Which five 
Word limit sucks
Italian, Roman and Sicilian of course, but also Goth and Huns.
The wonder if the Huns is literally directly next to the Roman one.
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I voted Japanese and Chinese. Basically going to rehash things Iāve posted in other threads here.
For Japanese, I have mixed feelings about them, because I think gameplay-wise theyāre mostly well-balanced, but apart from their architecture and dialogue, they donāt feel very Japanese. They primarily use crossbows/arbalests (weapons the Japanese didnāt use), have a UT for trebuchets (another weapon the Japanese didnāt use), another UT whose name is just that of a generic tech but in Japanese, and their unique unit is basically useless. At least the cavalry archer bonus should help a bit.
For Chinese, their villager bonus is balanced by a significant resource penalty that makes no thematic sense, their Town Centre population bonus feels like itās there solely to make the villager bonus work, and the demolition ship bonus feels random. The villager and technology bonuses together are potentially so strong that they have to have glaring ahistorical holes in their tech tree. The result is a civ thatās underpowered for most of the playerbase, and usually overpowered for pros. Iād find it hard to argue that itās a good design. (Although in defence of the original developers, the villager bonus worked much better when no one used the kind of optimised build orders they do now.)
Dishonourable mentions to Britons for playing too much like a crossbow civ, and to Khmer for playing too much like a knight civ.
Is this true? I think the feedback Iāve seen about the various āgimmickyā features added since DE has been neutral at best.
I think auras are a bad fit for AoE2. They work well in games with fewer units, like RPGs or Warcraft 3, where their effect can be indicated graphically (e.g. with a glow around units). But in AoE2 theyāre not indicated graphically, and canāt be because it would either make the game too visually cluttered, or be so small that it would be pointless. The result is that itās really awkward to tell whether a unit is affected by an aura.
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This is a general problem for basically all Archer civilisations.
Almost every archer civilisation is popular for using Archers not for using crossbows.
Chinese and Italians are an exception.
Also Crossbows donāt feel like crossbows in AoE2, they are just an Archer with a strange skin.
AoE4 has done that a lot better by giving them a unique and different role.
(That applies to 90% of the civilisations in the game, doesnāt it?)
Negative voices are usually louder then positive ones.
People donāt make threads about how they like a civilisation bonus, do they?
The PR team for Age of Empires likely has better metrics about the things people like then people that are just looking at the forums and reddit.
I think a visual aura can work very well in an Age of Empires game. AoE3 and AoE4 already show that.
It should just be a smaller version of the hero glow, and maybe a changed health bar.
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Not my fault if everyone invaded Italy at some point lol but Lombards were not Italians. For some reason Italy has always been āovercrowdedā in history.
Roman wonder is not really more Italian than it is African, British, french etc. I mean everywhere Romans build an amphitheatre since itās a generic one.
Sicily was as much African as European during the middle ages (vandals, Saracens). If you ever went to Sicily you can see how far from whatever European or even āItalianā (whatever that means for middle ages) their culture was.
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I was referring to the largest standing amphitheater.
I just checked what AoE2 wonders are in Italy recently because I plan to travel there next year.
But about the Lombards, yes they are not really represented by Italy but do you want to turn every Germanic tribe into a civilisation while probably 1/3 of the world population is represented by the Chinese and Saracenes? It was even worse when India was still a single civilisation.
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Getting hyper technical 2 of those civs arent even fully in India itself one being in Pakstan and Afgastan (censored when spelled right wtf!) the other in Bangladesh
Depends on how you define India.
And also how you define Pakistan.
Modern borders are not medieval borders.
Either way you play technicality there is still a ton of india left for potential civs
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The building you mean is the Colosseum but itās not a wonder, itās a scenario editor building only.
Did I say Iām against Chinese and Saracens split? I actually was one of the firsts to propose the latter and I remember people here saying no.
About Lombards, vandals and alemanni I think you have enough story for all three to be civs, Iām not saying they should be civs tomorrow but thereās potential.
Other Germanic factions that have some recorded history (rulers, battles, kingdoms) but donāt have enough history to be civs imo cause they disappeared very quickly are Herulii, Rugii, Gepids and others.
In the āmaybeā category Iād place people like Suebi (a part of later Swabians), bavarii (Bavarians) or Jutes (Anglo-Saxons could cover them).
I donāt think these buffs rise to the level of reinstating Hun wars as the go-to for open 1v1s. Still much weaker than the OG 25/30% discount. The previous Persian and Slav eco bonuses were widely considered OP at the time, yet they have been entirely restored alongside many other buffs for those civs. Although I do think gold-for-kills is another valid alternative thatās much better suited to Huns than Persians. Point is, Huns feel a little underwhelming in their one area of specialty, but also donāt have strong bonuses pulling them outside of that specialty.
Honestly, I agree. Anything thatās a reasonable abstraction based on existing in-game logic is IMO very low priority for a rework. There is a strong case for regional skins of course, but thatās another discussion. The over-abstraction of Xbows/Arbs to represent almost all archers is not something that can be solved with civ reworks anyway.
Aztecs as well. But yeah, stuff like this and new/more appropriate architecture should by the main focus of any non-balance rework. And arguably the need for any balance-centered rework is lower than itās ever been. I know the Persiansā receipt of lots of shiny new toys inevitably gets people thinking about shiny new toys they might want for other civs, but weāve had a lot of major balance patches this year, including the biggest one ever. In the parlance of the thread title, most civs have received plenty of love this year, so Iām in no rush for yet another major rework.
