How should Civilizations be designed by AoE4?

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
103

Em, guys is it really true they plan to release just "different " 6 factions and more will be DLCs?
Man that’s sounds like we are rather getting Age of Empires Online 2, then Age of Empires 4.

Age of Empires Online main problem was, it looked lazy. Basically guys in blue vs guys in red T-shirts, it was technically possible to make way better game, but the core idea to make factions different and sell skins, killed factions. We could have had instead a game where units would have been not only recognizable, but also look better.

If you play AoE2, its very clear who is Spearman and that he does “evolve” into Pikeman.
its very clear who is Archer and that he does “evolve” into Crossbowman.
And most importantly, its very clearly how both units interact vs each other.

The point of Age of Empires was to have different Ages, not different factions, especially this specialization did lead to a very strong, valuable and reliable core gameplay. As you had to design lot of factions for different perks of unit types and economy, it did maintain to keep them all playable from casual player till competitive.

A game for anybody, interested in history, strategical tactical battles and base build.
I really don’t like the idea to see it, again,
to be turned into something that doesn’t carry on the spirit of the series.

How is even possible to make “different” factions for historical game, without to mess up the entire gameplay?
We have seen dozens of dead games, that did even fail with freedom of Sci-fi or fantasy setting.

In the past, we did fight with basically the same and similar weapons and technologies.
The only visible difference was colours on uniforms and emblems, you can’t make out of it DLCs.

If AoE4 wants to have a slight chance to succeed,
it should rather take a more realistic approach for its design.
What is actually possible to make, that people would like.

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104

There will have to be trade-offs between historical accuracy and civilization unit balances. That is in part why AoE2 had some inaccuracies.

Almost every Old World army had heavy and light infantry and cavalry, so there should be some units that every civ has.

One idea would be to have unit insignia that can be unlocked as the player advances through the game, sort of like with home city levels in AoE3. The style of armor or other features could be customized, so one person’s paladins might look a bit different than another’s

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105

Great idea about unlockable cosmetics and insignia!

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106

If there is some kind of progression system, it should be just visual. Everything else would hurt the experience.

107

In my opinion first of all the game needs a good launch, this means it should under no circumstances contain any nonsense Ideas from AoE Online Skins and AoE3 Progression.

Hide stuff behind play and pay wall will scare people off, hide gameplay stats related content will make it online non playable as simply as new players won’t have content and be kicked first sec they join any match, “sorry you did not waste 100 hours to unlock 5% better spearman, we have to kick you from the game” AoE 3 was way worse balanced as for same costs you could get 5 or 20 of same units, thats too imbalanced between the players. Skins are the worst thing for RTS, as they will simply drain resources from Faction design.

AOE4 needs a good launch. We have seen already in AoE Online and AoE3, that this is bad for the game.

108

In my opinion they could do it like Cossacks or Total War.
Cossacks had “unique” nations, but it was only Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Turkey, Algeria, all the European were designed pretty same. They Started with 14 nations and added later 8, so 22 Nations.

https://cossacks3.gamepedia.com/Nations

We had twenty-two factions in Medieval II: Total War. But the only unique was Aztecs.
3 Arabic and 2 Nomadic, everything else was European

Even there, lets take a look what we have as options for the nations.

https://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Factions_in_Medieval_II:_Total_War.html

Europe: Problem is across Europe, there is no big difference at all, Europe nations had very similar access to technology and had quite comparable combat tactics. Near Asia/Africa and Far Asia nations maybe looked different, but still had their version of same tech.

Nomadic Nations, had just different life style due to hunting and travelling with livestock. They preferred Horses and Bows, but still this technology was accessible to all other nations.

America and Far Africa, did not have access to lot fo technologies, Like Horses and Iron.

So lets say we would have by AoE4
England
Mongols
China
Japan
Aztecs
Some African empire

Why shouldn’t other European nations not be added similar to Britain with a handful of unique units?
France is basically colour Blue instead of Red, and is famous for heavy cavalry instead of Archers.
So get a heavy cavalry Unit instead of Archer for the Elite unit.

For European Nations we have this Options:
The Byzantine Empire
Denmark
England
France
The Holy Roman Empire
Hungary
Milan
Poland
Portugal
Russia
Scotland
Sicily
Spain
Venice
Italy

Also there have been several Nomadic Empires and Nations.
Why also not add them similar to Mongols with Unique units,

like
Mongols
Cumans
Turks
Ottomans
Timurid
Mughal
Tatars
Huns

And so we could have easy a game with like 15 Nations at launch. That would sound way more interesting than just 6 Nations.

