I'm sorry but I still think the variant civs are a terrible idea

[Borealis-7]

I know this is an old topic, but I kept asking myself: what exactly are the problems the variant civs have solved? It seems they brought way more problems than making the game better. First the history fans were upset, now this mess of balancing a lot of competitive players have been complaining… Balancing 12 asymmetric civs would be challenging enough, now with these wildly incoherent variants it’s like introducing new problems on top of old problems.

For me, the variants really broke the immersion and coherence of the game. The game is now unacceptable from an aesthetic point of view. It’s been killing my drive to boot up the game. I waited, withheld my judgement until I tried them all. Then I just felt like they are worse than being unnecessary, before the DLC reveal I just thought I might not like the new civs as much but what could go wrong?

We now have one of the worst representations of Jeanne D’arc ever. Greatsword Jeanne, Archer Jeanne, Horse Archer Jeanne, Horse handcannon Jeanne… Do these even add anything meaningful to the game? Jeanne is such an abomination in this game I feel horrible for the character. She could’ve been a Khan-like unit added to the French (I’d call her “la Pucelle” for better coherence) to make the French civ less one-directional. Make her carry a banner, inspire units around her. You want to keep the skills? Fine, there are much better ways some of these can be implemented. An example would be when Jeanne casts the divine arrow, an archer or arbalétrier within her range shoots that powerful arrow. This is still fantasy but doesn’t this make her feel a lot like the Jeanne D’arc we know?

The other variants aren’t any better IMO. OOTD with their giants and plastic yellow weapons? Ayyubids camel lancers? Abbasids infantry can build siege weapons so we make Ayyubids cavalry able to build them because it totally makes sense? Zhu Xi’s Legacy which has absolutely nothing to do with Zhu Xi? ShaoLin monks, seriously? One thing I loved about the original Chinese civ design was it didn’t use stereotypes like this, but here we are.

I’m not asking for 100% accuracy but I’m not a fan of a hot mess like this either. If they released 2 new civs with the campaign for this price, this could’ve easily been one of the best expansions.

I know some players don’t enjoy the game from an aesthetic point of view which is totally understandable, but that doesn’t mean we must be divided. A lot of the ideas can be implemented differently to make us all happy.

Go back to the beginning, what problems are the dev trying to solve with the variants?

We need more civs? TBH 12 asymmetric civs is already a lot more than most games. I know new civ concepts has been a popular topic but that just means people are enthusiastic about AOE4 civs, I don’t think we needed 6 new “civs” all at once. Poorly executed civ ideas will only kill this enthusiasm. Reaching to a wider audience? I don’t think forcing a hero unit in this single new variant civ is a good solution for that. You might be able to achieve a much better result by improving the pve/co-op section of the game.

I know the devs probably can’t maintain the original vision of the game anymore, but the direction of the game has become really baffling to me.

Lastly, I still love the game, hence this post.

[GorbMort]

@Borealis-7

Go back to the beginning, what problems are the dev trying to solve with the variants?

I believe they answered this in the blog post where they explained variants. They’re an ahistorical twist on an existing faction that opens up different playstyles (if I’m remembering correctly).

At the end of the day, some folks are going to like them, and some folks are going to not. They’re in the game now. What should the devs do, remove them? Or spend however much effort it takes to completely redo them to fit somebody’s interpretation of what they should look like? Because a lot of people are going to have very different ideas there.

[cucuct]

@Borealis-7

Go back to the beginning, what problems are the dev trying to solve with the variants?

Here are some guesses:

— The title The Sultans Ascend would be more fitting if the new civs accompanying its campaign are not the current 4+2, but Malians and Ottomans, giving it a coherent theme.

— COVID-19 disrupted business schedules everywhere, including the game industry.

— Perhaps TSA was originally planned to be released in 2022 with the speculated content (Abbasid campaign, new Malian & Ottoman civs, or even 3 campaigns for Abbasids, Malians & Ottomans - 1 existing civ + 2 new civs, just like AoE2DE’s DLCs).

— COVID-19 delayed the production of the campaign, forcing them to release the new civs early (initially as paid DLC, then decided to give them away at the last minute — this is a known fact based on the first trailer that they took down).

— Byzantines and Japanese were originally planned as new civs in the 2nd (and/or 3rd) DLC, but these further DLC plans were additionally disrupted by Relic’s 2023 mass layoff.

— This situation of internal uncertainty & anxiety may be why they came up with the 4 variant civs: cheap to make, saving costs by reusing existing assets, they are a desperate “Hail Mary” attempt to squeeze more “value add” into the jumbled DLC.

