Relic: stop labeling units "unique" that shouldn't be

I’ve been seeing these “unique units” shenanigans more and more as the public release gets closer. It reeks of desperation from Microsoft in showing how asymmetric the civs are by pushing the boundaries of what you can call unique.

In AoE II the Japanese have almost instant packing/unpacking trebuchets. Are those unique trebuchets? No, right? But if you reskin them maybe… No, still no.

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I think the problem is people clamoring for civs to be more unique. It’s historical strategy, not robots vs. aliens or elves vs. vampires. They can only make the civs so unique without it being silly. A civilization might be famous for a particular thing but that by no means they’re the only ones who had it, especially in warfare where every time there’s a new development everyone else quickly adopts it.

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Please no slippery slope arguments. They could simply follow the formula used in AoE3 and AoEO.

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How was that a slippery slope argument?

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In a general ranked 1v1… nah… but in sudden death mode? heck yeah

That if they took any more steps towards asymmetry they’d fall down a slippery slope and end up too asymmetric for the game’s own good.

There’s always three responses to any slippery slope argument.

  1. It’s not slippery at all and we can move in that direction responsibly.

  2. If we don’t move in that direction we will fall down a slippery slope in the opposite direction, resulting in way too symmetric civs.

  3. So what if we go too far asymmetric? The civs should be wildly asymmetric.

Here, argument 1 is the accurate response. The others aren’t bad, either, tbh. But argument 1 is absolutely true.

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That is not what I said. I said

Identifying that something has limits is not a slippery slope. Actually, it’s the reason for your argument 1: moving in a direction doesn’t mean we have to keep going, we can recognize limits. I agree with you about slippery slope arguments but I did not make one.

Also, you seem to think I am against asymmetry? I am not. I am against nonsensical design done in the name of asymmetry. Asymmetrize all you like! Just don’t be dumb about it.

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We are asymmetry friends!!

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This is just because there is no word to describe this unit in their culture. Like during America’s civil war the name for a solider was just soldier. But this changed in AOE 3.

A name either denotes an actual common role common in English vernacular, or it’s an established name of a specific unit from that culture that is unique from common English vernacular.

Monks denote all culture’s religious people into a single name. While Prelates in the Holy Roman Empire civ denotes it as a unique unit that does more than a standard monk. The game can’t give every civ completely unique weapons and names for every single unit. If there exists a unique unit, which means no other civ gets it, then there will be a special name that is from the culture for it.

AOE2 didn’t convey names the best, but in AOE 3 they did a very fine job here. In AOE 4 it appears they’re following a great mix of AOE 2 and AOE 3.

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I think they went with nomenclature that is close to names from other AoE games.

And maybe they gave AoE2 some priority.

Like they kept Mangudai and Cavalry/horse archer. And monks. And the war Elephants from AoE2.

There is no equivalent of strelets in AoE2, so they they used Streltsky.

I’m pleasantly surprised they didn’t call the Landsknecht the teutonic knight to keep AoE2 fans happy. Thank you!

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It’s a unique tool in the player’s toolbelt. That is what counts at the end of the day.
AOE2 offers many more such “unique tools” per civ than the AOE3/4 assymetry-zealots here give the game credit for.

Reskinning such a unit is the right step when it comes to modernizing AOE2. Unique visuals would make it easier for the player to understand why british trebs all of a sudden make splash damage or why the mongol ram is a race car. That should be obvious without having to memorize the tech tree of each civ.

But that is not what they’ve done here. It’s more like the assymetry approach of AOE3, but fat-free and with zero sugar :[

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I was in the beta. I know that. And the conversation ended days ago with us in agreement so why are you wasting your time to tell me to stop arguing? Please read the whole conversation before you butt in.

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True. Brain-afk me skipped those replies.

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I appreciate that- sorry for being an a$$ in my response.

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The French “royal knights” should be called Gendarmes because royal knights sounds pretty lame. Look at number 6 and 7 in the link below.

Their unique canon could be called Veuglaire.
image

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Other civs will have cannons but the french will have The Cannon.

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So what if we go too far asymmetric? The civs should be wildly asymmetric.

Should they? These are human empires not Zerg and Protoss. Some civs should be more unique than others for sure like Mesoamerican civs but focussing on assymettry too much leads to making arbitary desicions for the sake of making things different: “No Egypt cant have a shield and spear unit because thats the Greeks thing, Greeks cant have axemen because that is Egypts thing!”

I love AOE3 but the Asian Dyansties, USA and African Kingdoms feel so bloated and weird they dont feel like they are in the same game as the other civs. (especially the last two) Dont get me wrong I’m not opposed to unique civs that would be a strange stance I just feel like Assymettry gets puts on a pedestal as the most important element.

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Yes, they should be. Nobody is asking for Starcraft, but occasionally people strawman us with it. AoEO does it perfectly. AoE3 is great, too.

Different human civs had different weapons and fighting styles and strengths. They rode all sorts of varying horses or other animals. Some horses were like sports cars. Some were like tanks. Some were like pick-up trucks. Translated into AoE, they all would rightly have different stats, different sized models, different bonuses, etc.

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That is because Africa is indeed a different culture.

It’s too late now to go back and make the Euro civs unique. But I don’t believe they added new units just for the sake of asymmetry - you’ll notice that the African civs have new things altogether, such as Javelin infantry that fires faster at close range, Javelin cavalry that counters cavalry better in melee etc.

For instance, historically, Maigadi were bodyguards so to incorporate that they have a multiplier against mercenaries. How boring would it be to have another generic musketeer in the game?

The focus on asymmetry is because cultures ARE asymmetric in real life. “But it’s a game” you’ll say. So what, life’s a game.

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Every beta civ had cannons