I have a very simple suggestion for the Aztec Faction.
Add capture tech mechanic from C&C and Cossacks.
So in C&C you can send in an engineer to capture enemy buildings and get access to enemy tech.
In Cossacks, you can capture enemy villagers and get their faction tech.
As I did play as Nod Faction, I did frequently try to get GDI tech,
And I really love the Spy in Red Alert.
In Cossacks, I do even build up my enemies faction^^ Its interesting for a faction like Ukraine.
So in Cossacks, its the only faction without a real competitive navy, they have just tier 1 combat ship.
By capture enemy workers , you can get tier 2 and tier 3 ships-
Problem for Actec was vs Spain their traditional warfare strategy is rather about to capture the enemy.
The second kind of warfare practiced by the Aztecs was referred to as Flower war This kind of warfare was fought by smaller armies after a previous arrangement between the parties involved. It was not aimed directly at the enemy city-state (altepetl) but served a number of other purposes. One often cited purpose is the taking of sacrificial captives and this was certainly an important part of most Aztec warfare.
Youths participating in battle for the first time would usually not be allowed to fight before the Aztec victory was ensured, after which they would try to capture prisoners from the fleeing enemy. It is said that, particularly during flower wars, Aztec warriors would try to capture rather than kill their foes, sometimes striving to cut a hamstring or otherwise incapacitate their opponents. This has been used as an argument to explain the defeat of the Aztecs by the Spanish Aztec warfare - Wikipedia
Its kind of the logical thing try to gain enemy tech.
Also C&C has Spies, that can infiltrate enemy buildings If the spy infiltrates:
A power plant, the entire enemy base powers down for a short period of time (30 to 60 in-game seconds). This causes all base defences requiring power (such as Tesla Coils and Prism Towers) to go offline. Until the effect wears off, no amount of new power plants built by enemy will bring the power back online.
A radar facility, he resets shroud for the opponent. For obvious reasons, it is useless when enemy has a Spy Satellite Uplink.
An ore refinery or a deployed slave miner, 20% of total enemy cash will be stolen to boost the commanderâs own war efforts.
A barracks, all infantry produced from the commanderâs own barracks gain veterancy (one rank). The effect from multiple infiltrations does not stack.
A war factory, all vehicles and aircraft produced from the commanderâs own war factories gain veterancy. The effect from multiple infiltrations does not stack.
A superweapon, its timer resets back to maximum possible duration.
A battle lab, it will allow access to special units:
Chrono commando - if the spy infiltrated an Allied Battle Lab and his commander owns an Allied Barracks (RA2), if the spy infiltrated an Allied Battle Lab (YR)
Chrono Ivan - if the spy infiltrated an Allied Battle Lab and his commander owns a Soviet Barracks (RA2), if the spy infiltrated a Soviet Battle Lab (YR)
Psi commando - if the spy infiltrated a Soviet Battle Lab and his commander owns an Allied Barracks (RA2), if the spy infiltrated a Yuri Battle Lab (YR)
Yuri Prime - if the spy infiltrated a Soviet Battle Lab and his commander owns a Soviet Barracks (RA2 only)
Wow, you are extremely misinformed. several native Americans had huge cities at the time of Spanish arrival. With Tenochtitlan and Cusco being the largest.
At its height, Tenochtitlan was the fourth largest city in the world, five times as large as London. Only Paris, Constantinople, and Venice were larger.
The problem with including pre-Columbian civilizations and American maps is the plot of the game. But at the end of the day it is a video game and we should not give it so much importance. After all, the US was included in AOE-3 and although at first I was against it, I must admit that there are more positive things it brings to the game. It is a very fun civilization to play and that is what matters.
Would you go to a pizzeria and tell them they are not allowed to sell pineapple on pizza because you donât like it?
The opinion of people that donât want a civilisation added are always worth less then the opinion of people that want it.
You canât argue with immersion when you play ranked 1v1 games. Thatâs all but immersive.
And if you play your own custom games or even scenarios, you can decide not to play with the civilisations you donât like, easy. If they are a DLC you can even just not buy them.
The major reason why Native Americans lost against Europeans was diseases. You donât need to look at history at the moment to see how much impact a disease can have on everyone life. Now imagine one that is much more deadly.
Most civilisations in AoE4 (and any previous AoE) never thought each other.
The English only ever fought the French and the Abbasids of the AoE4 civilisations or the Chinese only fought the Mongols.
I think Native Americans can and should be added without considering Europeans. We donât need the Spanish (Castille) to fight them. They can easily exist on their own fighting each other in the campaigns.
