True, but they maintained a certain symmetry, if you compare them with non-European civs that have completely different unit rosters (beyond the regional units they might share)…
Been playing a lot of vs AI with a younger relative, and they’ve started to get good enough that they want to try doing multiplayer together.
Thing is, a lot of the interactions they’ve had are 18+. It’s not something I ever had to think about, but if their parents are going to let them play any more then they basically need the chat turned completely off.
Is it possible to add functionality to disable text chat? We already have a toggle for voice chat, so it’s not unreasonable to expand that to text.
The game is fairly accessible for people of all ages, but the online interactions in many lobbies end with verbal harrassment or behaviour that is inappropriate for children. It’s hard to watch a kid get into the game just to have it taken away because of how strangers treat them/others.
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Hmm, I hadn’t even checked if there was a way to disable text chat. There really should be.
One of the things the game is lacking right now is a chill game mode for when you don’t feel like breaking your keyboard.
Totally agree! And please, fix the lag that’s been there since the beginning. As an old SC2 player, I can say it’s a massive issue when it comes to the ‘fun vs. frustration’ balance.
I recently watched Elazer’s stream, and as an SC2 pro, his feedback should carry real weight. He pointed out two major issues: the frustrating pathfinding and the persistent lag. Honestly, it’s hard to understand—Microsoft has access to infinite servers, so why is lag still a problem? When you compare it to SC2, the difference in responsiveness is like night and day.
It’s disappointing that such fundamental aspects—lag and pathfinding—are still unresolved in a modern RTS. These aren’t minor details; they’re crucial for the gameplay experience. I genuinely believe these issues could be a major barrier for SC2 pros thinking of transitioning to AOE4. And let’s be real, having SC2 talent join could massively impact and elevate the pro scene.
If AOE4 aims to become the benchmark for RTS games, it has to nail the basics—especially quality-of-life features that players have come to expect.
P.S: he also complained of the most annoying thing in the game : wolves
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Totally agree. Pathfinding glitches and input lag are stil there
And it feels, it hurts after all!
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AI improvements, commands/taunts for AI, etc
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Yes to all!
(20 characters)
There is …
You can mute individual players but you cannot disable the text chat itself.
If I am wrong about that and you know a way to disable text chat I would like to hear it!
Honestly AOE4 is missing a lot by leaving some of the North African Empires like:
-Almoravids Dynasty
-Almohads Caliphate
-Marinid Dynasty
-Saadi Sultanat
Or european Iberian civs like:
-Kingdom of Castile
-Kingdom of León
-Caliphate of Cordoba
A DLC that include some of those would add some epic new twists and bring a lot of great history into the game.
Just wanted to share this… Thank you for the poll!
I ONLY PLAYED AOE4 FOR 1198.2 HOURS SO FAR INCLUDING DLC / DONE ALL MASTERY ACHIEVEMENTS / DONE WITH SULTAN ASCEND DLC CAMPAIGN AND SERIOUS WITH RANK MATCH… AND I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE MY THOUGHTS…
- Please add MERCENARY HOUSE & EMBASSY/CONSULATE available to all civ…
-Allowing players to hire other civs unique military units
-Gives more immersion to all civs or counter-play
-Note: To avoid being OP civ, you can balance it through the cost of the mercenary unit.
-Available Mercenary units and per civ should depend on its historical event… example: ENGLISH should be able to hire VIKING units since Vikings are frequently involved to ENG history, so far you only have Varangian Guards. But we can balance this onwards. You can add Gallóglaigh/Gallowglass, Ulfhednar/Vikingraider, Jomsviking (This are just examples from Vikings military units).
- Please add the following NEW/VARIANT CIV and MILITARY UNITS too (not today but please consider)…
SPAIN
(I know we don’t have “Spain” in medieval as it is compose of Aragon, Castile, León, Navarre and smaller states maybe just call it “Kingdoms of Spain”)
-but adding this CIV opens relation to other colonized or related CIVS such as the natives of America (Examples: Aztec and Inca), either you add this to their mercenary house or you create a completely independent CIV, either will improve the game immersion both SOLO or MULTI or RANK play.
-Also, you can relate Kingdom of Portugal which is already a kingdom by this time. (Note: not all historical state or kingdom is easy to add with same pattern to what we already have due to some CIVs did not grow to a FEUDALISM or IMPERIAL state or might not make enough historical impact or organization, but we can atleast include their military units on MERCENARY HOUSES).
-I like the military units in AOE 2 & 3, THERE’S A LOT OF THEM! (and DEVS already have this digital assets) That is why they are IMMERSIVE due to this units…
(note: I understand that this are from different times and could be hard to make accurate connection to history therefore making it hard to to create CAMPAIGN CONTENT or hard to organize a CIV same to the current design of existing civs, history and this empire or states is not generic anyway… AOE 2 is from ancient civs or early Medieval or AOE3 is a bit later than Medieval era… could be mixing up eras from ancient, medieval or after-medieval… but still we can get some idea right?)
