Insightful remark. AoE4 civs’ military unit roster is excessively symmetric (granted, each civ has exclusive skins, that’s a significant enhancement compared to AoE2 or even AoE3 vanilla 8), truly unique units are few, and rock-scissor-paper operation is immature.
The longest post on the AoE forum ever (below) seems a big rallying cry against this very same ‘skin-fake asymmetry paradigm’, right after AoE4 was launched:
But AoE is not basic military units only. Delhi and China have somewhat different overall modus operandi in gameplay / bonus / eco managing / techs, and Mongols is the (yes, there’s only 1 in 8) true civ design breakthrough in AoE4 so far.
AoE4 URGENTLY needs to improve, expand and finally prove their claim to asymmetry and innovation. But not all is negative.