why unique units only for HRE tho, everyone should have more imo
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Because if you look closely, the rest of the civs have already been receiving new UUs in all seasons; except of course, the HRE⊠all the civs have 4 or more UUs, the HRE being the only one that only has 2âŠ
I think besides new units, they may add more uniqueness to the civs
Most of the people pick their civs based on certain stuff, like you will play mongols if you want swarmy agression, hit and run, rus for different hunting diversity and mechanics behind it, HRE something about relics and their priest
More depth so people may enjoy their main civ ⊠just my opinion tho
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So you would be okay with 1 civ being released a year.
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Iâm fine with people wanting the game to look better, but I just canât agree with âmore like AoE III: DEâ.
The only thing it has going for it in my opinion is how the water flows and interacts (and even then, ship interactions with the water are too prominent and not very realistic, from the videos Iâve seen).
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Whereâs that hatred for aoe3de coming from?
Itâs the best game of the series after all, as well as the best looking one.
Aoe4 is a JOKE compared to this, a JOKE
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What hatred? Am I not allowed my opinion or something?
steam sale going on right now. maybe pick it up and play for yourself. You might even have some fun.
Itâs a different experience and thatâs what makes it so great. You even said once you owe it to yourself to try it as an AoE fan. If you liked AoM you might like 3de too.
Now I admit even as a diehard AoE3 fan it sometimes makes me uncomfortable with how much the game is brought up in this forum by people that barely ever set foot in the 3de subforum so take that how you will.
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I have nothing against III / III: DE, or any of the other separate suggestions to improve AoE IV (fauna, Gaia, biomes, water detail, etc).
I just personally donât want IV to move towards III with its graphical style. I do not consider that an upgrade. The video provided above only reinforces that opinion.
I wasnât the one who brought it up 
I find AoE III fans bring it up a lot; understandably. Or thatâs how it looks to me at least. With IV being rooted more in II (on release at least), thatâs very understandable.
I donât impose a requirement for people to own or even play IV to criticise it. I donât get why the mildest personal criticism of III always gets met with âwell if you just bought itâ.
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I am okay even if they donât release more civ, ofc if they put their whole effort on the current ones. Sc1
released 25 years ago. Since then there are not new civs, no new units, no new maps and this game will outlive any current rts.
Even if I am not broodwar fan, you have to respect the uniqueness and replayability
I donât either. Whether we like it or not every game needs to have its own distinct art/graphical style. We tend to take things too personally on here and weâre all guilty of it. Such is the way of any forum.
Oh, I know. Iâm talking about others I see, not you, some of them like to chase you around yet I never see them in the 3DE subforum. You wouldnât know that if you didnât frequent it yourself.
That wasnât my intent but rather a friendly little shove to play it for yourself.
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AoE is not SC1/2 or WC3 or anything of those games where 3-4 factions are launched at most. AoE is forced to give new content in the form of civilizations every year, so the asymmetry should not be that strong.
Not wanting more civs (to make the rest more unique) would mean running against the opinion of a majority of the playerbase. Good luck.
I am in favor of giving HRE a more varied content (for example), but the semi-asymmetric or symmetric formula in AoE is the most successful in the long term because it wants to include more civs, until proven otherwise.
you skip the whole point but whatever
AoE4 is just not asymmetrical enough though.
Most of the symmetry comes in the form of eco techs, which end up with the same result either way. The actual moment to moment gameplay is only differentiated by unique units, which unfortunately in this game, are either just ok, to being incredibly weak.
When the âasymmetryâ is represented in say, how Rus places Hunting Cabins all over the game, how is that 1. meaningfully different to Malian gold mine and 2. interesting to play with? It isnât. Theyâre both there just so you can get a gold trickle, and neither do anything more than that. Had the Hunting Cabin also functioned as a Tower, or had the Pit mine also functioned as a production building, THEN we are talking about asymmetrical playstyles.
As it stands, every civilization effectively plays the same. This gets revealed even more so in combat, where it all comes down to the overblown economies (too many resources in this game), spamming the triad of archer, horseman and spearman.
The game couldâve looked differently if Unique Units were actually decent, as forced as that might have been, it would have made the gameplay feel more diverse. But, nah. Every civilization has veterency, has access to pretty much every unit, and the few siege units that is locked behind civilizations are basically meaningless.
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Trying to win with a unit by A+clicking breaks the game experience and there have been situations like this a few times in AoE4, like Zhuge Nu spamming (which is the âasymmetryâ youâve been hinting at now and for a long time). Varied military compositions add richness to the game, as does micromanagement.
It is logical that AoE4 is not asymmetrical enough due to the number of civilizations it has compared to the rest. The problem of the lack of variety of strategies in some civs (due to the metagame) and the high amount of resources on the maps is obvious, but it is important to find a balance that satisfies the majority of casual and competitive players.
Most civilizations donât play the same. They have nothing to do with the Chinese civilization regarding Delhi or Mongols, for example.