- Here are my list of military units you can hire from MERC HOUSE or add on a base CIV
OTHERS FROM EUROPE
English Longbowman
Norman Cavalry
Scottish Infantry
Irish Skirmisher (Kern/light-foot soldier/javelins&buckler)
Welsh Mercenary
Landsknechts (German)
Pavise Crossbowman
Swiss Mercenary
Polish-Winged Hussar
Black Army of Hungary
Druzhina (Rus)
Catalan Mercenary (Spain)
Conquistador (Spain)
Tercois (Spain)
FROM CRUSADERS STATES MILITARY
Knights Templar (French)
Knights Hospitaller (Italy)
Teutonic Knights (Germany Austria & Bohemia)
Order of Santiago (Spain)
FROM VIKINGS
Huscarl / Jarl (can be a Hero unit)
Shield Maiden
Berserker / Viking-raiders (Dane-axe!)
Jomsviking (Shield/hatchet/shortsword!)
Ulfhednar (Looks Shamanic)
Galloglaigh/Gallowglass (Claymore and Irish-axe!)
Varangian Guards (this are real MERCS in history)
ISLAMIC/TURKIC
Janissaries
Hashshashin
Medjay
Mamluks
FROM ASIA
Wanderer (base on Chinese Wuxia/ if you can’t imagine this, think of JET LI the NAMELESS the 2002 movie “HERO”, AHAHAHAHAHA!)
Warrior-monk (random spawn from various Asian monk sects, imagine MADARA, without power… LOL)
Jurchen Raiders (this is north China near north Korea and Mongols)
Mongol Raiders (random spawn or weapon maybe =D)
Samurai
Ronin
Shinobi
Ashigaru (Japanese)
Hwarang (Goryeo/Korea)
FROM FIRST NATIONS OF AMERICA
Eagle Warrior
Jaguar Warrior
I know it’s hard to do this in reality due to whatever reason, just sharing my thoughts… I think this will improve the game immersion… You can correct me if I’m wrong! =D
I’ll say it officially here, but the whole notion of “variants” is a failed concept. I know there are players who do not care that this is even a history game, and would’ve played with mods reducing buildings and NPCs to simple geometric shapes.
But, there ARE people who cares. I don’t like to bring up AoE2 as a point of comparison, but here is the main issue with variants: WHO CARES. AoE2’s format of reskinned buildings and units is mostly forgiven BECAUSE they are meant to represent a whole new identity, culture or peoples.
Who the hell cares about Lancaster? I’m not buying a game for that. AoE2 on the other hand will give you Berbers, Ethiopians, Koreans, Malay and a hundred more civilizations. The fantasy of representing those civilizations carries the whole notion of these copy-pasted reskinned civilizations.
This just will NEVER work in AoE4 because the developers have decided to make them to be “orders” or factions. I don’t care about Zhu Xi’s Legacy, Jean D’Arc, Order of the Dragon, Lancasters, Crusaders.
The Crusaders at least have their own identity, but its seperate to that of cultures or EMPIRES. Ayyubids at least has some of that in it. This is why ultimately in the future, when AoE4 is composed of half-real civilizations and half-variants, it will age extremely badly, whereas AoE2’s format will only make it stronger, especially with how they are re-investing money into splitting old civilizations into their more intricate ethnic identities within.
Variants are a big L, I’m sad to say. I think this trend is continuing the notion that AoE4 is NOT for people who cares about immersion, campaign, PvE, aesthetics or history, but just for people who wants Starcraft 2 in the format of medieval europe (yes europe, they seem allergic to anything else).
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Your opinion has been noted, but one person not liking them doesn’t mean they’ve failed by a long shot.
Also, these latest variants seem explicity aimed at people who like history. You wanting more new civs is completely valid, but it has nothing to do with claims you’re making about DLC that hasn’t even released yet.
4 Likes
I called exactly what this DLC was, despite yours and other people’s constant arduous attempts to pretend it could be anything else. Surprisingly, it ended up being less than what I suggested (only 2 variants, missing 1 real civ and biomes).
I don’t think I’ll be “waiting” for more information anymore in regards to AoE4. What you see is what you get with these people, but go ahead and eat the crumbs thinking there will be more ahead (there won’t be).
Is that a joke? This is Age of Empires. This should be the very base level of expectation. You also confuse the idea that liking history means liking anything in regards to it. My point was exactly that Age of Empires is about… EMPIRES. No matter how you twist or turn Variants, they will never be capable of fulfilling the fantasy unless the idea of factions, orders is dropped for the sake of adding real historical empires, kingdoms or nations.
They will age extremely poorly in the future. Who will turn to AoE4, a game in which half its roster is made up factions or irrelevant ones? At least the appeal of AoE2 is clear–Representing an overwhelming amount of peoples is simply far more inticing than whatever they are trying to do with Variants.
Koreans or JDA? Malay or Lancaster? Aztecs or ZXL?
The answer is extremely obvious.
