Why did the developers give too much attention and too many unique units to these civilisations and not to other civilisations? Why do these civilisations get so much love while Ottomans and Hre don’t? If these two civilisations came out with a paid dlc, they would get more love. If the developers don’t give additional units to these two civilisations and especially if the Ottomans are not given love by giving rework, this will be unfair and the quality of Age of 4 will drop even more.
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Free stuff always come slower, especially in the current era of online gaming.
Back in the days of expansions, each expansion was sold as a separate game, so there were incentives to do overall updates to existing contents. Even in those days expansion stuff receive more innovative designs than the base game.
Now the business model has switched to DLCs added to the base game, so such works cannot be sold.
If you look at the DEs it’s usually the new civs that receive the “newest” designs and the older ones are slowly and gradually updated through time.
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Folks said the same when the Malians and Ottomans were released. If allowed to and supported, games tend to mature over time.
There has been work done to bring the original factions more up to scratch. I hope they build on that.
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Perhaps the devs have more ambition to make AoE 4 a truly unique expirence than previously? I think older civs / content should not be a barrier to develop new and cool ideas. With that said, I do hope they add more features, mechanics and unique units to the current civs too keep up with the new ones 
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They are all equally boring. You’re just biased.
I am not biased. I think you dont look the upcoming civs. Up coming two civs are the most cared civs already. Old civs arent that good. Devs should care old civs as well as upcoming two civs. Even that means giving the old civs new mechanics.
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In almost every strategy game I’ve played the expansion factions get more features and unique mechanics than the launch factions. Compare the European launch civ of AOE3 to the War Cheif and Asian Dynasty civs.
The Euros got 2 unique units whereas the natives and Asian factions got entirely unique rosters, unique architectures more unique gameplay mechanics etc. The definitive edition has been correcting this by giving the European factions a lot more unique content.
It is not a case of the devs favouring a certain faction but more just having experience with the game and trying to come up with more radical factions to shake the game up.
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We still need the more generic civs for new players as well. I think the HRE could use a rework to better represent an Empire made up of several different countries.
The Ottomans could use a few tweaks, have access to horse archers, age 2 janissaries with bows or giving janissaries a halberd for bracing against a cavalry charge.
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Not every civ needs all their units to be unique - it’s ok to have a standard of gameplay, and I don’t think it means the other civs are getting less “love”. Every civ is overall good in this game.
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If every additional civ distinguishes themselves with new units then the old faction units become more unique with each addition. Soon enough you’ll be begging for untouched vanilla spearman.
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Well, if we are specific, the Japanese have about 3… No, 11 UNIQUE UNITS!:
1- Shinobi
2- Onna Musha
3- Shintoist Priest
4- Sohei (warrior Buddhist monk)
5- Katana Samurai
6- Samurai Bannermen Katana
7- Samurai Bannermen Archer
8- Samurai Bannermen Cavalry
9- Ozutsu gunner
10- Red Seal Ship (THe amphibious trader that)
11- Ship with Bo-Hiya
12.-??? Buddhist monk? (I still don’t know if its going to be their normal religious unit os boosted UU)
And the civ with the most units so far were the Chinese. And that is without counting the Mongols and their vassal troops from other civs (which do not count because they are from other civs and appear as mercenaries)
The Byzantines are not far behind:
1.- Limitanei
2.- Cheirosiphon
3.- Varangian Guard
4.- Cataphracts
5.- ??: Special Palatine School Cavalry
6.- ??: Palatine School special infantry
7-8-9??.- A lot of mercenaries, possibly even civs who haven’t left yet.
Anyway, now to discuss the topic, with these two new civs worked so well to make them unique, what to think about the original classic civs?
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ABOUT THE COMPARISON OF THE NEW CIVS IN THE DLC WITH THE ORIGINAL CIVS:
This is about the feeling that these new civs are more elaborate in the sense of having more unique units and varied mechanics to give weight to choosing one Landmark over another. Because it is true, but it is good to ask ourselves if it is the best thing to reflect on what will happen in the future:
To begin with, I don’t think this is something unexpected. That is, when the game came out in 2021, in its beta version, and incomplete due to the delays caused by the Pandemic, there was still the expectation if the game was going to succeed, be popular or if the Landmarks mechanism was accepted by the community of new players.
On the other hand, let’s remember that the game uses many mechanics referring to Age of Empires II. The developers weren’t sure if people were going to accept Civilizations with 10 different unique units, or if they want a copy of the previous game but in 3D and that all civs share a generic roster with a few varied unique units.
Personally, when it came out, I didn’t like the new UI, but the design of the Landmarks, buildings, unique mechanics, and units with different designs for each civ, was something quite beautiful. But the developers wouldn’t know that until people tried the product.
