Now that we have full reveal on what the new variant civs gained and missed out on compared to their originals, just compiling all of the things they miss that the base civ has.
Ayyubids:
Their lancers have 20 less hp and 2 less damage and their charges function differently (but they have camel debuff)
Completely different golden age and wings (no wing techs)
No fresh foodstuffs
Civ is probably going to be crazy vs cav civs but I imagine civs with good archers or anti-cav like Abbasids, Ottoman and English will do quite well against them.
OOTD:
double costs different stat units
While villagers are tougher and gather faster they also cost more leading to barely slightly above vanilla resource gathering since they can’t be inspired (though they effectively get a small discount on farm transition)
weaker aachen
can’t pre-produce prelates for reignitz
they lack marching drills, two-handed weapons and heavy maces
Overall, civ is clearly worse on water and probably hybrid maps. They have a weaker eco but their units are very spicy, hard to tell exactly how the civ will play out personally.
Jeanne:
Missing faster producing villagers and cheaper eco buildings
no keep aura for cheaper units, though Jeanne can buff specific buildings after lvl 2.
I imagine she will play similar to an aggressive French, lacking their good eco, but getting somewhat cheaper units and having Jeanne’s abilities and really strong unit to make up for it, just don’t let her die.
Zhu Xi
I couldn’t find a full breakdown to see if they are missing techs, but obviously they have completely different landmarks and dynasty bonuses (they do miss fire lancer, but they have a tech that gives horseman/spears a fire lance attack)
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I love all the new civs!
Can’t wait to try them.
My biggest disappointment is the lack of landmark difference for Jeanne and Order of Dragon.
I know OotD has some differences. But i was hoping it would apply to all landmark especially the regnizt and swabia.
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At least OOTD plays much different, probably won’t be seeing FC relic hoovering and their military will be drastically different. Jeanne just feels like it will still mostly be a knight civ, but you have a bit less eco and have to play around Jeanne as a unit.
If this is true they should have changed the regnizt cathedral bonus and give it something else otherwise it’s kinda useless if they dont FC.
Edit:
something cool they could have done with regnizt is
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Each garrisoned relic increase the hp of military unit by a small %
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OR Each sacred site generates +100% gold. This one would be especially cool since you wouldn’t necessarily need to fast castle to get it.
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OR just something simpler, prelates gain a new ability or cost less etc.
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Perhaps. Although as long as the enemy doesn’t beat you to castle/relics, you can still go for them (though you now have to delay and actually build prelates in castle age). It’s also possible OOTD will better be able to contest the relic locations with their units in feudal and as they age.
Yeah, that’s true, but i was kinda hoping that civ would move away from relics micro.
Personally I think OOTD will probably use the Burgrave most of the time instead for the unit discount.
Yeah that’s what i don’t like.
I think each civ should have both landmark be viable. But it seemed like the design the game so each variant goes for same landmark all the time instead of making both choices interesting.
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What you see from the streams is that for OOTD Burgrave and Regnitz are both viable. I think Burgrave will be used more but when you think the relics on the map are not contested then Regnitz will still be a solid choice. I like this much more than HRE where Regnitz is the absolute go to landmark but the relics can be denied and you can be left empty handed.
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Ppl are learning and playing around. But i suspect Aachen into boom into FC will be the play for OotD bc the chapel bonus IF IT IS MULTIPLICATIVE means their villagers work at 1.375 a standard villager AND they dont need a prelate housed. Plus their OP units make for Optimal defensive play.
Yet i agree that meinworks appears more viable as an alternative for OotD as oppose to standard HRE.
I digress; fast Imperial is going to be disgusting on the ladder… i’m talking 11min Imp into swabia nastiness…yuck!!
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Yep and the best way to avoid repeating this play style would just have been to change the bonus for every landmark.
I can understand that they don’t need new art model like they did for chinese since this takes a long time to model and probably wasn’t in budget. But at least they could have kept the landmark but change the bonus. Especially for Regnizt and Swabia.
I saw a game this morning of OotD vs china2. And china2 went 2tc and walled all the relics in order to outboom and stop OotD in their pre swabia tracks. Granted these were pro level players? At least 1 was a pro louiMT.
i fear the average player will have that level of foresight and APM to repeat auch a counter strategy.
I mean sure, but I also just saw a pro game where OOTD got all 5 relics vs Zhu Xi. Frankly the civs are so new and strats being discovered that it is hard to say exactly what strategies are best for each civ. Also ideally OOTD would scout that the relics were all walled before they age up and realize whether or not they can secure them
Well, now that the variant civilizations and all their mechanics have been revealed, let’s discuss a few or many things:
General Opinion.- “” I like them, specially the part of “new unique units” or “new set of Landmarks”. I have some criticism against some attributes of them, but hey, nothing is perfect, and everything can improve in the future. Let’s start now with specific description:
GENERAL: EPITETS / INFLUENCE / MARINE BONDS.-
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Epithets: Apparently it has already been confirmed that the epithets are: Juana → Trade/ Cavalry/ Hero (French: Trade/Cavalry/Keeps), OofD: Quality/ Infantry/ Defense (HRE: Religion/ Infantry/ Defense), Ayyubids: Camels/ Adaptable / City Planning (Abbasids: Camels/ Technologies/ City Planning), Zhu Xi Legacy: Dynasties/ Taxes/ Technologies (Chinese: Dynasties, Taxes, Gunpowder)
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Influence, Marine Bonus: It was confirmed that the Influence is almost the same between parents and variants, and the marine bonus is also the same. The language is the same and the architecture of most of the buildings is the same. Also, unique units share many but in some cases not all.
