Developers and Community of AOE4... I IMPLORE You... Let's Make the Original Variants Better

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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Age of Empires 4 is in a fantastic place. The game feels balanced, highly engaging, and I’ve seen pointedly more interest in the game ever since the most recent DLC. Speaking of, sincerely THANK YOU for listening to the community and providing variant civs that fit 4 very important metrics.

Both Knight’s Templar and House of Lancaster are:
-Aesthetically pleasing
-Provide unique gameplay and mechanics
-Historically accurate (mostly)
-Are thematically and conventionally fluid with the AOE series

While controversial since their inception, variant civs are clearly here to stay with this game and when implemented correctly they are a fantastic way to get more content faster. Unfortunately, and with the exception of the Ayyubids, the original variant civs each fail in one or more of the 4 core areas listed above. Zhu Xi’s Legacy, Order of the Dragon and Jeanne d’Arc all feel out of place when compared with the rest of the civs in the game. Seriously, AOE4 has the potential to have one of the BEST rosters in all of RTS with just a few changes to these civs that are falling short of the high bar set by the others.

I’m proposing a small set of changes that could be made to these civs WITHOUT having to create new assets or drastic changes and WITHOUT any real sacrifice of the work already done on them. My suggestions are as follows:

Zhu Xi’s Legacy - Name Fix and Gameplay Tweak -
Simply change the name of the civ to an actual warring Chinese group or faction from history that involved Bhuddist monks participating actively in their rise (Taizong of the Tang dynasty is a great example, his reign was called the era of Zhenguan). The other option is to lean fully into the warrior monk theme and name the faction something along with “Shaolin,” as the group actively participated in multiple periods of Chinese government history. The whole idea is to fit the naming conventions of the game, it needs to be a faction, house, family, dynasty, group, ect., not a person or an ideology. In terms of gameplay, rushing to higher ages and going for relics is great, but getting unique units from the base Chinese civ without having the dynasty mechanic requirement feels cheap and unearned. I would argue that keeping the dynasty requirement for existing unique units while further buffing their ability to scale fast and rush would feel better. A good way to do this would be to buff Jiangnan Tower, which is by far the worst landmark in the entire game currently. A simple change allowing for a free unit whenever ANY building is built would help the civ still rush and incentivise fast base building.

Order of the Dragon - Visual Tweak -
Order of the Dragon is perhaps the easiest variant civ to fix, and all it really requires is a visual update. The theme of having less units overall but those being stronger is cool, but the fact everyone is a 9ft tall giant looks off. The gold flair and accents do enough to differentiate them from HRE units, without the size difference, which is kind of goofy looking. Adding in some of the new assets from those created for Templars and Lancasters would help differentiate the faction from HRE further without having to create wholly new units or anything as well. I’m thinking capes, visible coat of arms, and maybe some different armor piece accents is really all that’s needed.

Jeanne d’Arc - Name and Theme Fix, Gameplay Overhaul -
Jeanne d’Arc introduced the idea of a civ based entirely on a single character, which ultimately proved unpopular with many fans as it did not fit the conventions of any other civ and feels thematically off. “Jeanne d’Arc vs China” for example is somewhat bizarre, and without having any other named character factions to speak of, needs fixing. I propose changing the name to “Orléanists” or something similar, a faction of French nobility and the site of where Jeanne made her mark. For the gameplay there are two options, one being an overhaul and the other leaving it relatively unchanged: The first option is, rather than having Jeanne lead armies, give the faction unique zealot units (already in game as her bodyguard), and focus more on infantry and ranged units than solely cavalry like traditional French. The school of cavalry could easily be converted into focusing on production of infantry or monks, and Jeanne would become a specialized monk unit that can heal and convert enemy units with a banner. This unit could be called the “Maiden of Orléans,” similar to the ambiguous “King” from England or “Khan” from the Mongols. This unit would heal in a circular radius and could potentially plant a flag to buff units. The other option is to essentially keep the faction exactly the same as it is (with a name change of course), and have Jeanne’s specific gameplay be the same as described above, a supportive buffing and healing unit that plants banners, rather than a damage dealer, which FAR better fits her actual historical role and is thematically way cooler. Either change would massively improve this variant.

