Aka you mean generic civs right? Just like how Dehli is a generic Islamic Civ with no historical basis to to their actual identity other than being Islamic??
No, I mean they used an architecture style representative of the area of the world they came from, with no variation. You literally showed screenshots of the two buildings which are unique to every civ, and claimed that was an example of asymmetry. Not to even mention youve ignored all of the completely unique landmarks between each civilization in AoE 4. I’m not sure what the Delhi Sultanate has to do with any of that.
Asymmetry in an RTS sense, and in the sense that the devs meant it, is not about the appearance of the civs. Assymetry in an RTS generally means mechanics and gameplay differ between civilizations. In both gameplay and appearance, AoE 4 does that to a much greater degree than AoE 2 did, which shared building appearances, unit appearances, and gameplay, with the only differences between civs generally being the addition of or lack of a unit or technology. There’s nothing wrong with that in my opinion, but its not asymmetry.
Because saying that because Abbasid, China and Britain look unique-ish
it has more asymmetry than AOE II because AOE II shared symmetry between China, Korea and Japan is a massively dishonest comparison.
Comparing China, Abbasid and Britain in AOE IV is equivalent to to comparing China, Persia and Britain in AOE II
Which were far more unique from walls, to castles and to wonders. If anything shared even remote resemblance to each other it was the town Center.
In AOE IV, the keeps all share the base model but it has been real Innes. Just like the town centres mentioned previously. But they did this to practically every structure like the walls which are copy and paste of each other.
AOE II has been criticised for its lack of asymmetry, hence why all the recent civ eadditions have been unique. Unlike AOE IV with the example of Dehli and Abbasid. Why do they share symmetry? Just because the governments were both Islamic? Islamic architecture didn’t become a identity of India until the Mughal Dynasty. All the famous mosques and mausoleum with minarets are all from the Mughal era. Yet you did symmetry between those two, why?
If you compare Persians with Indians in AOE II you will have completely different architectur.
Having asymmetry within regional areas like HRE and Britain made sense in AOE II with their super old engines. 20 year old at that. Yet did they make the holy Roman cities exactly the same as Britain? Despite being in the same regional area???
English
Inspired from 
Teutons (also HRE in campaigns)
While you take the French in AOE IV
And the HRE
Only thing that makes them set apart is that they are on different biomes.
But you don’t expect a 2021 game to do what a 20 year old game has been doing, or worse.
The landmarks are just a direct rip of AOE III which does a far better job at showing the cultures off in their civs.
Chinese
Japanese
While AOE IV does a generic Chinese civ whose buildings can be used for the Koreans AND the Japanese
How I know the buildings are generic?
Because Abbasid and Dehli both have minarets. Why? When Dehli Sultunate did not have Islamic Structures except for 1 the QutubMinar that looks like this
Why would you give them this
Why??? It looks like a building straight out of Abbasid dynasty
But because it is generic. A generic Islamic Civ.
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I did not make this “dishonest” comparison, you did. AoE 4 has more asymmetry than AoE 2 because the civilizations have unique playstyles and gameplay mechanics.
Sure, civilizations from different regions were unique to each other, however out of 39 distinct civilizations, there are 11 architecture styles shared between them. Within those groups, buildings are all the same. And even 11 is really stretching it for this context, because some of the architecture styles are basically recolorations of others with a little bit of detail added. A good example of this is Britain (western European) vs. Teutons (central European) that you bring up.
No. AoE 2 has not been criticized to any marked degree for symmetry, because thats how AoE games play. Asymmetry has never been an AoE thing, its been a Warcraft and Starcraft thing. The reason the newer civs are more experimental in their gameplay is pretty obviously because they were testing out mechanics that they were considering adding in AoE 4.
Again, you seem to be the one being disingenuous. The building styles in AoE 4 are not incredibly flashy or stylized, maybe even a bit boring. But just comparing the French, English, and HRE civs you can see an incredibly unique set of structures in each of them. They’re of a similar (not the same) architectural style because historically there was a lot of culture crossover there. You’re literally cherry-picking the single buildings such as the castle that are similar to all of them (which for the record I hope they change.).
Except they can’t, because many of these buildings are directly taken from medieval Chinese historical structures. The architectural style is similar between chinese, japanese, and korean cultures during this time, but the buildings are unique to the Chinese.
Yet again you pick one of the few (if not the only) Delhi structure that has minarets. All of the other architecture of the civilization is pretty accurate to the Delhi Sultanate. Also, see below.
Except its not. It’s Mughal architecture (this appears to be based off of Jama Masjid. See also Taj Mahal), from the Mughal Empire which directly succeeded the Delhi Sultanate.
