It's historically accurate as well because Samurai, contrary to popular fiction, generally fought as mounted units, typically fighting as horse archers that could fight in melee to a degree.
@@ariswiryanta7038 Ashigaru is more of post-medieval and early renaissance though. In the medieval era, samurais were pre-dominantly mounted archers. Even the armour concept art is reminiscent of early samurai armour from the 1200s to 1300s than the ones that we are used to which is more from the late 1400s to 1500s.
@@HideyoshiKinoshita84In early medieval era yes samurai used cavalry but not in mid or high medieval era. Most of the battles were infantry battles in these eras.
@@m.b.8282 Yes and no. The people who actually fought on foot were the Ashigaru (aka peasant/commoner levies/soldiers) that were steadily being recruited in larger and larger numbers, and firearms were being introduced from Europe to these Ashigaru which flipped the nature of Japanese/Samurai warfare in general, just as it flopped the concept of knights in Europe.
I agree that variant civs can be a great idea if implemented well. Having a small team and recycling material is a good way of solving problems they're facing.
Okay but what the hell is this. What kind of civ is Jeanne D Arc??? Or Order of the Dragon??? Who thought of this? It would be so easy to come up with an actual civ from near approximity from the original civs and just make an actual civ. But no, now were gonna have a very igenuious game design of China (the civilization) vs Joanne D Arc (the lady)...makes whole lot of sense.
@@2nightwehunt Order of the Dragon is an actual thing. Given that we're all fine with Teutons (Teutonic Order), having another knightly order isn't anything new. As for Jeanne, I think everyone agrees. Others have already tossed out names like House of Jeanne or Follows of Jeanne, but honestly, it's just a name. Outside of Jeanne, it also makes no sense that a knightly order would fight entire empires (Teutons). By that logic, it also doesn't make sense that we'd pit cultures (Celts) vs empires when the celts weren't unified. It's a game. Just have fun with it and if it means more content or alt-choices that allow the AOE4 team to experiment with civs without actually impacting players (looking at you AOE3 Ottoman devs).
@@2nightwehunt while I'm not as upset as you are I agree they could have used Burgundy instead of "Joan D' Arc", for example. It would have been the same idea, but executed better.
@@LeicaFleuryJust change the name as House of Valois, *that simple.* We keep Jeanne d'Arc as the core mechanic and we got actual variant civ instead a person turned to be a new civ. I dunno if the naming is for marketing purpose or to pushing Jeanne d'Arc as a prototype to more hero specific variants in the future (oh no).
People though Aztecs versus Koreans in Arabia was historically inaccurately now comes AoE 4 raising the bar with its new DLC bringing us Joan of Arc with a gun fighting ninjas in the crusades
huns vs ports on texas was already nonsense, aztecs vs MEXICO in siberia for aoe 3 and njow we have Joan blasting fuckers in aoe 4 despite the very cool broad information and love to history the aoe series has its ALWAYS been janky and chaotic its part of the charm
@@kR-qj7rw to be fair the Aztecs did fight the people that would colonize Mexico and become the Mexicans latter on, it only ended up weird because the devs decided to split Spain and Mexico into 2 separated civs in the expansions.
considering im mexican tthis is still funny thing is unlike spain that existed after the war of independence and in other parts of the americas mexico really is just the aztec empire and more, both in territory and ethnicities its so janky they literally have the same capital its just funny to me
@@MNomicoN as a Brazilian I'm surprised they even included us in the game at all, we are not really known for being conqueror or having a notable participation in any wars, hell, we pretty much just bribed Portugal to allow us to declare independence instead of fighting them in a revolutionary war, so it's kinda of weird having Brazil in a game all about war, battles and conquest... But I'm not complaining, Brazil is is probably my favorite civ to play in AoE 3, even if they are just a revolution for Portugal and not a proper civ
Those Civ variants are exactly what I was hoping Starcraft would eventually do. Would be so awesome to split each "civ" into two or three variants, following factions in the lore (eg, Mensk terrans, Raynor Terrans, UED terrans).
@@Snipstryker08 this have started in C&C Generals, however, was quite poorly executed. In KW they did better but still far from perfect. In C&C Ra2 Mental Omega there's nice distinction between subfactions, but balance problems comes alltogether with old engine problems. But overall this approach worked from very beginning none the less. Alternative to this was in Earth 2150, where you had only 3 factions but huge tech tree which you should've research quite expensively and slowly, usually choosing and adapting playstyle in the process. Just to clarify, this is bigger deal than tech tree in AoE 2 as you're starting with basically nothing and needing several minutes for each tech learned only 1 by 1.
The Civ Variants system reminds me of the Generals system from Command and Conquer: Generals Zero-Hour. There were the three base factions, and then each faction had variants that specialized in certain aspects with a lot of unique aspects and flavor to differentiate them. I wouldn’t mind if they stole this idea because it’s genius!
Smash Bros Ultimate's echo-fighters implementation was a good way to add fan-favourite characters without the hassle of working in unique movesets, juggling balance, and giving players a choice of similar characters with transferable knowledge and skills. Command & Conquer had a great and super fun implementation of this in Generals (and similar-but-less in RA3 with the AI specialists, and haven't played C&C3:KW), but given the style and approach AOE4 looks like it's taking I'd say it's closer to SSBU than C&C. All that said, what is Jean d'Arc even doing as an empire?
The ninjas idea for the Japanese are taken from aoe3 where you could recruit spies that were invisible but moved very slowly in that stance and still were visible to your explorer. Really exited about the DLC
@@jorge1582 Lol no. The Order of the Dragon is actual historical organisation. And it was an order of elites, which fits for what they're going for with the faction i.e. an 'elite army' (lower unit count but higher power level). If anything them not choosing the most easily marketable orders is something I applaud. I wish more games would expand beyond mainstays.
@@jorge1582uh... I know we're having such a terrible case of political correctness these days, but would the Templars/Hospitallers offend? Muslims? Don't think that's ever an offensive term to us
I dont know if anyone already mentioned it but vlad the impalers dad was a important member of the order of the dragon and wallachia as a whole has a very interesting relationship with the ottomans as a buffer state towards the Christian north. If id have to guess, a campaign with them might involve rebeling balkan princes against the encroaching ottoman empire, maybe with some polish/lithuanians or boyar types mixed in could be cool kinda like a side story to the crusades. It could be like how total war adressed it in their kingdoms expansions, how most people dont think of it but the teutonic invasions in eastern europe and the spanish reconquestia could both be considered crusades adjacent with Christian knightly orders fighting Muslim or Pagan groups.
@vbr191 Really? Granted, i havent looked into the subject much sense highschool, ill have to see into that. Either way, age of empires is not a stranger of historical modification if it makes a good story so my point still stands. If its more myth then fact i guess ill have to see. Thanks for informing me, vbr191.
civ variants are basically aoe2 civs in the same archetype. If ensemble studios called all the meso civs "civ variants" when they came out I wouldn't blink twice
The advantage I see to the "variant civilization" system is that it might allow expansion of the roster to include civilizations that are similar but also subtly different to existing ones, rather like what we have in AoE2. It does make some sense for civilizations with a shared cultural background or geographic region (e.g. different Arab dynasties) to share a number of gameplay elements while differing in other ways. That way, you can retain asymmetric civilization design while still having a larger variety of playable civilizations, since you would have groupings of civilizations that share certain gameplay stylistic elements in common while still being unique in other ways.
@@royasturias1784 the best part about that statement is that Mansa Musa's wealth is already partially the basis of the Malian civ's bonuses focused on gold. So what do you gain from having a civ focused on gold get a variant that's focused on gold?
@@Crossil I do think it's a bit weird to base a whole civilization on one historical individual, but I was talking more about the general concept of variant civs than how Age 4 is going to execute it.
Yeah... I like the idea of Civ variants in theory for basically the same reasons you outlined. But I *hate* everything behind the concept of 'Jeanne d'Arc' and, to a lesser extend, the Chinese variant. I think that going with 'what ifs' is a miss and I don't really think that going for a hero system is goos for the game as a whole.
I think going with what ifs is great and has, to an extent, always been done in the series. That's what it's for, no? "what if the mayans fought the malians in the black forest?", "what if you could build an empire in half an hour or less?" I welcome the fact that some variants take a bold start. more grounded ones will be in this as well as future packages I'm sure.
By the name, Jeanne is hero-focused, Zhu Xi probably focused on tech, Order of the Dragon small-but-strong unit focus, Ayyubid maybe like Abbasid but without House of Wisdom as the landmark(?)
That's the players' "what if", that's a choice. You choose to make those Civs fight or you don't. Here, you don't choose, you pay two "what if" variants, that are themselves "what ifs". It' totally different. And when the previous civs of this opus and the campaign do the most to be historically accurate on every aspects, then, this becomes a dumb move. A huge contradiction. @@melodymondlicht8905
What if gives you a lot of interesting things you can do through history, the way she is made is kinda weird, but it's really interesting idea, where it falls apart is that she gets given a hand cannon tbh, she should have a sword and a buff area around her, the hand cannon just looks really silly
I am so happy that the japanese are recognized with a focus on cavalry. Even though their armies were mostly infantry, samurai were mostly cavalry archers, rather than infantry swordsmen.
@@ChillyEmpirethere's a lot of art depicting samurai with naginatas, so I wouldn't consider it that inaccurate, especially with the tendency in history to have big pointy sticks as their most popular weapon
I like the idea of the Variant Civs but I think the choices are a bit odd and could have been more on brand with the DLC. The Saladin and Order of the Dragon chooses are good but I think having a Norman (English or French) variant and/or a Kingdom of Jerusalem Civ would be more thematically appropriate.
I agree with your points and also thought it was was weird they went from saladins army to ayyubids because I believe saladin was a saracen that came after the initial conquest by the Normans to reclaim the land, he wasn't there defending it initially.
The Normans being a French/English hybrid would be interesting. The ranged villagers of the English plus slightly nerfed longbows and the knights of the French sounds cool. By a similar vein, though less long lasting, the "empire of Charlesmegne" might be a good hybrid of France and the holy Roman Empire.
I've actually been getting into AoE4 recently. I gave it a not-so-honest try at launch and found that I didn't really care for it. But circling back around, now that there are a few more civs out, I'm enjoying it. I enjoy that each civ plays drastically differently. It's one thing in AoE2 where some outlier civs like the Magyar or (recently) the Sicilians have a pigeon holed strat they can sort of excel at and the game pushes them towards, but with AoE4 each civ has unique mechanics, not just bonuses. The Rus gaining gold for building near trees, the Abbasid bonuses and unique techs from their House of Wisdom which is upgraded as you build around it, Mongols being able to move their bases, etc, etc... The diversity makes learning and mastering each civ very rewarding, and makes it so that no two civs feel the same. I love that idea. But, going forward, I think they realize that they may eventually run out of mechanics or, for lack of a better term, gimmicks to stick to civilizations. I expect with the variant civs we'll see just that. Variations of the civilizations which either borrow from other civ's gimmicks or trend towards a neutral ground. Just spitballing and pulling an example out of my ass, but with the Order of the Dragon variant civ, based on the HRE, we may see that they ditch the HRE's Prelate gimmick (Priests being able to buff villager gather rates) and instead they may borrow from the Rus' warrior priest mechanic to meet somewhere in the middle. If each variant civ has a truly unique mechanic (as it looks like Jean d'Arce does from the preview recently released) then that's even greater! I'll be happy with whatever outcome.