Am I aware that a new DLC is on the way and that is the focus? Yes. Ultimately does this make or break the game? No. Do I think most players would love and appreciate these changes and that it would enhance the game for minimal effort? Yes. Whoever is at the helm of AOE4’s direction this last year is making all the right calls, perhaps they’ll consider this one as well.

Please upvote if you want to see this or something akin to this happen, thank you! Would also love to see some other name ideas for Zhu Xi.

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I would change the name to Zhu Xi Apprentices or Southern Song…

I would give the landmark 2 or 3 free units for every building around it…

Yes, they could even have unique Hungarian and Wallachian units based on their commanders Matthis Corvinus and Vlad Tepes…

Yes, you can change it to Duchy of Orleans or House of Valois-Orleans (1392-1515)…

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Zxl should be renamed to the Jurchens, who lorded over much of northern China and who are already present in the campaigns. Additionally, this is the region we’re much Chinese Buddhism developed in the past.

The focus on cavalry such as Dali tech (should be renamed) and Yuan raiders is fitting for the cavalry oriented Jurchens.

As for dynasties; Tang, Liao, Jin and Ming. Only the Jin in this grouping would be lead by Jurchens, whereas the Liao were Khitan, Ming, Tang Han. But, I would argue that all of these Dynasties were decently multiethnic empires, that importantly featured the Jurchen’s lands.

Although ideally I would’ve loved to see the Jurchens (and Khitans) have their own unique civilization, the reason I make this request ultimately comes from the reality that they will never get one in AoE4, and so, I would prefer they are at least honoured as a plausible representation for ZXL rather than continue to use that ridiculous and infantile name.

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Oh and JDA is entirely incomprehensible. This is a game of empires and it’s too much.

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But wouldn’t the Jurchens be more similar to the Mongols than to the Chinese?..

Yes, or kingdoms, or at most tribes…

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If we were making the civilization from ground up then yea, they’d look like a hybrid of northeastern pastorial and settled society. That is to say, that is the best way to represent them. However, the Jurchen were quite active in not only raiding but conquering, and were heavily participating in the affairs of both settled and nomadic peoples.

Compared to say, the Khitans, the Jurchens were more settled from what I understand.

There is another reason I think this is valid. The Jurchens go on to become Manchu during their conquest of China later on. So not only do they have the Jin Dynasty which is seen as part of Chinese history, but they also go on to establish the last dynasty of China, the Qing. Additionally, the leaders of the Tang Dynasty were partially of Xianbei ancestry too, who were a confederation of proto-Mongols, Jurchens, Turkic peoples and Khitans, whose Liao Dynasty was too composed of many Jurchens.

In other words, they were all over this region, participated in early Chinese dynasties as a minority, even becoming a prominant Chinese dynasty twice. They brought Confucianism back as Daoism was becoming more relevant for instance, and were a great inbetween peoples that kept in touch with nomadic and settled people alike.

The dynasty system I proposed makes sense in that regard. Starting off as citizens living under Tang control, rising up to become warriors for the Liao, creating their own dynasty as the Jin and finally succumbing to the Mongol Yuan before the end of this game’s time period. So this attempt isn’t trying to fully represent the Jurchens through every phase of their independence, but rather represent them as people in their journey through many empires that they participated in.

We have lots of assets that could help bridge the nomadic-settled gap too. Like I said, the Jurchens were mostly settled, they only had fewer institutions and built less than the Han, depending more on pastorialism than farming. So I say, reduce building speed, lock them to 1 landmark per age, give them reskinned gers in dark/feudal, give them sheep pastures, remove their villages and mix in some reskinned Mongol assets.

I think they can make it work. I just feel ZXL was too sloppy of an idea.

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better pray for aoe 5 or go for previous ones. at this point their desicion is clear that they dont care. the issues to fix basically means to remake some of them.

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Wait for them to change the 3K names in AOE2. If that never happens, then you’d only get worse variants in the future. The design quality or the consistency of their own games are in their lowest priority.

This one is unfixable. It is basically “random, generic elements of Chinese” (like most other civs including the basic Chinese civs) with no coherent theme (unlike any other variant).
They advertised variants as more compact scopes and unique gameplay. This one has neither.

