All 8 civs revealed

[Whakahoatanga]

The starting roaster will be Chinese, Delhi Sultanate, Mongols, English, French, Abbasid Dynasty, Rus and the Holy Roman Empire:

Source: https://www.ageofempires.com/games/age-of-empires-iv/civilizations/

[HE1NZ]

Russian campaign. Finally.

[b9thirty99]

Originally posted by Szaladon:

The starting roaster will be Chinese, Delhi Sultanate, Mongols, English, French, Abbasid Dynasty, Rus and the Holy Roman Empire:

Source: https://www.ageofempires.com/games/age-of-empires-iv/civilizations/

Thanks.

[MadWolf]

Ну наконец-то. Кампания за Русь будет на старте игры. Это хорошо!

[Pengbumstot]

I dunno man....the line-up feels thrown together and over-stylized. Reminds me a bit of "Empires - Dawn of a modern world" vs "Empire Earth" (basically its predecessor). They streamlined and went more specific and stylized with the civs, but overall gameplay suffered in the progress and made it forgettable.

And as streamlining today is often done just for the sake of streamlining (especially in such a time constrained project as AOE 4 AND under daddy M$), I fear the worst...

[Spartan dropkick]

Cheers
There is also a game overview now
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U0qyGWFLYUw

[Ochu]

They go for diverse civs and then give us France and England which are culturally closer comparatively. Wish they could switch one of those for Egypt, Greece or a nordic country instead.

[Heraclius Caesar]

It's a shame they decided against having Byzantium as one of the starting civs on release.

[Apate]

It seems like 8 factions for Age of Empires IV is very little
It has Age of empires ii: The Age of Kings multiple factions than Age of Empires IV

Release game:
Age of empires ii: The Age of Kings - 13 factions
Datadisk:
Age of empires ii: The Conquerors - 5 factions
Datadisk:
Age of empires ii: The Forgotten - 5 factions
Datadisk:
Age of empires ii: The African Kingdoms - 4 factions
Datadisk:
Age of empires ii: Rise of the Rajas - 4 factions
Remaster:
Age of empires ii: Definitive Edition - 4 factions
DLC:
Age of empires ii: Lords of the West factions - 2 factions
DLC:
Age of empires ii: Dawn of the Dukes factions - 2 factions

Age of empires ii definitive edition is 39 factions all DLC/Datadisk.

It would be nice if Age of Empires IV had 15 to 20 factions

[Lonestead]

Originally posted by Apate:

It seems like 8 factions for Age of Empires IV is very little
It has Age of empires ii: The Age of Kings multiple factions than Age of Empires IV

Release game:
Age of empires ii: The Age of Kings - 13 factions
Datadisk:
Age of empires ii: The Conquerors - 5 factions
Datadisk:
Age of empires ii: The Forgotten - 5 factions
Datadisk:
Age of empires ii: The African Kingdoms - 4 factions
Datadisk:
Age of empires ii: Rise of the Rajas - 4 factions
Remaster:
Age of empires ii: Definitive Edition - 4 factions
DLC:
Age of empires ii: Lords of the West factions - 2 factions
DLC:
Age of empires ii: Dawn of the Dukes factions - 2 factions

Age of empires ii definitive edition is 39 factions all DLC/Datadisk.

It would be nice if Age of Empires IV had 15 to 20 factions

The nations are play a lot more different than in AoE2 though. In AoE2 every nation shared the same basic units and buidlings. with just some modifiers and one or 2 unique units. Here you have a lot more different units, buildings and mechanics per nation so every nation plays different.

[Whakahoatanga]

Not going to lie the civ line up is kinda boring. Where are the Aztecs? Where the Khmer? Where the Malians?

