It would be great if we had a feature in multiplayer to be able to personalize your own civ when playing against other players. It can give a unique touch and feeling to your civ even if the other player is playing the same civ. By personalizing, I mean just aesthetically without impacting the gameplay. Like to have your own flag and banners waving on towers, buildings, walls etc.
When playing multiplayer in aoe, aoe2 and aoe3 and building a massive empire, it doesn’t feel that it was yours. It doesn’t feel that you are representing your civ outside of your gamertag that is shown.
Adding some customization like creating your own flag and banner etc to be visible ingame could give more identity to you as a player online. It can give the feeling that you identify yourself as the civ and enjoy the battle more as it is your civ that has to win for its survival.
Flags and banners will be great addition. This is also good for esports scenes like the banner of your favorite player imagine a Viper flag in a battlepass. 11
Down of War had exactly this feature and it was made by the same studio. But you could also make your own colour scheme there. The game was based on tabletop where this is a huge thing so it makes sense.
But I think uploading your own banners might be difficult nowadays.
I can imagine seeing a lot of racist symbolism. And I’m afraid the banners wouldn’t fit in because a lot of people would use modern symbols or just strait up memes.
Maybe a medieval flag designer could work because flags followed rules anyway and that way you couldn’t design something to crazy.
I just hope they don’t become micro transactions or season pass features.
Yeah thats true that it could be difficult. However, they can think of something so it cannot be abused. Like to design something within a range of possibilities.
I would not want the game to bogg down due to excessive customization. Perhaps a wide range of flags and banners to choose from that already exist within the game. That way nobody could complain about racist symbols or whatever hurts their feelings.
I am pro of having some degree of personalization. This need is even stronger when playing vs the same civ like you mentioned.
But at the same time I am not a fan of customizing flags or units.
Customization in my opinion can make more sense in games of non historical context.
In a historical game however civs already have their own flags,banners,emblems derived from history. Allowing that to be altered for the shake of personalization just takes something out of this experience, from the feeling of playing a people from history.
One would say that they could add coats of arms following heraldic rules. Those were used to signify specific groups, families or individuals. It sounds cool but the issue is that it was mostly a European trend, even more a Western European.
Many civs would look out of place with such customized banners.
So I don’t know… Maybe personalization can come through other features.
Like having something similar to a home city as in AoEIII or AoEO.
Or by picking up a different hero unit (say a King or general) that will represent your civ versus the same civ under the command of a different historical figure.
Or even by customizing a completely fictitious hero unit in an rpg kind of style (with restrictive clothing, similar to the civ’s customs).
I could see that working since history doesn’t keep track of every individual’s story and name. This way the civ’s historical Identity remains intact and at the same time we have a perfectly personalized civ.
Having cosmetic upgrades on your buildings like showing your coat of arms on flags could be nice. Or maybe being able to have gold trimmings on your units and buildings. Something that’s small and not going to confused for player colors or upgrades. Or maybe changing things like the stained windows on churches, things that don’t change the overall appearance of the building or unit.