hey guys spirit of the law here now i feel i'm on the record as saying as far back as
march that despite a rocky start to the year i really believed age of empires 4 could have
a second half of the year revival if they won had a massive steam sale and two announced new
civilizations it seems that moment has arrived as both of those things are happening as well as some
free access to the game for the next week with the new civilizations also going to be completely
free as well anyone can download the game and play it as much as they want until next monday
if you haven't played the game at all or were turned off by either the cost or the
initial state of the game on release it just got a lot more attractive and i say that as
a primarily age vampires 2 youtuber and not someone who has an incentive to hype up aoe4
now i personally haven't been playing a lot of agent vampires 4 recently but as i talked about
in a video last month there's been a pretty steady diet of balance changes and updates to address the
notable lack of features it had at release last year they also announced and gave details about
two upcoming civilizations which as i said are going to be completely free for anyone owning
the game and are coming on october 25th the one year anniversary of aoe4's release the first of
the new civilizations is going to be the mallians they're described as being built around a strong
economy especially gold being able to build pit mines on gold to generate passive income and a
unique cattle food source though it isn't clear on what exactly makes it unique we do get a look
at one point in the trailer showing both the regular sheep hurting ability of the scout and
cattle in the same location the passive resource generation of mines to free up villagers sounds
very strong on paper though it's pretty easy to adjust the gold trickle as needed for game balance
on the military side it sounds like their units are going to lack some armor and are incentivized
to hit and run or ambush enemy armies instead of standing and fighting so far they've even
revealed four of their unique units the first is a muso foddy warrior which is an infantry
unit that almost sounds like it fills a light cavalry role of ambushing and escaping quickly
the second is the javelin thrower which we get a good look at in the new trailer it replaces the
crossbowmen though instead of countering armored units it's specialized against ranged units
in the trailer we get a pretty good look at them attacking some archers and crossbows on a wall
their third revealed unit is the donso which is both an anti-cavalry unit up close but
also a ranged unit when not directly engaged the description says the unit automatically
switches between the two though i didn't catch an example of that in the trailer and in one
shot it seems an enemy should be close enough and yet they're not using the ability maybe because
they're concealed in a forest other information on the official website suggests the donso is a
dark age unit giving them something anti-cavalry and ranged in the first age which is notable and
sounds very aggressive especially in addition to passive goal generation with their pit mines
it's not clear exactly how expensive those are but we're led to believe it's a net positive even in
the early game so they can't be that large of an investment in the feudal age mullions also have
another unique building called the toll outpost that generates extra gold from passing caravans
obviously gold is a major theme for their economy early on and this is also when they get access to
their female warrior raiding units moving up to castleage one of their landmarks that we're told
about is the gold barracks which based on the name and description for creating units in mass
might be a mercenary sort of idea costing gold to produce batches of units though that is just
speculation we also see they have a unique tech for poisoned arrows letting their archers deal
damage over time which you may be familiar with from age of empires 3. and finally in the imperial
age we learn about another landmark giving extra buffs to economy siege and military production
so their late game sounds quite interesting as well they mentioned their unique gunpowder unit
the mussofari gunner is also able to make use of stealth this time temporarily disappearing even
when not in a stealth forest that might end up looking a little silly if they're able to just
throw on invisibility cloaks mid combat against a group of knights so we'll have to see how that
ends up being implemented ideally if an enemy unit is up right beside them it should still be able to
see them overall though malians seem pretty unique between their gold generating buildings emphasis
on quick light units and stealth abilities what i'm most curious about though is the donzo's
passive melee and range switching though as that's something we haven't seen units do automatically
in the franchise before the other new plan civilization is the ottomans they seem to be built
around a couple of unique mechanics the first is a vizier system and imperial court we don't get too
much information about how this works but it seems to give choice and access to unique technologies
and let you decide what you want to specialize in the other more significant and unique focus
for the civilization is their military school which you can build in dark age this sounds like
a pretty insane building that can actually produce units for free at a slow rate reminiscent of the
delhi's free research interestingly you can even pick a focus on barracks archery range or stable
units though it's not clear if you can specify you want a spearman or man at arms or if it
just gives you a random barracks unit for example presumably you get to pick the unit and just the
more expensive it is the longer it takes in shots elsewhere we can see they also have a traditional
barracks archery ranges etc which implies to me you could either play them standard or make your
military school and focus on your economy as you build an army for free or presumably just use the
extra units to supplement your rash in the second age or feudal age you have some economic landmark
choices and get access to two unique units the first is a sapahi which is a light raiding cavalry
unit with a special ability to briefly increase its attack though with the trade-off of also
taking more damage intuitively i think this is probably going to be used when raiding to pick
off villagers quickly but not in sustained combat depending on what you're up against their other
feudal age unique unit is a support unit that plays drums to give a buff to all units around it
adding an element of choice you get to decide if you want the buff to be for attack rate
melee armor or ranged armor again depending on what you're up against already i'm getting the
impression that ottomans are going to be quite a micro intensive civilization to play in the third
age one of your landmarks allows for siege weapon production and this is also when the imperial
council system and vizier start to come into play this is also when you get unique access to the
janissary as an alternative to the hand cannoneer notably for most civilizations the hand cannonier
is an imperial age unit not a castle h1 so that's an interesting change and sounds quite powerful
finally in the imperial age you of course get access to the great bombard which is suggested
to be the most dominant siege weapon across all civilizations with massive attack and splash
damage the trade-off naturally is that you have to defend it from being attacked in melee and it
also sounds like it's going to be very expensive my initial impression is it sounds like ottomans
are going to be incredibly strong with free early units a great early raiding unit early access to
gunpowder with the maximum highest ceiling and either increased unit speed or faster traders
on top of a bunch of unique techs with a vizier system which we don't have a ton
of details about yet i noticed there's also a fair amount of emphasis in the trailer on water
and my understanding from interviews is that was always seen as a last minute addition to the game
it's possible they have some plans to revamp water in some way and are holding something back at the
moment they also didn't mention anything about the new civilization's water units for example
despite showing quite a few things in the trailer now with all that said i initially had to wonder
why these particular civilizations were chosen there are of course other civilizations i think
would have been bigger fan favorites from age vampires too and it's interesting that china
already has to share the gunpowder civ identity with the ottomans though at the same time i
personally suspect they're saving byzantines and other very popular civs for paid dlc down the road
remember these two civilizations are free and all of this together feels a bit like they're pushing
to really make age vampires 4 at its one year anniversary feel like a complete game which has
long been a criticism it's not a big secret that the release was a little rough last year outside
of the campaigns and didn't manage to hold on to as many players as i'm sure they'd hoped for
especially given the massive hype and number of eyes on the game the strategy at the moment seems
to be to focus on building the player base first and foremost and then find ways to monetize the
game later in my opinion that is absolutely the right call here given where it was trending and
like i said also speaks to their confidence that the game is in a much better state now
to the point it might win some fans back i think seeing that changing strategy where player number
building is going to be the focus actually gives a lot of reason for optimism i'm very curious to see
what the wider reaction to all of this is going to be for people outside of the aoe4 community
and if it's enough to bring people back to the game or if that ship is sailed so to speak
and if too many people have already moved on based on early impressions i'm certainly going
to be trying out the new civilizations and i have to say both civ's announced seem to be offering
very unique playstyles let me know what you guys think especially if you're an aoe 2 player is
this enough to get you interested in aoe4 again thanks for watching and i'll see you next time
you