Yes, for me they are not going to include the Dutch, maybe Burgundy but as a French civ variant…
That is not new. Back in AOM you have civs with strong individual heroes, civs with supportive heroes, and civs that can produce massive “hero-like” units.
It is not difficult to imagine a Teutonic Order faction which centers on upgrading the grandmaster, or a Mongol sub-faction “variant” which centers on upgrading the Khan (more than the current Mongol civ). You can even make the Order of Dragon centered on upgrading Vlad III and he eventually gets a bloodsucking ability (already in the game).
Like I said you can still justify these features from historical backgrounds. You can also justify NOT having these features or giving them to many other civs, if they were done the other way round.
For example, AOE3 Malta is also a comically defensive civ. It has a lot of crazy designs for an AOE game. Units teleporting through buildings. Buildings you can blow up to deal massive damage. Units with extra range and speed when next to buildings. Flaming towers. Overly exaggerated use of flamethrowers and rockets. All because they won one famous defensive battle.
But that civ is still given the conventional name of Maltese”, not “Defenders of the Mediterranean” or “Jean Parisot” as a variant of Italians.
By the same logic, it’s not hard to design a hero-centric faction from scratch.
The reason of why the Jeanne d’Arc variant is the only one that we cannot come up with a proper faction name for is that one person does not have sufficient content to make up a whole faction. It becomes especially difficult if that person is NOT a faction leader.
Jeanne d’Arc was part of the French army and remained allegiance to the Kingdom of France. The “unique units” of Jeanne’s raider/champion are purely fictional. There was no personal troops of Jeanne d’Arc.
So the real underlying reason is not that they want to force a hero-centric civ in, but they want to force specifically Jeanne d’Arc in.
(Disclaimer: I’m not saying this is a bad decision. I’m just explaining why it causes inconsistencies, which can be a problem to some people)
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You’re right, after all. The future is open to any possibility, maybe next time we’ll all be happy. Well uncontentables aside.
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It is because it symbolizes that the Order of Malta was throughout the continent…
Did you forget that the Ayyubids are historical and put as variant?
I think that you didn’t read it entirely because I specifically say that the Ayyu are the only civ that respects historical accuracy. Moreover, maybe you didn’t know it, but Ayyubids wasn’t initially created to be the Ayyubids, they had a terrible name on release that was « Sultan’s army » and we shouted to make this change.
Apparently not, because they said in the last DLC release that they’ll come back to historical accuracy as the game was intended to be focused on, so who was wrong ?
Well, yes, here’s what they said in " Dive Into the Action of Age of Empires IV: Knights of Cross and Rose":
Indeed, the devs acknowledged that they “overdid it” with the first 4 variants, and that they lack a lot of historical representation. Having played them all this time, there are their representation problems:
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Order of the Dragon: It wasn’t made to represent the order, but to make a “Protoss” variant. They used the HRE as a “guinea pig” because it was the only civ without many unique military units, so their variant would just take its base units and turn them into some sort of “Super Soldiers” with more population.
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Sultan Army: It was made to be a “passive bonuses” and Rush version of the Abbasids. While it has several units from the “Ayyubid” period, such as the Dervishes and Bedouin soldiers, it really lacks one very important unit: “Horse Archers” or “Turkic Horse Archers.” The campaign version has them, this one doesn’t. Due to a last-minute “systems reengineering,” they’re now the Ayyubid, which suited them just fine.
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Joan of Arc: France + Hero. She was the first attempt at a DOTA hero for the game. As the first hero, she was even given range and melee evolution. What’s the problem? Joan was better known as a support and encouragement general, rather than a killing machine like Lu Bu or La Hire". She doesn’t even have a build that carries her iconic flag. At least she has the healing aspect, but being a mounted handcannon was also viewed very negatively, and even more so the absurd amount of damage she does against Keeps alone. People even are happy to know the rumor of a possible remake of this variant, to not be just a copy of the French tech tree plus a hero.
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ZhuXi: She was practically China2; the name “Jade Empire” was a reference to China. It has more unique units than its base civ (+3), and there was a time when it “even surpassed it in every way.” The good thing is that it allowed for more historical buildings to be used as Landmarks for the Chinese civilization. The bad thing: balance; it was broken when it came out, but not so much now.
Summary:
- Juana: Dota variant
- OftD: Protoss variant
- Ayyubid: Passive Bonuses variant + “More unique units”
- Zhu Xi: Chinese Architecture models v2 variant
Fortunately, they changed their approach with the latest DLC, although we always have to be vigilant; for a reason, many of us are Insiders.
Continuing on the topic, and since I’ve already talked about the problem of historical representation, let’s now talk about balance and gameplay.
2) Similarities: Was it necessary for the variant civs to be almost identical to their parent civs?
