Team games are so absolutely broken

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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The game in its current state is 100% fundamentally broken and I honestly don’t even know if it’s fixable.

The entire game balance is built around 1on1 and devs seem to be completely ignoring team games.

The problem is you probably can’t even fix team games without breaking 1on1 either.

The entire design of this game is so broken that any balance changes will always completely F some other civ.

Last patch it was China.

China was doing too well in 1on1 so they buffed everyone else and nerfed China. Now, in team games, China is completely screwed. China is SO weak in early game it’s laughable. Anyone playing team game knows, just rush/pressure China and it’s easy win. The defenses are pathetic and literally every other civ’s feudal units and economy just blow past China.

There’s literally nothing you can do as China to stop Knights/Longbow/Archer combo and almost every team game has this. The only chance China has is to make it to Castle but anyone in higher tier knows just rush China and GG. Even when you make it to Castle, China used to have enough of an econ advantage where Castle+ would allow for some advantage, but now every other Civs econ has been buffed so China’s advantages are no longer relevant.

Every other civ can easy-harass with almost zero consequence and China can’t do anything useful in Feudal which immediately puts China at a disadvantage early game. Very hard to overcome and 99% of the time you’re just hoping other team ignores you so you can make it to Castle to have some relevance in the match.

The entire concept of French/Mongol/English having very easy early game harass makes this game almost unplayable in its current state and can guarantee you is why player base is vanishing. It’s just plain annoying, unfun, and unfair against other civs, especially China. You have to overcome so much and be literally perfect to just survive Feudal rush. It’s the same crap every damn match.

Probably will just be dropping this game entirely as really it’s completely not fun anymore. All balance changes based on 1on1 win percentages only and nothing is being done to actually make the game fun to play. Really sad as I’ve put a lot of time into this game over the last year and devs continue to flip flop balance so poorly, it’s been a year+, we should have had so much better of a game by now but it’s going 100% in the wrong direction.

Stop trying to compete in e-sport BS and maybe make a fun game instead.

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The problem with china in TG is wanting it all.

If you want song dinasty+2TC up as soon as possible it is near 1350 resources invested.

Then you will start to make trops whereas english can have tons of longbows or french a lot of knights, then your eco will be destroyed and you will be done.

As abbasid main, I know what it feels to not be able 2 boom. Abbasid 3 TC boom is comparable to song+2TC boom from china.

But I have played some matches where I simply can’t put a third TC, or even a second TC because agression it’s too fast.

In this kind of games you have two options, try to be greedy and boom, and hope you can pass alive with your team mate’s help, or adapt to the situation and go turtle.

When I play english or some aggressive civ against china or abbasid I ever try to hurt them because I know feudal is the best place to take advantage, because his eco will boom and they will destroy you in castle, and not even talking if you let them pass to imperial.

But there are civs better in late game and civs better in early… It’s part of this game, and giving for example chinese more advantage in early would make them OP civ.

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Theres no way to balance 10 civs, 1vs1 to 4vs4 and keep everyone happy. Even if the game was 100% balanced people would say whatever civ they lose to are over powered.

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Unless they make a different Civ balance per game mode, which is possible, you’ll never escape this issue in RTS games.

It is possible to make each Civ have a different version for each mode, from 1vs1 & teams to FFA, but that is never going to happen when it’s already enough work to balance Civs for their most important role in 1 vs 1, where balance cannot be ignored.

And as always, you can’t balance Civs based on 4 vs 4 in RTS, unless you’re trying to balance a game like Tiberium Twilight (CNC4), which wasn’t really RTS.

P.S. team games aren’t absolutely broken. They play fine, just pick Civs that work for your play and ignore those that don’t. You can say that’s trashy, but it’s the card you’re handed.

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I don’t know enough about China to have an opinion but joanka is probably right about having to adapt the civ to team games. Despite all the tweaks that China gets, it’s still believed to be the strongest civ right now by some pro players.

In team games, the punishment for getting caught off guard is multiplied. If the enemy double or triple teams you by surprise, it doesn’t matter what civ you are, your allies won’t be able to reach you or produce in time to save you. So naturally 3v3 and 4v4s are going to trend toward early, focused aggression. That’s just a better strategy than waiting until a late game 4v4 when everyone has time, space, capability to cooperate.

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I’m tired of my teammates quitting after being attack by 4 archers

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Yeah, it’s believed to be one of the better civs but it’s also one of the hardest (if not the hardest) civs to main.

Too many things you have to do to get the 100% potential of the civ, and of course, alongside Abbasids they are the most powerful eco boom civ.