Like if you turn it on, everyone in the lobby becomes a hero/elite troops variant.
I feel like if this is the case, I wouldn’t be bothered by Jeanne and her hand cannon. If we are going on a more fantasy direction, I’d prefer we have a separate game mode just for that. Maybe we’ll see much fewer complaints like “Jeanne d’Arc sounds stupid”, but more posts like “when will English come to the variant mode? Who will be the hero?” I would even live with Empire of Jade and not ask for any changes. Maybe better, the variants can be just called the names of the civ since they are in a separate mode, unless we’ll have multiple variants for the same civ.
I consider myself some kind of a history nerd but I would play the hell out of it if it’s in a separate mode. Also this is totally the situation you could say “don’t like it, don’t play it” since they are separate.
Also I think this will be much easier to balance when every civilisation gets a variant eventually. And the game would feel more consistent.
I gotta acknowledge the devs’ creativeness for designing Jeanne progressing from a peasant to a leader, imagine the different paths of heros from other civilisations, how cool would that be. But putting this together with our current civs makes the game feel kinda messy and leaves a bad taste. I think these new ideas deserve their own game mode, matches evolving heros would be very entertaining to watch too.
Just my two cents.