Exactly. Why do people argue against an addition that they would turn of anyway? Of course it costs money for the developers to make but I’m pretty sure that they would make more money though increased sales. If the whole thing was a payed DLC then they could simply just not buy it.
0 capacity taken away from the developers working on the multiplayer aspect of the game since it’s not the developers making skins, it’s artists. Those artists can’t help fixing the path finding or improving the lobby features.
Fundamentally, the developers created AoE4 as an alternative or evolution for fans who value regional authenticity and immersion.
Personally, however, I don’t like the general visual style of AoE4 at all. I can’t quite put my finger on why. To me everything looks so plastic, almost cartoonish.
Even though AoE2’s graphics are completely outdated and AoE4 is rendered in 3D, AoE2 delivers a far more atmospheric experience. As I said, I can’t quite explain it myself—I don’t know exactly what it is—but I still find AoE2 visually much more appealing and atmospheric than AoE4.
AoE4 uses relatively low poly models with relatively low resolution textures which a less realistic art style. The terrain is made to look like a “painting” while the units are more high contrast to be more readable.
The civ specific skins are nice and all but the game looks inherently unrealistic on purpose.
AoE2DE on the other hand might be 2D but the 2D sprites are made using high detail 3D models with high detail textures so it looks more polished then AoE4. Also the style of the units, buildings and terrain is more coherent, especially when it comes to shading and colour choices.
I think the changes that were already done like unique Castles and Monasteries already massively improved the visual immersion. Now it’s just the units that are leaking behind. The mostly well tiffing buildings are a huge contrast to the totally generic units coming out of them.
btw. I think AoMR and AoE3DE look so much better then AoE4 so it would definitely be possible to make an 3D AoE2 that looks good. Not saying that they should do that though.
Skins (with possibly regionally associated bonusses).
Cause skins can possibly be deactivated. Regional unit replacements like the Ele Rams are forced upon everybody and imo overcomplicate stuff that should be simple. Like when vills become ineffective against ele ram pushes, that’s really annoying tbh.
Maybe but do you even look at the ram head when its coming at you?
To me the best way to make siege weapons unique is to give them crews which will look different.Again the guys inside the ram are not visible so ram would still look too similar.
I think we should. And that’s why we should prefer skins over regional replaments.
Cause skins can be dactivated, replacements not.
And as long as it is kept as this, ofc the muliplayers should be satisfied. At least I will be as long as I have the option to make my game clean enough to be able to play competitive.
As for regional generic units, we could handle them similarly to the architecture sets—one set of generic units per set. In most cases, the differences wouldn’t be drastic enough to significantly impair readability. I’d be fine with making both of those optional—the architecture and the generic unit lines.
On a different note (I know this is off-topic), is there an AI mod that doesn’t strictly follow rigid build orders? I don’t really want to criticize that, since the AI is clearly designed to function that way on purpose. But I find the AI’s obsession with Town Centers annoying, for instance. I design my maps and place farms around mills, but the AI tears them down and builds new farms exclusively around the Town Centers. That makes perfect sense according to the game’s logic, but it’s frustrating when you’re trying to design a specific scenario layout. Plus, I have absolutely zero knowledge of AI scripting.
I would argue that the Japanese would need to have mounted samurai with yari and bows instead of their knights and cav archers. Should these be just reskins or full on regional units?
I think a middle ground should be chosen. Specifying the generic lines further—beyond the architecture sets—would probably be going too far. In specific cases, however, I would indeed add individual regional units, just as has been done so far.
However, concerning sipahi, there we have, as i call it, the same universal cavalry issue, as for boyars - this type of unit used bows for ranged and spears and sabres (or maces vs armoured opponent) for close combat.
And, as I’ve noticed in previous posts, there were much more of this kind of heavy universal cavalry (cavalry using horse barding, capable both close and ranged combat, including shock charge) in medieval states of Asia and Europe to the east from Hungary and Poland, such as ghulams in Persia or mamelukes in Egypt, heavy cavalry of muslim states in India or heavy cavalry in Korea, or Iron Cavalry (Tie Ji) in China until fall of Tang dynasty, or even byzantine Cataphracts.
Also we have a vanilla tech line of Archer - Crossbowman - Arbalester. As far as I know, the crossbow had limited usage in all places where the techique of producing composite bows was known and, as consequence, the composite bow was used there as main ranged weapon. So, possibly some composite bowmen infantry could be added for asian civilizations (now Armenians only have it but as UU).
I have a question that might be a bit unusual. Since I never play the game “normally”—focusing instead on my own custom scenarios—I often struggle with unit balancing.
I wanted to keep using the “old” Hero Jarl unit (now Norse Chieftain), so I converted him into a regional scout/light cavalry unit. Here are the stats:
Attack 6 (+10 vs. Monks), Armor 1/1, Range 2, HP 50, Speed 1.45, Line of Sight 10, continued self-healing rate of 30 (as the hero unit has), cost 80 Food.
Would this be too strong, too weak, or just right for actual gameplay? Or would you suggest any changes?
It’s incredibly hard for someone like me to get a feel for balance, especially since winning or losing doesn’t really matter to me when I’m designing these scenarios.