Me and a friend sometimes play against eachother and we try to come up with new strategies. What we recently notice because we also watch a lot of youtube and twitch videos. Is that the dark age seems really short. Everyone immediately goes for the feudal age. While some civs can do so much in the darkage.
Personally i’m an Abbasid main and i’d love to field dark age spearmen with rams by just fully focussing on food and wood.
Or to learn to play Rus with lots of scouts.
Today i actually tried dark age Mongols with horsemen, which was sweet but it felt paper thin when the other player can age up easily.
And we did some other early strategies too.
We are both old players from Aoe1 and Aoe2 and we think that the dark age in AoE4 is really short and has no adding to the current gameplay.
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The DA in this game is rather boring for me as you simply cannot do any early aggression without putting yourself at a disadvantage against competent opponents. I’d rather it be removed if there isn’t going to be an update to add more options for drush or whatever else to pass the four or so minutes that we have to spend thinking in DA.
I know some people love that sort of thing, but I’ve spent so many years in RTS titles with quicker, more action packed games than this.
i’d love to see the dark age be a more relevant part of the meta
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I’d love to see improvement for the Dark Age to make it more fun and in order to allow more interesting options for those who wants it.
Removing it altogether is not the right alternative in my opinion.
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Watch Golden League, please.
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I can’t, this game sucks to watch, in my opinion that you don’t have to agree with, especially in 1 vs 1, but also team games, although 2 vs 2 can be alright.
I only like playing it, but only when games aren’t drug out. 20 mins max, Feudal win if possible.
i’ve listened to you, checked the stream.
Get the discussion how game is broken and what should be fixed.
nothing new. 
PS pros can play awesome, but i’ve doubt that it’s watchable. only if you inlove with casters
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I am against increasing cost of emplacements. Outposts are good at holding and defending position and also gives defender’s advantage. But still can be easily countered by mangonel, trebs or bombards. Its little slow for rams which I think is really good.
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Kind of agree. I really liked the french knights in that regard due to the healing ability early aggression getting rewarded. English dark/feudal agression has been buffed lately but overall from what I have seen so far the matches are getting longer and longer as people figure out how to deal with early aggression. There’s pro matches now that go beyond 1 hour playtime and end up in very static situations with lots of siege, keeps and walls.
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I always thought that dark age was supposed to be almost a 4 minute treaty time as players set up for actual early aggression. Nobody wants to absolutely lose in a few minutes. But I still think there are options to at least delay the opponents economy in the future in dark age. tower rushing or sending the scout, horseman, or MAA if you have those available to the opponent is good in harassing their economy so you can have a better time later on
Why have a treaty time of 4 minutes in the first place? If someone wants to relax he can stay in the lobby for 4 minutes. As soon as the game starts the action can begin. I actually like the intensity and dynamics of the early game. I wouldn’t even mind those four minutes all that much if games be very dynamic and action packed from that moment on. But often enough they are not. Also, games tend to become very static from castle age on with more defensive structures like keeps but also siege.
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True!
Dark age in aoe4 is basically just a layer that is passed in 3-5 minutes.
It was supposed to be the age where lots of things should be happening. But that is where the Feudal age is.
In AOE4 early rush is in the Feudal age, and that makes all early units almost useless and punishment to those civilizations! Not a bonus or a special ability at all. Most pro players would just ignore Dark age as they see there is no point in fighting because it is so punishable due to 100% aim-locked arrows from TCs. This is how a joke of a game it has become. It turned into a fantasy genre with a LOL and DOTA style… and resulted in being more like a Starcraft II, not AOE!
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Well in Aoe2 it should be similar (or even slower?), so it is a game design and it highly depends on if you like a slow start or prefer instant action. When looking at Aoe2 a slow start seems to be quite popular. People who do not like that and want a more dynamic fast paced game usually play Starcraft 2. Kind of a pitty as I really prefer the “realistic” setting over science fiction and fantasy stuff but the realistic games usually are just very slow paced with less micro.
Played lots of Empire Earth back then and really enjoyed it. Realistic setting plus fast pace, no defensive buildings, very dynamic and action packed. Usually the more aggressive/active player would win as he knew what his opponent was about to do plus villagers being very exposed. Games were pretty much over after 5-10 minutes straight action. Sadly it didn’t receive many patches.
What I have always found very annoying on Aoe4 is that even when you play someone that is clearly inferior you kind of need to book 15 minutes minimum. There is just no option to end the game very early even when it is extremely one sided.
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You recommending a game? i watch most of the tournament games
a mongol horseman, an abbasid ram, rus scouts, english villagers, english man at arms, and probably more
yes i also dislike such strong towncenters, not even talking about english omg… horrendous atleast my abbasid rams know how to deal with that. but in taht case villagers do way too much bonus damage to siege especially so early on in the game. investing 300 wood in the dark age is immense, the rams are way too expensive to even use the abbasid bonus.
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Seeing point 1 you clearly don’t play Abbasid lol
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i wouldn’t want a slower game, i prefer to make more use of the dark age, while now it is just a milestone to as quickly as possible move to the feudal age.
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