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This being so, it is confirmed that the civ are based on changing at least 1 of the epithets of the original civ, but retaining much of the same, both in passive bonuses, unique units, as well as in marine bonus and influence building. More or less, as if special cards from AoE3 were put into operation in AoE4 but with a different build.
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Future concepts: If so, at least those of us who create civilization concepts will have to think twice before suggesting civ variants of others.
– There are cultures that, although they occupied the space of others (Ottomans on the Byzantines), did not have the same language, name or architecture and could not be civil variants.
– Civ like Vijayanagara could not be a variant of Chola/Muvandar, because the Vijayanagara were heirs of the Hoysala and used languages from central India, and not from the south, as well as developing other architecture and idiosyncrasies.
JOAN D’ARC
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“” The Heroine “”: Her skills are interesting, especially the part about blessing knights or consecrating military buildings. She feels like a Dota hero, in a good sense, whic a novel gameplay mechanic. I even feel guilty of inspire their creation when many months ago I made a topic saying that each Civ must had any religious technology or at leat one bonus related to religion: Juana practically represents that religious aspect of Medieval France, for fighting for the liberation of the country. At least that aspect was already filled with her in-game civ.
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About the cannon: Of course, I don’t like that in the Imperial Age you have the option between 2 cannons. It would have been better if in some of the options it only had the flag and was full Support. I only assume that it is a form of Balance, to keep Juana from fighting meleee and dying easily in Imperial due to the bonuses of the elite spearman and handcanonners; as well as retain one of her shooting skills if she chose “Bow” at her 2nd level.
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Landmarks?: Seeing that you can still build the same French Landmarks, but these are not seen in the Teaser, I want to assume that the developers had initially considered removing the Landmarks from the Civ, while the rise of level depended solely on Juana. I guess to avoid balance sheet problems, they decided to keep the French buildings. It smells to me that in the future, yes or yes, there will be one or 2 changes in unique technologies or new units for the French base Civ, because otherwise Juana’s Civ will remain an improved version of the French one.
AYYUBID
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Of all of them, I think the best civ variant (Zhu Xi follows). Mainly because it #####ates itself from its original civ with enough unique units (8), as well as the different bonuses generated by its Lanmark, the Wisdom House, to be a standalone civ. Also because it represents another of the periods of the Abbasid Caliphate, this time not the Abbasid sultanate but the Ayyubid Dynasty.
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Historical Representation: There are many aspects that stand out:
– The Dervishes appeared in the period of the Ayyubid Dynasty and are now the only religious unit of the variant civ.
– The Bedouins were part of the Abbasid caliphate and are now also part of the Ayyubid represented as contracted units.
– The atarbeg were official, and appeared both in the Ayyubid and in the period of the Mamluk Sultanate. – The manjaniq are a type of mangonel or Arab catapult that was widely used in the Ayyubid period; a treatise from Al-Tarsusi to Saladin mentions them frequently.
– The Ayyubid armies were also known for the use of Nafta as an incendiary, so it seems that they used it as ammunition for the manjaniq
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Regarding the use of camels by Saladin, it is mentioned mainly by Crusader sources: one of the reasons to which they attribute his own defeat was because of the Arab camelry.
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Landmark: The house of knowledge, although it is based on the Baghdad library, in theory represents more than anything a Madrasa, and the knowledge that the caliphate kept of its culture in them. Because these madrassas could teach military science, economics, agriculture and other higher education professions, the technology bonus in the Abbasids is fine. For the Ayyubid, the fact that their version is more focused on the creation of resources and units reflects the changes to a culture focused on the military and quick results, very necessary in the middle of the war against the crusaders.
ZHU XI LEGACY
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One of the ones I like the most, although in general I like to call it “China-2”, because it is China but with another set of unique technologies, which in AoE 3 would be another Deck.
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Anti-villager bonus: The Yuan Rider finally made “Canonical”, the anti-economic units bonus. The Byzantines can give this bonus to horsemen with a technology, but now it is official. Raiding may be mechanical in AoE4. In the future I suppose that the mechanics will have balances, and perhaps it will even be considered
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Ultra-Powerful Cavalry: The Imperial Guard is the unit that many Chinese users requested to highlight the power of the Chinese Cavalry. I guess they will be happy, in statistics they defeat the Japanese Mounted Samurai.
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Shaolin Monks.- I find it very interesting that only warrior monks count as warriors and not infantry or light units. Also that they do not receive blacksmithing bonuses, and that their defense is based on their ironskin training. According to a Youtuber, they would act as anti-archer infantry without the weakness to spearman, and only weak against armored units.
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Cool Imperial Technologies - 10000000 Bolts sounds great, and the other technologies are not far behind. Of course, I’m still looking forward to one day seeing the Lu Xiang spearman.
ORDER OF THE DRAGON
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It’s an interesting concept, that of units with double the population but more stats.
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Technically: Practically, nobles with money fighting with the best equipment and training they could have to fight the Turks. It’s a good idea, and that’s it. Let’s see how it will be in games vs the AI, it will probably be quite fun.
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Historical representation: I must criticize that a little. Although some technologies refer to real weapons or combat techniques, which is fine (Bodkin Bolts, Zornhau); The CIV is still the HRE with new units and the same Landmarks. Considering it was an Order of Chivalry that included several nations, I would expect there to be some reference to Hungary, Wallachia, Poland or Lithuania, but no. I just want to assume that it is because the civs do not yet exist in the game and there is no where to use models or units of them.
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Comparison with the HRE: In fact, being so unique, it is quite different from its parent CIV.
TO FUTURE.-
- I consider that variant civs have potential, ALWAYS that they are used to cover historical civs that could not exist otherwise, especially in the case of cultures that shared a language or architecture with others, but different Landmarks. Examples, maybe another day, this is a long post, jeje. Take care!.
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