When creating this topic, I wanted to ask the community: Am I the only one who notices and feels that something’s off here—that the vast majority of the models are essentially just endless recycling of existing models and simple reskins?
At first, I saw people pointing out that the manor is basically two houses pasted into a wall from the town center, but I didn’t see anyone mentioning the other models. The thing is, all the new units that aren’t recycled from the Sultans Ascend campaign are just reskins of models from the original civilizations. For example, I’m attaching some screenshots.
The Szlachta Cavalry is a reskin of the Byzantine Handcannoneer and HRE Imperial Horseman models.
The Chevalier Confere is a reskin of the HRE Feudal Spearman, which later transitions into a reskin of the HRE Horseman in subsequent ages. The Demilancer is a reskin of the HRE Knight. Other units are also just simple reskins of original units.
To sum it up, it seems that for the purposes of the new DLC—unless I missed something—only the Templar Fortress and two landmarks for the House of Lancaster received entirely new models.
Modelers don’t love games. He just wants to drink coffee and watch a movie at work. Gates of Hell: Ostfront and Age of Empires 4 are both released in 2021. However, Gates of Hell: Ostfront has completed model upgrades for all units. Age of Empires 4 is not even as modeled as Total War: Shogun 2, which was released in 2011.
Historically, it’s not as if each army had a unique armor for each of its units. In fact, it was common for several countries to use the same armor, but different heraldry, depending on where they ordered it manufactured.
For example:
Most medieval armors from England, Italy, and the Netherlands was manufactured by the HRE (Holy Roman Empire).
Regarding helmets: The kettle hat was common to several civs, the same as the bascinet.
Even a Lancaster technology, “Burgundian Imports,” acknowledges that they bought their handcannons from the Burgundians-Netherland, specifically from the Netherlands guilds.
In fact, the Sergeant’s model is correct, both for the teardrop shield, which is often depicted with the Normans, and the axe. Another thing is that another earlier unit, the “Wynguard Footman,” may be anachronistic. In fact, for this design (Sergeant) they’ve been careful not to choose armor or weapons after 1300, such as plate armor, and that’s why they’ve given them Feudal Age unit outfits from other civs (HRE feudal horsemen).
The Genitour also has a correct design and heraldry: from the heart shield, which they obtained by copying the Moorish Adarga design, to the gambeson and the assegai.
The design of the manors just came out ugly, so everyone notice it. If they had better connected the houses, there wouldn’t have been more problems. At least the Imperial Age version can go somewhat unnoticed (because it seems they’re connected), but if you look closely, the manors doesn’t have a central internal door, but rather one at the edge, because they didn’t bother to change the position of the door on the original houses.
On the other hand, the design of the new Templar units does use the “correct heraldry” for the civic they represent, and the correct weapons, so everything is fine.
Well. I don’t see anything wrong with using weapons from other units to make new ones, as long as they are historically accurate.
BUT, If there are historical flaws, whatever the reason, of course i gonna make a critic. For example:
1).- Tanegashima arquebus: The Japanese gunpowder unit doesn’t have arquebuses, but rather a handcannon, which isn’t right. And yes, I’m going to repeat it as many times as necessary: "Replace the Handcannon with an Arquebus."
2).- Mounted Samurai attack with the blunt end of the sword: Like Rurouni Kenshin (Samurai X). Seriously, fix that, it’s a serious visual issue. The Japanese didn’t use double-edged swords, which is why the edge is important.
3).- Japanese cavalry Shields were Square, not round: Historically Japanese cavalry didn´t use shields. And in the cases that they use them, they were square, not round.
4).- Genitour get Flame-Arrows and have a delay bug in their attack animation.- As far as I understand, the Javelin Thrower also doesn’t receive flame-animation because it would look “Weird”, but this one does. In fact, the Byzantines with Javelin Thrower also don’t receive this animation. I’m assuming it’s a visual glitch, because a unit throwing a burning javelin doesn’t look realistic at all. They also have an animation glitch that makes it difficult to micro-shot them, when historically they “attacked on the move”.
5).- Demilancer didn’t use horse armor.- They were precisely demilancers, because only the rider wore armor and an attack lance, but the horse was less protected. They should remove that, and it’s also very easy to confuse it with the knight.