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While I compare apples to apples you compare apples to oranges. It’s dishonest at best.
I’m comparing equivalent civs of AOE II with AOE IV and you are comparing civs that aren’t even part of the game yet. Nice. So much honesty.
The fact that AOE IV only introduced distinct civs so far, that’s why you have to make the comparison of DISTINCT civs. Hence comparing apples with apples. In order to be HONEST.
I’m happy for you to get a magnifying glass in order to compare the “distinct features”
Oh yes please do tell me the “distinct” features.
Is it the houses?
Is it the stables?
Is it the whatever this building is?
Is it the barracks?
Or maybe the walls?
Here’s another one that makes no sense 
You do know Dehli Sultunate rules over Hindu’s mostly 
hence adding Hindu architecture would have made it less generic and more realistic but generic is what they were going for 
Again none of these look like the Qutub Minar
You do know (well of course you don’t) that the Mughals (Mongols who converted to Islam)defeated Dehli (Persians) to take control of India? Then they built all the monuments. To say it is accurate because a later dynasty made the architecture is such a weird assumption. A dynasty that’s not even in the game 
You literally took part of China that shares the most resemblance with the architecture in Japan and Korea. Had they just focused on the capital cities of each respective dynasty, Song, Yuan, Min, the structures would have been vastly different.
Capital of of Song Dynasty (Bianjeng or modern day Kaifeng)
Tang Dynasty
Capital of Yuan Dynasty (Dadu or Khanbaliq or Modern day Beijing)
Or Ming Dynasty (Also Beijing)
And then AOE IV China
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What happened to all the sunshine in Age 4? I really missed it in the Technical Stress Test.
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Yeah this forum has got exceedingly negative lately.
I can’t comment on playing the game since I didn’t partake in the TST.
I’ll make a decision to buy it or wait for a sale after reviews come out.
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Yeah do not use this place as your barometer. Frankly I find reviews often worthless as well though. Especially when it’s IGN or someone saying X game is not enough like totally different Y game. You can get a one month trial of game pass for $1 and demo the game that way to see for yourself.
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Most people just want to see an optimized version of the game, because they like it. Don’t take it too seriously 
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Communication and disrespect toward the community bother me the most tbh.
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I have made no comparisons to things not released in AoE 4. I have made comparisons between the amount of variation currently in each game. That’s not dishonesty because I’m not making assumptions about the future content as you are.
How am I supposed to compare current civs against unreleased ones? The currently released civs are thematically distinct, and I assume future ones will be too.
Yes even the houses have distinct looks such as extra details (chimneys) and different roof styles. Production and research buildings in an RTS are always going to heavily resemble each other for readability, but the details are different.
I’m not really sure what that has to do with anything, the rest of the architecture of that civilization is in line with the Delhi Sultanate historically.
Well of course I do? I brought it up. I literally said they were the immediate successor. The AoE 4 time period reaches past the end of the Delhi Sultanate, so I don’t think including the later Mughal monuments, which are incredibly recognizable today, was the mistake. The mistake was calling this civilization “The Delhi Sultanate” instead of just India or something more encompassing. I think its unlikely they release a Mughal Empire DLC.
If they took a part that resembles the most with architecture in Japan and Korea, its still accurate, no? Meaning they’re both accurate, and saving themselves development time in the future, if that was their goal. But again, I’m not the one making assumptions about future civilizations.
I’m not going to get into a flame war with accusations of dishonesty. AoE 2 was by design symmetrical, AoE4 is by design more asymmetrical. Regardless of if you think their depictions of the architecture are accurate or not, the gameplay is more asymmetrical. You’re welcome to your own opinion, but I’ll leave mine at that.
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You make a comparison in AOE 2 with China, Japan and Korea. Can you do that with AOE IV? No, why? because Japan and Korea aren’t even in the game! Hence Apples to oranges.
While I compare China AOE2 differences to Britain AOE2 because in AOE IV you can compare China with British. Because both civs are in both games. Hence apples to apples. I’m not using Japan and China to argue about symmetry vs symmetry. The example above was about the landmark thing you mentioned that AOE IV has landmarks = asymmetry. When it’s a feature from AOE III who did far more asymmetry with the landmarks than AOE IV. If you want to compare wonders (which is what landmarks are) then AOE2 has no civ that has the same wonder.
Just as you are comparing the symmetry between distinct civs in AOE IV the HONEST comparison would be to compare distinct civs in AOE 2. Instead of saying Abbasid vs English is more asymmetric than AOE 2 because of China and Japan symmetry in AOE 2.
