What bothers me? That’s actually a lot:
- the UI is horrid
- lack of balistics
- no high ground gameplay
- still a lot of bugs, esp. true for the HRE
- HRE is a boring civ that has bad mechanics, barely any uniquenss and a terrible civ identity (HRE - Uniqueness, mechanic and army rant. There is a lot of potential lying fallow - #57 by Jaysus04 HRE Bugs - #17 by Jaysus04)
- I absolutely dislike that all civs have all the baseline techs and only differ by unique techs and mechanics. That leads to the fact that the English and the HRE have the worst knights in the game. Why do all civs almost have all the same stats? Why is heavy east asian cavalry the same as European? Why is it not cheaper, faster but weaker? Find a middle version of the arabic/islamic civs and let the Europeans be the heaviest, most armored, slowest and most expensive version. It really bugs me that it’s all the same and thanks to unique techs Knights of civs that didn’t even know knighthood and the heavy armor of Europe have better knights than Europeans. Same goes for MAA. There is only one unit that shows that there actually is a difference in the approach to its stats. And that’s the chinese palace guard. Less armor, but faster and with more hp. So Relic can do it, but they didn’t. Instead we have a game with the illusion of difference and uniqueness. And the HRE not having any unique plate upgrades completely does my head in. Instead they got an unarmored auxiliary softy who dies from enemy farts already. The civ design altogether is way too superficial as I expected much more from a AAA title that wants to convince with the uniqueness of the various civilizations. This all annoys me very much.
- Streltsies and hand cannoneers are way too strong. Esp. Streltsies. These units should all be tuned down a bit. I also don’t like that some civs reach far beyond the medieval age while others “end” almost 100 years earlier. The Rus for example seem to have a time machine with their Streltsies. The Chinese as well. Let there be according information to the civs, but don’t let 100 years difference be shown in the game balance and mechanics. Late game is way too much gunpowder anyway, both HCs and siege.
- Early knights are too strong and should have lower pierce armor, so towers, TCs and archers help a little bit in age II. Give them the “normal” stats in age 3.