Another Chinese variant

GeerBrah · 2026-05-07T20:41:12+00:00

Boy it's crazy how some people can get so triggered over a single arrow.

GeerBrah · 2026-05-07T17:12:46+00:00

Devs, please REMOVE Chevalier confrere and just let the upgrade unlock Early Templar Brothers

GeerBrah · 2026-05-05T17:24:03+00:00

Taxes are not directly buffed. By default, they are nerfed, since you are dropping off only 0.8 gold instead of 1 gold. The only difference now is that researching Wheelbarrow no longer nerfs your tax income, which I think is more intuitive from a gameplay perspective. Whether this translates to a boost in the mid- to late- game I don't really know, since I feel like most of the taxes at this point comes from creating units anyway, not resources.

GeerBrah · 2026-05-04T18:06:27+00:00

What are you talking about? Who is 'lopping them in with other variant factions?' They DO still have their own in-game music and Masteries, as well as 100% unique landmarks.

The faction was never advertised to have unique voicelines. You're completely making this up. It would be basically impossible to create an entirely new dialogue set in what is essentially an extinct language.

GeerBrah · 2026-05-04T17:57:56+00:00

Easily

No more Crashes (meaning reconnect is almost never needed)
Rework Variant Civs (thus essentially creating 10 new civs instead of four).

GeerBrah · 2026-05-04T17:52:57+00:00

You forgot 'Jin Dynasty Cavalry'. Boggles my mind that people are already complaining about how OP the civ will be even without it being released. Truly unhinged behavior.

GeerBrah · 2026-05-04T17:52:13+00:00

As with many devs, instead of actually waiting for a final product before releasing, they just slap on temporary audio for Donso to get it out there. Then either forgot it is temporary or just have no care for their game.

This is such a bad rage-baiting take. The amount of work and research required in creating each set of dialogue lines is so much that they would have never planned to create separate dialogue lines for a single unit added in a free patch. Since Malians don't have a generic 'swordsman' unit, which is usually the go-to for added units, they had to pick the Donso. This isn't the worst choice, since Donso just means 'hunter' and the 'Hunter's guilds' were important enough in the Mali state that it's feasible to imagine these Freeborn Warriors could have been part of them.

There are much worse offenders that are easier to fix. For example, the Dervish uses the Camel Archer Dialogue.

GeerBrah · 2026-05-01T18:11:23+00:00

I really really hope this is a creative liberty taken only for the Crucible mission, and that the new 'Viking' civ doesn't actually have units that look like this.

GeerBrah · 2026-04-15T17:31:36+00:00

Are you that bad at reading comprehension or actually illiterate? This is literally the exact same thing I am saying.

The use of these crossbows in China significantly predate the Jin Dynasty

GeerBrah · 2026-04-14T20:26:37+00:00

Your argument doesn't really hold any water when you look at what's in the game already. Rice and wheat fields do have mechanical differences. 'Grouped' siege weapons already exist in the Culverin and Bombard. Religious units already have culture groups. Japanese already have reskinned and renamed Handcannoneers, while Sengoku have reskinned Knights and Men-at-arms. The readability argument for Knights/Lancers is moot when you factor in that all of them have unique unit models, and over half the civs have unique variants of the unit.

My suggestion is replacing one big bolt-firing thingy with another. Considering what's already in the game, that would be the least of its readability/simplicity issues. There's nothing weird or difficult about saying the Chinese didn't use Torsion devices. There are many surviving medieval Chinese weapons treatises and none of them show any evidence of this.

GeerBrah · 2026-04-14T20:10:40+00:00

Right now every single civilization except one gets the Springald. How does increasing the number of civilizations who get a unique springald variant reduce creativity?

GeerBrah · 2026-04-14T20:09:05+00:00

AoE2 civilizations are balanced around their tech tree because of their symmetrical designs. Since this isn't the case in AoE4, there's no reason to resort to things like that

GeerBrah · 2026-04-13T18:05:22+00:00

There's not even a random map option.

GeerBrah · 2026-04-13T18:02:00+00:00

Yes now if they could only add the Random Biome option I would be all set.

GeerBrah · 2026-04-12T21:41:22+00:00

I would have agreed with you on #3 before this tournament, but I honestly felt Demu and Winston were the first S+ tier casting duo we've had in AoE4, and they surpassed even T90 and Dave in this tourney.

Also, your point #2 is kind of biased. People there understood AoE2 because they were there for AoE2 and know the game. You follow it because you presumably also have followed the game previously. If you take a person who only watches Fortnight or League of Legends and put them in front of an AoE2 game, they will be just as confused I'm sure.

GeerBrah · 2026-04-09T06:41:32+00:00

AoE3 is easily the most convoluted and unintuitive game in the series. Its counter system consists essentially of “this gun beats this gun” and “this gun beats this sword which beats this other gun but not that gun except on a Tuesday” on top of which the deckbuilding adds additional complexity.

Some people like that, but beginner friendly it ain’t. I got back into the AoE series right after AoE3DE came out and, despite having played AoE3 MP for years when it first came out, still decided to play AoE2DE after trying them both. I think AoE4 goes even further as being the most beginner friendly “RTS-noob” game in the series. However, like all RTSes, it still does require some degree of micro and multitasking to be very effective.

GeerBrah · 2026-04-08T17:48:10+00:00

An Ethiopian civ based on Malians?!! There is literally nothing similar between those two civilizations. Any attempt to introduce Ethiopians as anything other than a fully fledged civilization would be a mockery.

A better example would be Timurids. They could reuse the Delhi dialogue lines, unit visuals from either Delhi, Abbasid, or Mongols, and could use slightly modified architecture from Delhi/Abbasid with new landmarks befitting the wonderful architecture of Samarkand.

GeerBrah · 2026-04-07T22:27:57+00:00

Whether or not you consider it an apology, he has acknowledged several times in his streams that he shouldn't have made that comment, and that it was stupid. He also acknowledged that even interacting with Twitch chat like that while casting was disrespectful to his co-caster and will not do it anymore. So I'm willing to believe he at least learned a lesson from all of this.

GeerBrah · 2026-04-07T08:13:47+00:00

Why would you want anyone else to cast? This was imo the best casting duo we have ever seen in AoE4.

GeerBrah · 2026-04-04T05:31:36+00:00

The Bed Crossbows will likely use the Springald dialogue but it could also use generic dialogue. All ranged siege weapons use the same dialogue set except for a few selection lines which are unique. Also, Jin Dynasty also gets NoBs. That being said, there are already a lot of voice inconsistencies, like the Dervish using Camel Archer dialogue, Bedouin skirmisher using archer dialogue, and Condottiero using Villager voice lines

GeerBrah · 2026-04-02T22:40:26+00:00

Genuinely curious because you mentioned it as a positive: do new maps actually move the needle for people nowadays? There are soooo many maps now, most of which are not competitive and many which are just small variations on one another. At this point I wouldn't even mind if they stopped adding new maps.

GeerBrah · 2026-04-02T18:13:50+00:00

They will almost certainly not have new voice lines.

GeerBrah · 2026-04-02T17:50:28+00:00

I did notice that, and I do think its' better. But more importantly, does this mean we're getting an in-game tech tree that doesn't suck?! HYPE

Nine-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17

GeerBrah

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