For example, when I’m comparing Abbasid vs English vs China using the examples of castles and keeps, you counter it with this
Why talk about the sharing in between groups of the same area as a counter to AOE IV when AOE IV does not have examples of “between groups”. The reason why I use castles and wonders as an example of comparison is to show that AOE IV didn’t even bother to make that very asymmetric between DISTINCT civs. They used the same base model keep for China, French, Abbasid etc. While AOE II atleast ensured that civs had absolutely distinct buildings between distinct civs as a 20 year old game. But I could use other buildings as mentioned before the distinct civs only share a town centre that has been reskinned.
But again, because I was comparing distinct civs, talking about “between civs” IS dishonest comparison.
Only that each time a new AOE comes out, civs become more asymmetric. AoM has more asymmetry between Egyptian, Greek, Norse and Atlantean than AOE2. and AOE III Has even more asymmetry than those two. It’s not that “it’s not a thing”. It’s that as technological advancements progressed, the devs always added upon the previous. And the mods section of AOE2 has like 10 different reskin variations with one of the most popular mods being a total reskin of all the major civs. And if you are part of the AOE2 groups on facebook and Reddit, you will see people constantly trying to make unique skin variant mods. Because that is what the players want in the game. Not just mechanics wise.
That wasn’t a mistake. It was intentional because Dehli is not being used to represent India. They mentioned that they are planning on releasing another Indian civ which most likely wont be Mughal.
And how does that even work that because a completely different empire replaced Dehli, it’s okay to use their structures to represent it? like what? Add the Taj Mahal into Dehli Sultunate because Mughals had it? uhm??? Who does that??? That’s blowing history out the window. As if that does not make things even worse. You include Mughal Monuments when you are playing the MUGHALS. which are NOT Dehli. Two different empires from two different locations.
The topic was never about accuracy. civs being generic doesn’t mean they are innacurate. IT means the parts that were chosen to make the civs generic was intentional. While France, Britain and HRE had medieval cities that were miles different from each other, the devs intentionally chose architecture that resembled between the three with absolutely SUPER minor changes. aka “extra chimney” so they can copy and paste base models. That’s like saying because Teutons in AOE2 has orange roof and English have black roof, that makes them completely distinct and asymmetric.
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I miss the AoE 2 and AoE 3 (even AoM) architecture, I honestely think AoE 4 architecture is the worst of all, not inspired at all and those buildings are all the same with different skins. But dont see monuments, statues, props or stuff that make the buildings look more interesting…
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Aoe2 buildings are pretty much all the same with different skins as well other than castles and wonders. And only the wonders are unique on a civ by civ basis (except for the DE DLC civs which got unique castles) the other buildings, including castles, are regional.
AoE4 has unique building skins for each civ and 6 completely unique landmarks per civ.
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Look at Age of Mythology. The Greeks had a Toxote, which would be your “standard” archer in the second age. Soft counters infantry; pierce damage; relatively weak on it’s own. Egyptians had a very weak archer in the slinger but that slinger was a hard counter to other archers. Same situation for the Atlanteans. The Norse have throwing axeman that have very little range but actually deal hack damage from afar.
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- No multiplayer pause. This is 100.0% unacceptable for many obvious reasons.
- Not enough zoom out. The game is cinematic, but it won’t let us take a step back and enjoy the spectacle. This hurts gameplay as well as viewership for esports and streaming.
Having said that, it’s still a fun game at the core. Here’s hoping the devs listen to the feedback and continue patching this game into the future.
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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.
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ad 8 - why call it castle age, when there are keeps and nobody is building a real castles from keeps, walls, towers and other buildings inside.
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Age III: The Keep Age
(lol)
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So now that the game is actually out, my main issues before were these:
- The delay between units receiving a command and starting to execute it.
- The inability to see and select/deselect individual unit icons in a selected group of units.
- Having all the relevant information visible somewhere, in tool tips, the tech tree, etc. Currently there is a ton of hidden stuff.
Units are still not snappy like SC or AoE2, but this isn’t really bothering me anymore, so maybe it just took some time getting used to. I haven’t quite decided how I feel about it.
My other two issues sadly are still very much present and very annoying. In addition, I think pretty much all the little bugs I saw in the stress test are still present. So that is a bit disappointing. I think those two issues are huge and I am a bit worried because I have not really seen statements that they consider them problems. I am not as concerned about hotkeys because they have acknowledged that is being worked on. The bugs I assume will get ironed out as well.
I would add another issue that I kind of assumed was still being ironed out before, but clearly still has problems:
- Hitboxes have some big problems. For example clicking build within a building foundation may not always register, it seems dependent on if your cursor was already inside the foundation or not. I need to experiment with reproducing it. It is still more difficult than it should be to click on individual units or especially things like trees and sheep.
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