This game is actually in such a bad state atm

[TheAchronic]

This comes as a consequence of making feudal such a difficult age for many matchups. The conclusion of skipping it alltogether is a result of that.

[joanka93val]

@TheAchronic

The game is indeed in a terrible state. Defensive play is all but extinct and the continued nerfs of structures like TC, in combination with introduction of hyper aggressive civilizations that have ultra powerful feudal tools just makes this game extremely bitter to play from some civilization’s perspective.

I don’t like the idea of banning civilizations, but at this point its getting ridiculous. Some match ups are extremely unfun and they’ve done nothing to compensate.

For any of the developers who actually read this forum (there are none); complex civilizations aren’t fun just because they are complex. You need to give them a bone for it to be worth anyone’s time. You might as well have wasted 6 months developing Byzantines if they are just a worse Abbasid.

Moreover, it feels like a waste of positive momentum to entirely neglect the game after launching the DLC like this. The game is in dire need of balancing, but also needs to be shifted back into more dynamic gameplay. Aggro only is choking this game to death.

I agree with you in this one, I would say more, I play a lot of team games, and the combo Zhy Xi + Jeanne + Ayyubid is totally absurd. Zhu xi can mass like 60 zhu ge to min 10, while jeanne just kill and dive into your TC (because in team games she got to lvl 3 too easy) and Ayyubid just get into castle and get all the relics and mass ghulams.

There’s not much you can do because your entire team has to do a lot of army to contest zhu xi and Jeanne whereas Ayyubid is just getting a 6:30 castle.

Not fun to play.

@TheAchronic

This comes as a consequence of making feudal such a difficult age for many matchups. The conclusion of skipping it alltogether is a result of that.

But not agree with your in this one. The new meta being everybody getting into castle that fast is due to the factor that they added a lot of new civs that can just skipe feudal taking 0 risks. For example, zhu xi and ayyubids can skip feudal taking literally no risk, then start to mass castle armoured units and taking the relics.

Due to this, everyone wants to get into castle fast.

[TheAchronic]

@joanka93val

But not agree with your in this one. The new meta being everybody getting into castle that fast is due to the factor that they added a lot of new civs that can just skipe feudal taking 0 risks. For example, zhu xi and ayyubids can skip feudal taking literally no risk, then start to mass castle armoured units and taking the relics.

Due to this, everyone wants to get into castle fast.

That makes sense too.

[hd.age]

Playing against Joan of Arc in team games is a bit boring at the moment.

Good to know the patch is coming. Hope It come with crossplay too.

[Yazzle]

We haven’t had a patch in AGES! Apart from the obvious overpowered or underpowered units and landmarks that should be changed, it feels like the game is just very stale. You especially realize it when you see pros play it. I don’t understand how top players keep playing the same crap over and over and over again as if it takes so long to figure out what’s good. It’s so obvious!

[Yazzle]

Feudal sucks for civs that don’t have mma or knights, mma especially. Armored units are too OP in an age where there are no counters to them. If there was a new unit that could counter mma early and new civs skipping feudal were nerfed, feudal would be a fun age to play in

[Adribird90]

There is no civilization with MAA that has more than 50% Winrate counting all levels.

That is rather a different problem, not a balance problem.

[Heftydogg]

@Nanshinner

If AOE4 only has four playable civilizations like COH, then the production team can naturally make it better and more detailed.

But they didn’t do that. They’re sticking to a schedule of speed-code, release, fix later. Everything we get new is a beta. That’s not the fault of players complaining for more diversity, it’s the company’s plan. Can’t believe yall waste your time game-testing for free. It was never close to being polished, even at 4 civs. TBH they should have had 8 civs done at release but it was pretty obvious they had a long, long way to go toward making that happen.

[GoldenArmorX]

I just wanted to announce that as some streamers commented and was revealed in the Hotfix 9.1.404, a New patch is coming for this last week of January or the first week of February.

