Yeah, they are only useful with an strong frontline. Any other way they lose against almost everything, but somehow it works, I don’t think nobody wants to change crossbowman.
I don’t really think we can compare these situations. Dodging 1-2 mangonels and focusing with range units is not hard, and now you can actually deal damange.
I don’t know, I wanted a big nerf on siege, but I don’t know if I like these changes. I feel like melee infantry is being kicked out of meta with all those cheap springalds doing tons of damage to melee but almost no damage to any other thing (including range units). It is better now, but it could be even better.
That’s why it’s a pup, make your proposal argued and founded
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I don’t think they will change it, even with feedback. Maybe a bit balance about damage, resistance and that’s all, but I’m sure they will keep the role they gave them.
I still dream with mangonels like weaker and cheaper trebs, and springalds maybe 150-200 wood cost, so they can not be massed as easy as now. My main point is that siege should be used for siege. The counter system works well (specially in feudal age beetween spearman, archer and horseman), maybe it needs a bit of balance here and there with castle and imperial age units, but using siege to stop melee or ranged units is something I don’t really like; because even when they just finished the siege vs siege cancer battle we had, siege still plays an important role in battle. It’s like springald is the new mangonel that you can actually kill with archers, so you have to go archers. It’s not a problem for me, I mainly play cavalry+archers almost every game, but there is no reason to leave infantry out of meta.
I don’t like the siege rework personally, all siege units used to play their unique roles, and none of them are useless. With the new changes, mangonel becomes very weak and pointless, springald is somewhat a bigger crossbowman, culverin being a bigger handcannoneer, and then with the buff to torch damage and incendiary arrows, the role of a trebuchet is even less important.
Some other changes are also problematic. The nerf to infantry hp is nonsense. This makes spears even more vulnerable in age 4, and the +4 armor makes them deal funny damage against MAAs, while MAAs are also scratching each other. The speed buff to handcannoneer is a massive nerf to MAAs, they already are countered by handcannoneers, this new tech makes them almost impossible to deal any damage to the handcannoneers, which is unnecessary.
Finally, it is just so stupid to witness cannons and great bombards can’t one-shot an armorless villager, Mongol springalds shooting like machine guns, longbows outrange keeps and burn down those keeps with their incendiary arrows, this is nothing different than seeing archers destroy stone walls with their arrows, it just doesn’t make sense, maybe give keeps some resistance to those additional siege damage alone.
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Hint of future DLC with Incas?
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Yeah sure.
It could even be a hint of Mapuches, but Incas are the closest in a near future.
In fact, with the new changes, American Civs would happens:
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Shock Infantry: Now that the Malis released the closest thing to an AoE3 Shock Infantry but in AoE IV, with the Mansa Freeborn warrior (5 ranged defense and bonus against ranged units), there could well be something similar as a cavalry substitute for native-American units.
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Non-invincible Siege.- Now that the siege is not invincible, civ like Mayans, Incas or Aztecs can have their countermeasures when lacking them, like special noble units that replace their roles, or like anti-siege incendiary archers, or fast shock infantry analogous to the horseman.
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Siege Archers.- Now that the English have Wynguard Longbowmen with 11 anti-building range, the AoE IIII Arrow Knight could be a reality, although with a better name, like “Huastec Master Bowman” or similar.
I was preparing an Inca concept, but since the Aztec was so nice, I don’t think I can make an Inca one with the same level as before, and more so because I never gave it the finishing touches. And with the PUP changes I’m now going to have to give some “touch-ups” to my pending, and even old, concepts.
I think I’ll reserve my final opinion on the entire PUP until the testing period is over, especially since I’m preparing a big post about things I liked and “Things that need to be fixed NO MATTER WHAT”, and I haven’t tested everything yet… well, there aren’t really that many people playing the PUP in team multiplayer, so it’s hard to test.
I actually just discovered a BUG, which was mentioned on Reddir but I didn’t understand it until I tried it:
“MALI BUG - MUSSOFADI GUNNERS GET HANDCANNONS WITH SERPENTINE POWDER”
This is embarrassing, Muskets shouldn’t evolve into Handcannons.
