I ran into friends online who were playing, and I complained. $70? Cash shop? Battle pass? Ignore everything but the $70. The battle pass and cash shop shit is all cosmetic, so if you’re like me and can’t stomach paying for horse armor… just play the game. One time $70, and if you’re into this kind of game, you can get years of enjoyment. Or at least a few months. What really irked me though was having to install battle.net again, and the month it took to install that fucking client. The game moved faster (once I found the settings to uncap download speeds).
EA as in early access, sorry for invoking electronic arts. AOW4 and Spellforce aren’t RTS… they’re more 4x, with turn based combat. Check out some videos on them and you’ll see how they play.