What is actually the point of OotD?

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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Don’t get me wrong. I love a variant civ based off of the HRE. But what is this civ?

Their core concept is double cost for units, but this concept is more of a disadvantage than an advantage. Most units are not worth the 2 pop cost. Exceptions are archers and handcannons. The other units just fall victim to being outmassed and hard countered. Since overkilling is a whole different story vs OotD, the 2 pop concept is just not working in their favor. Not at all. Their knights sound good, but are not worth their cost. The civ gets worse, the higher the skill ceiling rises. Pros are rushing from win to win, but as soon as they pick OotD their streak ends unless they play someone that is several elo points below them, but even that is not a save bet on the pro. No matter if they are called Bee, Puppypaw, Demu, Lucifron or Beasty…

  • Their eco bonus is none. They are the slowest growing civ of them all and are so much more susceptible to villager losses, because these really dent them in. Civs like Ottomans that have free units but no notable eco bonuses out eco them. There is also nothing to improve their eco, making their lategame eco good, but not good enough to justify the 2 pop army cost. The lategame army space is too little and the eco as well as certain unit powers are just not good enough to really consider the civ’s concept of a smaller elite army to be working.

  • They barely get anything good from HRE, which is too generic and one dimensional (outright boring) anyway, and their unique techs are all underwhelming aside from Dragon Scales for archers.
    -Dragon Fire? Pretty much useless and should be something that actually is notable. Burning farms is kinda cool, if it comes to it, but it’s not justifying a unique tech.
    -War Horse? Barely notable, but that may be due to the fact that the knights are just not worth it. Still the War Horse effect should probably linger for a few seconds more similar to the French Knight dmg bonus after charge.
    -Golden Cuirass? It’s okay, but that’s it. Even after its buff. The slow movement speed and small number of MAA makes it easy to counter.
    -Zornhau? Barely notable and would probably be better off if it increased range or aoe (halberds are long after all).
    -The Bodkin tech? For an imp tech it sucks. It’s okay against anti siege and Ribauldequins, but since you can’t build many units anyway, it doesn’t do much. It should be completely reworked to give CBs a notable improvement and its current effect should be removed or built into the elite CB upgrade.
    -Blacksmith techs in general are weaker for OotD due to their concept. Especially the melee dmg techs.
    -And that’s it. Dragon Scales is the only tech that actually feels good.

  • the age II landmarks just suck. They don’t do enough. For HRE Aachen is insane (maybe even too good) and the one go to defining the whole civ, while Meinwerk just can’t keep up with that. Not in the slightest. Burgrave also sucks. It doesn’t scale for HRE and is terrible for OotD. I think Burgrave deserves a complete overhaul. For OotD it’s even better to go Regnitz and only get one relic than going Burgrave. It’s that bad.

  • the lack of Marching Drills makes OotD a sluggish, kite-able “elite army” that is also susceptible to overkilling like nothing else.

  • horsemen are not good enough for their role due to the pop cost (they are good in very early feudal, but fall short quickly). Same goes for spears, knights, and also crossbows as well as man at arms.

  • the fact of less units also comes with the disadvantage of not being able to distribute units to various fronts. You have to keep your army more or less together. Raids are a pain to deal with. Protecting siege is a pain against masses of units.

  • the Prelate is an unique unit for OotD, but you don’t conceive them as an unique unit. They have generic stats, are as slow as generic monks, don’t heal well and don’t buff well since inspired warriors is just not a good mechanic, although its effect is better for OotD than for HRE for obvious reasons. The Prelate should be a much better unit for OotD than it is. Religion defined HRE as well as OotD in a major way, yet civs that do not have Religion as their core element offer better choices. Ottomans, Ayyubids, Delhi, Zhu Xi, Rus and even Japanese.

  • And then the OotD is the civ with the most bugs from all the new civs. One bug, the archer range after incendiary arrows, was fixed. But the lack of smoke for handcannons, the charge with axes for whatever reason for MAA, the buggy unique techs that stop working after upgrading a unit that’s still alive, the Elzbach influence not working and no notification if you have enough res to go for Swabia remain. That may be all the bugs there are, but I am not sure.