In fact, the bug doesn’t happen in Streltsy of Rus (I confirmed it), so I guess it’s just a visual bug affecting Mali.
Please, historically and aesthetically, it’s not pretty or good, please fix it before season 9, thank you very much.
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Considering the increase in the cost of Elite Army Tactics, I really wish the health boost wasn’t removed because removing it puts another nerf on this tech.
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Still no graphics or UI overhauls? No zoom farther out, or pop cap increases? Just more of the same (balance tweaks)? Interesting. Game seem to be in severe maintenance mode… getting by on the bare minimum of updates/resources 
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Wouldn’t balance be a major issue if a Native American civ gets added?
Zoom further out?? Are you crazy? I’m still debating whether Panoramic view is too far away and whether I should change to Classic. You can barely see the units.
To each his or her own 
This is why the dev should give options for each individual player to decide on their own rather than dictate current zoom height is good for everyone.
I’m used to AoE2:DE and its max zoom out ability because that’s how I like it. (And is what I wanted AoE to have for years.) I don’t get claustrophobic while playing, and can manage my “empire” how I like to.
AoE4 creates artifical tension and anxiety for me by making it a chore to manage because zoom is so close. Fake tension and drama, as you try to manage your empire while looking through a telescope with very little FOV. Clicking and scrolling all over.
And if readability is a problem too far out in AoE4, they need to figure out ways to fix that visually. Hire some designers to solve that problem. AoE2:DE has no readability issues whatasoever for me when I’m zoomed out all the way
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Do you find this claustrophobic? Do you happen to have a screenshot of AoE2 fully zoomed out? I’m curious how zoomed out you play.
Did Byzantium really not strengthen its civilizational character at all?
In my opinion, the Byzantine 2 local standard wineries and the 3 local standard first mountain cisterns really belong to the weakest group of all civilizations, coupled with the characteristics of the most complex operation and the only farming civilization without the blessing of Void Gold, which has dragged down the survival rate of the civilization in the early and late stages.
The fact that the big winery does not provide economic support in the second place makes it the weakest local standard, even if it is planted with olive fields in the area of influence in the fourth year, it will add a few hundred olive oils, which is really not very useful, far less affordable than the Imperial Arena.
The reservoir of the first mountain is even more clown, and almost no one chooses the 3 local landmarks.
And Byzantium is a glorious civilization that has long dominated the Eastern Mediterranean, but its navy is indeed the weakest of all civilizations, and the Dromont battleship is simply funny, with a short range and small attack power, even fishing boats can’t handle it, and it is really worthy of inheriting the identity of the maritime people of Greece civilizationDid Byzantium really not enhance its civilizational traits at all?
By the way devs you guys are getting lazy dont get lazy.When you research the camel armor for camels their armor changes or for hre when you research armor for spearman they get cool armor those kind of things must keep existing in the game if you know what i mean.
Good spot it should be swapped around and then applied to all civs gunpowder units.
The addition of multiplayer pause suggests otherwise.
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Yep, I do. And part of it is the perspective cam giving a top-down view of stuff at bottom of screen, coupled with a giant UI blocking a bunch of stuff down there. Harder to differentiate buildings and units when all you see are rooftops, hats, shoulders and a giant UI bar. The game should be facilitating efficient and intuitive ways to view and interact with it, not impeding our abilities at every turn.
Just curious, is your screenshot even from gameplay, or is that from CaptureAge or something? Says cinematic caster mode at top. Does that artificially zoom out more?
Regardless, I screenshotted these, showing the farthest zoom out in AoE4 and the smallest UI possible with it, next to what my AoE2:DE views look like…
AoE4
AoE2:DE
MUCH more info presented to me at once in AoE2:DE. And the camera angle/perspective everywhere is beautiful… poetry in motion. Never has a less-than-helpful top-down view of anything. Minimalistic UI. Love it.
