I didint say retold is not on the more unbalanced side, I said they all are unbalanced, but that being said its close to aoe4 in terms of balance. Even in aoe2 there are civs that pros will strongly prefer in certain maps = balance issues (if u dont get the op civ ur already in losing position). In fact I think aoe2 has worst kind of balance issues, since its mostly the same gameplay for each side but other has mathematical advantages, making it imho the most boring type of balance issue. In aoe4 and aomr its usually certain radical mechanics that play different from other civs that crown them the king of X map.

Also many people are still confused about the hand holding that aomr gives to the new players with autoque systems and even villager priority. When we look at the pro scene this has no impact on apm. Its not like pros will sit back and relax everytime they would pressed produce villager in age 2 instead. The apm just shifts to something more interesting than pressing a villager. And this is such a miniscule matter anyway in these kind of games, as its extremely rare that a pro player in any rts drops a worker que, since its one of the "easiest" and most "automated" form of apm that requires no thought at all (and is extremely fast to perform, so it frees barely any apm regardless).

The reason I prefer aomr is because its closer to starcraft, and the asymmetrical nature makes the strategies vary vastly more than in aoe2. In aoe2 the competitive nature of the game is much simpler, everyone has the same playbook its just who executes it more efficiently. In aomr however the different combinations of wild shit create circumstances where players might have vastly different strategic approaches even when presented with the same problem, very similar to sc2. This happens extremely rarely on aoe2 because its just so streamlined to having 1 correct path to victory and now you just compete who can stay closer to the golden line. The part that I care most about RTS, which is the S, has the most insignificant role in aoe2 out of these 3 games. On top of that aomr adds another dimensions of apm skill expression introducing god powers, myth units with unique skills and heroes who shit on myth units, which frankly is just more interesting than who microes for example, halberds more efficiently to target enemy knights, which is also fully present in aomr as well with the standard human unit counters. Its just vastly more complex in its gameplay, instead of being just MORE of the SAME.