The only way to fix it is to merge it into the Chinese civ. Which should be fairly simple as their bonus and landmarks do not conflict. But no that is not going to generate more $$$ or bloat the roster.

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I know I’m not alone in thinking that they actually made a good decision by making variants focused on more than strict history standards.

Variants give creative head-space to ideas outside of empires. It gives room for interesting gameplay. The entire purpose of things like Zhu Xi Legacy or Jeanne d’Arc was to lean into the series playful nature, it’s core to the series to be non-serious and fantastical while being grounded by the narrative.

This intense focus on having complete historical accuracy is too burdensome and restrictive to create interesting gameplay. Why must we have a petition to tear down what already exists?

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Let’s assume this is both true and good (but it’s in fact very dubious; like how super moba hero Jeanne d’Arc or Attack on Titan civs are gRoUNdED

Then ZXL met NONE of those criteria

  • It does NOT have a focus. It is basically Chinese. Where is Zhu Xi’s legacy in the civ design? One landmark? How is Shaolin monk or Yuan raider related to the theme? Other more grounded variants all have a theme.
  • It does NOT have a unique gameplay, unlike the fantastical variants Jeanne d’Arc or OOTD. It is basically Chinese but somewhat a little different

It is just a Chinese remake but they don’t want to stuff the original civ and have to sell their work instead of making free updates

And you and World’s Edge (which are totally independent) have the ultimate power to determine where the balance of “fantastical” and “grounded” is (hint: it means whatever they are doing, and shifts all the time)

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I love aoe 2, I’m not attacking it or deflecting. The game has been silly in places and has a fantastical feel. You seem to have forgotten that.

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Yet AOE2 had been consistent in its content designs until it was massively criticized recently, guess why?

Game mechanic does not equal to the game’s setting and theme. Even if turn-based strategy is a complete fantasy, you still cannot freely add spaceships to a high fantasy world without effort. Even if most FPS games are in fact laser guns than real guns you still wouldn’t add a laser gun to a WW2 campaign.

Breaking the consistency to allow anything does not require effort. I can come up 100 potential additions that disrespects the game’s own theme in five minutes. Making quality contents within a theme or adapting them to fit the theme requires efforts. And efforts is not WE cares about now.

WE knows all these and why they are important. It’s just that nowadays all their mental efforts went into writing long essays trying to cheat people into believing they cared when they really didn’t.
(Look at the huge mental gymnasium they did to justify the variant civs and 3K——did they need to do the same for the Indian civs or Japanese or Byzantium?)

By bro’s logic I could simply add elves and lightning storms and zergs to AOE4 just because it is not 100% realistic and wait for the sales. No game is 100% realistic either so let’s just add anything to anything and make a buzinys.

And bro had deflected so many things he still cannot explain what part of ZXL is either fantastical or focused or grounded or unique (his own words) that fits his boss WE’s advertising
Let me be straightforward: it is not well thought out. Like several other variants and 3K civs. It’s more of a filler to pretend there is more efforts in the DLC than what it really has. However hard they wanted to twist the narrative.

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My serious assessments of the variants:

ZXL: wasted efforts. New assets are good. But there is no theme or design. Just Chinese v2 sprawled all over and their differences (both design and gameplay) seem random. The planned name “Empire of Jade” further proves it——there was no clear purpose. They couldn’t even find a name for it.
OOTD and JDA: fillers with “creative” gameplay and minimal efforts. This is not creativity. This is laziness in mental efforts. Again, it is easier to come up with “what if we discard all the consistency and add a moba civ or a attack on titans civ” than thinking of a well-designed civ that fits into the roster (like the following three)

Lancaster and Ayyubids: they should be the baseline. Understandable if new voicelines and building models are expensive. Better since they got rid of the horrendous name of “Sultan’s Army”
Templars: very good. But needs unique voicelines for the foreign units.

So I’d say it’s a 50/50 quality.

Edit: I think if people want to justify oversights and cheap efforts because “it is buzinys”, then they are NOT exempt from criticism. I don’t know why some people use “it’s buzinys” as if it is a defense. It is not.