In any case, after their release, and their complete versión (with taunts, tricks and editor) the game found its fandom, a fandom that continued to contribute to creating fandom material for the game. And at least a lot of that fandom still hopes the game gets even better, or at least more Civilizations hehe.
ABOUT UNIQUE UNITS.-
At its premiere, the civ that came out with more unique units were the Chinese (6), and the one with the least were the English (1). Now, with the idea of seasons, and the changes of adding new content (which started from the DE versions of Age II and Age III), the English now had 4 unique units. The Mongols went from having 2 unique units to having 4 unique units, and on top of that a system to randomly summon unique units from other civs.
Being that now, since the release of the first civ that does not meet the common rooster of basic units: THE MALI, it is known that there can be civilizations with more than 5 unique units, and that not all of them must be extra units (3 of the 6 China only units are extras, they do not replace the common rooster); I suppose that when they released the DLC they thought about making new Civs without worrying about it, and they chose just the Civs that many requested in online voting.
SIMIL WITH AOE 3.- Just like what happened with Age of Empires III:DE, where the original civ began to be overshadowed by the new civ with many unique cards and a cooler roster, and the solution they gave was to give them more “Unique Cards” (the substitute for unique technologies in AoE3), unique units, and even cards that unlocked special unique units to the original civs.
- Now the French can create Guard Musketeers (Card House of Bourbon)
- The Germans can unlock mercenaries of cards as extra units in the tavern subsitute, “mercenary camp”.
- The British can even replace the Longbowman with the Rangers (“Rangers” Unique Card).
- The Russians recently got a whole remake of several units to pair their new unique musketeers and pikemen correctly with the cossack and strelet, as far as “slightly weaker units, but cheaper as a group”.
FOR THE FUTURE
From what I understand, because of the balance approach since season 3: whenever a civilization has been too broken not by bad balance but by unique elements, the solution has never been to eliminate the unique elements, but to improve the rest of civs so they can be at their level.
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Due to this, since elephants were not used, a unique element of the Delhi Sultanate, they were not eliminated, but rather enhanced, and now they are used in Late Game as a viable option in certain builds and makes a great combo with the schoolchildren.
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Redundant technologies were not eliminated, but rather merged with others, such as those of the Warrior Monk and those of the Prelate.
That being the case, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Japanese or Byzantines are too broken, or the variant civs have too many advantages over their parent civ, even new ideas for unique units or technologies and mechanisms for the parent or original civs are considered.
At least with the Byzantines, there is now a clear path for new civs that use mercenary mechanisms, such as Hungary, Venice, Genoa, Tuscany, Milan (the Italian ones in general), etc. And with the japanese, there would not be problem if future concepts or civs has 11 unique units. Well, now Aztecs and Incas can be a possibility, jeje (my fandom hype vibes, sorry).
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New civs will always be more interesting as the game evolves, AOE3 had the same situation. However AOE3 went back and made the old civs more interesting by adding new cards & new units etc. This is what I thought they’d be doing, instead of making variants of the old civs they can’t even find proper names for.
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This.
Aoe3 im still playing wars of liberty mod 
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This is what they started in Season 5 with the new UUs they introduced. Here’s hoping they continue to find ways to diversify the existing civs
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While Japan and Byzantines are quite unique, I don’t think they are necessarily more unique than the Mongols or Delhi, or even Mali. AOE4 in general has super unique civs. You do have to have a few more simplistic civs (like English/French/HRE) so that it isn’t too overwhelming for newer players and for people who like simple stuff, which innately means they won’t be hyper-unique.
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Even the more easy and generic civs are still really unique. The influence, and landmark mechanics alone make all of the AoE 4 civs very unique. In most AoE games town layouts don’t change a lot depending on the civ, but in AoE 4 each civs optimal town layout is very different.
Some exceptions would be the Asian Dynasty civs, Poland and Khmer from AoE 2, ox cart/mule cart civs (Norse, Babylonians, Armenians, Goergians)
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I understand the frustration. However it’s a natural thing to happen in games.
First few civs will be very similar and new civs will be more asymetrical.
However I think the devs have actually addressed this issue a few patches ago by introducing new units, techs and strategies to current civs and i believe they will continue to do so going forward.
In a way the variant civs actually do just that without having to change the identity of the original civ too much. For example with HRE you have now the order of the dragon which offers a totally different way to play the civ without ruining the original civ for the people who still want to play HRE after the update.
I think that the developers has done a great job in adjusting and updating current civs with new units and technologies etc. and I have no worries that the new civs will overtake the old ones.
We can expect similar updates for the future as well.
Other civs have been given rework but Ottomans dont have any rework.