Iâm pretty sure by saying they want to be more historically accurate that they donât mean making a historic simulation but more like removing silly things like Aztec catapults.
There are already enough none historical and stereotypical elements in the game like Camel Riders/Archers for the Abbasides. Camels were never really used in front line combat and Arabs were famous for using horses.
Quoting the developers and than implying the line between historical enough and not historical enough is exactly where you want it to be is stupid.
Itâs probably to late to discuss this anyway because the developers very likely already decided if they want to add something like the Aztecs or Inca.
At the end of the day, the entire Age franchise is just fantasy. Itâs not historical by any significant means, and Iâll never understand the people who think it needs to be heavily historically accurate.
Respectful? Absolutely. Respect the cultures youâre portraying, but itâs just numbers. Buff the pikes to be monsters if thatâs the strength of a civ, even if it doesnât make sense to have such strong pikes winning against cannons.
It doesnât matter. Itâs a game.
That being said, I really want to see North American Natives in AoE4 more than Mesoamericans. North American Natives are only in one other Age game, letâs put them in another. Thereâs absolutely fascinating cultures to explore that could be shown to a larger people and getting voice actors for those nations would be incredible.
Hell, I could voice act for the Lakota if need be. I already plan on doing so for my mod.
Wow a disease caused thousands of aztecs to die within a few hours of battle? Which disease was this?
Again another unrelated and utterly stupid argument, refuted many times by me and others already if you cared to read the posts in this thread (tip: use the summarize button).
The quotes are straight-forward and many, and nothing is left to interpretation - it is all explicit.
At the end of the day, Age 4 âis a fresh start for us. We want to modernize the series and that means we are going to do things differently⊠Weâve gone to great lengths to make sure that our history is accurate to the places⊠I want Age of Empires 4 to be a trusted source of history⊠legitâ.
Yes 1-3 are fantasy craps, but if you read what the developers say, Age of Empires 4 WILL NOT follow in those footsteps. Stop using the past to try defend your points. Use the present.
Actually false, Aztecs are North American (gotcha).
It would be nice if you didnât let your emotions control every aspect of what should be added. Making decisions on emotions is never good.
You canât say âADD NATIVES BECAUSE I SAID SOâ.
If you actually provided a counter argument to my points, namely natives being inferior technologically and having little in regards to historical records, I would be more inclined to have an educated discourse.
Disease is always more deadly than any war, and even in a war, disease kill more peaple than war himself. When 40% of population die because of disease, you canât organise the society, itâs just a big mess.
You always frame it like the Aztecs had now chance.
Cortes was very very lucky multiple times. The Spanish wouldnât have had a second chance to conquer them because they already started adopting their way of fighting. They started to learn how horses behave and how long guns took to reload.
While most people started to get more resistant to European disease already. The Spanish would have had the logistics to send a big enough army to the new worlds do conquer them.
Than you should visit the Democratic Republic of Korea. They are a very democratic republic for sure.
They said they wanted to be more accurate but they they give us Landsknechts in Castle Age or Camel Riders for the Abbasides.
Even the Man-at-Arms that uses a shield and sword is not a real unit that actually fought on battlefields. Swords are sidearms not main weapons. Every foot soldier had a polearm in the Middle Ages.
So are they lying? Because they are already not making a historic simulation and have a lot of stereotypical elements.
It is your opinion that Aztecs are âworseâ than Camel Riders, Landsknechts or Streletsy.
The developers never said that âWe make anachronistic and stereotypical unique units but we wonât make Native Americans.â
In AoE2 Native Americans were very badly implemented because they had to use European units like catapults, trebuchets and crossbows as well as European technologies like the ones at the blacksmith.
In AoE3 the Native Americans were more well made but especially the Aztec and Inca have the problem that they need to have an Industrial and Imperial Age which made no sense but neither did European units like Halberdiers in those ages.
AoE4 automatically avoids the problems of AoE3 but it has to put in some effort to avoid the AoE2 problems.
So far no civilisation has totally unfitting units. Yes the Arabs didnât like crossbows as much historically but they will still be able to train them in AoE4 but itâs not like that was a unknown technology to them. Also the siege units are more or less the same for everyone right now.
So they have to come up with good solutions as substitutes for trebuchets and crossbows for the Native Americans.
Also it would be better if they donât have a blacksmith.
But it would be crazy to want them to only have units that are less than half as strong as regular European units.
This never happend lol, i think you refere about Otumba battle but it was a disbande from aztek army because they lose their leader. They donât lose 40K soldiers and they donât lose against european because of that specific battle.