[Borealis-7]

I read that post and to be honest, instead of giving valid reasons, the whole post sounded like a nice way of writing “we don’t really know what we are doing”.

We start with historical inspiration from some element in the history of the classic civilization and then build gameplay from that theme. These elements can be a single individual (like Jeanne d’Arc), a philosophy (like the neo-Confucianism of Zhu Xi), or a particular historical group within the broader culture (like the Order of the Dragon). Although these seeds are often small moments, we explore the ‘what if’ of keeping that focus throughout the journey through the four Ages. Historically, Jeanne d’Arc lived at what would be the early part of the Imperial Age (just as France was adopting firearms at large scale), but we feature her across all four Ages in the variant that bears her name.

And “let’s justify the variants with the already inaccurate historical details in the game.”

This builds on some of the “historical extensions” of the classic civilizations, such as the Abbasid Dynasty and Delhi Sultanate having full gunpowder units even through those particular groups never adopted gunpowder en masse (or were succeeded by those who did, such as the Ottomans).

While historical accuracy was never the real issue. It was a major appeal of the game and was its original vision, but it was never the deciding factor for killing the game’s immersion and authenticity.

Anyway I understand there’s probably no way they’ll remove the variants, Just wanted to share my thoughts.

[cucuct]

@Borealis-7

Zhu Xi’s Legacy which has absolutely nothing to do with Zhu Xi?

Perhaps a designer:
— decided on a broad “more intellectual / spiritual” theme;
— came up with the name “Confucius’ Legacy” first, as a default “things everyone knew about China” sort of name (compare: the AoE3 card “Confucius’ Gift”);
— checked sources like Wikipedia or Britannica to see Zhu Xi is the only philosopher on the first-level navigation menu that’s from medieval period;
— then put in a few Zhu Xi-themed landmark names (the models themselves are all reused from old buildings), one or two Chinese historical items they found in research like the Single Whip Reform, plus the easy choice (Shaolin monks).

One thing we can be sure is some landmarks’ internal names - Tanzhou Prefecture (where Zhu Xi governed) for Jiangnan Tower and White Grotto Academy (White Deer Grotto, which Zhu Xi rebuilt) for Mount Lu Academy have proven that the Zhu Xi theme was intended from the start, and wasn’t something they hastily added after the name “Empire of Jade” was poorly received by the community.

Even from here, you can catch a glimpse of their internal anxiety: it’s very likely that the design team always wanted to call the two renamed variant civs “Zhu Xi’s Legacy” and “Ayyubids”, while “Empire of Jade” and “The Sultan’s Army” were replacements forced on by executives who fear these names would be “too obscure, too hard to pronounce” for the audience. The community reactions helped them win the battle.

Of course, all the above are just guesses.

[grizzgolf]

I dont mind them. At first I thought they were a rough idea but the more I play them the more I like them

[GorbMort]

@Borealis-7

I read that post and to be honest, instead of giving valid reasons, the whole post sounded like a nice way of writing “we don’t really know what we are doing”.

Why does it make them sound like they don’t know what they’re doing?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you not liking them. And at the end of the day, the variants could solve a problem that you don’t think is a problem, or the variants could solve a problem and the way variants were done could still put you off them. That’s all absolutely fine.

But I do think it’s a bit counterproductive to assume that they don’t know what they’re doing just because they did it differently to how you would’ve done them (based on your ideas in the OP).

Historical accuracy differs for different players. Some folks don’t care about it as much as others. Others care about it more. This is a video game, and therefore could cater to both types of player (and everyone inbetween). Including a campaign, two full new civilisations, and these variants, is a way to do that (even though imo we need more campaigns, more than one every two years at least).

[Borealis-7]

@GorbMort

Why does it make them sound like they don’t know what they’re doing?

Because as a Designer myself, this sounds too much like post-rationalised. If you only read the first paragraph, it makes sense logically, but when you put it side by side with the scope of the rest of the game, they simply fail to hold any coherence. Even when you look at the design of the 4 variants on their own, they look very arbitrary and don’t seem to be on the same scale at all. The whole article pretty much dodged addressing this issue, I wouldn’t believe they didn’t see the issue here. Especially after the community pointed it out.

That being said I totally respect your perspective, just wanted to clarify I was not assuming because hating.

[Borealis-7]

Thanks for the reply, I think your guesses make sense.

Although I’m not sure if they had Zhu Xi in their plan from the beginning. As the functions of the landmarks don’t seem to reflect “Zhu Xi”, they could’ve just changed their names after changing the variant’s name to Zhu Xi. If they considered Zhu Xi from the beginning, I don’t think they would’ve added Shaolin Monks and Yuan Raiders at all. (Also this explains why the new landmarks are ugly green which is really out-of-place. Because “Jade”)

[GorbMort]

I’m not a designer (in the classical sense, I have done a lot of software design work and even games dev design work at times), I’m a (software) engineer, but I do like talking design.