All this gives me the feeling that OotD was the least tested and thought through civ in the DLC development process. It feels like an afterthought. JD got all the good stuff from French plus the MOBA stuff from the annoying hero, which even offsets the lack of the 3 French eco boni JD does not have (faster vil production, less cost for drop off buildings, keep influence). JD is actually French with benefits. And Ayyubids and Zhu Xi got incredible trade offs for the things they don’t have compared to Abbasids and Chinese. These two civs just have incredible new unique techs and units. Only OotD doesn’t feel like a civ that has gotten a lot of thought and love.

I really don’t see the point of OotD. Sure you can improve the eco, but then the other issues remain. I feel like OotD should receive a lot more attention, because their core concept is a weakness and not a bonus unlike the other variant civs, which all have core concepts that actually pack a punch. It’s a civ that cannot compete on high level due to all the issues it has. It’s less notable on lower levels.

I am not a high level player myself, so I don’t get punished as hard when playing OotD, which allows me to win every now and then. But worst of all, I do not enjoy playing them although I want to. And I also love watching pros and tournaments and that’s just utterly sad when it comes to OotD. Their concept just doesn’t flow and has several flaws. It’s not done with minor tweaks. The civ should feel fresh, new and interesting, but it doesn’t with its slow eco, underwhelming unique techs, little options, small armies and lack of synergies. Even a lategame master like Beasty feels like he cannot finish off an outplayed opponent in lategame, because the civ’s concept just does not offer the necessary power.

There is not one favourable match up for OotD. But there are several absolutely terrible ones. The worst is probably Delhi, against which OotD is barely able to reach castle. And if they do, they die shortly after. I am hoping for the next patch to do much more than the last one. For OotD and also for HRE, because HRE, while still somewhat powerful, feels so stale and dull, it’s just demoralizing when facing civs that feel so much more refined and variable.

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How are you struggling against Delhi as OOTD? It’s like their best matchup. You don’t need to go to castle as OOTD, they are quite strong in feudal. OOTD actually dominates Delhi usually.

OOTD’s main weakness is their eco, but they have really strong military (against most civs, Malians kinda ruin them). OOTD units (excluding knights) are fight approximately 2.2-.2.3 for each of their units in a heads up battle.They struggle more from facing counter units because of less overkill, but their ranged units in particular are extremely strong.

They only really struggle against the other variants (who are overtuned, particularly last patch) and Mongols/Malians. They have pretty favorable matchups otherwise.

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Ootd si trash currently, nobody plays them in pro scene in important matches like yesterday. Their economy is a joke. Their units are not worth such a cost and double pop with the exception of handcannoneers and archers as you said. If they are intended to be a smaller elite force they should also have mobility at least, which they dont.

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Like an out of combat movement buff for all military units and siege units.

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I think they need a redo

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The stats from the new patch say a lot otherwise so far. There hasn’t been any play in the pro scene since their buffs and other civ nerfs. OOTD is doing better than most civs right now that aren’t the Mongols or new variants. Frankly OOTD is actually in a really good spot, they mostly just struggle against malians and very overtuned civs atm.

They are also a civ like French and English where they will perform much better at the average player level than they will at the pro level, so they will never really be top tier in the pro scene.

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The point of Order of the Dragon is to “BE FUN” because you only control a few units with cool effects. That’s a great idea, it’s like the Protoss in Starcraft that also occupy double the population per unit.

The current problem is that the unit production of this civ is not well balanced with the economic bonuses of the CIV itself. Any other civ that does Economic Boom can create enough units in number to counter the Dragon Order units in latter ages.

Maybe they would have a better bonus if it weren’t for the fact that they use the same Landmarks as the HRE, but adjusted with other bonuses, instead of having new ones like Zhu Xi Legacy.

On the other hand, when it comes to torch damage, I would say that they should increase their age damage bonus more. In the II age, 20 torch damage is fine, but for the IV age they only have 32 torch damage does not help much, considering that two (2) Spearman from another civ do more damage (20x2=40) than 1 gilded spearman against buildings (1x32=32) in the Imperial Age.

Finally, if in the future they consider including civilizations such as the Bohemians, their Hussite variant, Wallachia and their Moldavian variant, Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria, they should consider mentioning some technology or bonus to these civs. There is much that this civilization can improve.