Just because the developers say they want to be a trustworthy source for history doesnât mean they are.
Just watch the Norman Campaign announcement trailer. Anyone who knows anything about English history knows how wrong every second sentence in it is.
Camels were used in skirmishes but not in larger battles.
Camel Archers did only use the camels to reposition but that dismounted to shoot.
None of the 8 existing civilisations are historically accurate.
You can tear down stone towers and keeps with torches.
This game is far from being realistic.
So giving the Aztecs a unit like the Arrow Knight from AoE3 wouldnât be too much off.
Is it authentic that spearman from Mongolia to England have the same stats? No. Also blacksmith upgrades arenât authentic either. Itâs not like armour and weapons developed linearly.
But itâs acceptable in an RTS game.
I donât want an Aztec Spearman or Archer to have the same stats as the European equivalents.
But I donât think they should be less than half as strong.
Giving Native Americans some half population units would be a good way to balance them in my opinion.
Some units should be strong enough to be worth a full population. Even if a Jaguar Warrior would have lost a IRL fight against Pikeman I still think giving them a bonus against Infantry would be good for gameplay.
In real life Swordman would have lost against an equal number of Pikeman on the battlefield but in AoE4 (and AoE2/3) they even counter them.
But neither I nor you decide.
Neither I nor you reflect the majority of AoE players.
I think we will see Native Americans in AoE4 relatively soon, 1st or 2nd DLC Iâd guess. And they will likely have regular units that are equal in strength to Eurasian units.
I donât think they will give them Trebuchets or something like that.
Rip this thread but yall are ignoring that had the Aztec empire survived the first wave of invasions they would have adopted horse riding, traded or raided for European weapons, and adapted tactics more suited for countering cavalry.
My proposal for a mesoamerican civs is as follows.
Aztecs: average eco, and cheap units. In the castle age their units build faster and are even cheaper letting them out mass more technologically advanced units 10-1 for a reasonable chance at victory. In the imperial age they can choose one of two paths, A) increases the reliability of conversions B) a trading post building that letâs them build knights, heavy infantry, gunpowder units and cannons for high gold costs.
Inca: strong economy, strong defensive structures. Unique Terrace farm, uses the same mechanic as fighting on stone walls so cavalry and siege canât get on top of it. A feudal age unique tech gives their infantry an ability which slows cavalry and infantry when they cross a certain area. They have no 4th age and rely on fighting from their defensive structures, a strong economy, and good micro to win in late game.
Mapuche: town centers are cheaper but weaker, available in age 1. Town centers produce vils slowly but for free. They are vulnerable to early raids but very good at rebooming, by the time youâve killed one town center they have rebuilt it somewhere else. In age3 they get a rebellion leader similar to a khan but it does not respawn. Access to cavalry and gunpowder units in age 4.
To let them be competitive on water they get a war canoe unit that acts as a transport and fires arrows when garrisoned. They also have a boarding canoe which does melee damage when garrisoned and can convert boats below 1/5th HP. In the imperial age they can build a second version of a dock that can build strong ships with high gold costs.
One problem with the very cheep unit idea is that it would destroy balance.
10 units take 10 times as much space on the battlefield than 1 unit.
So if you have a unit that has half the population, half the cost, half the training time and effectively half the stats (itâs complicated with armour) than two of those would be worse than one unit that has exactly twice the stats. Itâs easier to manage less units.
If the enemy has a death ball of units and your units are all trash you might be unable to ever beat it because you canât just get your units close enough.
Unit with roughly half the stats (and cost) will feel much weaker in practice.
For example in AoE3 we have the Hussar (200 resources, 2 population, 320 HP) and the Cuirassier (300 resources, 3 population, 425 HP) but the Cuirassier feels a lot more tanky despite not even having 50% more HP (and the same resistances)
Ahh, yes. This is definitely a historical game, yâknow? Youâre kidding yourself if you think AoE4 is gonna be any more historically accurate than the predecessors.
As for the latter part⊠When discussing Native Americans on an academic level, thereâs a few culturally distinct regions. âNorth American Nativesâ refers to Natives above Mesoamerica, which itself is considered its own region.
Or are you going to argue about the semantics of Europe being part of Asia as well? Should we refer to all the civs in the game as being Eurasian?
Russian Musketeers and Halberdiers cost 25% less but have 20% less damage and hitpoints.
But AoE3 has a percentage bases armour (resistance) system instead of the additive system of AoE4.
Also 20-25% is a whole different thing than the 90% some people here want.
You have to consider things like one hit thresholds for knight charge or some siege weapon attack and the different effects of AoE damage in general.