Well, that’s to be expected when there is NO MICRO in the game. 
This kind of baiting (and more) can be done in any game that has LOS blockers, including SC2. I am an average Joe when it comes to RTS games and I found the lack of micro a bit boring. I doubt top RTS players will find this type of “tactics” any more fun. Actually I haven’t heard a single top player from other RTS games say AoE4 is fun, except GiveUAnxiety which is an internal tester and member in the players’ council. But then again GUA also played and loved AoE Online and we know how that went. Then I think Matiz said the game is less stressful and can play for 12 hours without getting tired. Iaguz said something along the lines of “it’s alright, I guess”. MarineLord said he didn’t like it too much - pretty bad interface, no custom hotkeys, and “overall in the game you don’t have a lot of micro”. Tactics you get in any RTS game. But on top of that you have ways to micromanage units that keep it fresh and fun to play.
There’s a $20,000 AOE IV: Genesis tournament happening in November. Looks like at least a couple dozen pro players from various games will be joining.
It will be interesting to look back on this thread of hot-takes after the tournament. Looking forward to a lot of unchallenging, micro-less games with dumbed down strategy followed by some riveting post-game analysis from the Dunning-Kruger forum squad we got going on here!! 
I think a lot of people have given arguments, not hot-takes, and even cited other opinions from actual pros, since you’ve used the “you’re not top 25” card as your very own “hot-take”. I am not an anglophone, but looking it up online I found “hot-take” to be “a piece of deliberately provocative commentary that is based almost entirely on shallow moralizing”. Well, would you look at that!
Hot-takes aside, the fact a tournament is capitalizing on the hype for a new game from a renown franchize is no proof the game will make for a good esport (argument). They’re even hurrying up to organize it in the very first week after launch, so strong is the “esport potential” with this one (hot-take). Not sure if you follow gaming news, but Valve had also planned a 1 million dollar tournament after the launch of a certain game called Artifact, but that didn’t make it a good esport, nor a good game in general (argument). I’m sure the “couple dozen pro players from various games” that are signing in to the event, are doing it for the amazing micro (hot-take).
Oh bro, you don’t need to convince me. I’m sure you know what you are talking about. You know what?! You should totally enter this tournament! I mean, the game, as you said, has NO MICRO whatsoever and poses no challenge to you, and as others have chimed in, contains only dumbed down strategy options. There’s really no skill ceiling to the game so you’re pretty much on equal footing with the pro players from other games. You got this bro!!
I mean, I know it’s a little strange to be that confident when the game hasn’t released yet and you’ve not
played much and 2 civs have not been available to the public yet. But then again, no RTS has ever really seen much refinement of strategies or had any new tactics discovered after release. That’s just silly talk. It’s pretty much all there on paper already right?! I’m sure your confidence will carry you through to victory!
Tactics were always important, but this complete absence of micro except for “do I engage or disengage here now” leads to be unable to missplay certain situations at all.
Unit positioning and overall tactics were always important, but you had to use them correctly.
If you, for example, couldn’t stutterstep or split your units in a meaningfull way against aoe dmg units in starcraft, it would streamline the balance and result in more clear one sided situations, since the ability to use units properly gets overshadowed with what and how many units you have.
Again, just so nobody missunderstands me, alot in this game can still be opened up with numbers tweaking, so nothing here is set in stone.
But taking out these mechanics such as formation splitting, arrowdodge or quickwalls ultimatly starts to (if not compeltely) kill these edge situations in which smart and quick playerinput is fighting against pure flatstats check of units on the field.
And those moments are the quintessence of esport highlights and what it means to be truly “pro” and competitive.
Yes I don’t disagree, but I think we are talking about two different things. For me micro isn’t the only way to raise the skill ceiling, chess for example has 0 micro and is absolutely a competitive game. Will aoe4 achieve the same strategic complexity that chess has? Probably not but that doesn’t negate the idea that strategy and tactics can be complex enough to support high level play.
I’ll admit this does come from a place of me personally not having the time to invest into micro focused games but still enjoying a more competitive experience. League for example has a lot of strategic depth but the amount of time and effort required to acquire and maintain the micro skills makes it unrealistic for me.
If aoe4 is successful I think it will in part be due to its reduced focus on micro rather than inspite of it.
There you have one.
Keep an eye open, they exist.
Winter played it as well during stresstest.
You just don’t find alot of content because of the short stresstest phase.
I feel like some of the things people seem to enjoy about Aoe 2 were never going to be added into a newer game. Imagine being able to quick wall in the current game, walls are just so big and thick now and we now work with 3d spaces instead of a tile based isometric floor. (so you cant just wall with 4 perfect wall sections as easily).
Was quick walling a thing in Aom & Aoe 3? Was there even projectile dodging in Aoe 3? Would be interesting to hear from those players about this. And as has been constantly repeated in the arrow dodging debates, Starcraft always had a 100% accuracy on ranged units, yet its never considered to be a micro deficient game.
We can still dodge mangonel shots btw, its just much harder now which is fine.