Note: I feel like this could have also been written in the Survey (I only say that their economic bonuses are weak), but I preferred to suggest new units for the HRE, like the Black Rider. I think I should have also suggested Ministerialis, but anyway, I didn’t have much time, since I think the survey closes at 3 in the morning in Peru and Ecuador (Dec. 19th @ 7:59 UTC)

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In a vacuum their stats this patch look decent. However if you really look they are skewed by doing really well in Bronze and Silver. In those ranks players have no idea what is going on. At Gold they drop to 50 and then at Platinum and up they take a nose dive. The civ is not in a good spot at all. It’s uninspired and has zero unique units as a variant of the civ with the least amount of unique units to start. The idea was for it to be a 1 star civ but the fact is at Gold and up losing any vils/units early on can be devastating. That isn’t beginner friendly and on the flip side it gets almost zero play at the pro level even though it would never be banned. However there is a big issue with it’s design because any changes to make it viable could easily result in it being overpowered.

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They are 48% in platiinum/diamond. While that’s not amazing or anything, that is very respectable and honestly middle of the road civ. There are more civs under 50% winrate than above because there are more overtuned civs than there are bad civs. With some nerfs to the extremely strong civs like Jeanne, Ottomans and Zhu Xi, OOTD winrate would be looking around 50%.

One of the biggest OOTD problems is they just lose so hard to Ottomans and Zhu Xi that it warps their winrate. They actually go even or positive winrate against half the civs in diamond/plat too (though sample size gets a bit low at that point).

Tbh OOTD units are arguably more unique than many other unique units. OOTD MAA feel at least as different from regular MAA than samurai or ghulams. Same for Gilded horseman compared to ghazi raiders. Their ranged units feel crazy.

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Platinum and greater, OotD has a WR that is 12th out of 16 civs. It is not in a good spot. Which is also why it will not be picked at pro level even with no bans and long series’. If the only issue was a bad matchup with 2-3 civs, they would get picked in some of the matches. They also have pretty bad WR’s against English, Malians and Delhi. If you change it from Platinum and greater, to just Conq, the WR and bad matchup WR’s get even worse.

What you are calling unique is not how most I talk to see the idea of unique unit design. If that’s how you feel about that part I’m not going to argue it as I guess that is more opinion based.

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While they are 12th, they are within about 1% winrate of the average civ (Abbasids are 8th at 49.3% winrate), especially considering their worst 2 matchups make up a significant portion of their games and those civs will likely see nerfs in Jan.

While a 48% winrate isn’t great and maybe a tad on the undertuned side, it is far from a problem. OOTD is also like French/English where at high levels they will always have a sub-50 winrate, because otherwise they break the game at low levels. It’s exactly the opposite with Byzantines/Chinese, they will never have a 50% winrate in gold because if they do, they would ruin the game at pro level.

I consider it unique because the gilded units feel more special relative to many other unit replacements (like keshiks, ghazi raiders, ghulams, royal knights)

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It’s definitely a problem. The civ is completely uninspired and literally the laughing stock of the AoE 4 community around Twitch, Reddit and YouTube. Now known as Order of the Dented. Two of the best players in the world have recently done their tier lists ranking it dead last. It is nothing like English. English is not the best but is a very capable civ that can be played aggressively and defensively. It is still picked a decent amount at the highest level with money on the line.

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I’ve only seen the beasty one (who put HRE behind it), but that was before the last patch where they had a pretty sizable buff. Are there any tier lists for the current patch by top players? If this was about how OOTD was in November, I would agree.

English basically only is viable at the top level on a small selection of maps (same with HRE), but other otherwise pretty bad. For English it’s mostly certain hybrid maps or maps with close TC spawns like Altai. English is only picked a decent amount because tournaments tend to have a decent amount of hybrid maps like Canal.

Right now OOTD is basically in the same spot as Delhi, Malians, Abbasids, French, Malians, Rus, English. Sure all these civs are slightly underperforming, but they aren’t in dire needs of balance changes. Once Jeanne/Zhu Xi/Ottomans get nerfs, then we can worrry about civs that are performing marginally below average.

This is especially the case for OOTD where for the average 1v1 player, they are already arguably the strongest civ right now, so they have to be careful about buffing it.

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The average 1v1 player is in the Gold to Plat range. There is no argument at all to be made for them being the strongest civ. Of course they’re going to be tough to balance because the entire design of the civ is lazy and uninspired.

Vortix just released a tier list on YouTube the day after the EGCTV event.

