It is a fact that Relic totally failed at balancing this game through this 5 years.
Do you imagine them balancing AoE4 with at least 10 or 12 factions?? lol
look at other game companies, the first one i can think about is blizzard that managed to balance a game like overwatch with almost 20 COMPLETELY different heroes (per exemple, one got 150hp and another 600 hp, the first is hitscan, the second is shooting projectiles, and still both heroes are EQUAL and got almost same win ratio at high level).
Then you go back on coh2 and realize how much easier it is to balance this game compared to overwatch and laugh at relic
let's be realistic, RELIC
can't make a game balanced, even when it require very little work like at the release of coh2 when there was only soviet & osther, so don't except Age Of Empire to be balanced.
Because even if the factions in Age of empire share some similar units, there are still a lot of difference between these factions that require knowledge and work to make them work together and overall make the game fun to play.
Can't believe microsoft was dumb enough to tell relic to make the next game of one of the most loved game series..