Oh yes, agreed, I don’t want to see any paid DLC options that give more options/advantages and split the playerbase. I don’t know who is doing post-launch content creation, but in the past Relic has a mixed track record here.
For Dawn of War II they added new units for existing factions only as part of large expansion packs where basically the whole online community moved to playing the expansion. For Company of Heroes II they had paid dlc commanders that came with new abilities and units that added to existing factions - a not very well received approach with pay2win accusations. I think they ultimately changed this approach after I’d already stopped playing.
Probably the best way from player perspective with AOE IV would be free changes to existing unit rosters and then paid dlc only for cosmetics, new campaigns or entirely new civs. I’m curious if they will go with the classic big expansions or introduce new civs individually.
Yeah Im simply requesting free updates to the current game. Which is what they’ve said they’ll do post launch.
A lot of features already are said to only be coming in 2022 and we will even see ranked seasons and balance patches throughout. So I think its a reasonable request that civs/units change in some ways for this game post launch.
Stapling more units or buildings onto an existing civ is like adding organs to an animal after its been born. I suppose it makes the animal unique, but that is not how animals are made.
That’s a little silly. They could literally redesign a civ to be completely indistinguishable from how it looks currently after launch. They won’t, but they could. It’s all numbers in a computer. There’s somewhere between that and the current iteration where the civ has sufficient diversity for the people who think it doesn’t right now.
billhooks, (anti cav)
War hammers? anti armor (inf) anti men at arms. but weak vs pikes
Polearms? anti armor inf/ horse, hardier/ more versatile but more obstruction space needed, or not as powerful as pike vs cav, but better than other pike vs other units.
Crossbow cavalry anti cav
Peasant militia (farm tool weapons like pitch fork, flail, club)
Demo siege crew (set fires to buildings, and or place explosives under walls)
Mace weilding men (HRE unit mace is too fantasy) anti armor units like the warhammer
Spies (looks 98% like enemy vils until weak attacks, gets past gates)
fully armored slow tank cav barely faster than inf but solid!
wooden siege walls (help armies fight near walls)
tower ballista (anti ram/ siege/ ship tower unit)
I have a feeling the devs may add some sort of mercenary system to the game as a free update someday. The mercenary system would have a bunch of fun unique units that can be equally hired by all the civs.
pretty sure in future they will rework existing civs to com eon par with future dlc, the community seem to be more chill in aoe 4 than aoe 2, so pretty sure devs will listen.
Tbh I think if they just added more detail to the current units, it would look a lot more like there’s variation.
Such as this picture of this unique units having all kinds of patterns and stripes on their clothing. Not only would it differentiate it from average units, it would had a hell lot of culture to the civs
I think they need to make the unique units look more flashy and not like the current AOE IV English longbowmen. I reckon a lot of people would see a lot of culture and variation then.
Also details like beards and additions such as Agoe of Mythology did to their Norse units, which gave it culture and aesthetics.
Otherwise more but similar looking units will just add upon the lack of variety feeling
Id really like Mamluks but since the Abbasids dont have them perhaps they are going to add a Mamluk sultanate or Ayyubid dynasty civ eventually that has them? I’m no expert on the Abbasids but they are much more centred around Baghdad and had Persian influence right? the other two options would be much more representative of Egypt and Arabia.