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My bad on that one, AOE4 world bugged out on me and gave me the silver or lower stats when I clicked all games, or I misclicked. Still if you sort by all games played, they are up at #6, mostly behind the overtuned variants and Ottomans (which have been OP for way too long tbh). Even if you do gold and better, they have a respectable 50% winrate.

Gold elo is by far the biggest elo bracket which skews stats. Around 50% of ranked games played so far this patch was gold elo.

Even above gold, while a 48% winrate civ could use some buffs, it’s not really a huge outlier civ is trash kind fo deal. Heck even a couple nerfs to Zhu Xi and Ottomans would probably bring them to 50%.

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As lower league player (mostly plat and sometimes diamond) I do not really encounter Delhi often and when I do, I can win occasionally. That’s not the issue. Lower leagues are susceptible to making mistakes, wrong decisions or simply don’t notice raids early enough. That’s not a good ground to balance a rts game around.

When it comes to high level play, however, OotD is rarely picked and not that successful. It lacks flow and even if you are playing better than the opponent, you don’t necessarily win with them. But playing better should reward you with a victory in a rts, even if you have a civ that is at a certain disadvantage against the opposing civ. The disadvantage must never be that big to significantly reduce your chances of winning. Any build, any civ, any comp needs to have counter play. The OotD counter is their susceptibility to hard counter play, which is fine. But on top of that they also can get outmassed significantly, which makes it very tough. Marcing Drills would help them a lot in order to at least be able to better deal with kiting.

I am going to post a few clips from Beasty now. And while Beasty is not the holy grail, he is quite the star on the AoE 4 firmament. He rarely calls for nerfs, but if he does, it usually is with substance. This is about several civs after which I come back to OotD again.

Beasty on Delhi:

Beasty on Ayyubids:

Beasty on Ayyubids and then Zhu Xi:

Regarding Zhu Xi there is another issue that is not that obvious, because it regards the very lategame. Nonetheless Loue for example reached that stage vs Demu and it didn’t take him too long, so the argument that games never get there doesn’t apply. It’s also a not so great argument in general.

The Zhu Xi lategame is insane and has many options and all of them are very strong. But there is one comp that is broken, because there is no reasonable counter to it for most civs. I am talking about grenadiers (with extra range and 14 dmg thanks to Ming), 11 range splash bombards and Yuan Raiders, which can even be complimented by Bees, Spears, Palace Guards and what not, but that’s not even necessary. This comp is more or less uncounterable. Grendadiers destroy everything and for their aoe dmg power, they are way too sturdy as well. The bombards can counter any siege and also do additional aoe dmg. While they are not the best at countering anti siege, they are still too decent. What they can’t accomplish, however, is then dealt with by Yuan Raiders. While grenadiers continue to simply kill anything. It doesn’t matter if it’s knights, ranged units, horsemen and what not. English longbows and Javelin throwers from Malians/Byzantines can do well againt grenadiers, but they are dealt with by those pesky bombards and Yuan Raiders. This comp is just broken and the grens do not really die, so they add up continuously, while the Zhu Xi eco is above average good. You can even afford building grens and Yuan Raiders if you solely rely on taxes, because grens snowball from a certain point onwards and then never really die (enough).

Malians and Ottomans perform too well also. Ottomans have barely any weaknesses. They have a strong feudal, negate cav completely starting in castle, Sipahis are a very very good front line not only against the units they are supposed to counter and the Great Bombard rules everything in late. The Ottoman late game comp is the only one, which can rival the Zhu Xi comp and that says a lot.

And then there is JD. The design is just no fun to play against and that is the biggest issue. While the JD player can have fun, the way the civ is designed, however, ruins said fun for the opponent. More so on the not very high level. The central issue probably is that playing against her offers so little rewards. Even killing her doesn’t really allow you to rejoice, because the downside of that for the JD player is far inferior to the upside she offers. On top of that you have everything the French civ offers, every unique tech, no downsides aside from the eco, for which JD also has an answer. Without JD the army is a full on French army with access to one of two new unique units from the keep depending on JD’s lvl.
Zhu Xi has notable trade offs compared to China (which are mostly offset, but that’s not the point now). Ayyubids also do not have access to all the unique techs from Abbasids. And OotD lacks the best HRE upgrades, while being granted subpar unqiue techs for themselves. All they got is the unique building techs and inspired warriors. That’s also why I mentioned all the unique techs for OotD in the opening post.