No, most of the knight civs actually used knights or some comparable heavy cavalry, the Khmer didnāt. I suppose the comment about crossbow civs also applies to Japanese (who Iāve already commented on), Mayans and Ethiopians, but I donāt think it applies to other crossbow civs. Crossbows are fitting at least for Chinese, Vietnamese, Italians and Portuguese. (Possibly Koreans, I donāt know.)
So your evidence for people liking these features is that lots of people say nothing about them?
The unit visuals in AoE4 look a total mess to me. Even without auras, any group of units is an amorphous blob of pastel colours.
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Honestly the reason why I canāt play AoE4. It seems like soulless to me.
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AoE4 graphics is the worst when compared with AoE2 and AoE3.
AoE2 is the master of its art style. It has a much more realistic destruction animations than AoE4 in which even fire looks super ugly.
AoE3 is vibrant colours of textures and units are much more detailed than in AoE4 in which even units are badly scaled compared with buildings.
Why am I not surprised to see Celts at the top. It was instantly my first thought and vote. Followed by two of my favourites Byzantines and Britons who sit somewhere in the middle.
Iāll give some context.
Celts: Theyāre infantry and siege. However they lack any real late game power unit. Fast infantry is nice but cavalry is still more mobile and archers are still archers. I feel like anyone with superior infantry, strong cavalry and/or bombard cannons just has to get to late game. Celts are pretty strong in castle age and seem pretty balanced currently. So itās like what do you change?
Byzantines: Iād be happy to lose paladin and get something else in return. I think Iāve made paladin maybe once as Byzantine and thatās because my opponent want heavy into archers/siege. I went paladin bombards. Itās like Celt paladin, itās a once in a while catch your opponent with their pants down. Iād rather have blast furnace or bloodlines. Iād nerf Cataphract HP to compensate if the case of bloodlines. Another adjustment would be giving the elite Cataphract 2 pierce armour so itās not wrecked by skirmishers and mediocre archers. Theyāre expensive enough as is. Iām open to the fact that it could make the unit too well rounded.
Britons: I want my archers to shoot accurately damn it! Iāve discussed this a few times but having great range does not matter if you miss. Even moderately sized targets get missed by Longbows. Hell Iām not even sure why youād use Longbows in castle age. They have 1 more damage but miss twice as many shots as crossbows. 85% accuracy of the crossbow, versus the 70% of the longbow. Longbows and English archers famed for accuracy and rate of fire. Canāt hit anything or shoot quickly. Itās mildly annoying from both a historic point of view AND a gameplay one.
Their win rate is also a bit on the low side currently so unlike the Celts or Byzantines, they could do with some love. What forms that takes I donāt know. I like my idea of an accuracy bonus each age from Feudal so Britons have the most accurate feudal archers, also seen people suggest longbow replaces the crossbow as a unique unit upgrade like Legionary or the like. Longbows really were the standard of the English army during the time period and not crossbows. What youād give them at the castle in exchange I do not know.
Also the Yeoman upgrade makes little sense either. Why does it give range to archers? I donāt know. Itās to do with landholders or servants of a noble house. I think most people would know Yeoman of the Guard, which are the kings bodyguards. Which is more like infantry/specialists than anything to do with archers.
The rant about the Britons was a bit on the long side but what can I say, Iām English/British.
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It makes more sense than a bronze age chinese chariot. And it make sense in the tradition of the game of longships firing arrows, two-handed franciscas, throwing scimitars, bombard tower projectiles moving in slow-motion, etc. The bolt is supposed to be just an abstraction of its attack.
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I know.
But that building is to large to be a wonder so they did shrink it down.
Most wonders are kinda squished to fit into the grid.
So the Roman wonder is likely supposed to represent the Colosseum and not some random other amphitheatre.
Nope.
Iām just surprised how many people want an Italy split.
I completely agree.
Regional skins would likely reduce the amount of people that call for more unique units, because the visual aspect is important to many people.
I was kinda referring to the fact that 90% of civilisations rely on either Knights or Crossbows, not to if those units fit to the civilisation or not.
Crossbows were usually used alongside bows and never fully replaced them anywhere.
Those are two different weapons with their own advantages and disadvantages.
Only gunpowder weapons managed to be so good that they replaced both over time.
Just saying itās hard to measure how much people like something.
People that like something are usually quiet about it.
You can kinda only measure how controversial a feature is but itās hard to tell for forums what percentage of people like it.
Polls help with that though.
Readability is subjective.
Also AoE2 has 20 years of a head start where people could get used to how it looks like.
The destruction of AoE2 is pre rendered so it can use very expansive physics calculation and lotās of individual pieces. Something a real time engine canāt afford doing.
But all those things are from AoK.
AoE2(DE) has recently gotten way better at representing cultures and weapons historically more accurately.
I think we should not use bad 1999 design as a standard.
Yeah but it does nothing to remind you of the Colosseum, itās literally identical to a generic amphitheatre (the scenario editor building). I think anyone vaguely interested in the topic would tell you that aoe2 Romans have a really bad wonder.
Also Colosseum is arguably a bad choice for an aoe2 Roman civ cause it was built back in the first century. Why didnāt they just use the arch of Constantine already in game? It would have been 10 times better lol.
Pantheon would be my suggestion. It was converted to a Church after all.
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They literally reused an existing building for the wonder, something they never did before for any other civilisation.
Their wonder is clearly the arena of Verona, because it has only has 2 rings of columns in height.
But that would be kinds strange since itās the Huns wonder already.
Rome has a lot of other options too though, the Pantheon (after being converted into a curch) could have been a nice option.
Edit:
Damn you were faster.