110

I suspect they will be releasing at least 8 civs at launch, otherwise you’d have duplicate civs in a 4v4, which would be abnormal for an AoE seasoned player.

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111

How about having real sappers? Like tunnelling and trench warfare?
Also, biological warfare would be interesting vs a walled off opponent.

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112

Trench and Biological warfare was used on middle ages ?

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113

hm, as of biological warfare they were at some extend using infected corpses and throwing them to the enemies with the use of catapults. But maybe this discussion should go to the AOE 4 ideas

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114

Yes, for biological warfare they would hurl diseased plague victims & cows into the city using catapults, trebuchets, etc (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_biological_warfare#Middle_Ages).
For trench warfare, sortof: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castra
Basically they were used for defensive purposes until WW1 it looks like.
I was thinking more sapper-like (tunnel warfare): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Godesberg

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115

Well disease is ignored on AOE i don’t see the point of biological

trench would be the “same” as palisades rather have a war engineer

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116

Tunnel warfare is well documented and was definitely a thing. I imagine it being used at most big sieges.
And those big thick walls that we’ve seen in the trailer would be ideal for such a feature. Could be something similar to petards.
I wonder how more powerful are those walls going to be compared to the previous age games.
It had always been an annoyance that they were working more like a fench that could be destroyed fairly easy even by foot soldiers and that you could also shot through them. Hope it’s going to be different now. AOE 4 ideas

117

True, that’s a good point.
I guess for biological warfare & disease, it depends on if they’re going to focus more on siege craft rather than civ building. If the game maintains the AOE civ-building style, then it doesn’t make as much sense to do disease. But if it’s more about taking fortresses and building fortresses, maintaining control, or city-maintenance, then adding in disease (and even specializing it for each civ) makes sense.

118

I’d love to see sappers. AoE has had that unit before. It’s a great one.

119

creating civilizations for a strategy game could be more difficult than you might think! Having many civilizations means risking having many similar characteristics. I prefer to have few civilizations but very different from each other, that many civilizations that however have only few differences!

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120

Sure it is possible to add a lot to the game and change various things,
but the actual question is, is it going to make sense?

I rather see a problem that RTS,
tend to be not playable because something is breaking the gameplay.

Have you any example for a good game with different civilizations?

I see simply this problem happening if factions are too different:

Because faction A is missing Unit X, Faction B is using all the time Unit X.
There might be other 20 or 40 different units in the game and 2 or 3 other factions, but you see only Faction B play unit X.

That’s why I do prefer similar Factions, because you do see actually other units and factions.

And I personally think Age of Empires is not the right franchise for different factions. No matter what you would do, for different Factions historical setting will be inferior vs any fantasy. Different Factions would make rather sense for Age of Mythology 2, where you could actually do something interesting.

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121

Well for me Age III scheme it’s pretty ok. Is not Starcraft 2 where every faction is completely different (but then, again, they are only three) and is not Age II when at launch had a lot of civs but were all the same with just some differences in the tech tree and new units here and there.
Age III was a medium term, had half of the civs than Age II and every one was kind of different. The base is the same for all but they had different playstyles because of the economy changes, buildings, tecnologies and of course, units. When your citizens cost gold or wood instead food, you manage tour economy different, also when you get them for free like the Otomans. Regarding the Card System (wich for me was a pretty cool thing to add, having extra things and building different decks to adecuate more to your playstyle) each civilization has the adecuate amount of changes to make them unique and different.
I know that a lot of people didn’t like much Age III but i think Ensemble Studios made the right step with it. The balance on the differences and playstyles between the civilizations was very good, the chose between generals and different people every time you advance to a new Age (like Age of Mythology) the whole new card system, even what they did with the fort (rather having ONE significative and strong building than building 18 casttles around your base and map like Age II).

Despite all the new stuff, Age III still feels like an Age game so, Relic should look in the same way at the time in how to develop Age of Empires IV. I like the way in how Adam Isegreen look at it, keeping the core base of Age, but don’t having affraid of introducing a lot of new stuff and changes to ir, whithout making it a complete different type of game. The balance between the old and the new.

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122

Hmmm also i forgot my guess on the civs that they may have at launch.
China or Japanese for sure will be on the roster since i saw asian style buildings in the Behind the Scenes trailer.

I believe that 8 or 10 will be the number for that “wide spectrum” of civilizations that Adam Isegreen was talking about.

My guess:

England
France
Japan
Mongols
Aztecs
Spain
Persian
Ottomans

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123

The building you’re referring to is definitely not in Tang Dynasty/Japan style of architecture. It could be either the Chinese or Vietnamese and of the two, the pick is pretty much obvious.