Plus, AoE4’s gigantic UI takes up 1/6th of the screen, which equates to a lot when you can hardly see any of the map to begin with:
Compared to AoE2:DE’s smaller, tighter UI taking up about 1/8th of the screen. Which, when taken in combination with the fact that the camera is much farther back and you’re seeing much more of the game, this equates to far less obstruction than AoE4’s UI:
Oh, true! 
4 Likes
No. It’s the same zoom as using Panoramic mode. You can find the setting in Settings → Camera. I hope you know about it, they added it a while ago.
I’m not sure if you’re being disingenuous on purpose here, or maybe you haven’t played the game in a long time, but AoE4’s UI only looks like that when you select a villager. When you don’t select a villager, the UI is much smaller than the one in AoE2:
And if I make the minimap have the default size, the UI is even smaller:
When you select a unit, the UI is pretty much the same size as AoE2, with the difference that it’s more compact, by having the resources at the bottom, where everything else is:
Also, I’ve never seen anyone play AoE2 that zoomed out. Is it with the graphics DLC disabled? I’m pretty sure I couldn’t zoom out that far when I used to play. Idk how you can micro that far away, but maybe you just play the game differently, you probably enjoy building a town in skirmish vs AI, or maybe you just have a huge monitor. To me that’s very atypical and not practical at all, but as you said, to each their own.
This is how my game looks like fully zoomed out btw (and I don’t play like that, I play at 85% because 100% feels way too far):
And side by side (which UI looks more compact?):
And with regards to perspective, that’s definitely a matter of preference. Starcraft 2, the most popular RTS, looks like this:
Now that’s claustrophobic. And the UI is even bigger.
4 Likes
I was already in Panoramic view for AoE4, and used that for my screenshot. Let’s be honest, the difference between Normal view and Panoramic view is pretty minuscule 
Not at all. Was my accident, sorry. I snapped screenshots, but then when I went to highlight them, I noticed I accidentally had a difference in selections between the games. I didn’t want to re-launch the games to fix that as I had already spent enough time getting screenshots. I figured we all know what the UIs look like.
But I will say, the entire time I was playing AoE4 to get far enough to grab that screenshot, my view at the bottom of screen was constantly obstructed by the UI. As you know, in early game, you’re constantly generating villys and tasking them to do things, and upgrading buildings. So it’s not like the UI is always tucked away in a tiny box on the far-left like your screenshots. In my experience, it’s rarely like that. I’m always doing things that cause the UI to block the bottom of the screen.
Why does the UI and its icon need to be so huge anyways? Why can’t the icons be smaller? Well, it’s likely partially because all the icons are colored gold and the 2D silhouette icons will be even harder to decipher if they’re smaller. But that’s a different story.
Maybe Steam will let me donate the game someday if AoE4 only ever gets balance tweaks and multiplayer pause tweaks.
Well, I do. And I’m glad the devs of AoE2:DE gave me the option to do so, because they recognized some players may want to, and they chose not to restrict the game to how they like to play or what they feel is best for everyone.
I haven’t done anything special to play this way, pretty sure. I have Enhanced Graphics Pack disabled, if that’s what you’re referring to? I don’t have a 4K monitor, which is what that DLC is for:
you probably enjoy building a town in skirmish vs AI… To me that’s very atypical and not practical at all, but as you said, to each their own.
I do play skirmish vs. Ai, yes. And MP vs. AI, too. I dont dilly-dally around building a cute town as if it is a world decoration game. I’m not an eSports player or ranked player, so they can do whatever they like. Again, not everyone wants or needs to play like everyone else, or in the way the devs think they should play. I’m fast enough for my needs and I enjoy my gameplay. I don’t feel the UI is cumbersome or slows me down at all this way. If AoE2:DE got a patch tomorrow permanently cutting the zoom out in half, I’d probably stop playing forever.
or maybe you just have a huge monitor.
1440p monitor. But that shouldn’t matter. The screenshots from both games were taken from the same monitor. I should get an equally or near-equal awesome view as this in AoE4, but I don’t. Not even close. Because the game is locked into what the devs or MS directed for the game.
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