On the vs conundrum, I'd say that the former is better with a large playerbase and a looong game lifetime, while the latter is better to make the best out of a small playerbase and short dev time. Thing is specialization can backfire if there isn't enough content for each specialty to be deep enough, BUT it can also be a huge boon: having multiple drastically different options in your game will guarantee that, so long as you can keep enough content flowing for them to not get bored, almost any player will find their perfect fit and stay on your game cause no other game offers the same gameplay. MOBAS have already solved this conundrum through 1: having options (characters/champions) by the truckload and 2: sorting their options into a handful of roles, so that whoever wants to be a generalist can specialise in 2-3 roles and still play decently while gaining access to a mind boggling amount of content.
For me the “every civ different” thing makes aoe4 my go to. I’m an Xbox player amd I fell in love with AOE2 when it came out in console. But to me I’d rather have half of the civs 2 has for them each to have a unique feel. And imo the whole things with picking a main is a tad silly. If most civs are super similar…deviation is easier true but….why is that a good thing? Plus every upgrade making your troops actually look different, and obviously the 3d aspect….I’m not sure y it gets the hate it does. I realize AOE2 is awesome and maybe I’m missing something…..but AOE 4 to me just seems like an upgrade (bad marketing aside) 😂
Yeah, I didnt understand why Sotl came to the conclusion or the narrative in the last part of this video. Why is it a goal to play frequently as many civs as possible in ranked. Which are very similar. But maining 1-3 civs with very unique and different mechanics in ranked is considered a problem for Sotl? Why not give everyone the choice to play whatever they want as different they want instead of trying to make everything very similar for the sake of them clicking it a different name in the lobby to play?
It's a weird thing with AOE players where things normally considered good are considered bad in that space, aoe 3 is the best example of this, aoe 2 players hate the unique factions and the card system, which are both why I really like the game, and it's honestly the card system is something I think would really benefit new AOE games, as 1, having access to cards gives you a chance to make bad matches better with a good strategic approach, the problem with the card system was things like forts and factories, they are just kinda auto includes due to how powerful they are, which can be fixed with iterations on the system where you not all cards cost one point to buy in the match
Hearing how Joan of arc gets better through the ages I really like. Should absolutely not be a civ, more like a game mode where you can pick your hero/regicide mode. But yeah the ‘what if’ style for aoe4 doesn’t really seem to fit with the original game intent
I'm surprised they went all in on Jeanne, instead of just having it be a 100-years war themed French w/ a 'hero' unit that could grow through the ages. Same thing. It's just the historicity of a match (as loose a concept as that is) gets a bit tossed by several Jeannes on the pitch. Could be a fun way to bring in those larger-than-life hero units you used to see in AoE2's campaigns. I love Jeanne, she's cool. Maybe she could be a specific skin you could pick for your 'hero' akin to the AoE2 mods? ... it's probably clear I play a lot more AoE2 than 4, huh?
For history you might be more interested in two of the other variants - Zhu Xi's Legacy (based on Neo-Confucianism and the Song Dynasty) and the Order of the Dragon (based on an aristocratic chivalric order, whose most famous member is probably Vlad Dracul i.e. Vlad the Impaler aka Dracula). There might be some interesting forgotten history to be brought to life from them.
I, personally, am eagerly awaiting someone's doctoral dissertation on "The Effects of Jean's Semi-Automatic Shotgun upon Mediaeval Warfare and the Crusades."
The functionality of variants is certainly nice, but especially due to that I would say that it was a good decision to spread the content to not only the factions that could identify with crusades or sultans, so that you would overload a specific cultural base type leading to more stylistic monotone games. This way the DLC might offer something for everyone, even if I would have still expected at least one of the fully new factions to be thematically fitting for the Title of the DLC. Dunno about the diverting from the fully historical path, but I doubt AoM DE will have to worry about overlapping thematics with it at least...
@@amymason156it would be unplayable though if she was as slow as a cannon. If she had a artillery cannon but still be as fast as a knight, she would be absolutely brokenly overpowered. But yeah, she did had duties on cannon in histroy
They can change their name into House of Valois with Jeanne d'Arc as unique hero unit for that mechanic... change her ability as Valois' rally or something... But _noooo..._ Now Jeanne d'Arc is an official civ founded by Relic and team. They can change just the name, like Ayyubid, just the name without throwing or changing the mechanic which devs worked hard on it...
the AoEIV community is mostly happy with the DLC, we were expecting 2 civs like last year so the 4 variants were a big surprise; also with a smaller roster, there is a lot of fan favorites civs across the globe that we are waiting to be added, so the idea to forcing a theme to the expansion is very limiting so we are glad that they chose to NOT limit themselves to add them based on theme. The Variants Civs are a wild concept, they are not civilizations but "modifiers" that change completly the gameplay of the existing civs, so now we have The French and The French: Joan of Arc variant; those variants are based on elements of the history of the civ, like persons, organizations, philosofies, dinasties or cultural movements; in practice they are like completly new civs, but the devs don't name them like that because they are not civs but "modifiers" or "variants" of course, Jean of Arc Variant is causing a little amount of controversy but the general feeling is "gameplay sound good, the idea of having a variant based around a person is awkward" And the AoE IV community doesn't have a problem with variation, maps force you to try new civs like AoE 2 and there are certain civs that are easier to transition from, we have some people that main one civ but most play around 3, and at high level you are expected to be able to play them all
The variants has been in other RTS's before. Honestly, I am very disappointed to here how it was implemented. There are civilizations that share the same cultural roots or have unique identities that become similar. You could even spin off smaller impactful kingdoms to represent specialties. The HRE could spin off states like the Teutons or Swiss. You could have stories of uniting like England. The Norman's could become multiple civilizations.
Bro the AOE4 community is pleased with one of shittiest RTS' on the market. It fills no niche, it offers no innovation, and the basic core of an RTS is broken. They could put a literal reprint of the same civ 5 times over, and that community would be thrilled. Of course theyre happy with this shovelware.
Yeah, in AoE4 it's common to main multiple civs and only have a few you don't play. I think SotL may be incorrect on his assumption there. Plus, by the sounds of it the variant civs will play significantly differently than their original civ
@@2639thebossare you high? Lmao none of what you said made sense. Sounds like you are malding about how much Microsoft invested in aoe4 and are upset how innovative they are that you have to tell yourself they were uninspiringly uninnovative lmao
Yuan is foreign when you look at it but sure, could be fun. Qing would have been awesome to play with extremely powerful archers but it stays out of the time frame of the game I guess
I'm a bit surprised they didn't expand on the landmark mechanic, or add something similar, to achieve pretty much the same thing as variants. I'm remembering Age of Mythology how you picked which god to worship as you aged up, that would give different bonuses etc. That effectively gave you variations on the 3* civs to play around with. * (or 4 or 5 civs depending on if you had the expansions)
Can't wait for the release of the Dracula unit for Order of the Dragon. I just hope I level up fast and get my vampirism before Joan gets her stake spitter cannon. Who knows what will happen if the English show up with stakes and fire.
The civs are meant to each be distinct concepts, so they're not all hero-based. That's why only one of them is named after a hero. The Order of the Dragon is meant to be an elite force - low numbers but powerful units. It's based on an aristocratic chivalric order.
Variant civ's Sound like a great idea, Help flesh civilizations out more instead of trying to pigeon an entire culture into a single playable faction. Now you can actually have a bit variaty to explore different Factions, Diffrent Time's and so on and so such.
One cool thing they could do with the variant system, is have a norse/viking civilization that would be split into three variants: Denmark, Norway and Sweden. All somewhat similar, but with different focuses.
As someone who doesn't vibe with the way civs work in AoE2 (on a glance, none of them stand out), I'm glad the variant civs seem to be widly different from the originals. I do agree on the lack of focus on the Crusades, though.
Aoe2 has definitely always been my goto AoE game, but 4 has time and time again brought me back to it. I'm excited for this DLC, I think this is a game that has lots to offer
If it is anything like Age of Mythology's major god selection, or Tiberium Wars' faction additions in Kane's Wrath then it's going to be great. Same structure, but different playstyle with very little effort from the devs' side, means we can have a lot of good content coming our way each year.
Great overview, and I think you provide great feedback that the devs should listen to. The variants remind me of generals in Command & Conquer: Generals, where you can play the main civ without a specific general or the main civ with a general, which gives unique changes to the civ.
You hit the nail on the head about AoE4 straying away from historical accuracy. We saw it with magical biomes, map monsters, white stags and now fully fictional civs and... Joanne D'Arc. The issue of having multiple Joannes has been brought up already. Regretably, Relic went for commercial impact (Dragon! Joanne D'Aarc! Sultans!)
It's not "a dragon". It's a knightly order called "Order of the Dragon", which existed. Having an Aztec monk mind control a Persian stable so they can make Aztec cavalry is just as stupid, you're just used to it. It's a game, not a dissertation on history.
@@timwhitman3207 It doesn't change the fact that it's a buzz word and the variant name chosen because of that when there are lots of other less obscure alternatives they could've chosen, such as the Teutonic Order, the Knights Hospitaller, etc. None as attractive as having DRAGON in your name, though.
@@EricGonzalezM they can make whatever they want to make. They don't owe you a sub faction based on something just because it's popular. Are you really trying to claim that by building a faction based on something more niche and obscure that they are trying to "sell out" and chase mass appeal? Wouldn't they do the opposite if that was their goal? Either they are making something obscure, or they are selling out to gain mass "commerical impact" as you say. It can't be both. Is your stance really that the devs looked at the knights Templar and teutonic order and said "nah, f--- that, we want our faction to have the word "dragon" in it, that's what will really bring in the big bucks." That might be the dumbest thing I'll read today.
I had to look up the Order of the Dragon as a HRE player. Sounds like an interesting concept having aristocrats trying to defend the Empire from the Ottomans in the game. Is the gold and black cosmetic only for them? Are prelates still applicable? Are Vlad and Dracula going to be canon in AoE4? Guess we'll find out...
I'm not big into AoE4, so I might be missing something, but I generally prefer when games go for the "fun first" approach. I don't think that the historical accuracy is a major selling point for most players. I hope that they keep the historical setting and feel, but they shouldn't sacrifice playability for it. I also think that it's a good move to introduce the Japanese now, if a lot of people wanted to play them. It's good to have a vision, when developing a game, but the two main jobs of a game studio (in my opinion) are to make money, and to make something people want to play.
I feel like Civs should be more like cultural areas and have specific regions under them. For example you could have something like this: 1. Western Europe: Britain, France, HRE, etc. 2. Eastern Europe: Byzantine, Russia, etc. 3. Middle East/North Africa: Abbasid, Persia, etc. 4. Steppe Nomad: Mongolia, etc. 5. East Asia: China, Japan, Korea, etc. 6. S Asia: 7. SE Asia: 8. Sub-Saharan Africa: 9: The Americas: Where each large division would have similar architecture like AOE2 and also similar base mechanic, but varying bonuses and specialties. This way it's easy to remember what each civ is supposed to be while maintaining some key differences. Like in AOE2 all steppe civs are cavalry based, all SE Asia civs have elephants, all American civs have Eagles, etc.
