Nothing wrong with variants assuming they are functionally different.
Why not save on creating all that art and models and music and voice lines? That allows them to make way more civs that still play in unique ways.
The only issue is they have chosen some strange and inconsistent naming for them.
The name âJade Empireâ is very peculiar to people in the Asian cultural circle. It sounds like using âFish and Chips Empireâ to refer to England, âLeather Bag Empireâ to refer to France, âBeer Sausage Empireâ to refer to HRE, and âMatryoshka Doll Empireâ to refer to RUS. This is its absurdity. âJade Empireâ can be used as a background for mythological stories or as a title for travel magazine articles, But in reality, no country will use any object to refer to itself.
Variants are good for pumping more content with less effort and keep the community engaged⊠but the way they are doing this is not good
Some of the names are questionable but when it comes to the idea of getting variant civilizations sounds great!
They have to work differently enough to make it make sense but Iâll wait until we get all the information on how they will work and play out before anything can be said.
Variants in my opinion is good, as it allows the devs to create civs that are not too different from existing civs.
If they are properly fleshed out in terms of uniqueness it can allow for more creative freedom. Rather than outright never creating civs because they are too similar.
Example: England having Wales/Scotland etc as a variant.
^ Just an example.
BUT it remains to see how these new variant civs differ from their main counterpartsâŠ
Also more appropriate naming 
I think making 4 variant civ probably as much work as 1 full civ.
So its great we getting more content otherwise would probably be just 3 new civs instead of 6.
The naming isnât even official, its like semi-official.
They probably just need to add the civ name in front like
French - Jeanne dâarc
Abbasyd - Sultanâs army. (Ayyubid would be better though)
Maybe a rename for jade empire and weâre good.
Semi-official you say?
In a game that has 10 civilizations, I do not see the need to scramble to make up shit just so you can have 4 more selections of civilizations. The issue here is they will be delivering it without heart. HREâs âvariantâ features reskinned english knights and reskinned Landsknecht.
No new buildings. No new music. No new art. No new actual unit models. There may be one or two, but I have seen what is availabie in the editor, and they will surely mostly pull from what already exists, just like they have been doing with the recent ânewâ unique units.
To top it off, they are 2 years in dramatically changing a fundamental part of AoE. Adding heroe units to these civilizations, as if it is AoE3. Not a fan. I always disliked hero units. This is an unnecessary change of design. I would have taken a third civilization over this poor attempt at trying to fill an expansion everytime.
What strikes me as the worst part of this is not actually the content.
It is the fact that this was greenlit by actual people in their offices. There is someone actively making bad calls, and has been for quite a while now. This is exactly what I mean when I say they have no idea what they are doing with this game, and it is unfortunate to see this continue.
You are assuming that they are copy paste civs when in reality only the people that are under NDA know how they work and they say its different enough to call them a new civ.
How about you wait for details before taking your assumptions and make them into facts that arenât true?
I thought it was incredible, and very interesting, the important thing is to have fun. Incredible. Just the names I didnât like!
Reskinned HRE knights*
But so far we just donât know, you wouldnât be able to find the new units in the editor.
I reserve my complaints on the content after seeing it, it is strange bashing something we have limited availability to.
Hopefully, and here is a bit of copium, is that there is enough variety, unique units and ofc new unit models for these unique units. I can agree if they are really low effort, remains to be seen though
No, actually, they are reskinned âLithuanianâ Knights. And yes, I can find many of these suppoused new unitâs model that they are based off in the editor, for I have spent much time thereâI for instance unveiled the Rus Kievian walls for all to see.
âNew unitsâ
You really think they would do something new when they are literally making Landsknechtâs swords and their spearmenâs guisarme golden to make them âuniqueâ? What a joke.
I canât believe people fall for this. No wonder these companies makes millions when all it takes for someone to be excited is to recolour something. Like I have stated in the past, this is no different than the recent introduction of ânewâ units like the Ghulam, Ghazi Raider, Keshik and the english Kingâall who already existed as unused assets in the editor. Yes, very new indeed.
I see the weapons going through their helmets issue hasnât been addressed. Sigh.
That is just an editor thing. I couldnât be bothered to assign proper animations to them.
I will enlighten you some, the âLithuanianâ campaign civ is literally the HRE roster of units (We all have access to the editor). The comparison you made is of the Imperial age HRE knight, Castle age and the Imperial age knights. Also you wrote âHREâs âvariantâ features reskinned english knightsâ this is simply incorrect.
Also we have no idea what is a unique unit or not for the variant civs and there are no expansion stuff in the editor, they would have to push a Steam update to even include them in the game. So it is literally impossible for you to access anything in the expansion unless the devs added them before.
I mean the Ghulam, Ghazi, Keshik ec etc. Arenât new in the same sense as the expansion stuff, you are aware for this right? They are just rebalanced and mechanically changed, which is to be expected, simply from a gameplay perspective redesigned. Also the Ghulam did have a shield change
Lastly, if the units themselves arenât unique units per say, but just simply the same units (as there will be similarities to the original civ). But as a way to differentiate them from the ânormalâ HRE units or whatever, that is absolutely fine or if Order of the Dragon have some unique upgrade that gives them the black armor that is completely fine. As long as they have some unique units or so added along, which is very probable, no issues there.
Weâve already seen evidence of a new unit btw with the horse archer, which is probably not a Byzantine or Japanese unit. Soooo I mean that kinda disproves your point already.
Use your eyes. The imperial HRE knight is not the same model.
If youâre willing to close your eyes despite all of that then there is nothing more I can say to you.
Castle Age - HRE Knight â Order of the Dragon use this knight model in black. Might even be a non-upgraded knight for all we know.
Imperial Age - HRE Knight
What is the issues here, also you skipped like the whole reply I made. They use the HRE castle age Men at Arms as well.
Having variants that are similar but still different was unavoidable and itâs not really an AoE 2 thing as AoE 3 does this as well with culture groups.
Youâve got the Asian Civs that share the Wonder mechanic that works like Landmarks, youâve got Mexico and US that get different cards for their age up choices, youâve got the american civs that have the WarChief in common etc.
I donât get the outrage here.
Yes, this I agree with. Which are⊠reskinned models.
Did you forget what we were discussing? There is nothing new here.
But you are aware that these donât have to be unique units for the Order of the Dragon? Doesnât matter if they are reskinned or not. I gave you a very good reply as to why that could be the case, but you kinda skipped that part and went into the âYou are blindâ - TheAchronic, 2023 argument which is quite unnecessary.
Youâve gotten at the very least 3 facts wrong.
And you are talking about campaign civs that use the HRE roster which is kinda irrelevant to the variant civs as these arenât campaign civs to begin with.
They very clearly advertised the Variant civs to have shared units, but also having unique units. We donât know which they are or what they look like. These shared units, in the case of HRE have black armor, that doesnât mean that they ARE the unique units. We simply donât know as they havenât shown a lot about these.
What we DO know is that there is a new unit, that looks different than other units and that is the horse archer supplied in the screenshot above.