It always felt like the micro of archer vs mangonel was so swayed towards the archers, their projectiles were in slow-mo. Top it off there was even a tactic that involved suiciding your mangonel to do extra dmg/ignore uphill miss chance. Which is basically an exploit honestly.
Its fun to see it in an old game like Aoe 2, thats part of the fun really seeing all the exploits people have come up with after 20 years of gameplay. But its really hard for me to see it as a feature that the devs should keep in every game.
There’s nothing wrong in liking the game or prefering certain styles of gamedesign.
That it Age4 has really low micro intensity doesn’t mean it’s a bad game, just that it’s quite bad for esports then which refers to the topic here.
Lets take SC2 as an example, alot of players are scared of playing ladder and escape into coop or other RTS because they are too scared of so much playerinput, but if you ask ppl in twitchchat in GSL or ASL for SC, 4 out of 5 estimate now say they don’t even play the game it’s just fun to watch cause it’s so intense.
So appealing to a more casual audience (again, nothing wrong with that) is coming with a tradeoff.
Yes but starcraft had different mechanics and tons of unit abilities to play with which the Age genre completely lacks of.
That’s where mobas come from after all.
It’s not about groundfiring and arrowdodging but about perfectly timed forcefields, bio splitting, viper yoinks and so on.
Pair that with complete asyncron races and it’s pretty intense to play and to watch.
What does age have mechanics wise?
Ranged single target attacks.
Ranged aoe attacks (catapults).
Single target meele attack.
Oh yeah you had cataphract trample and now I guess the meme landsknecht aoe meele.
So just flat out auto attacks and one aoe groundfire unit.
Beside mangonel/catapult plays you don’t have big playmakers or mechanics that reward playerinput at all, so deleting the stuff that you have makes it for a less pleasant viewing experience cause of streamlining.
Meaning the outcome of stuff gets predictable at all times.
Mythology and 3 didn’t have quickwalling either, afaik, and they also didn’t blow up in esports at all.
Age1 is huge in Vietnam and 2 is quite popular in NA and EU recently again.
The point I’m trying to make is that micro is not a requirement for difficulty. It’s a very easy way to make a game hard but it is not the only way. In theory a game should be able to add enough strategic complexity that it does not need micro to become a competitive game but for an unclear reason the dominant esports are all pretty micro heavy. Why is this? Maybe it’s because micro makes games more fun for highly invested players, maybe it’s just because the right strategy focused game hasn’t come along yet.
Either way, my point is a bit irrelevant since I’m pretty sure aoe4 doesn’t have the level of strategic depth for it to carry the game alone but the basic level of micro it requires will be enough for it to be a solid A teir competitive game.
I draw a way more critical conclusion about it but hey, only time will tell 
That they tip their toes into active ability casting with khan for example is an interesting shift and could make up for it, if all civs get similar ability treatment of some sort.
Well there are different degrees of this. Aoe IV has castable/passive abilities you can utilize.
For example the Longbowmen get like 3 castable abilities?
Palings, Rapid fire, and Setup camp.
The Mongol Khan can cast unit buffs for attack speed, movement speed, and cast a falcon for vision every 30 seconds.
Abbasid camels give bonuses to infantry around them.
HRE monks can cast attack buffs on their infantry.
Chinese Imperial officers can supervise economic points like the Pharoahs from Aom.
Cavalry has a charge bonus you can utilize with hammer and anvil tactics (in theory).
I can list more but they haven’t unveiled the Dehli sultanate yet. (NDA)
However it is a bit of a stretch to say quick walling is a defining feature for Aoe to be an Esport.
But what has AOE4 added in terms of strategic complexity? Not sure if LOS blockers and damage reducing walls are enough to make up for everything that has been removed.
With regards to esports, the reason games like Chess are never broadcasted on television is because it’s really not that exciting to watch.
I guess that’s why it broke viewership records on Twitch this year.
All we need is Netflix to do a movie about an Age of Empires pro…preferably in the '60s, with lots of drugs…
They are broadcasted on television, you just don’t watch those channels.
Also online:
Guy seems to average around 250K viewers each stream.
The Botez sisters are also a really popular channel.
As for Esports, you’re trying to tell me games like Dota 2 don’t get a massive viewership?
7 Million viewers.
Coincidentally I know a thing or two about chess. I have never seen a world championship of chess broadcasted on television. Maybe I am not receiving those channels. Or maybe people don’t enjoy watching two guys looking at a board for several hours on end, especially since not everyone knows chess.
As for streams:
Hikaru is a blitz or bullet player and I’ve never seen him get 250k players on stream. Here’s a picture since you like pointing to data:
Let’s just agree to disagree. I’m not gonna prolong this conversation of why games with esports ambitions don’t try emulating chess. You’re trying to apologise for AoE4’s simplified mechanics at all costs.
Add to that the removed building-walling and hill bonus, making the map completely flat and open in all but visual appearance. AOE3 felt equally flat with “blobby” battles compared to AOE2, but at least there was the ability to properly focus fire and force ranged units into melee with the snare mechanic. All that is gone now without any replacement.
I thought that was obvious that it was included with quickwalling 
Sry if that wasn’t clear.
Of course, you are completely right and I 100% share that.