interesting ones in there
The unique techs of AOE4 I think help define a civs personality, only the English can earn gold from farming. Abbasids longer range spears allow them to use their spears in different ways. Delhi can use force march to rush their infantry and then build defenses in key places including stone walls if you choose the right landmark. Most of AOE3’s unique techs are sending a shipment of mercs or generic units with a different name.
I love AOE3 and I’ve played it to death but I cant say I love the deck system, it felt like an unnessecary layer that messed with AOE’s nice simplicity of just picking a civ and playing, now you had to build a deck of cards too.
Were also not discussing how every civ in this game has unique architecture besides some civs sharing basic eco buildings like England,France and HRE having the same mills and basic wall style. Sure thats not gameplay but I think its excellent in giving each civ a distinct apperance.
Many unique cards are in essence unique techs as well and there are a huge amount of them.
Just look at that stat card oh how I miss it.
Apologies I could’ve sworn redcoats were always red.
I never argued that age 4’s civilizations weren’t unique, there are fewer recycled architecture styles I will give you that.
But I still believe as far as units go, age 3 has the upper hand.
The age 3 deck system was indeed uh… interesting.
I could’ve gone without it also, but I didn’t hate it. I just disliked having the better cards locked by level.
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Okay. I haven’t been fair to both sides then - In AoE3, French villagers can double in as infantry, Gather faster etc. Germans have two types of settlers etc.
The point I’m making is: Both AoE4 and AoE3 legacy started off with the same-ish levels of asymmetry.
In the grand scheme of things, the asymmetry in this game was being sold to AOE2 players, for whom the asymmetry in AoE4 is a big deal. Meanwhile AoM, AoE3 and AoEO players were thinking… asymmetry? what even?
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You’re talking about the church techs. These are unlocked by a card. But cards also unlock other very unique things in AoE3:
Like some British card that lets you train settlers from houses, an Ottoman card that gives Cavalry Archers bonus damage against villagers etc.
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I was really into the game for the first month and half after release but now I havent played the game in several weeks because of the lack of civs, maps, game modes, hotkeys, map editor, population cap as well as several other things that are really killing this game. Game patches and updates are few and far between. The game feels horribly optimized. Dont get me wrong I like the game but they need to add some things quickly.
They said they will add all of that, so it seems reasonable to patiently wait.
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My original point was that AoM was the only other AoE game with more unique/diverse factions than aoe 4, so I don’t really disagree with you - I just think that uniqueness came at the cost of the amount of factions. I dont think this was a bad thing, and I love AoM precisely for how unique the factions were, I just don’t think it is fair to expect the same level of uniqueness from every faction in aoe 4 since there are way more factions.
For the number of factions aoe 4 has launched with, I find the level of variety between them quite impressive - especially with how visually distinct they are (and the music – it may be a small thing, but I think it adds SO much to the feel of each civilization)
I don’t think one approach is necessarily better than the other, I just think they reflect different priorities – quantity vs. quality you could say, although that is a bit reductive.
As per your link i count 27 unique units in total for aoe 3 at launch.
By my best count we have 25 for aoe 4, not counting the ships that are shared between 2 or more factions, and only counting the priest units that have inherently unique skills - and also not counting unique upgrades that change core units (HRE MAA, English MAA, Abbasid Archers/spearmen etc.)
Doesn’t seem like that big of a difference to me. On top of that then comes the fact that every faction has visually distinct units in AoE 4, which - going back to my original argument - imo means that this game has the must culturally distinct unit rooster of any aoe game besides AoM.
That being said - I am not trying to ■■■■ on AoE 3 - i really like that game, and I think it does a lot of other interestingly unique things, such as the shipment cards, and mercenary units etc.
It just bothers me when people compare the content of AoE 4 at launch to other games in the series that have had 10+ years of updates to bolster the content - ignoring that AoE 4, at launch, has an impressive number of civilization-specific visuals, mechanics & units even when compared to what was there for previous games in the series at launch.
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Maybe its me - but I’m not convinced the base AoE 4 civs are more interesting than the base AoE 3 civs - and that’s I think the problem.
I don’t know if the new patch changes things. I doubt it though because I think its more due to the base mechanics of the game.
I feel in AoE 4 your strategy is massively skewed by map type. And since your strategy is set by map type, you have clear faction imbalance that is unlikely to be resolved even with buffs and nerfs - beyond moving everything to an even duller central baseline. You are unlikely to ever have balance across water, hybrid, closed and open maps.
By contrast in AoE 3 I felt (at least back on initial release) map usually mattered less. Shipments allowed almost every civ to have a rush, a boom, and an FF that played out in quite a different way. I’m not going to claim the game was a masterpeice of balance back in 2006 or whatever, strategy tended overwhelmingly towards FF into 2 falconet shipment->go win. Some cards were very powerful, some were trash etc. But even if there was usually a “standard” way to play every civ, most civs had 2 or 3 strategies that could shake things up.
That just doesn’t seem to be the case in AoE 4. Partly perhaps because landmark balance is a joke.
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