The landmarks were already supposed to give variety within a civ. Eg an abbey English and a Council Hall upgrade likely play slightly differently with the council hall player using fast units with high hp like cav so they can go back to heal. I don't mind the gameplay over history things they're introducing but I feel like the player base has shrunk too much already. I think the campaign will be fun though. Ideally not too easy. I doubt I'll play online if I even get this.
@@melodymondlicht8905 It isn't. August 2022 average player number: 8 618 August 2023 average player number: 7 208 Sure it grew when you compare average players September 2022 compared to September 2023 but peak players shrunk even on that month.
I think that historical what ifs can be accurate if they start from an accurate place. The Joan of Arc idea not only abandons their original idea of being historical but goes further to basically promoting a historical misconception instead.
They missed some big opportunities with variant civs to go the "successor's civ" route. Like have Burgundy as a variant of the HRE or the French. Ditto with German city states or the Teutons and the HRE. The Joanne of Arc variant though. That I hate
love that the Japanese samurai are able to swap between ranged and melee attack. this is actually a callback to AoE2 surprisingly. when in development, they were originally meant to have that ability but it was scrapped cuz they couldn't get it working properly and didn't know how to balance it in AoE2. seeing it come back is pretty awesome
The variants approach puts me in mind of Age of Mythology, where you had three (or four, after the expansion) civilisations, each with a different major god. The civilisations were totally different from each other with virtually no overlap in terms of units, buildings, or mechanics. Then within a civilisation, the major gods gave you different bonuses and advancing options but otherwise very similar play. I really liked that approach, and if I was designing AoE4, I'd go down a similar route. I think this is what SOTL endorses at the end of this video as well.
AoE4 It's not one of my fav games, but thanks to you I'm always "Up to date", Thank you! Respecto the Shinobi It makes me remember games like SCII with the changelings
Personally I am hyped by the direction. I'm not really down for playing with a Hero unit myself but its cool that that is there for people that do like that. And I actually prefer the Asymmetry of the Civs in 4. It makes watching pro play a lot more exciting to me and I personally enjoy "Maining" whilst also feeling like there is more I can learn should I wish to, its just different to AoE2 in that respect.
I mean in aoe2 you basically dont learn civs at all except for few outliers like meso, Huns or goths. You basically learn one civ and replay the same civs just with different name and branch focus. Like some are archer civs, some are scout civs or knight civs, some are mangonel civs. Which also exist for aoe4 but with even more differences. In aoe2 its just the same civ in all mechanics despite the focuses.
I see no reason this concept can’t work really well. AoE2 is in a lot of ways just a couple of really similar civs, and on release it was basically one “recycled” civ. Hope to see it implemented well.
Then let me enlighten you. By using a hero unit with a semiauto shotgun, you are 1) Introducing DOTA 2 elements into an RTS 2) Removing any claim on being remotely historically accurate 3) Removing the overall aesthetic and atmosphere of the game that drew people in to begin with 4) Failing to attract DOTA 2 players or whatever the fuck else the devs hope to get interested in the game Got it?
Civ variants call to mind clone characters in fighting games, particularly Smash Bros. They're basically palette swaps with a few different moves or the same moves with different properties, but the small differences are enough to make them feel unique without having to devote a ton of time to learning them. They also save on development time. Case in point: Super Smash Bros Melee was developed over a 13-month period (which is not much at all), so several of the new characters were clones of characters from the previous game (with one of the clones being a clone of a newcomer), and the director of the game explained that the reason they did that was to pad out the roster without sacrificing development time. Clones are still controversial among the Smash Bros fanbase to this day, but they don't need to be, because no extra time is actually needed on them. My point is, civ variants are something new for the Age community, but fighting game fans have had basically the same thing for years now.
Found out from this that I'm literally the opposite of the average player. I main Magyars in AOE2 consistently, to the point that my friends complain about it. And in AOE4, I like to do a full rotation of all the civs regularly, because there are so few, its easy to play a few single player games against the AI to keep myself familiar with how, for example, Chinese and Mongols work.
I just hope that they could come up with a SE Asian DLC next spring cause SE Asian history is severely underestimated and underappreciated. I hope that the SE Asian DLC could feature the Khmers, the Javanese, the Mons, the Chams, and the Siamese. Especially the Siamese (or Thais if you prefer), they could appear in either AOE 2 or AOE 3 and yet are not present in both.
@@royasturias1784 Yep if they have enough space the Malays should also be added, I definitely agree with you. The Srivijaya and Majapahit were both very powerful maritime empires.
I think a more focused thematic DLC would have been more appealing to me. The Idea of a Crusaders DLC followed by an East Asian themed DLC sounds just fantastic and making them hug closely to history would just magnify their appeal.
there's a chance that the ninja unit will have a stealth mechanic similar to the Malians, as stealth is a big thing in that civ and the mechanics are already there and well known
i personally like the idea they have behind creating variant civ. Giving the dev chance to do out of the box stuff sounds great to me. Cant wait to battle against french dota hero
I'm glad the devs are taking more risks. It felt like the devs played it way too safe with AoE4, trying to appease the AoE2 crowd whilst also trying to bring over some innovations. I would rather they go batshit insane and see how it plays it, since they can always change it in the future.
@@orangetoes223 Nah, it makes it all samey. They could've used one crusader order for the HRE variant maybe, but I like that they spread them out among different parts of the world. Zhu Xi's Legacy especially sounds interesting. Not often you hear about Chinese philosophers outside China.
I am actually quite glad they didn't listen to the Aoe2 crowd, I love aoe2 but a lot of people play a 25 year old game for a reason: they really dislike change. Its perfectly ok to have 12- 14 super historically accurate civs plus a few batshit crazy outliers. Having "knights templar" as a civ eliminates the possibility of having super elite units like Order of the dragon does. Suggesting 4 crusader themed civs (ayyubids, templars, hospitallers, what have you) with minimal difference between them and the base civ is SUCH an Aoe2 thing to do. Its kind of boring to be honest.
Most aqueducts ran along the ground, or under the ground. The iconic bridge structures were used to cross rivers or valleys where a siphon wouldn't work.
I like the variants being more different. If I already didn’t want to play current French then Joan having a different play style means I’m more incentivized to play her
Yes, if I want to play French I play French. If it wasnt for me, the Joan of Arc will make me try their version. If it fun to play, I will have a civ I will start playing more. If variant French was just a few tweaks like in aoe2, why would I play French variant when I didnt play French before? The difference isnt big enough to alter my desires for french
Civ variants makes sense to me, even in the relatively narrow stretch of time that AoE4 is set during many cultures went through some really big changes so having variants that reflect that is a good idea. AoE2 already kind of did this with the splitting of the Indian civ into multiple versions of itself and you could argue that Sicilians are a variant of Italian. They could also split the Spanish up into Leonese, Castillian, Navarrean and Aragonese.
I still absolutely love AoE4. It is so different and has so many new and unique mechanics. It plays super fresh. And that the civs are completely different is an absolute plus. In AoE2 it almost doesnt matter in general play what you pick as it will always work. That said, for long playability AoE2 for some reason feels better, maybe because its that easy. You can just play it for many many months. I get the adding of ''what if'' civs. But i dont like it for the most part. The historical parts, especially the campaigns is a very big i love this bit. Now it gets more arcady
And also for the Chinese civ I think they could make 2 variants a North Chinese one and a South Chinese one, with the former more focused on cavalry and horse archers and the later more on infantry, navy, and gunpowder. Historically speaking North and South China were often divided.
@@anghainguyen9951 Well if I were the lead developer or designer of the game I'd make this game much more interesting. From what I understand in this video variations mean a what if situation. For instance, I could make the North Chinese civ having a mixture of North Chinese, Turkic, or Mongolic elements to reflect the what if scenario that the Mongolic or Turkic conquerors managed to turkify or mongolify the North Chinese instead of the other way around. And for the South Chinese civ there're even more possibilities. We know from historical records that some Champa people had fled to Hainan and Guangdong in South China after their kingdom had been subjugated by the Vietnamese. So what if the Chams who fled to South China were to build a new Champa kingdom there? The South Chinese variant could totally reflect that situation.
im so excited for this dlc! i think a lot of what you talked about is simply a difference of opinion on the design of the game, and I'm not sure how much can really be gleaned from throwing big ideas out into the ether that would really need testing and refinement to be worth discussing.
Aoe4 has different Landmarks for civilisations this brings a lot of variation to the civilisations. With this in mind the approach of the devs makes more sense
It's a good way to experiment with some niche or strange mechanics. I had heard of the Order of the Dragon, Vlad the Impaler was a member of it. It does seem like a bit of a strange choice.
Granted I've not played Age of Empires IV yet so I'm unsure if this idea would work. But inspired by how a lot of medieval societies worked there could be a balance of power between the Realm (the governing authority which is the closest to the precursor of the modern state but before Capitalism was mainly the source of Authoritative power keeping general order), The Nobility (local families which controlled the means of production and Economic Power) and The Clergy (a simplified name for this comment but generally they organized the relational and moral life of society and Social Power) and in game going with each of these as you age up can create a different play style that re-balanced different bonuses and provided a re-skin in some aspects depending on whom you draw on in each age.
The reason people switch civs so often in AoE 2 is because they are all basically the same, with very slight modifiers. In almost every other RTS series, factions are much more asymmetrical, and idea of having a "main" is much more common. In fact, AoE 2 players who think of focusing on one "main" being a bad thing are really outliers. In most other RTS games, not maining a single civ is seen as a handicap, as you're not able to learn every facet of the strategy as deeply. I think you're looking at this as an AoE 2 player is doing a disservice, because the whole argument here is "I don't think people will want to learn more than one civ, because they are too different, so the new content won't be used." There's no actual data, just, "I think", But people *like* variety. The difference between civs is what makes them so interesting. Having everyone feel the same makes every game feel stagnant and roughly similar. Most of the community in AoE 4 does gravitate toward the civs they like best, but no one just mains a single civ, it's not viable for anyone playing comp because of the map pool. The interesting draw of the changes from season to season is learning new civs and new strategies as the meta shifts, and expanding what you're good at. Without that every matchup feels too similar for everyone not at the top 1% (a la AoE2). Whispers around the internet are that Jeanne D'Arc is actually the civ MOST similar to it's base game counterpart, and that the other variants get even more wild with their ideas, which I think is a good thing. More variety means more to learn and less stagnation. Lastly, just because the expansion is called the sultans ascend doesn't mean that everything in it has to be related to the crusades. Fans have been clamoring for the Japanese since launch, and to release a second amount of post launch content without them "cuz theming" seems unnecessary. Kane's Wrath added a campaign focused on Kane, but also contained new sub factions for all 3 races in C&C3, why is this any different?
