Vikings are the first civ with automatic, free villagers, worth 50 x 60/22 = 136 food/min per TC. I'm not a huge fan of auto-vills gameplay-wise, but there's also an (unintended?) side effect that I'm not sure fits the Viking identity.

Free villagers give Vikings two major advantages for multi-TC play:

1. They can put all villagers on wood/stone during age-up (just like KT), potentially getting extremely fast 2nd (~4:15?) and 3rd (~6:15?) TCs.
2. Each new TC immediately starts producing free villagers as well, effectively instantly spawning 4 unkillable food villagers worth of savings. And opponents can't even starve Viking TC production, since no food is required.

This creates a massive incentive to boom rather than attack, especially in team games on larger maps.

I know the civ hasn't launched yet, so this is just theory crafting and we have yet to see how it plays out, but if Vikings turn out to be another KT or Abbasid-style multi-TC civ, I'll be disappointed tbh.

I have always envisioned Vikings as aggressive raiders, not a defensive, eco-focused city building civ. To me their current design contradicts their (in)famuous identity, and I wonder if the designers thought about this booming "side effect" of auto villagers.

How do you feel about this?

Right now, AoE4 ranked uses a single rating no matter which civ you pick, and that kinda discourages players from switching civs.

Unlike pros, most players aren't equally good with every civ. Someone might be high plat with Rus or Jin but closer to silver with Malians. If that player climbs to Plat 3 with their main and then wants to try another civ, the next 10–15 games are rough until their rank drops far enough. When they go back to their main, they have to climb all over again. Their opponents don't enjoy those games either, because a "plat" player playing at a silver level isn't a fair match for anyone.

As far as I remember, SC2 handles this with a separate MMR for each race. A player could be Master with Zerg and Terran but stuck around plat with Protoss. They could play their weaker race without hurting the rank of their main.

Suggestion:

Separate hidden MMR (and visible rank) for each civ

Profiles show your highest-ranked civ, so you still have a main rank to show

"But skill transfers between civs in AoE more than in SC2"

Partly, yes. Macro and fundamentals carry over. But AoE4 civs have become very different from each other, and big rank gaps between a player's civs are common. Per-civ MMR would correct itself: if skill really does transfer, a player's civ ratings would end up close to each other anyway.

Does anyone else run into this? Is there a downside I'm missing?

Confess... we are all considering it.
Hahaha 🤣🤣🤣

I love the HRE and think they’ll become relevant again this season. With a superior economy, their Landsknechte and Men-at-Arms with two-handed and mace will crush the Scots and the Vikings.

I haven't see them being able to do ram in age 2 so what the tricks? do they just HAVE to go to age 3?

Hype yourself up too. Sad pepega noises

Sb know how long creator preview will last? I am addicted to Viking/Scot Content.

Some examples:

English gets manors.

Delhi gets 5 second upgrades on top of still being free.

Mongols get more ovoos each age.

Macedonians get cisterns.

Abbasid gets all the golden age bonuses of ayyubid stacked on top of their own.

Etc.

Aside from the mocking HRE +5/-5 every patch, i feel like the 5 of us that actually use shinobi really got done dirty by this nerf.

The temptation to boom off the rip is always strong but the Scotts cows seem so expensive and they are so susceptible to early harassment. I feel like it may just be good enough to have the starting cow and just hit a fast age up where you can either age up with less and save res that way and start the cow boom while you age up or just use your fast age up as tempo and boom behind some early harass.

Epohers World Cup 3's playoffs begin tomorrow!

8 players remain in the fight for the title and a share of the $2,500 prize pool.

Quarterfinals: October 24, starting at 15:00 GMT.

◆ Quarterfinal matchups

🇪🇸 VortiX vs 🇨🇳 Scarlet Devil

🇨🇳 loueMT vs 🇹🇷 SAS

🇷🇺 Bee vs 🇸🇪 Numudan

🇪🇸 LucifroN7 vs 🇨🇳 YZY

◆ Official broadcasts

English: Rising Empires

Russian: ShtoprrrTV

Tournament details on Liquipedia

Does anyone actually play this faction or does just need an entire re work? I’ve heard so many mixed things and don’t know if I wanna waste time learning how to play it even though it’s fun to play

Not affiliated with Relic/World's Edge, just a Gold player who's been following the reveals and wants to make a point before launch.

From everything shown so far, Raiders of the North looks like the best DLC this game has had. Vikings and Scots aren't just reskins of existing civs with one swapped unique unit. They have their own systems, their own evolving playstyles, their own architecture, music and language that changes as you age up. That's the kind of design I want from this game: civs that feel genuinely different to play, not variants of variants. Add the solo and co-op Crucible and two new biomes and it's a proper expansion, not a content drip.

Here's the thing though. A lot of us complain about what AoE4 doesn't have. More civs, more campaigns, better ranked, whatever your personal wishlist is. Fair enough. But complaining in a Reddit thread is free, and free doesn't pay developers.

The way I see it, spending money on a game works a bit like democracy. Every euro is a vote. Microsoft doesn't read our feature requests and go "aw, that's a nice idea". They look at what sells. If a DLC sells well, the message is clear: this is what players want, keep doing it, build on it. If it flops, the message is just as clear: don't bother, move the resources elsewhere. We've all watched franchises die exactly like that.

And the vote that counts most is the one at launch. Launch week numbers are what gets looked at when they decide whether the next expansion gets greenlit. A 50% off pickup two years later is still a vote, but a much quieter one.

Obviously, if money's tight, skip it, that's a different story. But if you've been on the fence and your only reason is "eh, I'll wait for a sale", maybe think about what you're actually voting for.

I want more civs built like these two. Thursday I'm voting for that. If you want the same, do it too.

Elite Gaming Channel is proud to present the EGC Masters Winter – Season 2, and registrations are open for two more weeks.

No invitations this season. Every seat in the main event is played in the qualifiers, so the path is the same for everyone.

Format

• Qualifiers (Nov 7 & 8): two double-elimination brackets, 64 players max each. 16 players qualify each day (8 from the upper bracket, 8 from the lower bracket). If you don't make it on Saturday, you can try again on Sunday.
• Main event (Nov 14–22): 32 players in 8 GSL groups of 4, Bo3.
• Playoffs (Nov 28 – Dec 6): 16 players, double elimination, up to a Bo9 Grand Final.

Map pool: EGC-Cliffside, EGC-Dry Arabia, EGC-Dry River, EGC-Frisian Marshes, EGC-Golden Stream, EGC-Prairie, EGC-Scandinavia, Silk Road, Vinlandsaga.

Prize pool: $20,000. All 32 main event players get paid, from $100 up to $4,600 for the winner.

Open casting. Up to 270 series will be played over the month, and the whole event is open casting: casters can cover any series from a spectator POV, and players can stream their own games with a 5-minute delay. The guidelines are in section 10 of the handbook.

If you are willing to compete, you can follow these steps:

1. Register here before Friday, November 6 at 14:00 GMT: https://forms.gle/waGRgPgsJXyKvxKu7
2. Read the handbook here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WRfrALxIhsZ9OAhgrA8I2bVf-lOlLu2x/view?usp=sharing
3. Join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/YAzjGgnPhS
4. Check in on Start.gg between 12:45 and 13:45 GMT on qualifier day: https://start.gg/EMW-S2

Tune in to our Twitch or YouTube to follow the event.

If you know players or streamers who would enjoy it, feel free to share this post.
Good luck to all participants!