Improvements in building models & some oversights

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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I still think it is better to have the Manchu changed to “Oirat”. Both Kalmyks (employed by Russians) and Dzungars (who had their own “gunpowder Khanate”) are Oirats. Thus, the Russians, Chinese, and Persians (in case it is implemented in the future) could all hire Oirats as mercenaries.

Noted. That was a mental math mistake. However, I still suspect that even with 3 pop, Flamethrowers will be underused. The problem is that most artillery can one-shot them, which is an issue given that Flamethrowers have a very short range. Either the devs need to remove their infantry tag, or they need to gain siege resistance to survive at least two direct artillery shots.

I think most people are fine with stereotypes and playing fast and loose with history. However, players have problems when the game has significant anachronism (Song dynasty Flamethrowers), outright invent units (Meteor Hammer cavalry, some of the Native American rosters as I have heard), or have illogical artefacts (Qing cannot recruit Manchu to fight, new village/colony building wonders from the homeland).

For the Germans, I actually have issues about how they were not split into Austria and Prussia, especially given that the Americans and British (and Spain and Mexican) are both in the game as separate civs. While Austrians (HRE → Austria → Austro-Hungary) and Prussians (Teutonic Order → Prussia → Germany) are both Germans, within the timeframe of the game, the two states have very different lineages. Stereotype-wise, the Prussians were known for their disciplined line infantry, grenadier, and the Totenkopf Hussar. The Austrians are known for the hardiness of their frontier units (Grenzers, Hungarian Hussar, Tyrolean Jager), while the Whitecoats (line infantry) were under rather conservative (slow to act) leadership. Frankly there is more than enough information to split the Germans into two civs.

I am actually supportive of adding the Poles (Polish-Lithuania). The only problem is that they sort of disappeared as a distinct and sovereign state halfway through the game’s timeframe (through the Partition of Poland). But if the Aztec and Incas are included in the game, then the Poles are also justified.

The Confederate State (the US one, I am assuming) probably cannot be added as a full civ, since it lasted only a few years. However, they could be implemented as a US revolution.

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This is a classic slippery slope fallacy in logic. Many military games with historical backgrounds will have fictional plots, such as the World War II background games of the COD series, but it is a “weird mistake” if M1A1 or AK74 appears in the game.

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It baffles me that some people would always play the “historical textbook!!!” card against any kind of suggestions on changes.
Like no one is “enforcing historical accuracy for the sake of it” (in their own words). We want some improvements either because these would be fun, cool and more immersive, or because some existing mistakes are so obvious. But they always have an imaginary “historical textbook” to fight against.

Previously they use it against major reworks and new civ suggestions, but now they even “historical textbook” some minor model and naming changes as discussed here.

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In addition, I don’t quite understand what “fictional balance” is. The first thing any game pays attention to is gameplay, and it has its own design concepts and mechanisms. According to your understanding, if I call a certain game “historical background”, such as Call of Duty, Battlefield, Empire Earth, Rise of Nations, does it have to have the same “balance” 100% as reality?

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You know AOE4 did this weird thing of enforcing a fictional name on the landmarks and strictly avoiding all names existing in irl. I kinda understand why they did it. It would be weird if you are rebuilding the exact specific building on every map, not to mention other players might build the same thing.
…BUT
Names like “Wynguard Palace” does not do better than an irl one. Okay Wynguard is a fictional place…but why are you still building the same building from “Wynguard” every game? Not to mention it gives rise to nonsense fictional unit names of “Wynguard footman”.
And “Istanbul Imperial Palace”…still does not make any sense if it’s not Istanbul. I can imagine one day they make a 1453 scenario and the Ottomans are building a “Istanbul Imperial Palace” outside Constantinople.

So if they are changing the wonder names they should just become generic functional buildings. For example:
Names like “Confucian academy” or “Shogunate” are good enough. They are not very specific.
Names like “Summer palace” are moderately okay. Though there is THE Summer Palace, the name indicates a generic functional role that could be applied to multiple structures (as is the case in reality. You can build multiple “summer palaces”, not capitalized, in a lot of places).
Names like “Taj Mahal” should be avoided. Though it has a generic meaning in its language, the term has become too specific now.

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Does that mean that every civ must be the same? What if the devs intended only one model for the british? Russia has no separate barracks or towers at all - now that’s a relevant gameplay difference, yet I’ve yet to see someone complain. I’ve said it already - there’s enough variety of protestant churches in this game, arguing for even more is outright trolling. Come back when there’s an additional byzantine styled orthodox church, a petrine barocco or cossack barocco themed orthodox church etc etc. But you don’t want to argue on point, but rather attack me personally

My first post itt was as general as possible, yet you brought up a very specific point and now you blame me for replying? Maybe take a walk before posting ad absurdum or ad hominem again.