Without understanding every single decision the devs made, I feel on some level the choices made are going to seem arbitrary. But does that mean they are? They chose France, China, Abbasids and Ottomans. Why those four? Impossible to know. I doubt they were picked out of a hat though.

Jeanne is very divisive, but that’s an easy explanation. She’s well-known and has popped up in the franchise before. To me that’s the easiest explanation. The implementation is what people criticise, and I don’t share those criticisms, but that’s all a whole other subject really.

The hardest explanation (imo) is Zhu Xi’s Legacy, and based on the criticism people have given around its design, it may be that they just wanted to experiment with Dynasty changes before upping it to a full variant. Or maybe there was a different goal and things changed during development.

OotD and Ayyubids are pretty straightforward to me. They’re not iconic like Jeanne is, but they’re safe bets. An “elite” HRE faction, and Abbasids with a different unit comp. Straightforward.

Again, not really commenting on the outcome, just speculating on the reasoning.

[cucuct]

@GorbMort

The hardest explanation (imo) is Zhu Xi’s Legacy, and based on the criticism people have given around its design, it may be that they just wanted to experiment with Dynasty changes before upping it to a full variant. Or maybe there was a different goal and things changed during development.

Dynasties are indeed the mechanic with the most potential “leftover design space”. It wouldn’t be surprising if they felt they can make an alternate take of the civ.

Datamining shows the most powerful gimmick they tried for ZXL was switching dynasties at will. That may be its initial concept.

They tried out a lot of new techs for ZXL, like more HP for siege weapons, farther range for Grenadiers, Relic generating resources, and a “turtle shell empire” that sounds like an invulnerability shield.

The Dynastic Protectors tech would originally make Lancers and Fire Lancers “dismount” - become infantry after depleting HP, like Konniks from AoE2.

Meanwhile, Imperial Guards have the internal name “Ming Guards”. It sounds like Yuan Raiders and them were initially planned as dynastic units.

[joanka93val]

To be honest OOTD and Ayyubids are the only civs that “makes a bit of sense”.

In fact, variant civs are just this, variants. They are like their father civs but they change the way being played (for example OOTD with their elite unit concept, or Ayyubids being more focused on camels).

Despite that, OOTD need something and Ayyubids need several nerfs, since they can just skip feudal taking near 0 risk.

But then there is Zhu Xi and Jeanne… Both focused in a particular person, but moreover, being absolutely better than their father civs. They don’t just change the way they are played but they improve the other civ in each aspect.

There are several design concepts that Zhu Xi literally avoids. For example, chineese is slow civ at first because to unlock zhu ge you need to get the first dinasty, but then you have zhu xi, who can get zhu ge without dinasty and generates resources over a cheaper landmark.

This is like a variant of rus where you can access streltsy in castle age. Who would choose then Rus when this other civ can get this for less?

We are watching this right now, chineese win rate has dropped A LOT, because no one is willing to play with a civ who is clearly worst than their variant.

[romgrk]

One can dream, but removing some of the variants would probably the best solution to improve the gameplay. Jeanne d’Arc is very poorly thought out and executed. ZXL is just better China. Fix China instead of making a new one.

But OOTD is cool, a faction centered on big expensive units is unique and fun.

Ayyubids could have been much better, but they’re also an interesting addition to the game. They could however use more historical details to add to the gameplay. For example, Ayyubids did a lot of research in the medical field, they could have had better healing techs or mechanisms. The FC option is just busted though, very badly balanced.

But overall I think there’s just a lack of vision in making the game fun to play and make it an evolution over what AOE2 proposes (and it seems to have just forgotten that AOE3 existed and was excellent). The fun unique units are locked behind Castle age for the most part, but most 1v1 games don’t even make it that far because the balance is tilted towards Feudal. Could have been much better.

[GoldenArmorX]

REASON FOR THE VARIANTS?
Regarding the initial question of the topic: “I don’t think the variants were created to solve any specific problem”, but rather to take advantage of campaign units (Ayyubid), architecture for alternate Landmarks (Zhu Xi) and novel concepts that could not work in the normal way with normal civs.

Variants are fine as variants - a new idea to create civs from concepts that are not just kingdoms or nations (heroes, organizations). They have different gameplay and a way to create new play styles that are fun. Concepts like a civ with a Hero like JoanDArc, or strong units like OotD, passive or random cassino bonuses like Ayyubid, or new landmarks as Zhu Xi are very fun to play.