The first four variants created a balance issue, due to a concept the devs had in mind, this phrase:
Apparently, the devs believed that by making Jeanne "almost identical to the French" to maintain the identity of Classical civilization, French players would start using her. Same with Order of the Dragon, which would have attracted HRE players.
And it didn’t happen: Players from France who didn’t like the concept of heroes or MOBAs didn’t play Joan. Players who liked MOBAs played Joan but didn’t play French players.
In the case of Order of the Dragon, it attracted players looking for an easy civ (1/10) difficulty, who didn’t even play HRE.
While it might have been a matter of taste, a bigger problem arose: balance.
3) Balance: Should variant civs be copies of their parent civs?
Due to its original conception, there was a terrible balance problem: If a variant civ is going to be a copy of its parent civ in the tech tree, only with more bonuses and unique units, in the long run, it will only make them “better versions” than their predecessors, and in 1v1, it will always give the variant an advantage over its parent civ.
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How did the devs make the variants of their parent civ different while preserving their parent civ’s identity?
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If they gave the HRE new unique units, would they have to give the Order of the Dragon a Gilded version?
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Could the French not have anything unique because Joan would then “copy” it to remain her copy?
Well, the solution is simple:
The reality is that “no one” cared that Joan or OftD were different from their parent civ; in fact, the opposite was true:
- “Most players wanted the variants not to be “cheap” copies of the original civs.”
- “They should be unique, truly new civs, and if possible with good historical representation”
The good news is that there were some changes that helped the situation somewhat.
- The French acquired cheaper castles (S7)
- Joan lost bonuses that are now French-specific: free blacksmithing upgrade (S7)
- HRE acquired a new unique unit in the Imperial Age, differentiating itself from its variant (S10)
- The new variants of Knights of Rose and Cross vary quite a bit from their parent civs, except for the historical concepts they should have in common, such as language or architectural model (S10)
‘Joan of Arc’ could be renamed ‘Joan’s Army of National Salvation’, describing a French variant faction while highlighting Joan herself. I even considered renaming ‘Zhu Xi’s Legacy’ to ‘Jiangnan Gentry’, as it represents a significant political force in Chinese history. However, given the profound importance of Zhu Xi’s thought, I can accept the original name.
Vairiants dont grow the player base, at best you get short spike of returning players back. For a month or so.
Think the highest daily count a the moment is 13000. Down from over 20000 with the last dlc
Ultimately the larger portion of these games are attracted by things like campaign and flavour over mechanics or competition. New civilizations actually being NEW is quite important in that recipe, and it is why I skipped this DLC (besides protesting the addition of more variants).
There is a fine line to tread here in trying to make this game profitable while also developing it. The initial business strategy was clearly too expensive and they may have expected bigger yields for the product.
But, I’d even argue they simply didn’t go all out enough. AoE4 was released quite underbaked in multiple directions and that might simply have limited its potential more so than any other decision they have made. We’re desperately trying to get even a smidge of that initial release.
Which is exactly why I am so against variants as a whole. Developers have done a good job building up the baseline of the game to where it should’ve been at launch, and adding bizarre features, mechanics and “variants” in the form of a DLC only water down that experience instead of adding to it.
Obviously this is done to keep the fire of the game alive for as long as possible. But, I think a better allocation of resources would be actually pushing out a real DLC at a timely manner. The implosion of Relic studios surely didn’t help the game, but overall, I feel the development simply has been too messy and that has devastated this game’s potential again and again–which is why, after all of these facts, that I think the game is amazing to be standing alive and healthy after all of this.
I just hope higher ups see its potential and keep it alive with frequent updates and consistant high quality DLCs.
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Yes, the same now applies to the Templars Knights (one of the Crusader orders) and the Lancasters (one of the factions in the War of the Roses).
Yes, and that’s why they’re so meh…they’re just the HRE 2.0…
Yes, they probably didn’t because the Ayyubids already have many UUs…
I hope… they have to make JdA feel more unique…
It’s still fun, since you can play more aggressively…
Exact…
Yeah, I played HRE at first, but since season 4 it’s become pretty meh, and now I only play the rest of the civs…
Probably, but I don’t think so for now…
Yes, still, 2 more UUs for HRE wouldn’t be bad, the Hussite wagon and the Teutonic Knight (although the latter is already a Templar UU, so I don’t think so)… I’d give them a Bavarian villager with a cart…
Yes, that would be nice…
It’s because the game came out in the middle of the pandemic and with an identity crisis, not knowing what kind of game it would be, whether it would be more symmetrical and similar to AoE 2 or more asymmetrical and unique like AoE 3…
Yes, now that they know more or less what the players want, the devs will focus their resources on making more realistic DLCs, with 2 or 3 good civs (like Spanish/Vikings, Aztecs and Incas) and at most 3 variants (Rus, Mongol and Delhi) and obviously a new campaign, which if it is from Spain will be from the Reconquista from El Cid to Isabella the Catholic (1069-1492)…