Or if you believe they did all these to fulfill their high ideology of game design and full dedication to the series’ legacy, I could sell you the Brooklyn Bridge btw.

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50/50?
50 out 100 you mean

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50 good 50 bad, I mean

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Yes, at least now they are including interesting and historically correct civ variants…about the rest, they could rename Joan of Arc to “Joan of Arc’s Army” and Zhu Xi’s Legacy to “Zhu Xi’s Followers” and have the scout be Zhu Xi himself (he would just be a stronger Shaolin monk who has the aura of a hero)…

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Zhu Xi is a confucian scholar. He is part of the neo-Confucianism movements which left some “legacy” (more spiritual than political). Designing or naming a faction around him is impossible. Also, since he lived in Southern Song, his “legacy” only impacted later dynasties——so half of the dynasties of the in-game Chinese civ are irrelevant.

And we all know that is a last minute bandaid to “fix” a far worse name. He has nothing to fo with 90% of the uniqueness of this faction.

Imagine a French variant called “Montesquieu’s Legacy” with zouaves, 17th century Gendarmes, Napoleonic old guards and Eiffel Tower
There is only one proper way to name that faction: French

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Yes, that’s true…it’s hard to innovate on the subject of civs and their names…

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This topic about variants comes up from time to time, although this time I see it better, because they’re trying to rescue the good things from them and consider that new variants don’t have the problems of the first ones.

In general, I would say that the problem with the first four variants, and the reasons why they weren’t as accepted as the last two (Lancaster, Knight Templars), are the following:

0) They were created to be “Too Similar” to their base civs due to “a certain theory.”

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Here they mentioned that they created the variants to be 90% identical to their parent civs, so that supposedly someone who has played the Parent Civ now has a second build to play the same civ, and that it won’t be so difficult to transition to their variant civ in certain circumstances.

The problem is, that the variants weren’t seen in the community as a 2nd build, but rather - and it pains me to say this - were seen as low creativity, low resources, pay-to-win, and low historicity "replacement civilizations".

Now I’m going to analyze the each of these appellations.

1) They were seen as low-resource civs.

Many believe they were created to increase the number of civilizations of the DLC at the lowest possible cost.

– Order of the Dragon was seen as a copy of the HRE, but with a reskin for the military units.
– ZhuXi Legacy was seen as China 2, for using most of China’s unique units, the same name for the four dynasties, and even the same unlocked unique buildings.
– JoanD’Arc, a way to take advantage of the heroine from the French campaign, creating her own civ, which was “France + 1 Heroine”.

Ayyubid is the only case where she was considered to have done a better job, having 7 new unique units and 8 new wings for its unique landmark, in addition to lacking the economic bonuses of Abbasid.

2) Some were seen as civs aesthetically identical to their predecessors.

This was mainly due to the buildings:

  • A) Joan of Arc, which shares 100% of its landmarks and architecture with its parent civ.
  • B) Order of the Dragon, which shares 100% of its landmarks with its parent civ, and its unique units are reskins.

ZhuXi and Ayyubid at least look different because:

  • C) ZhuXi’s flag encourages people to play with the cyan color, and it has 6 different landmarks.
  • D) Ayyubid has 8 new wings, and they don’t have a cheap build bonus, so it’s better with them.

3).- Many saw them as Pay-to-Win replacement civs.

  • The similarities with its parent civ were so many, and the unexpected win rate over its parent civ was such, that this led players to consider them “Pay-to-Win” versions of them.
    – ZhuXi Legacy, because its Early Palace Guard and Early ZhuGeNu were seen as a improved China.
    – Joan of Arc, because she was France + Dota Heroine.
    – Order of the Dragon, for having “functional Landsnechts”, and better Archers and Horsemans than HRE.

  • The only cases where they continued using the parent civ were Abbasid and Ayyubid, because they were “different enough” in unit compositions, but not too unbalanced.

4).- Little, poor, or even “zero” historical representation.

This was especially noticeable in several aspects, which are best listed:

  • Order of the Dragon: Lack of elements from the kingdoms that contributed to providing soldiers to the order, or where it was founded (Hungary). All its Landmarks are from the HRE, although the order was founded in Hungary, and some even predate the order’s founding. Gilded Men-at-Arm use HRE heraldry instead of the Order’s logo. If they wanted to represent the Imperial Army of the HRE, they should have called the civ “Imperial Army.”

