A complete devil’s advocate topic if ever there was one, however now that AoEIV will be introducing ‘variants’ of existing civs, do you think there’s value in these semi-new civs in AoE3?
It could possibly be a way to address certain civs that people feel are ‘umbrella’ civs or even (real) factions that were linked to particular civs (Scottish/Covenanter Scots as an obvious British one, for example). This, in the case of Euro civs could lead to other avenues of Rev options.
Or is this too much of a detour for the sake of ‘re-jiggling’ a few existing civs with some different gameplay traits and slightly different units?
Just to add - I don’t mean Revolutions under a different guise! I mean (can of worms opening…) picking German - Austrian variant over standard Germans - a slighty different civs from the get-go, rather than one the revolts late game.
Maybe my first impression with these variant has made me more biased against it, but I don’t like that concept at all.
Besides, this game already has a way more organic way to do that, the decks.
There are still plenty of holes to fill in Asia, South America, and Africa (with the popular requests of Poles and Danes) to warrant full civs rather than bloating this game with variants.
We only have so many roster spots left and we don’t know how long support will last. It would be a damn shame if we never get to see what FE can do in Asia.
We don’t even know if we’ll ever have any new civ in the game😢
We also don’t know how this experiment will turn out. In my opinion, that DLC is going to be the most bizarre in the franchise, even more than Return of Rome. It seems like they tried to take the idea of the commanders from Starcraft and insert it in the aoe series without thinking about it too much.
They’re taking the franchise in the direction that I’m not entirely sure I like.
Ive allready modded “variant” civs before so to speak. It’s quite easy modding the Germans for example and slightly rework them into Prussians or Austrians etc.
The most work that would go into it would be the voicework for a new AI really. I don’t know how much work or expense that would be, but the civ itself isnt much work at least when it comes to modding.
It depends on what is considered a variant, do revolutions count as variants? Or can only umbrella civilizations have variants? Because depending on the answer, perhaps the mechanics end up being counterproductive by favoring some civilizations over others.
Also, how would this mechanic work with the deck system, will each variant have its own deck like the revolutions, its own customizable deck, or do they share the deck of the base civilization?
There are too many unknowns for my taste, looking at the positive side, perhaps that will help attract more people to the free to play mode and eventually to the paid mode.
PS: I’m not against the idea, but only if it’s for everyone and not just some civilizations.
Absolutely not, it’s gonna get the same backlash it got when they both were supposed to be released as revolutions rather than full civs.
edit: nvm if you meant using the same buildingsets…My bad…
What do you mean? I don’t want to go much offtopic, but I don’t get why people would get angry if Poland and Danes got the same building sets as Sweden, Germany and Russia and be released as full civs.
thing about variant civs is that they rely on the 2 factions being quiet similar to one another, there is perhaps SOME faction where that would work but after Austria-Prussia i cant really imagine any that people would be particularly interested in that also would make sense or wouldn’t make people upset.
Say Poland, who are they going to be a variant off? Russia would be the obvious but i think most people imagine a polish cavalry roster to be quiet different from a Russian one, not to mention dosens of other units, mechanics etc. to be unique, then on top of that you have the entire homecity system, by the end of the day what would be the advantage of being a variant civ as oppose to simply a new civ? AOE3 factions are far deeper than AOE4.
AoE3 already has plenty of avenues for diversification through Shipments, Revolutions, Ageups, and Minor Civs (natives). If anything, variant civs seem to be roundabout ways for AoE4 to implement functionalities that resemble AoE3’s without the maligned Deck system.
For example: Jeanne seems to be their way of borrowing the way Heroes (Explorers, Warchiefs, Monks, Generals, Princes) work in AoE3, becoming a builder and booster for early game eco, while gaining more combat abilities and stats with Ages.
Sweden, Italy and Malta where all quiet unique compared to other european civs, i dont see why a potential Denmark or Poland would not follow that trend.
What I mean is that Euro civs didn’t have an entire unique roster like asians and native americans. Sure, they are very different from each other, but russians still very different to british from gameplay pov.
Duchy of Warsaw (1807–1815) - French client state established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars. In such a “Variant”, the Poles civ could use more modern units based on Dąbrowski Legion.