the aoe4 reveal was accompanied by a message of historical accuracy and realism, and everything we have seen so far at least has had a basis in reality, unlike the scimitar throwing Bactrian riding mamelukes of aoe2.
then comes todays reveal and the Arabs, who were neither horse archers nor rode camels into battle, now have camel archers.
Medieval Arab armies were primarily composed of heavily armored spearmen who fought in tight and disciplined formations. there are countless contemporary records from all over the caliphates that repeatedly reference the spear wall formation, and how it was anchor of the Arab battle lines. these spearmen were supported by smaller contingents of armored archers who where sought after as mercenaries by ancient Rome and Persia, mailed lancers who exclusively rode horses and have no tradition or evidence of mounted archery, and various siege weapons. essentially a distorted mirror of the late classical Sassanid and Roman armies. there is no historical evidence of any of the Arab caliphates relying on camels in combat, only as transportation and beasts of burden.
its fine having fantastical elements in video games, and It was disappointing when DE replaced the Bactrian camel of the mameluke without any other changes. as mamelukes did not ride camels or throw scimitars in combat, it did not make them any more realistic, yet the double humped camels where more awesome to look at. we should embrace the absurd and fun things in games if we decide to go that route, rather than the half hearted fixes in aoe2 de as if they where things to be ashamed of.
and as aoe4 has decided on a more fantastical theme for the Arabs once again, why stop at plain camel riders? give us the Bactrian scimitar throwing mamelukes of aoe2, now with fiery swords of different shapes, or bare chested dual wielding scimitar dervishes. give us a falcon hunter unit that uses raptors to attack instead of normal scouts, and an African elephant unit with scimitars tied to their tusks and naffatun throwers on its back. even just replacing the camel archer with the camel gunner, a unit that actually existed in other parts of the world in the aoe3 timeline and look way cooler, would be a big upgrade.
as fantastical units the camels revealed today where a disappointment and lacked the originality and the wow factor we have come to expect in rts games. please go back to the drawing board and look for inspiration in the numerous other games and literature that concerns this area, such as rise of legends and 1001 nights. even real life units are more interesting; naffatun throwers are both cool and unique and have some basis in reality and would make a better addition to the game.
If the defining characteristics of the Abbasid Caliphate are melee and ranged Camels and if the defining characteristics of the Dehli Sultanate are melee and ranged Elephants, then one of the following must be true:
There will not be any more civs that have those units; or
There will be more civs that have those units, but the civs are not in any measurable way asymmetric
I strongly advise the developers to study the way that civs are created in Age of Empires Online, Age of Mythology, and Age of Empires III and model the civs in AoE4 off of the games in this franchise that actively seek out asymmetry. Right now, based on the publicly available information, these civs are looking a lot less like asymmetric civs and a lot more like AoE2 civs, and that’s not going to bring me joy.
I agree, more interesting and diverse unique units are possible, even by pulling them straight out of history rather than making something up as bland as camel archer.
I’ve been playing some assassins creed and am interested in seeing a hashinshin unit, with a temporary stealth ability, can scale walls and sabotage buildings, and a devastating short ranged attack. it would be unique, exclusive to the Abbasids with little overcrossing between potential dlc civs, and they actually have historical evidence that they existed in the middle ages.
In real life camels were mostly used to transport Archers and not to fight from their backs.
The Camel Archers in AoE4 don’t seem to be able to shoot while moving reflecting that they aren’t a cavalry archer.
It is pretty clear that that’s the concept.
They want to keep generic units/technologies/buildings but they want to get rid of the rigid 1 unique unit that is trained in the castle thing.
The number of unique units is similar to AoE3 (on release) but unlike AoE3 all civilisations (so far) have access to all generic units unless they are replaced by unique ones.
But it it’s like AoE3 there is a good chance that future civilisations are a lot more unique.
they are mentioned as beasts of burden, transportation and livestock. however there is no record of either the Rashidun, Umayyad or Abbasid caliphates using them in battle, or of medieval Arab armies practicing mounted archery.
Turkish slave soldiers did practice mounted archery, but they certainly did not ride camels into battle either.
so where does the camel rider and camel archer come from? and why specifically these two fantasy units when there are more interesting unique units that can used from stories and legends from the region.
Well Aisha rode camel to the battle did she not? Sometimes devs take some small occurrence and extrapolate it further. Same as making warrior monk units for Russians because there was one such monk in famous battle vs Mongols.
When I first heard from the devs that the civs are going to be placed further apart, I heard it as a primarily AoEIII and secondarily AoM player.
But apparently their yardstick to measure asymmetry was AoEII and AoEII alone.
So as non-AoEII player and based on the availabe information I certainly do not see this said level of asymmetry nor that they are further apart. If anything they look and sound closer to me than what I am used to and I’m not happy about it.
That is very well said. I agree that as another die hard Age of Empires player but who is not an AoE2 player, I do not feel like they are talking to me at all, based on what I have seen in the publicly released information. TBH it feels like they don’t realize anything has happened to the franchise after 1999 and believe we’ve all been happily playing AoE2 wondering what else the franchise could do better from there.
There’s literally been 22 years of progress that have already answered those questions.
I know. But have they really not realized what has happened ever since AoEII was released? Or is it a conscious but misguided business decision to follow this path? I can’t tell.
Instead of taking a holistic approach and seeing how the franchise evolved, what has done well and what was improved with each new title over the years, it must certainly feel safer from the corporate standpoint to just take the highroad and feel carefree.
As far as I know, not one of the hundreds of developers were part of any of the five earlier Age games. They are all coming into this franchise very late and being asked to make a sequel.
I think it’s just so much easier and faster and less expensive for them to convince themselves to use AoE2 as a roughshod proxy for the entire franchise instead of, as you said, take a holistic approach and see how the franchise evolved.
We players have had decades to marinate in the franchise’s evolution and collectively know AoM, AoE3, and AoEO inside and out. But it would be incredibly time consuming for someone to parachute in and play those games enough to really get a sense of their spirit and development directions. And then those people who become those little franchise experts also need to be the same people who decide the spirit and development directions of AoE4 and then reconcile new ideas with that old timeless AoE spirit.
It’s not an easy task, but it is certainly possible.