The Holy Roman Empire, France, England etc. cover a lot of smaller polities. Those smaller polities like Wales, Saxony, Brittany etc. could be represented as variants.
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A sword that broke the only time she try to use it if Iām not mistaken, and is broke down on an unarmored ##############
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I agree. A superhero Jeanne DāArc civ (come on, she was already the cover of the game since day 1) with an ultimate golden cannon is not fitting with the rest of AoE. This should change.
Why are people so freaking angry, its just a game.
Jeanne dāarc is fine, its just a VARIANT civ. The civ is still the French. Who cares of the name in the dropdown menu that is just meant to be easy to select. People will still say Jeanne when refering to the faction in talking, even if you add Army in front of it.
People are passionate about AoE. The passionate AoE community revived this franchise and continue to support it. Modders like Cysion from this community made the forgotten expansion that lead AoE 2 HD, and the definitive editions for all AoE games and AoM retold.
Telling the AoE community not to be angry about things we donāt like about the franchise is effectively the same as telling us to give up on the franchise.
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Exactly, now the have the french a second time, instead of a civ like the swedish kingdom, or the aztecs empire.
And if the mongols were based around gengis khan, or the english around the lionheart I would see no problem (although it wouldnāt really be my cup of teaā¦) but this isnāt the case.
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Yes but they didnāt have the budget to release 6 civ. Thatās why the variants.
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Itās hard to disagree that all of this isā¦ alienating to an AoE fan. Having a civilisation named after a singular person is self-contradicting and breaks all AoE standards (campaigns aside). But at that point the issue can be generalised. The problem is Variant Civilisations altogether. Never seen before, denying tradition and immersion for gameplay experimentation. To me, the devs shouldnāt even have bothered to work on the variants, they could have given us a 3rd civilisation instead. They just feel off.
That said, thereās something I realise, something important. Not everybody likes the things I like and not everything has to be to my liking. I understand that Variant Civilisations are not meant for me, especially not something like Jeanne dāArc, and I respect that. In fact, I donāt care too much how theyāre named, personally.
I would just like to point out, though, that Jeanne dāArc fits perfectly with the concept of the variant, sheās the core of it. Since they are adding that variant (thatās not going to change) and Variant Civilisations are by themselves breaking AoE norm, why bother for the name? Itās the least of it, innit?
The fun thing is, in my mind, that Iāll try those variants out and I may also really enjoy them but Iāll always wish they never existedā¦
TLDR
Jeanne dāArcās name 's perfect, Variant Civilisations are inherently wrong. But theyāre coming anyway, so letās just sigh and move on, focusing on what we care for the most, I advise.
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To be honest I hope that Jeanne dāArc is only the beginning of the weirdness they plan to introduce to the franchise. One of the main things that the Age series suffers from is monotony. That can be great since skills transfer between games! The addition of this player faction refreshes how the game is meant to played, while also being close enough to existing gameplay to not be completely alien. I do think that a lot of the feedback so far has been a little overblown and misinformed, for one we havenāt seen Jeanne dāArc in action in the game yet.
My experience with the Age franchise has led to me having similar fears of change. When AoE 3 released it introduced mechanics that added home cities and cards, and this destroyed my interest in the franchise for several years. That addition to the series was a complete departure in how the game was played and made a huge adjustment in gameplay that I was uncomfortable with. Over time, AoE 3 did add a lot of asymmetry, especially later in development, and there was a significant amount of refinement that brought it more into my focus by the time the Definitive Edition rolled out.
I believe that the development team has been doing their homework, and so far have been able to implement well balanced and varied gameplay with this entry into the franchise. Their history of work is encouraging, and I personally trust their ability to implement the variant civilization feature without causing a significant hiccup. Of course, the player base at large has not had a chance to toy around with it, and there may be some initial balance issues. But this change signifies a huge adjustment to the potential play of the game, and to me that is very healthy for the future of the entire franchise. I am personally very excited to see this evolve through future dlcs, and cannot express how hyped I am to see where the Age series will go next!
Keep Jeanne dāArc, and see where this goes! You never know how it may excite you or change the way you see games until someone takes that leap!
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The Vikings could bring either the Kingdom of Castile or one of the Persian civilizations that existed in the Middle Ages. The question is, which one of the members of the producer really owns this idea? Can he tell us his motivation and purpose for building such civilizations?
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This is actually a very good point. We just might get used to Variant Civilisations andā¦ Jeanne of Arc as well. Even if thatās not what we had in mind as the future of the franchise. As many did for AoE III.
Personally AoE III is my favourite, the amount of strategy that the deck system allows is unrivalled in the series. I really love AoE II as well, wouldnāt be here now if it wasnāt for it. The thing is you never know, Variant Civilisations may suck and never be repeated or they could be the new standard everybody lovesā¦
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Personally i love the concept of Jeanne dāarc civ gameplay-wise. I think itās really cool, and if you donāt like it you can just keep playing regular french. Itās much better to have it as variant, so the original french is untouched.
so basically youāre never playing the game again
That is not what I saidā¦
I fill the same way.
I wanna play Age of Empires, not Empires vs Individuals, Empires vs Military Orders, no Empires vs What could have been with the philosopher in China
5 Likes
In fact, the saga never died (I remind you that between TAD in 2007 and the announcement of AoE 4 in 2017 we continued receiving games from the saga:AoM DS, TAD Mobile, AoE Online, AoE 2 HD, AoM EE, Castle Siege, World Domination)ā¦
Yes, but itās like everything, people who already came from the saga disconnected from it and instead new people came, as is my caseā¦
I agreeā¦
Thatās trueā¦until we try it we wonāt know if we like it or notā¦more than the AoE 3 decks, I love the mercenary and minor civs system and the super vibrant and immersive maps, which I hope will be replicated in this gameā¦
Of course, we have to see whatās upā¦
You can still play campaigns and skirmishesā¦
Thatās true, weāll see how it all endsā¦
It will be funny looking back on all these threads a month or so after release to see whether this french variant really is the super devil antichrist a lot of people seem to have it pinned as.
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This is what happens when you allow Devs who half-ass play AOE III come up with ānew innovative ideasā to revive a dying fanbase (AOE II Classic and AOE II DE combined are almost double the number of players playing AOE IV the past 24 hours on steam charts). AOE III is the closest AOE has come to character based civs. But they werenāt, the Civs still had their proper name and the selected historical leader was the āai personalityā for that Civ but it wasnāt named after that historical leader.
Of course, for that they would have done like with AoE 3, that Joan of Arc was the AI of the French (she made spoken phrases during the game), not a separate civā¦ itās like now in AoE 3, taking advantage of the new movie made by Ridley Scott, make the French revolution a civ based on Napoleon and the Grande Armeeā¦
Thatās true, weāll see how it all endsā¦
1 Like
I really wish we could get the Vikings and Celts in this game