Feedback to current situation for the devs

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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Hi!

There is a huge issue for me. I play a lot of RUS games, and the playstyle changed from DLC to DLC. Now there are fewer and fewer matchups where you can play with Knights. As a cavalry civ, going regularly for crossbows + spearmen feels weird.

My biggest issue is versus Japan. Their Mounted Samurai are so much better than Rus Knights, without any upgrades. Japan is labeled as an infantry civ, but they have one of the strongest cavalry units. Sengoku showed how strong the Deflective Shield is. They have to spend 1200 resources to get it. Japan, as a viable fast castle civ, just builds a tower on gold, goes castle, and has super-strong cavalry out of the box.

Now that RUS Horse Archers are nerfed too, there are fewer and fewer incentives to build cavalry as RUS. RUS doesn’t want to build Knights vs.: Japan, French, JD, Macedonian Dynasty, Byzantine, Abbasid, Ayyubid, Zhu Xi. I haven’t found a way to make Horse Archers viable. I haven’t seen a pro gamer make those and win a game. Funny enough, RUS Knights are fine vs. the ONLY newly released cavalry civ, Golden Horde.

Some ideas for RUS:
Make a button for RUS Monks to toggle auto-heal. So you can charge in, get the buff, and press the button to let them auto-heal. Now you have to change the formation to Hold Position after the charge, so they heal and don’t try to fight.

Make an interaction between Horse Archers and Knights, e.g. the Knights get the gallop buff of the Horse Archers when used. Or a researchable aura for Horse Archers that gives +1/1 armor to nearby Knights when attacking.

Some ideas for Japan:

Delete the Deflective Shield from the Mounted Samurai and make the infantry Samurai viable. Give them a little movement speed and maybe an upgrade for more range. Or label them as jack-of-all-trades. This would make Sengoku Dynasty even more unique, as the Deflective Shield is always best on the Mounted Samurai. The negation of the bonus damage to cavalry is so strong, they will always try to get that for cavalry.

PLEASE stop releasing civs with “special better Knights” on civs that aren’t labeled cavalry civs (Japan, Macedonian Dynasty, Byzantines). We also need some changes in the meta; the Knight meta is becoming stale. Didn’t AoE 2 change pathing and hitboxes for infantry so they became viable there? Isn’t that an idea?

And please, for the love of God, add more social options. So you can generally mute enemy chat or make it more accessible. I made an AutoHotkey script for muting in 1v1, and it showed me how truly HORRENDOUS the UX is. Between every click in the menu there is a delay of 50 ms+. You need to mute every enemy player separately. You have to confirm EVERY mute. There is no order to the player list. You have to click OK after muting and can’t press ESC. Your position in the player list changes every game.

Greetings

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About Japanese Mounted Samurai Deflective Armor:

Yeah, it’s a very Broken ability for a Castle Age (III) knight unit, especially considering they already get +10% Attack with the Uma Bannerman.

In fact, in the Japanese Sengoku variant, the Mounted Samurai lacks the reflective shield, and doesn’t obtain it unless you reach Tier 3 of the Takeda clan, and that’s fine.

With the Japanese, they could easily do the same with the Mounted Samurai and remove the shield in Age III.

The “Do-maru Armor” technology could grant the Reflective Shield in Imperial age (IV), in addition to its normal +10% speed bonus.

This would make the technology’s name more meaningful: “An armor that grants the Reflective Shield”.

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RUS need to get buffed :slight_smile: and maybe 1-2 new Units.

I think the idea of ​​permanent healing is great (similar to the Black Knights of the Templar). Maybe that the solution.

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Civ‑level levers instead of only unit nerfs Slightly weaken Floating Gate/fast Castle timing: slower production, smaller production buff, or a bit higher investment so the standard “rush Castle → Mounted Samurai flood” hits less brutally.

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Rus feels terrible in the current state. I’ve stopped playing them entirely, but I used to love them. There are very few good matchups for Rus at the moment. I’d like to see unique pro scouts buffs for Rus. Rus is centered around gathering meat and Calvary. It doesn’t make sense that China is better at pro scouts (and everything else at the same time).

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There really should be some buff for RUS or some nerf for chinese proscout. Maybe let chinese get taxes drop of only from sheep and berries and give RUS a modified version of proscouting. It is so sad, that nearly every civ is better in spamming heavy cav or has better heavy cavalry.

3 Likes