I feel there are two kinds of people who pile on this game: 1. RTS fans who had a bad taste of mouth from the initial buggy release. 2. Aoe2 fans who literally refuse to play any other RTS. To the first group I want to say that the game is in much better state and very balanced.
@@franciscomelendezedefinitely agree. The game is leagues ahead of where it was at launch. I honestly think they could have saved themselves a lot of hassle if they had just launched the game and season 1 in January of 2022, but Microsoft money men gotta make those spreadsheets look good y'know? AoE 2 players who clearly haven't played any other RTS since 2001 irk me to no end. The whole "I can't dodge arrows so there isn't even micro in this game" argument from years back springs to mind. I was like have y'all played Starcraft? I think a lot of variety for this expansion is a good thing, it stands a much better chance of getting people to jump back in, try the game, and see how good it has become. It has the potential to really inject a lot of people into the game.
I think so many negative voices come from Aoe2 fans and thats kind of sad. I actually enjoy aoe2, so this makes me even sadder. They didn't want Aoe4 to succeed because they wanted to prove a point and be "the superior rts". Everyone knows starcraft 2 is the superior rts of all time. Peace out. @@timwhitman3207
@@franciscomelendeze Tbh, one of AoE 4's problem is that is basically has the same setting as AoE 2 making comparisons inevitable. If you played AoE 2 for years, you're not very likely to switch over because the game you're playing already offers you what you want. AoE 4 would've been better off if it revisited Stone Age and Antiquity from AoE 1.
@@FloosWorld_AoE I don't think this is true for everyone as I played aoe2 for years even played ranked and made the switch and have been loving it ever since. It had a rough launch but the balance is so good now, literally every civ is viable unless you are the top 1% of players.
This expansion might be throwing out a lot of stuff, because they're trying to capture more players. They might already have done some work for the Japanese for example and said "f it lets just finish that". The variant civs also mean more content for a smaller price. The devs might just want to hit the playerbase with a lot of content.
Well said. Their Civ variant lineup is a travesty for a crusader DLC and they missed a golden opportunity here. They should really push out the Chinese variant and Japanese along with new Civs like Korea to an Asian themed DLC like you said. The Joan of Arc faction is completely nonsensical. I wish they would watch this video and delay the DLC in order to change it per your suggestions.
The "what if" civilization idea sort of works, but the choices are quite odd. "What if" Aztec or Inca empires didn't get wiped out and continued would be my first idea for the theme.
While I generally don’t care for “What If” Civilizations (mostly because it always feels like giving an EU4 player Cheat Codes) I do think that they could’ve done the What If variants better, Heck, a MesoAmerican nation is a better idea than “What if we had Joan be a time traveling super soldier”
What's wrong with 'what if' the Song dynasty survived and took over China? It's often considered the most interesting of China's dynasties, with many innovations to its name. And this one even touches on a transitional philosophical movement.
I completely agree that the Chinese and French variants feel very out of the blue. I feel like there's two directions they could have taken the variant idea. The first is like you said: specific offshoot entities of those civs, like the crusaders of different European countries, or the Ayyubid dynasty. If they wanted to do a Chinese one, maybe they could do Tungning, the Ming restorationist maritime kingdom that rose up against Qing, with a focus on the navy. They could even branch out a little and instead do different time periods of different civs, like Kofun and Nara era Japan had so many majestic temple and wonder building projects, while daimyo era of Japan (Kamakura, Muromachi, Azuchi-Momoyama) was too worn torn to focus on these grand construction plans. The other direction I feel like they could have gone in is a focus on specific rulers from those civs, because different rulers had very different personalities, agendas, and ways they handled their empires. Rather than having a Zhu Xi or Joan of Arc alt history thing, they could have done like, I dunno, Louis XIV "Sun King" having nobility-related bonuses. I do think that this option would have been a lot more limiting though, so rather than just having a random Zhu Xi or Joan of Arc alt, they really should have stuck to just the first option instead, and explored the possibilities they could have done with that.
Big deal is that AoE4 has so much stuff going on for unit voice lines. It's easy and quick to record a new set of voice lines for AoE2 since it's male villager, female villager, monk and military, but 4 has so many variations.
I like AoE2 and I like AoE4. But I really enjoy the different playstile of each civ in AoE4 and it is mostly from the start. My fear is, that over the time they are adding too many civs, which may play in a same way or some civ will be forgotten because another civ does the same thing just better. I also think a few more civ are great for variation. Since I play both Singleplayer and Multiplayer I am really hoping, that each civ gets a campaign. Still curious about the new content.
I'm not big on the concept of 'what if' civs, its not like there is a lack of real history to pull from, but it will at least add more variety to the game
@@FloosWorld_AoE 10% here, 10% there, give a unit here remove it there... It is enough to make the win rates different. But not enough to make the civs different. They're all (45...) basically exactly the same. And let us not speak about their identical design where for example Japanese men at arms look exactly the same as French or English men at arms...
@@Seyyad93 I'm sorry but that's a oversimplification and I could literally do the same with AoE 4. Don't believe me? There you go: Make sure that every civ has some kind of influence system (farms, golden age, scholars, hunting cabins), give all civs access to all upgrades, replace generic units with unique units where appropriate (Archers → Longbows) and maybe add 1 or 2 UUs. Add some UTs on top and if they're an islamic civ, make sure that they can't gather food from boars but get a boost on the berry gathering rate. There's way more symmetry in AoE 4's civ design than you might want to admit. In reality, both games are way more complex than our oversimplifications. I guess no one denies that AoE 2 tends to have a symmetric style (not to be confused with copypasta, that's something different), however you don't play Goths the same way as you'd play Mongols. One of them relies on booming to flood you with Infantry whereas the other relies on early aggresion.
Dracul and his son, dracula were both members of the order of the dragon. I would imagine that means a historical dracula campaign may be what theyre hinting at.
Seeing the teaser they showed gave me so much hope for crusaders or even the Teutonic order just for them to disappoint I just hope in the next update/expansion they finally give us our holy crusaders
I might be way off, but isn't the Order of the Dragon related to Dracula? I mean, his "title" means "son of the dragon(Dracul)", cause his father was part of the Order, which was founded to fight the Ottomans, don't really remember now when.
Aoe4 variants is something i had wished to see in a game like starcraft 2. Its natural for AoE though, AoE2 basically is like 6 "western European" variants, 6 "American" civs, 4 "east Asian civs" etc
I was thinking that given some races got diverse unit lists, the British getting access to their gunpowder to go alongside pike and bow as a hard hitting support would have been interesting, even if the base civ is closer to their Crusader roots. I suspect the variants are trying to stay well away from AOE2 civs where possible for the sake of being unique, there were a wide variety of armies under the Holy Roman Empire. The fact only one of the Civs is built around a solid historical context is a worry however. China could easily have gone Mongolian rule instead with a dynasty all of its own and a different set of bonuses to change up their playstyle to be more aggressive and use discounts instead of an economy focus. Send cheaper units in bulk, but suffer from your units being less powerful in return.
always great to get content- just weird that there is no real theme to it :D however, low change variants as you suggested makes it harder to learn the counters, making the game more complicated :) But imo more is always better, if balanced.
Age2 civs are all similar, same villager mechanics specially, which is completely different in Age3, which civs are very very different from each other. Age2 civs are all the same with minor adjustments, while Age3 is all completely different gameplay, so takes more time to master all different strategies, cards, natives. Much more variables than Age2
![Skull And Bones [39]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tYJXr3XsZHE/mqdefault.jpg)
AOE4's Japanese becoming cavalry-focused feels like a callback to the Yamato from AOE1.
It's historically accurate as well because Samurai, contrary to popular fiction, generally fought as mounted units, typically fighting as horse archers that could fight in melee to a degree.
Some daimyo used mass cav units to fight the abundance of levy ashigaru with gun back then. But alas
@@ariswiryanta7038 Ashigaru is more of post-medieval and early renaissance though. In the medieval era, samurais were pre-dominantly mounted archers. Even the armour concept art is reminiscent of early samurai armour from the 1200s to 1300s than the ones that we are used to which is more from the late 1400s to 1500s.
@@HideyoshiKinoshita84In early medieval era yes samurai used cavalry but not in mid or high medieval era. Most of the battles were infantry battles in these eras.
@@m.b.8282 Yes and no. The people who actually fought on foot were the Ashigaru (aka peasant/commoner levies/soldiers) that were steadily being recruited in larger and larger numbers, and firearms were being introduced from Europe to these Ashigaru which flipped the nature of Japanese/Samurai warfare in general, just as it flopped the concept of knights in Europe.
I agree that variant civs can be a great idea if implemented well. Having a small team and recycling material is a good way of solving problems they're facing.
Okay but what the hell is this. What kind of civ is Jeanne D Arc??? Or Order of the Dragon??? Who thought of this? It would be so easy to come up with an actual civ from near approximity from the original civs and just make an actual civ. But no, now were gonna have a very igenuious game design of China (the civilization) vs Joanne D Arc (the lady)...makes whole lot of sense.
@@2nightwehunt Order of the Dragon is an actual thing. Given that we're all fine with Teutons (Teutonic Order), having another knightly order isn't anything new. As for Jeanne, I think everyone agrees. Others have already tossed out names like House of Jeanne or Follows of Jeanne, but honestly, it's just a name.
Outside of Jeanne, it also makes no sense that a knightly order would fight entire empires (Teutons). By that logic, it also doesn't make sense that we'd pit cultures (Celts) vs empires when the celts weren't unified.
It's a game. Just have fun with it and if it means more content or alt-choices that allow the AOE4 team to experiment with civs without actually impacting players (looking at you AOE3 Ottoman devs).
@@LionsHelm yes its a thing. Not a civilization
@@2nightwehunt while I'm not as upset as you are I agree they could have used Burgundy instead of "Joan D' Arc", for example. It would have been the same idea, but executed better.
@@LeicaFleuryJust change the name as House of Valois, *that simple.* We keep Jeanne d'Arc as the core mechanic and we got actual variant civ instead a person turned to be a new civ. I dunno if the naming is for marketing purpose or to pushing Jeanne d'Arc as a prototype to more hero specific variants in the future (oh no).
People though Aztecs versus Koreans in Arabia was historically inaccurately now comes AoE 4 raising the bar with its new DLC bringing us Joan of Arc with a gun fighting ninjas in the crusades
huns vs ports on texas was already nonsense, aztecs vs MEXICO in siberia for aoe 3 and njow we have Joan blasting fuckers in aoe 4
despite the very cool broad information and love to history the aoe series has its ALWAYS been janky and chaotic its part of the charm
@@kR-qj7rw to be fair the Aztecs did fight the people that would colonize Mexico and become the Mexicans latter on, it only ended up weird because the devs decided to split Spain and Mexico into 2 separated civs in the expansions.
