Inb4 they add Khmer, I mean who knows maybe unnamed dev isnt good in geo
Might be better to just give the Chinese crossbows instead of archers, perhaps at a cheaper price compared to other civs to reflect the widespread Chinese crossbow use. Mongols would get much cheaper Cav archers compared to other civs at the expense of foot archers (the Cav archers would still be significantly more expensive than foot archers).
If the Chinese gets foot archers, then I would expect them to have longer range and more damage (Composite bows vs lower-tech Longbows) but significantly more expensive and longer to train compared to the English archers and generic crossbows. I think the generic crossbows should be more expensive than Western European archers (more complicated mechanisms) but would be created faster (easier to train peasants to use crossbows) with the exception of English archers who will not have that disadvantage (and who will also get anti-cav bonus/abilities). The crossbows could have much less RoF but higher damage per shot this way.
The Abbasids would get roughly the same stats for archers as the Chinese (composite bows also, but some design difference exist), with reduced cost and training time to reflect more widespread use compared to the Chinese. They also get camel archers as we have seen.
The Rus gets cheaper but weaker Western European-style archers at the beginning to help with rushes, then they get composite bow stats and cost (perhaps at 2nd or 3rd age) to help close games. This is to reflect the later adoption of Asiatic bows in Eastern Europe.
As for the Delhi Sultanate, I don’t have the necessary knowledge except that they started using composite bows much more after entering Mughal era (since the Mughals are Mongol). Seems like they have had access to composite bows for longer than that, but only for charioteers/elephant archers/nobles. Elephant archers would probably be the archer unit with the longest range in the game by virtue of not having technical limitations of shooting while riding a horse and the height afforded by the elephants.
Unfortunately, I believe that now might be too late to implement such a change. We would likely get the English archers outranging everyone despite the technological disparity/environmental limitations for the sake of marketing.
2 Likes
Good design doesn’t care about too late 
2 Likes
I think you are missing things. Here are some examples:
English:
Fighting villagers no one else has
Unique longbow unit
Different swordsman unit with additional tech to boot
Unique castle/keep type building with area mechanics
Town center alarm/fighting boost system
7 additional unique landmark options that appear to be unique between civs
I could highlight things for each civ, but that would be tedious. Instead, I will emphasize the civilization differences that provide wide variance on core game mechanics:
Chinese: Unique dynasty choices that require choice between available units
Dehli: All researches free
Mongols: Moving buildings
Abbasid: Unit Aura effects (camels)
French: Cavalry charge mechanic appears to be unique to them, but unclear
English: Proximity alarm system
3 Likes
Landmarks seem to be overlooked when. Considering how unique a civ is, it’s essentially having a choice to add one additional bonus to your civ every time you hit a new age.
A true glorious example of asymetric civs is AoE3
with each civ having similar types of units.
BUT yet very different technologies, architechture , gameplay
Similar types of having similar type of gameplay
(Asians Age up by building wonders with unique bonuses/auras , Natives with their warchief , europeons with leaders and more)
And add cards to on top of that ! it was a brilliant idea, that was simply not loved enough, coz it doesnt look “easy” enough for people to try, and devs 15 yesrs ago made its implementation hard in legacy AoE3.
But once u have even little understanding of it, u can really feel the brilliantly implemented asymetric
3 Likes
AoE3 is a bad example.
Most civs are more or less the same apart from Asian or Americans
AoM is a better example 
1 Like
Totally Disagree !
Ummm only the europeon civ are “similar”
yesthey have awesome bonuses
Britishers: get Vills , when u build a house but u cant delete ur house ! only ur enemy can
French : have CDB Vills, that are stronger and collect slightly faster but have less villager limit
Ports have : Casadors instead of , normal skirmishers, Organ guns , instead of usual falconet,gets 1 free TC every age up
Russia : Creates creates army in bunches of 10 and 5, Villagers in bunch of 3 but at a 10 food discount per villager
The only generic , “least” unique civ in Aoe3 might be spanish only
and apart from many other things , there are Cards ! unique shipments ! that can allow variation in the each civ and each game , and then add , revolt in age4 ! Shipments adds sucha new dimension that none of the game in franchise have
Only watched some ppl playing it not played myself so cant comment !
3 Likes
Age3 might have done asymmetry well, but it was unloved for some good reasons. It has some serious flaws. The one that turned me off permanently was unlocking cards as you play (no dis on the cards, just the unlocking). What kind of multiplayer strategy game requires X amount of games to unlock your pieces. Imagine if you had to play 200 chess games to unlock your rooks, and still had another 100 to unlock your queen? Oh wait, you want to play as black now? You are still at king and pawns over there.
Or let’s talk about ships. Realistic proportions sound nice until our ships are 20x the size of our units and can bombard half the map
And unit movement: Unit movement, especially in combat, is far more awkward than earlier games such as Age2
Age3 might be a good example of how to do asymmetry (note the fewer civs than age2 - why I am concerned about age4 civ bloat), but Age2 is far more popular for good reason.
AoE3 improved civ design immeasurably from AoE2.