[Pengbumstot]

Originally posted by Lonestead:

Originally posted by Apate:

It seems like 8 factions for Age of Empires IV is very little
It has Age of empires ii: The Age of Kings multiple factions than Age of Empires IV

Release game:
Age of empires ii: The Age of Kings - 13 factions
Datadisk:
Age of empires ii: The Conquerors - 5 factions
Datadisk:
Age of empires ii: The Forgotten - 5 factions
Datadisk:
Age of empires ii: The African Kingdoms - 4 factions
Datadisk:
Age of empires ii: Rise of the Rajas - 4 factions
Remaster:
Age of empires ii: Definitive Edition - 4 factions
DLC:
Age of empires ii: Lords of the West factions - 2 factions
DLC:
Age of empires ii: Dawn of the Dukes factions - 2 factions

Age of empires ii definitive edition is 39 factions all DLC/Datadisk.

It would be nice if Age of Empires IV had 15 to 20 factions

The nations are play a lot more different than in AoE2 though. In AoE2 every nation shared the same basic units and buidlings. with just some modifiers and one or 2 unique units. Here you have a lot more different units, buildings and mechanics per nation so every nation plays different.

You also have to keep in mind how much they want this thing to be an instant e-sport hit. That means the civs have to be balanced against each other which is much harder to do properly with asymmetric civs (compared to AOE2's which all share the same core units, techs, buildings).

[Lonestead]

Originally posted by Pengbumstot:

Originally posted by Lonestead:

The nations are play a lot more different than in AoE2 though. In AoE2 every nation shared the same basic units and buidlings. with just some modifiers and one or 2 unique units. Here you have a lot more different units, buildings and mechanics per nation so every nation plays different.

You also have to keep in mind how much they want this thing to be an instant e-sport hit. .

I don't know where this comes from, they only said they developed the game with e-sports compability in mind. It's a difference to build up a game with e-sports focus from the start or just making it "compatible" and eventually let build it up itself if the demand is there.

[Pengbumstot]

Originally posted by Lonestead:

And don't know where this comes from, they only said they developed the game with e-sports compability in mind. It's a difference to build up a game with e-sports focus from the start or just making it "compatible" and eventually let build it up itself if the demand is there.

The game looks (and feels, as far as that is possible via video) more streamlined than any previous Age entry (has similarities to AOE Online which tried to push into the MMO/Moba/browsergame market). The revival of AOE 2 as HD/DE versions also heavily leaned on the Multiplayer part of things revitalizing the multiplayer fan bases. The community council involves pro players, casters, youtubers. They also gave it to Relic who are known for their RTS games with long lasting multiplayer interest. Their Dawn Of War 3 (although they rammed it into a brickwall) tried to push moba/Starcraft/Warcraft elements.

The Singleplayer on the other hand so far looks like some art students project: "Guys, let's use real life footage with simple CGI like they do for history channel, totally destroying everybody's immersion. Wouldn't that be ceeewl?".
Very disconnected from previous games in style, depth, scale and seems oddly low budget. Makes it feel like the second line feature to the MP.

Saying "It will build up itself if demand is there" is something a Microsoft official would be executed on the spot for, lol. They definitely have a long term business plan for this apart from initial sells + bringing people into their xbox service. They can use a multiplayer RTS for their lineup.

[Spartan dropkick]

Originally posted by Pengbumstot:

The Singleplayer on the other hand so far looks like some art students project: "Guys, let's use real life footage with simple CGI like they do for history channel, totally destroying everybody's immersion. Wouldn't that be ceeewl?".
Very disconnected from previous games in style, depth, scale and oddly low budget. Makes it feel like the second line feature to the MP.

The documentary style campaign is one of the few new things in the game. I think that is good and better than just copying AoE2 again. They are at least trying something new. I hope they won’t dumb it down too much

[Pengbumstot]

Originally posted by kannwar:

The documentary style campaign is one of the few new things in the game. I think that is good and better than just copying AoE2 again. They are at least trying something new. I hope they won’t dumb it down too much

Surely its new and artsy and some people may like it. I was referring to how it's part of what makes SP feel like something they just gave to someone to do whatever with while keeping it low budget. Not very high priority.
Making real life movie snippets looks dated really fast and breaks immersion (it's basically constant 4th wall breaking between every mission). AOE 1/2 and even AOM, although fantasy, kept up the immersion in its story telling.