I still hold that an Imperial Brazil civ should've been included in AoE3.
considering im mexican tthis is still funny
thing is unlike spain that existed after the war of independence and in other parts of the americas mexico really is just the aztec empire and more, both in territory and ethnicities its so janky they literally have the same capital
its just funny to me
@@MNomicoN as a Brazilian I'm surprised they even included us in the game at all, we are not really known for being conqueror or having a notable participation in any wars, hell, we pretty much just bribed Portugal to allow us to declare independence instead of fighting them in a revolutionary war, so it's kinda of weird having Brazil in a game all about war, battles and conquest... But I'm not complaining, Brazil is is probably my favorite civ to play in AoE 3, even if they are just a revolution for Portugal and not a proper civ
Those Civ variants are exactly what I was hoping Starcraft would eventually do. Would be so awesome to split each "civ" into two or three variants, following factions in the lore (eg, Mensk terrans, Raynor Terrans, UED terrans).
Ever play COOP Commanders in SCII?
splinter factions in c&c3 kane's wrath comes to mind
@@Snipstryker08 this have started in C&C Generals, however, was quite poorly executed. In KW they did better but still far from perfect.
In C&C Ra2 Mental Omega there's nice distinction between subfactions, but balance problems comes alltogether with old engine problems.
But overall this approach worked from very beginning none the less.
Alternative to this was in Earth 2150, where you had only 3 factions but huge tech tree which you should've research quite expensively and slowly, usually choosing and adapting playstyle in the process. Just to clarify, this is bigger deal than tech tree in AoE 2 as you're starting with basically nothing and needing several minutes for each tech learned only 1 by 1.
The suggestion at 11:08 for the concept of 12 base civilizations each with 3 variants sounds a lot like what Age of Mythology offered.
My thoughts exactly
I was thinking the same. Reword it a bit since AoM was focused on mythology, but having different "pantheons" of mechanics with flavors in-between.
The Civ Variants system reminds me of the Generals system from Command and Conquer: Generals Zero-Hour. There were the three base factions, and then each faction had variants that specialized in certain aspects with a lot of unique aspects and flavor to differentiate them. I wouldn’t mind if they stole this idea because it’s genius!
I was thinking the exact same thing! I've no problem with it
There's no stealing, only inspiration
I was thinking the subfactions from Kane's Wrath, but similar thing.
It’s also similar to Age of Mythology and (to a lesser extent) AOE3, where each time you age up, you choose between different themed bonuses.
Smash Bros Ultimate's echo-fighters implementation was a good way to add fan-favourite characters without the hassle of working in unique movesets, juggling balance, and giving players a choice of similar characters with transferable knowledge and skills.
Command & Conquer had a great and super fun implementation of this in Generals (and similar-but-less in RA3 with the AI specialists, and haven't played C&C3:KW), but given the style and approach AOE4 looks like it's taking I'd say it's closer to SSBU than C&C.
All that said, what is Jean d'Arc even doing as an empire?
The ninjas idea for the Japanese are taken from aoe3 where you could recruit spies that were invisible but moved very slowly in that stance and still were visible to your explorer. Really exited about the DLC
The ninja units in AoE3 were expensive, powerful and fast melee units and sometimes the AI builds them in the original campaign.
Huh, my first thought were the changelings from Starcraft 2.
@@badluckbrian46 Do people actually use changelings in Starcraft 2? Especially at higher levels?
dont think so, but the training-AI does. only tried a few matches pvp. @@ArawnOfAnnwn
and my first thought is the actual Spy in Red Alert and Red Alert 2, just as the civilization variants immediately made me think of C&C Generals.
Man, they really dropped the ball not having the Knights Templars, Knights Hospitaller, and the Teutonic Order as the variant civs
Probably due to wokeness
or Kingdom of Jerusalem or Crusader states as new original civ
@@jorge1582 Lol no. The Order of the Dragon is actual historical organisation. And it was an order of elites, which fits for what they're going for with the faction i.e. an 'elite army' (lower unit count but higher power level). If anything them not choosing the most easily marketable orders is something I applaud. I wish more games would expand beyond mainstays.
@@jorge1582i really hope that isn’t the reason, censoring history cuz of wokeness isnt good
@@jorge1582uh... I know we're having such a terrible case of political correctness these days, but would the Templars/Hospitallers offend? Muslims? Don't think that's ever an offensive term to us
I dont know if anyone already mentioned it but vlad the impalers dad was a important member of the order of the dragon and wallachia as a whole has a very interesting relationship with the ottomans as a buffer state towards the Christian north. If id have to guess, a campaign with them might involve rebeling balkan princes against the encroaching ottoman empire, maybe with some polish/lithuanians or boyar types mixed in could be cool kinda like a side story to the crusades. It could be like how total war adressed it in their kingdoms expansions, how most people dont think of it but the teutonic invasions in eastern europe and the spanish reconquestia could both be considered crusades adjacent with Christian knightly orders fighting Muslim or Pagan groups.
The order of the dragon is in the AoE2 Dracula campaign, so I'm surprised SOTL hadn't heard about it
@vbr191 Really? Granted, i havent looked into the subject much sense highschool, ill have to see into that. Either way, age of empires is not a stranger of historical modification if it makes a good story so my point still stands. If its more myth then fact i guess ill have to see. Thanks for informing me, vbr191.
yep and that was the reason they called Vlad Draculia, draculia means dragon
The Civ variants idea really reminds me of C&C Generals Zero Hour.
civ variants are basically aoe2 civs in the same archetype. If ensemble studios called all the meso civs "civ variants" when they came out I wouldn't blink twice
Its also a thing in Civ 6 where you have variant leaders. Its pretty much the same thing.
The advantage I see to the "variant civilization" system is that it might allow expansion of the roster to include civilizations that are similar but also subtly different to existing ones, rather like what we have in AoE2. It does make some sense for civilizations with a shared cultural background or geographic region (e.g. different Arab dynasties) to share a number of gameplay elements while differing in other ways. That way, you can retain asymmetric civilization design while still having a larger variety of playable civilizations, since you would have groupings of civilizations that share certain gameplay stylistic elements in common while still being unique in other ways.
And then they make a civ that's solely about Jeanne D'Arc.
@@CrossilAre you ready to rant once Olga of Kiev/Kyiv/whatev variant for the Rus' and Mansa (King) Musa I for the Malians will be released next year?
@@royasturias1784 the best part about that statement is that Mansa Musa's wealth is already partially the basis of the Malian civ's bonuses focused on gold. So what do you gain from having a civ focused on gold get a variant that's focused on gold?
@@Crossil I do think it's a bit weird to base a whole civilization on one historical individual, but I was talking more about the general concept of variant civs than how Age 4 is going to execute it.
@@BrandonPilcher I know, I know. I wasn't criticizing your take on it. In fact, I agree.
Joan 360 no scoping from horseback is a good idea.
Yeah... I like the idea of Civ variants in theory for basically the same reasons you outlined. But I *hate* everything behind the concept of 'Jeanne d'Arc' and, to a lesser extend, the Chinese variant. I think that going with 'what ifs' is a miss and I don't really think that going for a hero system is goos for the game as a whole.
It's not a hero system, it's a hero civ. The other variants have other concepts behind them.
I think going with what ifs is great and has, to an extent, always been done in the series. That's what it's for, no? "what if the mayans fought the malians in the black forest?", "what if you could build an empire in half an hour or less?" I welcome the fact that some variants take a bold start. more grounded ones will be in this as well as future packages I'm sure.
By the name, Jeanne is hero-focused, Zhu Xi probably focused on tech, Order of the Dragon small-but-strong unit focus, Ayyubid maybe like Abbasid but without House of Wisdom as the landmark(?)
That's the players' "what if", that's a choice. You choose to make those Civs fight or you don't. Here, you don't choose, you pay two "what if" variants, that are themselves "what ifs". It' totally different.
And when the previous civs of this opus and the campaign do the most to be historically accurate on every aspects, then, this becomes a dumb move. A huge contradiction. @@melodymondlicht8905
What if gives you a lot of interesting things you can do through history, the way she is made is kinda weird, but it's really interesting idea, where it falls apart is that she gets given a hand cannon tbh, she should have a sword and a buff area around her, the hand cannon just looks really silly
I am so happy that the japanese are recognized with a focus on cavalry. Even though their armies were mostly infantry, samurai were mostly cavalry archers, rather than infantry swordsmen.
Yeah but they gave them heavy lancers, not just horse archers. So it's...actually insanely ahistorical.
@@ChillyEmpireWhat do you mean a mountainous, archipelago nation didnt have lancers?
How else did they spear fish and vault over the mountain tops?
@@ChillyEmpirethere's a lot of art depicting samurai with naginatas, so I wouldn't consider it that inaccurate, especially with the tendency in history to have big pointy sticks as their most popular weapon
Naginata and Yari, if anything, the main weapon of a Samurai asides from bow was a spear.@@DrunkedOwly
@@DrunkedOwlyYes, using naginatas and bows, not western cavarly lances or round Chinese shields as the trailer shows...
I like the idea of the Variant Civs but I think the choices are a bit odd and could have been more on brand with the DLC.
The Saladin and Order of the Dragon chooses are good but I think having a Norman (English or French) variant and/or a Kingdom of Jerusalem Civ would be more thematically appropriate.
I agree with your points and also thought it was was weird they went from saladins army to ayyubids because I believe saladin was a saracen that came after the initial conquest by the Normans to reclaim the land, he wasn't there defending it initially.
The Normans being a French/English hybrid would be interesting. The ranged villagers of the English plus slightly nerfed longbows and the knights of the French sounds cool.
By a similar vein, though less long lasting, the "empire of Charlesmegne" might be a good hybrid of France and the holy Roman Empire.
I've actually been getting into AoE4 recently. I gave it a not-so-honest try at launch and found that I didn't really care for it. But circling back around, now that there are a few more civs out, I'm enjoying it. I enjoy that each civ plays drastically differently. It's one thing in AoE2 where some outlier civs like the Magyar or (recently) the Sicilians have a pigeon holed strat they can sort of excel at and the game pushes them towards, but with AoE4 each civ has unique mechanics, not just bonuses.
The Rus gaining gold for building near trees, the Abbasid bonuses and unique techs from their House of Wisdom which is upgraded as you build around it, Mongols being able to move their bases, etc, etc... The diversity makes learning and mastering each civ very rewarding, and makes it so that no two civs feel the same. I love that idea.
But, going forward, I think they realize that they may eventually run out of mechanics or, for lack of a better term, gimmicks to stick to civilizations. I expect with the variant civs we'll see just that. Variations of the civilizations which either borrow from other civ's gimmicks or trend towards a neutral ground. Just spitballing and pulling an example out of my ass, but with the Order of the Dragon variant civ, based on the HRE, we may see that they ditch the HRE's Prelate gimmick (Priests being able to buff villager gather rates) and instead they may borrow from the Rus' warrior priest mechanic to meet somewhere in the middle.
If each variant civ has a truly unique mechanic (as it looks like Jean d'Arce does from the preview recently released) then that's even greater! I'll be happy with whatever outcome.
On the vs conundrum, I'd say that the former is better with a large playerbase and a looong game lifetime, while the latter is better to make the best out of a small playerbase and short dev time.
Thing is specialization can backfire if there isn't enough content for each specialty to be deep enough, BUT it can also be a huge boon: having multiple drastically different options in your game will guarantee that, so long as you can keep enough content flowing for them to not get bored, almost any player will find their perfect fit and stay on your game cause no other game offers the same gameplay.
