This isn’t the 90’s.
We are working 10 hour shifts in a 24-hour competative market. It’s ignorant to the working class and minorities to not add a solo team queue, particularly non-english speaking minorities. In a way, its racist as well.
For all its virtue signaling, AOE4 fails to deliver to the working class by adding a mode which simply acknowledges that our current working climate makes it very difficult to be online and playing at the same time as our friends.
When this was added to other games such as Dota 2, it became a staple. The question of “what advantages are there to turning off strict solo matchmaking?” The answer is simple, zero advantages.
No one wants to play AOE4 1v1. This isn’t build like warcraft/starcraft, and hell, the maps are proceduraly generated. Team games make for a far more dynamic and diverse experience. But no one wants to play when youve got 10 groups of unemployed teens dominating the team ladder.