How should Civilizations be designed by AoE4?

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
231

Well a lot of units can be added, but I think a chart should exist how they do interact.
And it should be a clear chart, how do they counter each other.

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232

I wish hope that bow archers and slingers should be the basic range unit with no gold cost, and they are different line from gold units like crossbowmen, javelineers and cannoneers. Suppose the skirmisher is a job to do instead of a kind of units.

It may be better at presenting the diverse of civs. For example, Japanese almost not used crossbow so they can have great bow archer upgrading and poor crossbowman. European used crossbow a lot so there will be good crossbowman upgrading but poor bow archer for Franks, Italian, etc. Britons will be an exception with not bad bow archer and unique longbowman line instead of crossbowman. In the other hand, American natives like Aztec and Mayan will have slingers and javelineers to replace crossbowman since their bow archers were also badly.

Btw, I hope that let the foot archers be available in barracks and the mounted archers be available in stables, such like AOE3. It does not make the sense that nomads civ trains cavalry archer by a lot of other buildings instead of stables.

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233

what about an unique archer unit?
They can use both crossbow and longbow

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234

I think AoE2 did there a better job,
as tech advantage was represented by bonuses and factions did not lack tech.

Different factions is something for Fictional and Phantasy settings, where you can simply put it anything to fix the tech tree. No siege unit? OK lets make a rainbow gun cat. No transport unit? OK lets add some portals or teleportation. A history setting, No siege unit? Well if one faction has a catapult and that’s the best one, all others do need that thing as well, or they won’t be playable as battering ram, long bow, digging under walls, or climb ladders just don’t compensate lack of such catapult unit.

Example:

Faction Europe = Crossbow
Faction Asia = Bow
Faction America = Spear Throwing

Well, if Crossbow is the strongest weapon, nobody will play in long run Asia and America.

So AoE would do it like this

Faction Europe = Crossbow + 15% speed, Bow, Spear Throwing
Faction Asia = Crossbow, Bow +15% damage, Spear Throwing
Faction America = Crossbow, Bow, Spear Throwing -15% cheaper

Its way easier to balance units, than factions.
This way its better represented, with specific bonuses.

I think a chart should exist of common units and unique units.
So you can properly describe, what is playable.

Example

Common Range Soldiers
-Slinger / trash unit
-Archer / Anti Cheap Soldiers
-Crossbow / Anti Soldiers
-Skirmisher / Anti Range
-Hand Cannoneer / Anti Heavy

Common Range Riders
-Horse Archer / Anti Soldier
-Horse Skirmisher / Anti Range
-Horse Cannoneer / Anti Heavy

Faction Specific Range units:
Well even if we would add something like Greek Fire, Naffatun, Axe Trowers,
there should exist common units to counter them, like Skirmisher, so they won’t break the balance.

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235

It is not a problem after setting different data of units.

For example:

Archer (II) → Heavy Archer (III) → Imperial Heavy Archer (IV)
cost: 25F35W, training time: 35->32->30, HP: 35->40->45, armor: 0/0>0/1>0/1
attack: 4->5->6, range: 4->5->5, rate of fire: 2.03, speed: 0.96, accuracy: 80%>85%>90%
Every civ have archer, but just some civ have heavy archer and a few of them have Imperial, especially who have no crossbowman as well as arbalester.

Crossbowman (III) → Arbalester (IV)
cost: 15W45G, training time: 27, HP: 35->40, armor: 0/0
attack: 6->7, range: 6->7, rate of fire: 3.05, speed: 0.8, accuracy: 90%>95%
European and Chinese may be good at this. Britons replace crossbow line with their own longbow.

Skirmisher (II) → Javelineer (III) → Elite Javelineer (IV)
cost: 40W20G, training time: 30>27>25, HP: 35->35->40, armor: 0/3>1/4>1/5
attack: 5->6->7, range: 4->5->5, rate of fire: 3.05, speed: 0.8, accuracy: 70%>80%>90%

Slinger (II) → Elite Slinger (III)
cost: 20F20W, training time: 22, HP: 30->35, armor: 0/0>0/1
attack: 3->4, range: 4->5, rate of fire: 2.03, speed: 0.96, accuracy: 70%>90%

Hand Cannoneer (IV) → Musketeer (IV?)
cost: 45F50G, training time: 35, HP: 35->50, armor: 1/0>2/0
attack: 17->22, range: 7->8, rate of fire: 3.45, speed: 0.8, accuracy: 65%>95%

Actually, Halberdier can also be separated from Pikeman like AOE3, it makes sense too.

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236

Indeed some weapons work very different to make them simply “evolve” version of the others.

Good Ideas for core faction design, but in last years have been several ideas for “work around” to give factions extended access to tech.

Idea 1, from Stronghold and Cossacks are mercenaries.
So you have one building for very expensive units, but they do fix gaps in tech tree.

Idea 2, from Red Alert 2 are spies and engineers who do steal tech,
so you can steal tech from enemy by capture or infiltrate his buildings.

Idea 3, from Relic is to collect enemy weapons and artillery, once you kill the soldiers, you can pick up their weapons.

Idea 4, some games do have neutral buildings you can capture, to get access to units

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237

Idea 1 is good.
But i think idea 2 is not good for medieval era
Idea 3 is well,probably we will see capturing trebuchetsin game.
Idea 4,similar to aoe3.and it is okay i think

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238

I enjoyed the online multiplayer formatting provided by Age of Empires III online-mode, easy and simple log-in and logout with not one connection problem; the layout was understandable, easy to read, it functioned well and worked fine.

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239

One thing I always wondered about AOE2, why did we not have dogs ?

We had in AoE2 Hunting Dogs as technology,
we had wolves as neutral units for hunt, but no actual Dog unit for it?
Dog makes sense as scout unit, Dog makes sense as combat unit.
Spain had them in AoE3, so why not give access to it for more factions?