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According to the streamers, there is “a lot of balance” and some say that they think the solution they propose seems “beautiful.” Although I usually say that only time will tell, well, at least I think that there are many thing that need to be considered:

• 1.- Zhu Xi.- is very broken in feudal, its early rush is too broken, and at least I think many think that some of the early economic bonuses they have could be nerfed (Tang: 15% - > 10%, Song bonus: 40% → 30%) to balance them with the rest of the civs, but nothing more serious.

• 2.- Byzantines.- they deserve some extra advantage to be able to take off in Feudal and to be able to better use the mercenaries (which count as their 5th extra feudal unit, which all civs have one).

• 3.- Japanese.- There are 2 bugs: One is visual, of the Mounted Samurai who attack with the blunt side of their katanas. The 2nd is the most serious: The Onna-Musha is not receiving an attack bonus from either Uma Bannerman or Yumi Bannerman, it is not receiving any, and I do not think it is intentional, because the unit lights up and a message as if it received it, but it does not receive it, so it is practically a BUG. ()

• 4.- Rest of Civs.- In general I had already suggested in another topic that many other classic civs would benefit from new unique units or extra mechanics to match in power with some variants (Suggestion: New Units and Mechanics to Classic Civs - January 2024). This especially the “Civ-fathers” in post-imperial (“French, Chinese, Abbasid, Holy Roman Empire”). However, for that change of unique units I suppose we would have to wait for the change of season, perhaps March or the next season, whichever is better for the devs to develop good models, but hey, i am still optimistic, still loving this game.

Anyway, I guess that with the patch we will see how much the devs are pending of the metagame since the release of the new civs.

[HasanIchess]

@StatedOregon5

Also since the TC nerf the game is becoming all about castle rushing now. The civ that skips feudal the best wins!

@StatedOregon5

I totally agree with you. The meta right now is much worse than what it was last patch and fast castle should be punishable by eary aggression.

@HasanIchess

The collection rate is high so 2Tc villagers quickly recover their investment, so Non-landmark TC villagers should cost more, so that Fast Castle is more viable with most civilizations

2 TC meta used to be an issue, but now fast castle is becoming problematic too as its hard to punish, much harder to punish a FC than a 2nd tc boom now, specially with civs like ayubids that can entirle skip feudal without any issues and shut down any early aggression!

if you still think fast castle is OP, watch the recent tournament games

The $25,500 Master of Realms! - Main Event - Elimination and Winner's Round!...

[MatM1996]

@Nanshinner

Of course I also hope that AOE4 will have more civilizations and more different gameplays, but requiring both to be achieved in a short period of time is a bit too much, I think.

Yes, I think that eventually new civs will arrive in the future but it will take 2 years for it to be in an ideal place (28 civs, counting the variants of course)…

@Heftydogg

But they didn’t do that. They’re sticking to a schedule of speed-code, release, fix later. Everything we get new is a beta. That’s not the fault of players complaining for more diversity, it’s the company’s plan. Can’t believe yall waste your time game-testing for free. It was never close to being polished, even at 4 civs. TBH they should have had 8 civs done at release but it was pretty obvious they had a long, long way to go toward making that happen.

Also that at the same time they are developing CoH3, which is their spoiled child.

@GoldenArmorX

• 4.- Rest of Civs.- In general I had already suggested in another topic that many other classic civs would benefit from new unique units or extra mechanics to match in power with some variants (Suggestion: New Units and Mechanics to Classic Civs - January 2024 ). This especially the “Civ-fathers” in post-imperial (“French, Chinese, Abbasid, Holy Roman Empire”). However, for that change of unique units I suppose we would have to wait for the change of season, perhaps March or the next season, whichever is better for the devs to develop good models, but hey, i am still optimistic, still loving this game.

Yes, new UUs for HRE, French and Abbasids would be good (they have 5-10 UUs) (they have very few UUs compared to the rest of the civs, especially the Japanese) and the Chinese I don’t know (maximum 12 UUs almost like the Japanese)…

[StatedOregon5]

Bruh, that coment is from 5 months ago!