Also, with them come the possibility to make concepts of civs that normally couldn’t be released as “normal” and fresh civs because there is already another with which it shares a language and model of units (Aztecs - Tlaxcaltecas, Milan–Toscana, Ayyubid - Mamelukes - Abbasid, etc.).

Another thing is that some are not well balanced in contrast to their parent civ:

• 1.- Order of the Dragon vs HRE.- With the OotD there is no problem with the HRE, the latter has already had problems since before its variant, lacking more unique units (Note: *in the current state of the game since there are civs with up to 13 unique units, before in season 1-4 it was not a problem *), or due to the little use of some of its landmarks.

• 2.- Ayyubid.- With the Abbasid there is a problem with the Ayyubid, because the latter has more unique units than its parent civ and better strategies for feudal Rush or economic boom. That doesn’t make Ayyubid bad or broken, but if Abbasid is in need of some bost, perhaps free villagers and imams when choosing his economic wings or cultures, Ayyubid does it.

• 3.- JoanDArc vs FRENCH.- JoanDArc in itself is fun and adds a difficulty to the French ones that makes me like playing them more. However, it has “So many” elements of its parent Civ (in addition to the bonus of 2 extra unique units and Joan’s bonuses at 4th level), that I think the French should consider adding more content to it to separate it from its variant, or unless they are used again in ranked; mainly for Imperial or Castle age.

• 4.- ZHU XI vs China.- With ZhuXi, the problem is not that China is weak, which isn’t (it is still a strong civ), but that ZhuXi’s alternate Dynasty bonuses are too extreme that, in fact, now Zhu Xi is too broken against any civ in general and not just his father civ. So much so that in theory it is preferable to play ZhuXi over China with greater probabilities of victory in any mode. A Reddit suggestion from “Vaesaryn” was to balance better the Zhu Xi Dynasties bonuses and Meditation Garden, nerfim them a little (Tang Dynasty: 15% → 10% discount; Meditation Gardens: decrease the range slightly; Song Dynasty: 40% → 30% wood reduction)

Solutions for ballance?.- I previously made a post where I suggested some unique units to give the Parent civs a boost about their variant civs, so that they are more balanced. ( Suggestion: New Units and Mechanics to Classic Civs - January 2024)

• To the French Scots Guard, 100 Swiss, Mercenaries such as Genoese Crossbowmen and Swiss Pikemen for the French; Black Reiter for HRE, Naffatum for Abbasid, Lang Xian and Wolf Troops for China

---

[joanka93val]

The problem with Zhu Xi is it does everything china can do much better until imperial. And in this new meta, games are not likely to get into late imperial where china is probably one of the best civs.

But the same happens with Abbasid and Ayyubids, Ayyubids has a lot more tools to get a good feudal harass while getting into castle super fast and get the relics, rushing a castle where the game most of times it’s sentenced in.

This new meta is too centered in rushing castle age and TCs are nerfed a lot, so now just rushing castle and get the relics it’s way way better than do TCs and delay the castle age, because there are certain civs who can get to castle in 6 minutes, and a few knights/maa from castle can literally kill enough villagers to eliminate any advantage you got going with second or even third TC.

In the case of Jeanne, I think the problem is the unit itself. The concept of Jeanne makes draw battles into a gain to Jeanne, this not happens with any other civ.

For example, if you fight an Ottomans rush and the battle finish in draw, nothing happens, but if a Jeanne pushes you in feudal getting a draw battle but she get into level 3, then the game is mostly over.

I think feudal age need to have more impact in the game, right now Ayyubids get into castle in minute 6:30 and Zhu Xi in 5:45.

[Franknezu11]

@GorbMort

They’re an ahistorical twist on an existing faction that opens up different playstyles

and thats why it doesnt work

@GorbMort

They’re in the game now.

and that why players are leaving now

[MedicMaaan]

@Franknezu11

and that why players are leaving now

Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition - Steam Charts

Can we just stop saying patently false things. It creates a difficulty in communication, and we need healthy discussion to constructively critique the issues.

[Franknezu11]

its starting to do so. its a bit higher now becuz its weekend when ppl has more time but knowing the trend with previous one it will be so. Also the cosntant complain here which reinforce that.

[FloosWorld]

No, it’s not starting.
AoE 4 overall has a higher avg player count since the DLC released which is just slighly below AoE 2 DE.

[MedicMaaan]

In 2 years it has increased from lows of 5100 to its current 60 day running average of 13000~. It is not starting to do so. The people here trying to get their issues addressed do not need to lie to make their points, and I encourage you to follow their example.