Of course the idea of “zergling” comes around for a cheap fast melee unit. But that wont fit AoE.
Well my suggestion is this Age 1+2 its Explorer Dog, that is for scouting with much less damage than a worker. Age 3+4 its War Dog with proper damage.

While I still like to play any RTS online, there are sadly not so many left where you can do it.
Somehow RTS did lose their popularity. My personal suspicion is all the faction difference we have these days.

By similar factions like AoE2, you can simply copy what your enemy is doing, if you play factions that have completely different tech, you won’t have a clue how to use them.

240

I would have to disagree. There are much larger factors at play. Popularity of FPS games and the rise of the console market for example.

Look how how popular SC2 has been since release (10 years ago). To my knowledge its never been a struggle to find a 1v1 match online in SC2. And that game takes differences in factions to the extreme.

Compare that to AoE2. Its popularity has only increased recently with the HD and Definitive editions.

Similar vs different faction design is a fascinating and important design decision, but I don’t think you can blame the decline of RTS games on it. Otherwise SC2 would have been dead in the water.

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241

Yes team of Starcraft did manage it, but so far every other team does mess it up.
I think the main factor why RTS did lose popularity is, because developers are not good and handling task of “different factions and make game more accessible”, it results in bad games.

1 make each faction play differently, so there is only 1 lame way to play the game
2 make completely different gameplay, so it does feel broken
3 make the game more simple, so it makes game boring

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242

Just as example previous game of AoE4 lead designer Adam Isgreen

Universe at War: Earth Assault from 2007

Universe at War had high critic scores and was warmly welcomed, still it didn’t reach the broad masses. It was interesting to try out, but not to stay and play.

An “original” idea might turn into the main problem for the game.
While the factions were intended to have unique play style, there was no much variety how you played them. The Huge Walker was simply about send out 3 huge Walkers and stomp the enemy base, the small Robot faction was about select all your units and let them attack 1 enemy unit. There was also some kind of Atlantis faction, it was simply rushed in early game. Game died very fast online.

In contrast, his 1 year previous game Star Wars: Empire at War is still played today. In direct comparison. Starwars Empire , Rebels and Criminals have by each unit type their counterpart of fighter, bomber, gun ship, space station, siege ship, Capitol Ship. Its very clear how they do counter each other.

That’s why I am already very skeptical for AoE4 mongol mobile bases.
-what if it does lead like by previous game,
that mongols are only mid-game hit and run faction?
that mongols can not build up properly end game economy?
that mongols are only rushed early game?

By similar designed factions you can simply make a change for them all.
By different designed factions they are either broken or overpowered
and a change might mess up a lot.

243

If Mongols have good means to rebuild Eco systems that has been broken / destroyed, then a Mid-late-siege heavy + Turtling Mongol army could indeed overcome the foe by victory through eye for an eye. (Assuming foes cant rebuild as rapidly & well).

In a teamgame, allies would need to ship resources by lategame to make it possible for the superior mongol army to partake.
Eco Supplementing can be a viable tactic.

244

Do you realise the difficulty in BALANCING a game where every unit is different WHILE having 10 or more different civilizations?

245

Dude! They already do this.

Long-bow (fires long distance)

archer (regular)

arbalest (advanced)

Chu-Ko-Nu (fires mulltiple shots rapidly)

246

And a step backwards is bad
 why exactly? If it is a step backwards from AoM and AoE3 to the MUCH BETTER AoE2 (or the even better AoE2 DE), then the simple answer, LET’S ALL TAKE ONE MASSIVE STEP BACKWARDS!! :smiley:

247

Its still an archer, that is accessible to all factions,
you still have by all factions skirmishers to counter him.

So in the design of AoE2, you do have by each faction the counterpart and counter units for Archers.
Modern day games tend to forget even such basics.

Different economy and game still OK?
In theory maybe, but practically I didn’t see a RTS team that was able to do so.

For example Microsoft Game Studios already did show, to be not good at supervise such project.
let’s talk about Age of Empires brother Rise of Nations
Rise of Nations was similar to AoE, had 24 nations and several ages with perks for it. You had 4 similar ages to AOE2, but also could continue 4 more into modern day era. So all together 8 ages.

Somehow this game happened Rise of Legends.
Where factions had different economy system.

Its not like Microsoft was with this RoL release 2006 lazy or did do a bad job. They did even put more money and manpower to make it. Yes it had high scores, yes it was fun, yes it had lot people who did appreciate it, yes I personally loved the game and played it a lot. I would instant buy a new copy on MS store. As my CD is broke.

Its just not many people are asking for such games. It was a big flop.
A Strategy game is about variety of strategies you can use and perform. A game with very differently designed factions, does inhibit and prevent using different strategies.

And it looks to me for AoE4 like they still did not understand why those projects failed.

248

Great article, thanks for sharing.

I loved Star Wars Empire at War as well. Land balance was a struggle though, those Rebel T4B Tanks? Oh my word they were too good.

No doubt RTS games with unique factions are more difficult to balance, you are completely right about that. Its hard to make factions that all play differently yet are still viable early, mid, and late game. Its even more difficult when there are 10+ civilizations to balance. (Age of Empires III)

I would rather have 5 unique civilizations that are well balanced then 15+ civilizations that are well balanced but basically the same (AoE II DE).

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I wouldn’t want a half-assed bunch of civilisations, I would neither desire as few as 6 civilisations to pick from.

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250

Id rather 6 or 8 then the dozens of pointless civilizations in AoE 2. I’m a happy man with just 3 super in depth civs like SC2. Where each faction has almost limitless depth.

But, its not really the AoE way, and I get that. As long as there is a decent about of uniqueness, I will be happy.

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