I never said I wanted one unit per civilization.
A strong unique unit should still succumb to its counter. The Zhuge Nu rush youâre pointing out is strong for other factors than the unit iself; Chinaâs ability to produce quickly, its cost and timing. The actual unit itself? it is strong, and I actually like China for many of its units. They feel different and interesting in a way that contributes to a varied composition unlike most civilizations.
Anyhow; a better example of what youâre trying to strawman me with is the Camel Rider. A unit that fits outside of the rock-paper-scissor trio, as it counters horses and not archers, creating a break in the system.
Had it actually been a decent unit, it wouldâve contributed a lot more to Abbasid composition. As it exists, it is vulnerable to many things, weak in general and very costlyâfor a role that can be more effectively filled by Spearmen. The reason this matters is while on one hand, you could be an Abbasid gamer that mostly utilizes Spearman, Archer, Horseman, making your moment-to-moment gameplay feel almost identical to everything else. Whereas that slight replacement would make it feel different. In case you havenât noticed, this is something that the recent patch tried to address with making replacement horse units.
Anyway, Iâm not going to keep explaining this because I feel you are more rejecting the notion rather than attempting to understand the contents.
For another more meaningful reason of why AoE4 does not feel very asymmetrical is due to the lack of change. One of the main reasons these Age games exist, is for the experience to go from caveman dude to guy in shining armour. AoE4 has somewhat messed this up, where Feudal does not look all too different to Imperial visually, due to Landmarks that look straight out of the 1500s and super polished models.
But besides visual aesthetics, this problem is also echoed in gameplay. Feudal gameplay is incredibly similar to Imperial gameplay. The difference is going to be that you have a million more of the same units, because resources are completely ###### in this game. And that, WOW, you have a few bombards and ⊠oh my god, a few springalds. WOW!!!
Gameplay just does not change meaningfully throughout the ages. It is that clamp that magnifies the moment-to-moment rock-paper-scissor gameplay, as there is nothing else really going on, even in the endgame. I also suspect it is why there is this obsession in AoE4 to only play in Feudal, because, if you think about it, is there really anything fun in Imperial? Maybe your specific civ has something, like the recent Bombard Emplacements for Ottoman. But, generally, Imperial tech and units are just completely deflating, and not really all that additive to the gameplay. Even between civilizations, there is rarely a significant change that really pulls you out of that rock-paper-scissor gameplay. Grenadiers are one of the few units that does change things up, because of how absurd it is. Can you think of anything else exciting in this phase of the game?
So yea, the game is going to feel symmetrical, when civilizations mostly produce the same units. Who knew?
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You have taken for granted comments that I have not said and opinions that I have not given.
I think this is an excellent thread. I agree with most of the points made by jimmy19846071.
- Graphics are mediocre, they should have been much better
- Gameplay is fun (imo)
- I like the civs (hopefully we get more in the future)
In general, i am very optimistic about AoE 4. It has improved tremendously. The only RTS i play these days.
I give it a 7/10 now. I believe it can get to a 9/10.
This. I initially bought AoE4 mainly because of mongols. No walls, no keeps but lots of aggression and hit and run. My playstyle was based on mangudai which was a very fragile unit but could be very effective when being controlled very well. After a few weeks people figured out the lame and OP mongol tower rush and learned how to counter mangudai effectively. Step by step the civs strengths were dumped down making it more similar to other civs. Raid bounty, outpost speed influence and early ovoo stone-mining all were reduced and people started to take on the two TC meta even with mongols.
Ideally they would have kept all the unique strengths of the mongols and nerfed them somewhere else. I mean does raid bounty play a significant role nowadays? It would have been great if their gameplay was centered around mangudai and maybe one other unit. All other units serving mainly as support units.
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âTryingâ is the right word.
Once buildings are in sight, it wonât work!
Units get stuck on attacking buildings all the damn time and makes you lose fights.
Something unheard of in aoe3de, a game of the year 2005.
Archers shooting buildings instead of killing enemies is so painful, it makes you wanna throw your screen out of the window.
One of the many strong reasons I stopped playing aoe4 for now.
I have reported this severe bug/garbage coding in the bug report section and the response was
that everything works as intended.
Thanks, but no thanks.
It just really hurts your brain to see it especially in high level play on stream/youtube.
On a level where nuances decide about victory or defeat and the units randomly decide to not fight anymore, but just attack buildings while everything on your side of the fight is getting slaughtered.
Another example is rams bugging arround and wiggling around instead of sieging, getting completely stuck.
This should not happen more than once in a 1000 matches after having worked on the game code for many years. Instead it happens all the damn time, almost every match.
If the Devs decide to fix the major issues of this broken game, my friend (2v2 mate) and me will definitely return.
Not having much hope for a fix of this game though, very honestly.
Most likely just more civs will be released to grab some cash by hooking more buy-and-leave customers in.
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