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Fictional balance means the explorer can unload ten carabine shots into a shepherd and still not stop him. Or the example of one samurai killing five+ riflemen i brought up earlier.

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Speaking of nitpicking and trolling.
You already know that right? Because Russian barracks and towers are combined. That’s an intentional gameplay design.
Is the British church a unique building with unique mechanics that could only work with only one model?

Let me give you a hint:

Why do I need to be omniscient (like you are) and write posts covering almost everything a mortal can exhaustively think of?
Why cannot I just post what comes onto my mind and what I am more familiar with?

Like I said, you seem to be looking for a place to spit out some irrelevant politically-incorrect rants that are only marginally related to this topic. You can make your own thread for that. This is not the place. The door is this way. You are welcome.

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That’s an okay approach if you want to keep it simple and have only one Mongol mercenary. But leaving it as Keshik allows more variants to be added. Kalmyks could be a variant from the Russian card that uses one of the 3 Keshik skins. A Dzungar unit could be an entirely separate unique gunpowder mercenary.

You’re treating them like they’re artillery because they look like artillery. But they’re not artillery, they’re actually more like mega-skirmishers.

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Do you really mean what the term “historical background” means?
The historical background of COD5 is World War II, but it doesn’t mean that there can’t be “breathing back blood” and “10 bullets to kill a person”, because this belongs to the category of gameplay, and not many people will think “Oh! God, This is not a historical background game, this is an overhead fantasy adventure game!".

But because of his historical background, the standard equipment of the Japanese army cannot be Sherman tanks, nor can Zündnadelgewehr in the hands of the US military.

I think you are the one who can’t tell the difference between games and reality. I really have nothing to say about this. I hope you enjoy the game.

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I agree especially in regards to the us revolution. And while i think two mace-like chinese units are a bad design choice, especially as they are so similar, it still is a minor issue in my opinion when much bigger problems (germany, poland, lack of greece revolution etc) exist in the game as of right now.

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You deliberately choose to argue anything but on point.
There’s two dutch protestant church models, two us models (that are essentially anglos anyway), two swedish, one british, one/two (it’s arguable if they’re protestant) german. That means there’s at least 8 distinct protestant church models. Would you really need a 9th protestant, before adding maybe a second stone orthodox church, maybe greek? If yes, you’re nitpicking, now get lost, trolling kid.

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You are very welcome.
When we write these suggestions we are not implying “these should be done asap or we will riot”.
These are just ideas. 80% of the ideas discussed here are not going to get into the game. We are just bringing up certain problems that we observe so that the devs might consider them as good and find a smart way to address them.

There are already a million posts about Germany and Poland. There were posts about the Greek revolution too. These are all popular topics. No one is preventing you from asking for them (well you might get salty responses from a certain person). No one is blocking them by suggesting something else. In fact everyone including the devs are aware (even tired) of the most popular requests. They do not to be iterated over and over again and covered in every thread.
But who are you to decide “no you should ask for these not for those”?

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And what the poster and other players do is similar to asking this question in a World War II game similar to Call of Duty 5:
“The Soviets are now using some kind of general-purpose rifle, and I think it would be more historical to give them the Boposa”,
Or “It’s wrong for the Germans to use 1841 rifles here, they should be given MAS36s.”
Instead of saying “Ah! My God! A few breaths of air can heal a gunshot wound, this game should get rid of that mechanic!”

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It might surprise you, but this is my thread. Think a little more before you say that.

Yes.

Find a single word in this entire thread where anyone here objects “all other church models”, or thinks they should all be put later on the priority list.
I am not omniscient as you are so I cannot cover all the needed contents in one thread. You’re very welcome to create your own to save mankind.

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Yes, I’m fairly certain i do understand the difference between gameplay and theme. And when there’s an entire campaign centered around the black family and the fountain of youth, that would be the equivalent, using your example, of japanese shermans, aka total fiction. Besides, you pretty much understand that the core gameplay isn’t realistic, at all, i assume.

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In this regard, I just want to respond to you with this sentence of yours.

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This is a family narrative in the context of history. Similar stories include Dostoevsky’s “War and Peace” and “Assassin’s Creed” which players are more familiar with.
These are “historically backgrounded,” stories chosen from fictional characters or families. If you are ignorant, please understand a little bit about what is called “historical background”.

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Maybe because there’s a thing called priority, or proportion. And before wishing for the tenth iteration of a protestant church (that’s ofc very relevant and not totally nitpicking and biased culturally), maybe we should ask for, maybe, some ship visual variety? Just one suggestion…

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Hi how are you doing?
I’m checking what’s going on here.