OotD is nowhere near these civs and is very susceptible to vil/units dying without good mechanics to counter that. It may be the one civ that simply doesn’t allow you to make any notable mistake, while there are other civs that are very forgiving, despite OotD being a one star civ (which is far from the truth on high level). Again, I am mainly focussing on high level play where these kinds of differences actually really matter. The eco is slow, because it somewhat counters itself. The age II landmarks are both very disappointing. The Prelate was gutted and is the one unique unit that lost a lot of its uniqueness considering all the unique units in the DLC from the parent civs.

I very much agree with @The0neAndOnlyDC calling the civ’s design uninspired. It lacks the certain flow, the things you can really look forward to, because you can rely on their power. The lack of synergies so to speak. And some units are just not good enough, while archers and handcannons seem to be on point or even slightly above that, which still doesn’t remedy the weaker than 2 pop per unit performance of other units in lategame especially. The level of thought and depth that went into Zhu Xi and Ayyubids as well as JD is so much above the level of OotD. That’s my main complaint.

In a rts like this, every civ needs to be a justifyable choice on high level. Sure, OotD still can win on high level, but that’s mostly due to being played by the better player and/or facing a civ that also has some issues, like Byzantines. Byzantines, oddly enough, have a rather slow and thus weak feudal (the time period in which they were the non plus ultra), while their lategame, the time their empire crumbled, is their strong suit. But Byzantines would need their own thread for that. To sum them up, I’d say improve their early game and take a bit away from their lategame power, because with a better early game, they’d reach their lategame in a much better state and can become very oppressive.

OotD simply needs to align better as a civ. Their gameplay should make more sense and should not mainly rely on microing like a god and raiding to perfection to stand a chance. These things should be a core point of high level play, but not the deciding factor for the civ altogether, where one mistake can actually cost you the game.

I would like to see a better eco, better unique techs aside from the ones that are good, better age II landmarks, a different burgrave (for HRE as well with scaleability and not only the all-in character), a more unique Prelate and more synergies in lategame to actually be able to have answers for the various stiuations. But the lategame issue could be fixed with better unique techs and more unique Prelates, so there is that.

OotD in its current state is not a civ you can come back with. Once you are behind and struggling, you have to rely on the opponent to mess up significantly or you are lost. With that kind of state, this civ will never feel round, so it should be adressed. And these things are not fixed with 50 more wood at the start or something. There are innate issues with their design. The 2 pop thing works well against generic units. But once there are special units, unique units or units with unique techs and mechanics, the 2 pop math doesn’t really add up. There is too little pop in lategame to answer the powerhouse armies. If you have to go trade and siege, you can’t build enough units anymore. So this needs to be fixed by better mechanics and synergies. The techs that are barely relevant are Bodkin and War Horse. Golden Cuirass and Zornhau should be fine, if there was access to Marching Drills at some point.

HRE deserves more unique things and units anyway, and we have many great ideas on the forum here for that. So there could be a conjunction with OotD regarding some more flavor and options. For both civs I would like to see Religion play a more significant role than it does. The HRE part is actually only for the eco and could have some more use in other aspects, while for OotD Religion offers nothing new for all the things they lost, which is disheartening. Unique units should be fun and the Prelate for OotD is just a monk with the Inspired Warriors tech. Other civs have way more interesting religious units and that’s a chance missed. The OotD defended the central and western European faith, but that is not really translated into the civ.

I would really love it if the civ altogether would eventually feel more rounded and fun to play. As someone said in here, they are supposed to be fun to play (as every civ is), but stressing that only means that they do not feel fun enough.

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I would disagree with the units themselves being too weak. All of them except the knights win heads up against 2 regular units. The issue with their units are mostly being more susceptible to counter units, and the civ just having a bad eco before swabia. If OOTD had the same eco bonuses as other civs like Abbasids, HRE, French or the Chinas (especially Zhu Xi), the civ would be crazy strong.

Even against unique units or units with special techs, OOTD units mostly matchup very well. Their ranged units are probably the best ranged units in the game even accounting for cost.

OOTD eco is slow because they effectively have a 3-4% bonus to gather rate and build speed which is frankly really bad.

Whether the design is inspired or not is a matter of opinion, but I like that they made some of the variants pretty simple and straightforward, and personally I like the gilded units (especially aesthetically).