Hi all,
This is a niche subject, for most. But random is not really random. It basically dice rolls a civ for you in the lobby. That is it. One can easily achieve the same by rolling a number on a random generator and then just pick the outcome. Sad, as random is difficult enough already since most factions don’t do well on most maps.
On the AoE discord I’ve seen quite fierce debates on having random also appear as random in the loading screen. Strangely enough: some people debate it would be OP as hell since one has to scout early and set one back. Others use the same logic to opposite outcome: just scout with your dedicated scout unit and it would make literally no difference. I have no desire to re-ignite that debate here.
In previous polls it was already asked: should random show as random and the majority said yes. I imagine because of the initial paragraph in this thread. Lastly: if we can’t get this. Could we at least get a dice or question mark at our name/flag in the loading screen and trade menu so it is visible to ourselves and others we picked random? Currently a random french and picked french appear totally equal.
I understand that ages games deviate from pretty much the rest of all other RTS. Simply not sure on the why.