9 Likes
agreed that was the only blunder that costed aoe3 user base IMO
Well ull see that in AoE4 , as they have borrowed the snaring mechanism from aoe3 IMO
Fact
I think Age 3 just suffered from being in a time period is less intuitive than AoE2. Unit design in AoE2 was excellent, it was pretty easy to pick up intuitively what unit is good at what even without really reading any of the tooltips or anything. In AoE3 you have a lot of stuff that you can not easily just figure out. With a bunch of different units all using rifles that have various bonus damages, so no intuitive way to figure out what is what, or like Longbowmen actually having a comparatively short range… or the Aztec Arrow Knights being the most amazing siege unit in the whole game lol
Well ! if you play it ull simply know it ! multipliers are more clearly mentioned in AoE3 than AoE2 and have no as such hidden bonuses really !
And just like Skirm and archer in AoE2 being the basic units ! u simply have to know which is better than whome
AoE3 has the Musketeer and Skirmishers ! they are very basic units: Heavy inf vs Light Inf !
and clearly mentioned multiplier ! as well as tags !
I dont thnk reading should be an issue when u are playing a RTS game
Nope they are the longest ranged light Infantry especially in starting ages
6 Likes
In fact the ui and stat displays improved every game. AoE2’s are rough.
4 Likes
Except I don’t like multipliers written in the stats as that is not easy to read at a first glance. But other than that I don’t really care too much.
its not a thing that you Always have to do ! u only need to read it once in lifetime ! not a big deal !
And for those who dont want to read there are simple icons and symbols to just see the multipliers , once in lifetime ! no one in aoe3 , first look for multiplier then calculate n prepare units ,
its as simple as , if ur enemy have musk, u have to make some light infantry , coz u know light inf beats heavy inf , coz u read it ONCE in lifetime
4 Likes
Wow!!! Absolutely thrilled! I commented on that big thread and was away from the forums for months. I come back and I see this. Now I am truly hopeful for some good news. Thank you our overlord Devs 
It really feels good to be heard.
Just some ideas they can use I am guessing:
1.) Voiced language - The proto civ need not be Hindi speaking as such. Hindi as a language matured much later around 16th century. Samskrita would be a much better choice IMO. It was one of the major court languages in almost every Hindu empire of India both from North & South. Or one can chose Tamil/Kannada/Telugu in case Vijaynagara Empire is chosen. Again major languages with a lot of history with around 100-200 million speakers now. Vijaynagara Empire, especially it’s kings & queen’s were famous for producing literature in these languages. (Also Satya Nadella is a Telugu guy. Ask him to do the voice acting 
)
2.) Navy - The naval history of India is an unexplored gem. Southern India especially was a major naval power till atleast 18th century. Case in point - All Arab naval invasions defeated, Chola expeditions to SE Asia, Massive Trading vessels of Vijaynagara & invasions of Sri Lanka. Later this mantle would be carried by the Marathas & Travancore. From Spice Trade to Diamonds to Gold Indians weren’t the second highest GDP grossers of those days without any good reason. The Cholas were one of the few powers in the world to successfully use what is now known as Gunboat Diplomacy.
3.) Elephants & Matchlocks - Both Cholas & Vijaynagara Empire had standing regiments of huge war elephants. Vijaynagara also had infantry using Matchlocks, a rare occurrence in the subcontinent those days (Babur will use them to defeat the Delhi Sultanate in the First Battle of Panipat).
4.) Forts - For Vijaynagara Empire being under seige from the North was very common. Hence special focus was given on fortifications. Deep forests were grown around forts to slow down enemy movements (This can be a bonus outright )
5.) Army arrangements - Vijaynagara Empire had 2 kinds of armies. One was under the direct employment of the palace. The other was under the various feudal chiefs called Nayakas. They inherited this system from the Kakatiya dynasty. (Nayakas can be made to be units like mansabdars of Aoe3 IMO)
6.) Scholars - It’s ironical how scholars as a system has been given to the Delhi Sultanate which specialised in pillaging & destroying libraries, universities & killing scholars (Nalanda, Vikramshila, Odantapuri, etc). This system IMO fits more with the Vijaynagara empire. From literature to astronomy & mathematics massive developments happened there.
Initially I decided not to buy Aoe4 because of the Delhi Sultanate but if a new DLC comes with an alternative Indian civ as said by Microsoft, I am willing to buy it later.
7 Likes
If AoE3 civs are the same, What about AoE2 civs?? HC decks give them different mechanics that AoE2 dont. There civs only have a single unique unit while in AoE3 europeans have at least 2 and royal guards.
About AoM, there were 4 civs, easier than 8, where greeks are from A2 and Atlanteans become A3 later. Also AoM was the precedent to A3 for round map, infinite resources, Atlanteans with their vills, units building, powers, sup victory etc etc… Both games did a great job with assimetry.
3 Likes
AOE 3 factions at minimum have 2 unique units and 1 meaningful economic bonus. on top of this all the original factions had a lag of specific units to boot.
and that is not even talking about homecity system where again you will have dozens of cards that are unique or special to you.
3 Likes
Same with me and my many other mates , who are veryyyyyyy reluctant to buy aoe4 coz of Delhi Sultanate.
haha such true point.
Interesting though , forts having a bonus to slow down enemies around. like the Indian monks in Aoe3, after calling Dukkha suffering card.
I bet ! its a great naval campaign in itself !