MOBAS have already solved this conundrum through
1: having options (characters/champions) by the truckload
and 2: sorting their options into a handful of roles, so that whoever wants to be a generalist can specialise in 2-3 roles and still play decently while gaining access to a mind boggling amount of content.
For me the “every civ different” thing makes aoe4 my go to. I’m an Xbox player amd I fell in love with AOE2 when it came out in console. But to me I’d rather have half of the civs 2 has for them each to have a unique feel. And imo the whole things with picking a main is a tad silly. If most civs are super similar…deviation is easier true but….why is that a good thing? Plus every upgrade making your troops actually look different, and obviously the 3d aspect….I’m not sure y it gets the hate it does. I realize AOE2 is awesome and maybe I’m missing something…..but AOE 4 to me just seems like an upgrade (bad marketing aside) 😂
You're so right 🙂
Yeah, I didnt understand why Sotl came to the conclusion or the narrative in the last part of this video.
Why is it a goal to play frequently as many civs as possible in ranked. Which are very similar. But maining 1-3 civs with very unique and different mechanics in ranked is considered a problem for Sotl? Why not give everyone the choice to play whatever they want as different they want instead of trying to make everything very similar for the sake of them clicking it a different name in the lobby to play?
It's a weird thing with AOE players where things normally considered good are considered bad in that space, aoe 3 is the best example of this, aoe 2 players hate the unique factions and the card system, which are both why I really like the game, and it's honestly the card system is something I think would really benefit new AOE games, as 1, having access to cards gives you a chance to make bad matches better with a good strategic approach, the problem with the card system was things like forts and factories, they are just kinda auto includes due to how powerful they are, which can be fixed with iterations on the system where you not all cards cost one point to buy in the match
Hearing how Joan of arc gets better through the ages I really like. Should absolutely not be a civ, more like a game mode where you can pick your hero/regicide mode.
But yeah the ‘what if’ style for aoe4 doesn’t really seem to fit with the original game intent
I'm surprised they went all in on Jeanne, instead of just having it be a 100-years war themed French w/ a 'hero' unit that could grow through the ages. Same thing. It's just the historicity of a match (as loose a concept as that is) gets a bit tossed by several Jeannes on the pitch. Could be a fun way to bring in those larger-than-life hero units you used to see in AoE2's campaigns. I love Jeanne, she's cool. Maybe she could be a specific skin you could pick for your 'hero' akin to the AoE2 mods?
... it's probably clear I play a lot more AoE2 than 4, huh?
For history you might be more interested in two of the other variants - Zhu Xi's Legacy (based on Neo-Confucianism and the Song Dynasty) and the Order of the Dragon (based on an aristocratic chivalric order, whose most famous member is probably Vlad Dracul i.e. Vlad the Impaler aka Dracula). There might be some interesting forgotten history to be brought to life from them.
I, personally, am eagerly awaiting someone's doctoral dissertation on "The Effects of Jean's Semi-Automatic Shotgun upon Mediaeval Warfare and the Crusades."
Jeanne is no longer asking
Maybe we need a French “La Hire” variant. His sword needs more blood!
@@sambojinbojin-sam6550 Pretty much this. Game is a mess.
The functionality of variants is certainly nice, but especially due to that I would say that it was a good decision to spread the content to not only the factions that could identify with crusades or sultans, so that you would overload a specific cultural base type leading to more stylistic monotone games. This way the DLC might offer something for everyone, even if I would have still expected at least one of the fully new factions to be thematically fitting for the Title of the DLC.
Dunno about the diverting from the fully historical path, but I doubt AoM DE will have to worry about overlapping thematics with it at least...
Ah Yes.
AoE4: "We're going to be as historically accurate as possible."
Also AoE4: " Give Joan of Arc a Gun."
If the gun they'd given her was a cannon that she just gave commands to, they would have been right. Missed it by one.
@@amymason156it would be unplayable though if she was as slow as a cannon. If she had a artillery cannon but still be as fast as a knight, she would be absolutely brokenly overpowered.
But yeah, she did had duties on cannon in histroy
They can change their name into House of Valois with Jeanne d'Arc as unique hero unit for that mechanic... change her ability as Valois' rally or something... But _noooo..._ Now Jeanne d'Arc is an official civ founded by Relic and team. They can change just the name, like Ayyubid, just the name without throwing or changing the mechanic which devs worked hard on it...
What do you mean? Are you telling me that Jeanne De Arc didn't fought all the chinese by herself?
the AoEIV community is mostly happy with the DLC, we were expecting 2 civs like last year so the 4 variants were a big surprise; also with a smaller roster, there is a lot of fan favorites civs across the globe that we are waiting to be added, so the idea to forcing a theme to the expansion is very limiting so we are glad that they chose to NOT limit themselves to add them based on theme.
The Variants Civs are a wild concept, they are not civilizations but "modifiers" that change completly the gameplay of the existing civs, so now we have The French and The French: Joan of Arc variant; those variants are based on elements of the history of the civ, like persons, organizations, philosofies, dinasties or cultural movements; in practice they are like completly new civs, but the devs don't name them like that because they are not civs but "modifiers" or "variants" of course, Jean of Arc Variant is causing a little amount of controversy but the general feeling is "gameplay sound good, the idea of having a variant based around a person is awkward"
And the AoE IV community doesn't have a problem with variation, maps force you to try new civs like AoE 2 and there are certain civs that are easier to transition from, we have some people that main one civ but most play around 3, and at high level you are expected to be able to play them all
The variants has been in other RTS's before. Honestly, I am very disappointed to here how it was implemented. There are civilizations that share the same cultural roots or have unique identities that become similar.
You could even spin off smaller impactful kingdoms to represent specialties. The HRE could spin off states like the Teutons or Swiss. You could have stories of uniting like England. The Norman's could become multiple civilizations.
Bro the AOE4 community is pleased with one of shittiest RTS' on the market. It fills no niche, it offers no innovation, and the basic core of an RTS is broken.
They could put a literal reprint of the same civ 5 times over, and that community would be thrilled. Of course theyre happy with this shovelware.
Yeah, in AoE4 it's common to main multiple civs and only have a few you don't play. I think SotL may be incorrect on his assumption there. Plus, by the sounds of it the variant civs will play significantly differently than their original civ
@@2639theboss "one of shittiest RTS' on the market" - nice OPINION you got there bub.
@@2639thebossare you high? Lmao none of what you said made sense. Sounds like you are malding about how much Microsoft invested in aoe4 and are upset how innovative they are that you have to tell yourself they were uninspiringly uninnovative lmao
Variants definitely have a lot of potential if done right.
Personally, I think a fun variant on Chinese would be one of the foreign dynasties not already in the dynasty system, the Jin or the Liao.
I was thinking something similar. Not sure how Microsoft didn't think of that.
Yuan is foreign when you look at it but sure, could be fun. Qing would have been awesome to play with extremely powerful archers but it stays out of the time frame of the game I guess
I'm a bit surprised they didn't expand on the landmark mechanic, or add something similar, to achieve pretty much the same thing as variants. I'm remembering Age of Mythology how you picked which god to worship as you aged up, that would give different bonuses etc. That effectively gave you variations on the 3* civs to play around with.
* (or 4 or 5 civs depending on if you had the expansions)
they have not revealed all the other variants so we might have "alternate" landmarks
Can't wait for the release of the Dracula unit for Order of the Dragon. I just hope I level up fast and get my vampirism before Joan gets her stake spitter cannon.
Who knows what will happen if the English show up with stakes and fire.
I know you're joking but that would legit be a blast.
@@temporaryname8905 I'm not sure in joking anymore.
I'm still not entirely sure John Dark's Boomstick isn't an October Fools prank.
@@LoreweavverDracula has also the ability to impale his enemies with the stun effect.
@@jimmyorgenkaccrow4961 that's why I'm thinking it'll be a favorable matchup against Joan assuming Vlad also spawns torch wielding turk raiders.
The civs are meant to each be distinct concepts, so they're not all hero-based. That's why only one of them is named after a hero. The Order of the Dragon is meant to be an elite force - low numbers but powerful units. It's based on an aristocratic chivalric order.
Variant civ's Sound like a great idea, Help flesh civilizations out more instead of trying to pigeon an entire culture into a single playable faction. Now you can actually have a bit variaty to explore different Factions, Diffrent Time's and so on and so such.
One cool thing they could do with the variant system, is have a norse/viking civilization that would be split into three variants: Denmark, Norway and Sweden. All somewhat similar, but with different focuses.
Why didn't they just do what AOE2 did and have it be break off regions of france like Burgundians? Like it seems so easy to not be weird...
Jeanne d'arc civ is hilariously
As someone who doesn't vibe with the way civs work in AoE2 (on a glance, none of them stand out), I'm glad the variant civs seem to be widly different from the originals.
I do agree on the lack of focus on the Crusades, though.
Civ variants are not bad but i also think they should be around the different types of forces involved around Crusades
Aoe2 has definitely always been my goto AoE game, but 4 has time and time again brought me back to it. I'm excited for this DLC, I think this is a game that has lots to offer
If it is anything like Age of Mythology's major god selection, or Tiberium Wars' faction additions in Kane's Wrath then it's going to be great. Same structure, but different playstyle with very little effort from the devs' side, means we can have a lot of good content coming our way each year.
That next age of mythology game is gunna be insane
Great overview, and I think you provide great feedback that the devs should listen to. The variants remind me of generals in Command & Conquer: Generals, where you can play the main civ without a specific general or the main civ with a general, which gives unique changes to the civ.
You hit the nail on the head about AoE4 straying away from historical accuracy. We saw it with magical biomes, map monsters, white stags and now fully fictional civs and... Joanne D'Arc. The issue of having multiple Joannes has been brought up already. Regretably, Relic went for commercial impact (Dragon! Joanne D'Aarc! Sultans!)
It's not "a dragon". It's a knightly order called "Order of the Dragon", which existed. Having an Aztec monk mind control a Persian stable so they can make Aztec cavalry is just as stupid, you're just used to it. It's a game, not a dissertation on history.
@@timwhitman3207 It doesn't change the fact that it's a buzz word and the variant name chosen because of that when there are lots of other less obscure alternatives they could've chosen, such as the Teutonic Order, the Knights Hospitaller, etc. None as attractive as having DRAGON in your name, though.
@@EricGonzalezM they can make whatever they want to make. They don't owe you a sub faction based on something just because it's popular. Are you really trying to claim that by building a faction based on something more niche and obscure that they are trying to "sell out" and chase mass appeal? Wouldn't they do the opposite if that was their goal? Either they are making something obscure, or they are selling out to gain mass "commerical impact" as you say. It can't be both.
Is your stance really that the devs looked at the knights Templar and teutonic order and said "nah, f--- that, we want our faction to have the word "dragon" in it, that's what will really bring in the big bucks." That might be the dumbest thing I'll read today.
I had to look up the Order of the Dragon as a HRE player. Sounds like an interesting concept having aristocrats trying to defend the Empire from the Ottomans in the game. Is the gold and black cosmetic only for them? Are prelates still applicable? Are Vlad and Dracula going to be canon in AoE4? Guess we'll find out...
vlad was a real person so he should be canon
Not even a game like Star craft would be going around trying to pump unique factions as a dlc model.