AoE4 needed more REAL variety. We have 3 different French civilizations, 2 Chinese, 2 English, 2 Abbasids, 2 HRE. With Lancaster and Templars, it means we have NINE european civilizations out of 18. Half of the roster is just Europe, with presumably more European civilizations to come (People are begging for Spain, Norse and Polish) so it wouldn’t surprise me if we see one or two of these very soon either.
That is the other issue with Variants. They’re not “real”. ZXL IS a Chinese civilization. Why on earth would I care for a second one, when you’ve already spent resources making 1? The developers are effectively double dipping on content, and I feel this simply does not help the game in terms of balance, mechanics or immersion. Just what is the point of offering something that is SLIGHTLY different when you could be spending your resources making something entirely different?
I don’t want Mongols 2.0 Delhi 2.0 French 4.0. I would prefer something that is new.
If the reason is money, then that is just a bad thing. Sorry to say but I don’t want to see AoE4 turned into a literal variant factory because the developers can’t justify working on real civilizations at a slower pace of content releases.
And ten MP maps, and a game mode with new missions. But I’m not interested in the axe grinding. You have an opinion which I (perhaps surprisingly) respect, but I have no interest in debating made-up arguments from never-where.
You’re the one who claimed that AoE IV is “not for people who care about aesthetics, PvE or history”. And yet this new DLC is explicitly bigging up aesthetics (visual differences in architecture), history and literal PvE content. Now you’re backtracking and saying “history should be a base level of expectation”. Pick an argument and stick to it.
Everything else is you saying how the announcement doesn’t match with what you personally prefer.
I’m all for the game getting more variety, by the way. But I also like Variants. I know you don’t want Mongols 2.0, or whatever. I do. Someone else might have another opinion.
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I think one way AoE IV could improve would be continuing to iterate on the variant concept.
If they focused on adding only standard civilizations then I think the game would become bland.
Variants add variety to the game. It allows a civ to have multiple expressions of its culture and allows for a civ to be defined by more than one trait.
What they’ve previewed with the Knights Templar is a fantastic example of the potential that a variant can have. They use the french as a base but use the historical context of the order to bring in multiple different nations.
Concepts like these are unfeasible if they were to only add standard civs. The variants are here to stay, and this DLC being outside of the standard release cycle helps a variant only expansion make sense.
I’ve said it before, when it comes to destroying the brand the fans are infinitely more capable of that than the devs. Let them cook.
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Agree.
I feel that variables open up a world of possibilities, as it’s not possible to 100% represent all historical periods or troops from some theoretical civilizations, such as Spain, which had three types of armies during the game period:
The Spanish Civil Armies:
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1).- Spain in general, consisting of Castile, León, Aragon, and Navarre during the Reconquista until the union of the Catholic Monarchs and their Tercio armies in the Post-Imperial era.
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2).- Aragon and the Great Catalan Company, which instead of pursuing the Reconquista, focused on conquering the Mediterranean Sea by sea with Almogavars of all kinds, which would replace many base units of the main army.
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3).- Conquistadores, which started with a few adventuring soldiers and evolved as they received troops from Spain and alliances with natives until they formed the Viceroyalties.
With variants, all three civilization types are possible. At least Conquistadors would be a Campaign variant first if the Aztecs and Incas come out first, since the troop model they used in the conquest isn’t the same as in medieval Spain during the Reconquista, but rather mercenaries and adventurers. Their troops wouldn’t wear much full metal armor in the New World because it was too hot, and in the Elite version they would wear Scapuiles.
Mamluk Sultanate
Another civ type that couldn’t be fully represented is “The Mamluk Sultanate.”
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While I suspect the Abbasid Caliphate was chosen because its name covered a very broad time span, from 750 to 1517 (although instead of Caliphate, they chose Dynasty), in reality, in terms of mechanics and army, it only covers the period where the “House of Knowledge” in Baghdad operated (until 1261).
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For the Mamluk Sultanate, they could not use more the “House of Knowledge”, but they should have a Citadel, like “the Cairo Citadel”, with new mechanics, maybe new wings. On the other hand, their army would not be based on Camels, but on Cavalry with horses, and at last we would have the Mamluks as heavy cavalry and horse archers. On the other hand, they were also experts in Trebushets creating several subtypes of them. In the Sultan Ascend campaign we just saw them using a special Landmark of 2 huge Trebushets. Maybe that could also be one of their mechanics, producing special buildings-Trebushet with great range and damage, unlockable as Citadel technology.
Now that it is confirmed that a civ can have 2 or more variants, this could be the 2nd Abbasid variant.
3 Likes
it needs to be more grity i want templar vs viking i want heavy metal. mongols variant could be the golden horde and the portraits could be alot cooler one of the rank rewards for conq was a guy sitting on a toilet when the year of the dragon happend their was like 1 dragon and it is flying away the other is its eye u had the perfect opportunity to have cool looking dragons for portraits with the vikings u already have the rus boats for models and the guard from the byz for the viking models
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