  • Joan of Arc: Joan with a Cannon was her biggest problem. While the Joan Riders and Joan Champions represent the allies Joan made in her stories, they could have just as easily given her “real allies” like La Hire, Duke of Alençon, and Arthur de Richemont.

  • Zhu Xi: While the person existed, the fact that he wasn’t a military general, or that he never created a personal army, makes it difficult to relate his civ’s upgrades and unique units to the historical figure.

  • Ayyubid: While gameplay-wise he’s sufficiently different from Abbasid, historically he lacks the famous “Turkish Archer Cavalry,” which can be seen in several levels of the Sultan Ascend campaign and even in historical scenarios. This is quite problematic, the civ doesn’t have its iconic historical unit that practically allowed it to win several important battles.

Solutions

To avoid at least the following problems, there are several theoretical solutions:

1) To avoid being perceived as low-resource civs or cheap copies
They must not share 90% of the base bonuses, nor 90% of the architecture, nor 90% of the unique units, nor 90% of the unique technologies. In all four aspects, they must be different by enough proportion to not be perceived as a copy. Note: 90% is an expression; the similarity must be less than 70%.

  • Knight Templars is the best example: Bonuses: 0%, Landmarks: 0%, UU: 0%, Technologies 0% (Original!)
  • Lancaster, Shared bonuses: 2/7 (28%), UU: none (0%), technologies 1/6: (15%). (Good variant!)
  • JoanDArc S6: Bonuses: 7/9 (77%), UU: 100%, Technologies: 7/8 (87.5%) (Low Resource copy)

2).- To avoid being perceived as aesthetically identical
Its architecture should vary from its predecessor. It should have at least 2 or 3 Landmarks different from the parent civ, some variation in the architecture, or new buildings, and they should be well-crafted, not imperfect modifications of the same (Manors are two houses, and don’t even have a door in the center of the structure). If possible, also change the base units somewhat:

  • Lancaster: Lancaster Castle and Lancaster University
  • Knight Templar: Fortress, New Red and Black Roofs for Buildings. Basic units have a Templar skin.

3) To avoid being perceived as Pay-to-Win enhanced versions
They must not vastly outnumber their parent civs in Unique Units (UU) or Unique Techs (UT). And if they do, at least they must not share the same in a ratio that of 50% or less.

  • French UU:4 vs Knight Templars:11___ Shared (KT): 0/4, 0% (Good!)
  • English UU:4 vs Lancaster: 5________ Shared (LAN): 0/4, 0% (Great!)
  • Abbasid UU:4 vs Ayyubid: 8_________ Shared (Ayb): 2/4, 50% (Decent)
  • Abbasid UU:19 vs Ayyubid: 5________ Shared (Ayb): 2/5, 40% (Decent)
  • French UU:4 vs JoanDArc: 7________ Shared (Joan): 4/4, 100% (Pay-to-Win version, Booo!!!)

4).- To avoid being perceived as Historically Inaccurate
Give them enough historical elements that represent them or that feel like a real representation of them, so that they feel like civs that could appear in a “battle scenario” “historical” or even its own campaign. Not forgetting the iconic historical units that helped them win certain important battles would be a good step.

  • Knights Templar appear in historical battles of Safed and Montsigard.
    • Units: Crusader units appear in Sultan Ascend Campaign.
  • Lancaster appears in historical scenarios of Agincourt and Towton.
    • Units: Rangers, Hobelar and Demilancer were well known historical units of the English Late Medieval Army, but they couldn’t appear in the English Vanilla Civ and the Norman campaign, because the parent civ represent the english since the Anglo-Saxon and Norman period. So, that they appear in the variant version Lancaster, which began his timelane in the 1200, was a good oportunity to let those new units to enter in the game.

There are many possibilities for the future if we consider above all the historical aspect, since although there are Civilizations with few unique historical units, there are others that have quite a few (the Japanese have 14) and could even have more if they focused on a single historical period (Sengoku for example).

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