So adding variants is good
I'm not big into AoE4, so I might be missing something, but I generally prefer when games go for the "fun first" approach. I don't think that the historical accuracy is a major selling point for most players.
I hope that they keep the historical setting and feel, but they shouldn't sacrifice playability for it.
I also think that it's a good move to introduce the Japanese now, if a lot of people wanted to play them. It's good to have a vision, when developing a game, but the two main jobs of a game studio (in my opinion) are to make money, and to make something people want to play.
I feel like Civs should be more like cultural areas and have specific regions under them. For example you could have something like this:
1. Western Europe: Britain, France, HRE, etc.
2. Eastern Europe: Byzantine, Russia, etc.
3. Middle East/North Africa: Abbasid, Persia, etc.
4. Steppe Nomad: Mongolia, etc.
5. East Asia: China, Japan, Korea, etc.
6. S Asia:
7. SE Asia:
8. Sub-Saharan Africa:
9: The Americas:
Where each large division would have similar architecture like AOE2 and also similar base mechanic, but varying bonuses and specialties. This way it's easy to remember what each civ is supposed to be while maintaining some key differences. Like in AOE2 all steppe civs are cavalry based, all SE Asia civs have elephants, all American civs have Eagles, etc.
Yeah but if you do that, you will just be playing Aoe2 DE 2.0 at this point. I like having all different civs.
The landmarks were already supposed to give variety within a civ. Eg an abbey English and a Council Hall upgrade likely play slightly differently with the council hall player using fast units with high hp like cav so they can go back to heal.
I don't mind the gameplay over history things they're introducing but I feel like the player base has shrunk too much already. I think the campaign will be fun though. Ideally not too easy. I doubt I'll play online if I even get this.
Player base is steadily growing though
@@melodymondlicht8905 It isn't.
August 2022 average player number: 8 618
August 2023 average player number: 7 208
Sure it grew when you compare average players September 2022 compared to September 2023 but peak players shrunk even on that month.
I think that historical what ifs can be accurate if they start from an accurate place. The Joan of Arc idea not only abandons their original idea of being historical but goes further to basically promoting a historical misconception instead.
They missed some big opportunities with variant civs to go the "successor's civ" route. Like have Burgundy as a variant of the HRE or the French. Ditto with German city states or the Teutons and the HRE.
The Joanne of Arc variant though. That I hate
love that the Japanese samurai are able to swap between ranged and melee attack. this is actually a callback to AoE2 surprisingly. when in development, they were originally meant to have that ability but it was scrapped cuz they couldn't get it working properly and didn't know how to balance it in AoE2. seeing it come back is pretty awesome
The variants approach puts me in mind of Age of Mythology, where you had three (or four, after the expansion) civilisations, each with a different major god. The civilisations were totally different from each other with virtually no overlap in terms of units, buildings, or mechanics. Then within a civilisation, the major gods gave you different bonuses and advancing options but otherwise very similar play.
I really liked that approach, and if I was designing AoE4, I'd go down a similar route. I think this is what SOTL endorses at the end of this video as well.
This looks like the AoE4 version of major gods from Age of Mythology.
AoE4 It's not one of my fav games, but thanks to you I'm always "Up to date", Thank you! Respecto the Shinobi It makes me remember games like SCII with the changelings
Personally I am hyped by the direction. I'm not really down for playing with a Hero unit myself but its cool that that is there for people that do like that. And I actually prefer the Asymmetry of the Civs in 4. It makes watching pro play a lot more exciting to me and I personally enjoy "Maining" whilst also feeling like there is more I can learn should I wish to, its just different to AoE2 in that respect.
i find learning new civs in aoe4 to be really daunting but im willing to give the japanese a try
I mean in aoe2 you basically dont learn civs at all except for few outliers like meso, Huns or goths. You basically learn one civ and replay the same civs just with different name and branch focus. Like some are archer civs, some are scout civs or knight civs, some are mangonel civs. Which also exist for aoe4 but with even more differences. In aoe2 its just the same civ in all mechanics despite the focuses.
@@ReuterL yeah thats the point. Aoe4 civs are wildly different from each other and also more complex imo.
Yep @@ReuterL
I see no reason this concept can’t work really well. AoE2 is in a lot of ways just a couple of really similar civs, and on release it was basically one “recycled” civ. Hope to see it implemented well.
Then let me enlighten you. By using a hero unit with a semiauto shotgun, you are
1) Introducing DOTA 2 elements into an RTS
2) Removing any claim on being remotely historically accurate
3) Removing the overall aesthetic and atmosphere of the game that drew people in to begin with
4) Failing to attract DOTA 2 players or whatever the fuck else the devs hope to get interested in the game
Got it?
Civ variants call to mind clone characters in fighting games, particularly Smash Bros. They're basically palette swaps with a few different moves or the same moves with different properties, but the small differences are enough to make them feel unique without having to devote a ton of time to learning them. They also save on development time. Case in point: Super Smash Bros Melee was developed over a 13-month period (which is not much at all), so several of the new characters were clones of characters from the previous game (with one of the clones being a clone of a newcomer), and the director of the game explained that the reason they did that was to pad out the roster without sacrificing development time. Clones are still controversial among the Smash Bros fanbase to this day, but they don't need to be, because no extra time is actually needed on them.
My point is, civ variants are something new for the Age community, but fighting game fans have had basically the same thing for years now.
It's been in RTS's for a long time as well. Look at Age of Mythology.
Jeanne of Arc with a handcannon?
new head canon
Found out from this that I'm literally the opposite of the average player. I main Magyars in AOE2 consistently, to the point that my friends complain about it. And in AOE4, I like to do a full rotation of all the civs regularly, because there are so few, its easy to play a few single player games against the AI to keep myself familiar with how, for example, Chinese and Mongols work.
I just hope that they could come up with a SE Asian DLC next spring cause SE Asian history is severely underestimated and underappreciated. I hope that the SE Asian DLC could feature the Khmers, the Javanese, the Mons, the Chams, and the Siamese. Especially the Siamese (or Thais if you prefer), they could appear in either AOE 2 or AOE 3 and yet are not present in both.
Won't happen because it's not popular among the aoe community.
The pre-Muslim Indonesians and Malays (Srivijaya to Majapahit)
@@royasturias1784 Yep if they have enough space the Malays should also be added, I definitely agree with you. The Srivijaya and Majapahit were both very powerful maritime empires.
I think a more focused thematic DLC would have been more appealing to me. The Idea of a Crusaders DLC followed by an East Asian themed DLC sounds just fantastic and making them hug closely to history would just magnify their appeal.
I personally love the idea of having new unique toys to crush my opponents with.
there's a chance that the ninja unit will have a stealth mechanic similar to the Malians, as stealth is a big thing in that civ and the mechanics are already there and well known
Order of the Dragon relates to Vlad Tepes so likely its a "look you can play as Dracula" sales point.
Come to think of it, Starcraft and Warcraft went hard into specialist civs but they had FAR fewer options.
i personally like the idea they have behind creating variant civ. Giving the dev chance to do out of the box stuff sounds great to me. Cant wait to battle against french dota hero
I'm glad the devs are taking more risks. It felt like the devs played it way too safe with AoE4, trying to appease the AoE2 crowd whilst also trying to bring over some innovations. I would rather they go batshit insane and see how it plays it, since they can always change it in the future.
You're absolutely right. It doesn't surprise me at all that aoe2 stans dislike the new expansion. Finally some risks being taken in aoe4!
The only negative thing I hear is the CIV variant names. Otherwise most fans are happy about the DLC.@@spectrallogic
Having crusader variations is a much better idea.
@@orangetoes223 Nah, it makes it all samey. They could've used one crusader order for the HRE variant maybe, but I like that they spread them out among different parts of the world. Zhu Xi's Legacy especially sounds interesting. Not often you hear about Chinese philosophers outside China.
I am actually quite glad they didn't listen to the Aoe2 crowd, I love aoe2 but a lot of people play a 25 year old game for a reason: they really dislike change. Its perfectly ok to have 12- 14 super historically accurate civs plus a few batshit crazy outliers.
Having "knights templar" as a civ eliminates the possibility of having super elite units like Order of the dragon does.
Suggesting 4 crusader themed civs (ayyubids, templars, hospitallers, what have you) with minimal difference between them and the base civ is SUCH an Aoe2 thing to do. Its kind of boring to be honest.
The Order of the Dragon is where Dracula takes his name from, as the "Son of the Dragon". his father being a member of the Order.
Most aqueducts ran along the ground, or under the ground. The iconic bridge structures were used to cross rivers or valleys where a siphon wouldn't work.
I like the variants being more different. If I already didn’t want to play current French then Joan having a different play style means I’m more incentivized to play her
Yes, if I want to play French I play French. If it wasnt for me, the Joan of Arc will make me try their version. If it fun to play, I will have a civ I will start playing more.
If variant French was just a few tweaks like in aoe2, why would I play French variant when I didnt play French before? The difference isnt big enough to alter my desires for french
Civ variants makes sense to me, even in the relatively narrow stretch of time that AoE4 is set during many cultures went through some really big changes so having variants that reflect that is a good idea. AoE2 already kind of did this with the splitting of the Indian civ into multiple versions of itself and you could argue that Sicilians are a variant of Italian. They could also split the Spanish up into Leonese, Castillian, Navarrean and Aragonese.
I still absolutely love AoE4. It is so different and has so many new and unique mechanics. It plays super fresh.
And that the civs are completely different is an absolute plus. In AoE2 it almost doesnt matter in general play what you pick as it will always work.
That said, for long playability AoE2 for some reason feels better, maybe because its that easy. You can just play it for many many months.
I get the adding of ''what if'' civs. But i dont like it for the most part. The historical parts, especially the campaigns is a very big i love this bit.
Now it gets more arcady
Great thoughts, I thought the tutons as and HRE variant was a no brainer, oh well haha
we need more AOE4 Spirit of the Law plz.
And also for the Chinese civ I think they could make 2 variants a North Chinese one and a South Chinese one, with the former more focused on cavalry and horse archers and the later more on infantry, navy, and gunpowder. Historically speaking North and South China were often divided.
Yub kinda funny how they go with it
@@anghainguyen9951 Well if I were the lead developer or designer of the game I'd make this game much more interesting. From what I understand in this video variations mean a what if situation. For instance, I could make the North Chinese civ having a mixture of North Chinese, Turkic, or Mongolic elements to reflect the what if scenario that the Mongolic or Turkic conquerors managed to turkify or mongolify the North Chinese instead of the other way around. And for the South Chinese civ there're even more possibilities. We know from historical records that some Champa people had fled to Hainan and Guangdong in South China after their kingdom had been subjugated by the Vietnamese. So what if the Chams who fled to South China were to build a new Champa kingdom there? The South Chinese variant could totally reflect that situation.
im so excited for this dlc! i think a lot of what you talked about is simply a difference of opinion on the design of the game, and I'm not sure how much can really be gleaned from throwing big ideas out into the ether that would really need testing and refinement to be worth discussing.
Aoe4 has different Landmarks for civilisations this brings a lot of variation to the civilisations. With this in mind the approach of the devs makes more sense
It's a good way to experiment with some niche or strange mechanics.
I had heard of the Order of the Dragon, Vlad the Impaler was a member of it. It does seem like a bit of a strange choice.
in Red alert 2 the spies would be revealed by attack dogs and mostly just not being able to control that unit.
in aoe4 would do sabotage too
Granted I've not played Age of Empires IV yet so I'm unsure if this idea would work.
But inspired by how a lot of medieval societies worked there could be a balance of power between the Realm (the governing authority which is the closest to the precursor of the modern state but before Capitalism was mainly the source of Authoritative power keeping general order), The Nobility (local families which controlled the means of production and Economic Power) and The Clergy (a simplified name for this comment but generally they organized the relational and moral life of society and Social Power) and in game going with each of these as you age up can create a different play style that re-balanced different bonuses and provided a re-skin in some aspects depending on whom you draw on in each age.
Vlad Tepes was a member of the Order of the Dragon, hence the moniker Dracul (the Dragon).
The reason people switch civs so often in AoE 2 is because they are all basically the same, with very slight modifiers. In almost every other RTS series, factions are much more asymmetrical, and idea of having a "main" is much more common. In fact, AoE 2 players who think of focusing on one "main" being a bad thing are really outliers. In most other RTS games, not maining a single civ is seen as a handicap, as you're not able to learn every facet of the strategy as deeply.
I think you're looking at this as an AoE 2 player is doing a disservice, because the whole argument here is "I don't think people will want to learn more than one civ, because they are too different, so the new content won't be used." There's no actual data, just, "I think", But people *like* variety. The difference between civs is what makes them so interesting. Having everyone feel the same makes every game feel stagnant and roughly similar. Most of the community in AoE 4 does gravitate toward the civs they like best, but no one just mains a single civ, it's not viable for anyone playing comp because of the map pool. The interesting draw of the changes from season to season is learning new civs and new strategies as the meta shifts, and expanding what you're good at. Without that every matchup feels too similar for everyone not at the top 1% (a la AoE2).
Whispers around the internet are that Jeanne D'Arc is actually the civ MOST similar to it's base game counterpart, and that the other variants get even more wild with their ideas, which I think is a good thing. More variety means more to learn and less stagnation.
Lastly, just because the expansion is called the sultans ascend doesn't mean that everything in it has to be related to the crusades. Fans have been clamoring for the Japanese since launch, and to release a second amount of post launch content without them "cuz theming" seems unnecessary. Kane's Wrath added a campaign focused on Kane, but also contained new sub factions for all 3 races in C&C3, why is this any different?
I feel there are two kinds of people who pile on this game:
1. RTS fans who had a bad taste of mouth from the initial buggy release.
2. Aoe2 fans who literally refuse to play any other RTS.
To the first group I want to say that the game is in much better state and very balanced.
@@franciscomelendezedefinitely agree. The game is leagues ahead of where it was at launch. I honestly think they could have saved themselves a lot of hassle if they had just launched the game and season 1 in January of 2022, but Microsoft money men gotta make those spreadsheets look good y'know? AoE 2 players who clearly haven't played any other RTS since 2001 irk me to no end. The whole "I can't dodge arrows so there isn't even micro in this game" argument from years back springs to mind. I was like have y'all played Starcraft?
I think a lot of variety for this expansion is a good thing, it stands a much better chance of getting people to jump back in, try the game, and see how good it has become. It has the potential to really inject a lot of people into the game.
I think so many negative voices come from Aoe2 fans and thats kind of sad. I actually enjoy aoe2, so this makes me even sadder. They didn't want Aoe4 to succeed because they wanted to prove a point and be "the superior rts". Everyone knows starcraft 2 is the superior rts of all time.
Peace out.
@@timwhitman3207
@@franciscomelendeze Tbh, one of AoE 4's problem is that is basically has the same setting as AoE 2 making comparisons inevitable. If you played AoE 2 for years, you're not very likely to switch over because the game you're playing already offers you what you want. AoE 4 would've been better off if it revisited Stone Age and Antiquity from AoE 1.
@@FloosWorld_AoE I don't think this is true for everyone as I played aoe2 for years even played ranked and made the switch and have been loving it ever since. It had a rough launch but the balance is so good now, literally every civ is viable unless you are the top 1% of players.
I agree with everything you said. I'd pick templar knihts over going "What if" with Jean D'Arc 100%of the time.
This expansion might be throwing out a lot of stuff, because they're trying to capture more players. They might already have done some work for the Japanese for example and said "f it lets just finish that". The variant civs also mean more content for a smaller price. The devs might just want to hit the playerbase with a lot of content.
How hyped I was as you introduced the Crusader Variants :(
Well said. Their Civ variant lineup is a travesty for a crusader DLC and they missed a golden opportunity here.
They should really push out the Chinese variant and Japanese along with new Civs like Korea to an Asian themed DLC like you said.
The Joan of Arc faction is completely nonsensical.
I wish they would watch this video and delay the DLC in order to change it per your suggestions.
The "what if" civilization idea sort of works, but the choices are quite odd.
"What if" Aztec or Inca empires didn't get wiped out and continued would be my first idea for the theme.
I think that's where they are going
While I generally don’t care for “What If” Civilizations (mostly because it always feels like giving an EU4 player Cheat Codes) I do think that they could’ve done the What If variants better, Heck, a MesoAmerican nation is a better idea than “What if we had Joan be a time traveling super soldier”
What's wrong with 'what if' the Song dynasty survived and took over China? It's often considered the most interesting of China's dynasties, with many innovations to its name. And this one even touches on a transitional philosophical movement.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn Oh I mostly mean the French one, it feels too much like WarHammer Fantasy.
I was looking at it like how Generals Zero Hour did it with the different Generals using the same "foundation" in different ways.
I completely agree that the Chinese and French variants feel very out of the blue. I feel like there's two directions they could have taken the variant idea. The first is like you said: specific offshoot entities of those civs, like the crusaders of different European countries, or the Ayyubid dynasty. If they wanted to do a Chinese one, maybe they could do Tungning, the Ming restorationist maritime kingdom that rose up against Qing, with a focus on the navy. They could even branch out a little and instead do different time periods of different civs, like Kofun and Nara era Japan had so many majestic temple and wonder building projects, while daimyo era of Japan (Kamakura, Muromachi, Azuchi-Momoyama) was too worn torn to focus on these grand construction plans.
The other direction I feel like they could have gone in is a focus on specific rulers from those civs, because different rulers had very different personalities, agendas, and ways they handled their empires. Rather than having a Zhu Xi or Joan of Arc alt history thing, they could have done like, I dunno, Louis XIV "Sun King" having nobility-related bonuses. I do think that this option would have been a lot more limiting though, so rather than just having a random Zhu Xi or Joan of Arc alt, they really should have stuck to just the first option instead, and explored the possibilities they could have done with that.
Big deal is that AoE4 has so much stuff going on for unit voice lines. It's easy and quick to record a new set of voice lines for AoE2 since it's male villager, female villager, monk and military, but 4 has so many variations.
I like AoE2 and I like AoE4. But I really enjoy the different playstile of each civ in AoE4 and it is mostly from the start. My fear is, that over the time they are adding too many civs, which may play in a same way or some civ will be forgotten because another civ does the same thing just better. I also think a few more civ are great for variation. Since I play both Singleplayer and Multiplayer I am really hoping, that each civ gets a campaign. Still curious about the new content.
I'm not big on the concept of 'what if' civs, its not like there is a lack of real history to pull from, but it will at least add more variety to the game
Ah yes, Joan d' Arc riding along the battlefield, with her glock in hand
In AOE2, people never play the same civ because actually all civs are almost exactly the same... That's also why a lot of people play random civs 🤷
They are all copypasta.
Yeah, AoE2 civs arent distinct enough, can be somewhat grouped into Archer-civ, Cav-civ or Infantry-Civ with very similar mechanics.
@@straelboraaaa Except they aren't, otherwise all 43 civs had the same play and win rate.
@@FloosWorld_AoE 10% here, 10% there, give a unit here remove it there... It is enough to make the win rates different. But not enough to make the civs different. They're all (45...) basically exactly the same.
And let us not speak about their identical design where for example Japanese men at arms look exactly the same as French or English men at arms...
@@Seyyad93 I'm sorry but that's a oversimplification and I could literally do the same with AoE 4. Don't believe me? There you go:
Make sure that every civ has some kind of influence system (farms, golden age, scholars, hunting cabins), give all civs access to all upgrades, replace generic units with unique units where appropriate (Archers → Longbows) and maybe add 1 or 2 UUs. Add some UTs on top and if they're an islamic civ, make sure that they can't gather food from boars but get a boost on the berry gathering rate. There's way more symmetry in AoE 4's civ design than you might want to admit.
In reality, both games are way more complex than our oversimplifications.
I guess no one denies that AoE 2 tends to have a symmetric style (not to be confused with copypasta, that's something different), however you don't play Goths the same way as you'd play Mongols. One of them relies on booming to flood you with Infantry whereas the other relies on early aggresion.
Dracul and his son, dracula were both members of the order of the dragon. I would imagine that means a historical dracula campaign may be what theyre hinting at.
Seeing the teaser they showed gave me so much hope for crusaders or even the Teutonic order just for them to disappoint I just hope in the next update/expansion they finally give us our holy crusaders
Ah, the old Warcraft 3 hero rigamarole.
I might be way off, but isn't the Order of the Dragon related to Dracula? I mean, his "title" means "son of the dragon(Dracul)", cause his father was part of the Order, which was founded to fight the Ottomans, don't really remember now when.
Aoe4 variants is something i had wished to see in a game like starcraft 2.
Its natural for AoE though, AoE2 basically is like 6 "western European" variants, 6 "American" civs, 4 "east Asian civs" etc
5:00 fun fact the order of the dragon makes a cameo in AoE2 in the Vlad the Impaler campaign. They are Hungarian and spawn Paladins
I was thinking that given some races got diverse unit lists, the British getting access to their gunpowder to go alongside pike and bow as a hard hitting support would have been interesting, even if the base civ is closer to their Crusader roots.
I suspect the variants are trying to stay well away from AOE2 civs where possible for the sake of being unique, there were a wide variety of armies under the Holy Roman Empire.
The fact only one of the Civs is built around a solid historical context is a worry however. China could easily have gone Mongolian rule instead with a dynasty all of its own and a different set of bonuses to change up their playstyle to be more aggressive and use discounts instead of an economy focus. Send cheaper units in bulk, but suffer from your units being less powerful in return.
and so once again aoe4 is taking the right lessons from aeo3 jolly good show
always great to get content- just weird that there is no real theme to it :D
however, low change variants as you suggested makes it harder to learn the counters, making the game more complicated :)
But imo more is always better, if balanced.
Age2 civs are all similar, same villager mechanics specially, which is completely different in Age3, which civs are very very different from each other. Age2 civs are all the same with minor adjustments, while Age3 is all completely different gameplay, so takes more time to master all different strategies, cards, natives. Much more variables than Age2
Symetric civ design doesn't equal "all the same with minor adjustments"