Age of Empires 5 speculation

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
22

It’s because of all the voices and animations the units have… the other Age games reuse voices and animations (for example, AoE 3 has many UUs, natives, and mercenaries, but basically reuses animations for each of the respective units)…

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The answer is in the video I posted earlier.
—> Now, I’ve marked the point - Here begins the description of the problem, followed by further comparisons:

The “Age of Noob” channel addressed some very visible and important topics in this video.

A direct comparison was made between the two most played Age of Empires games, AoE2 and AoE4 (in addition to mentioning other games as well).

The following issues and possible solutions were discussed:

  • Development Team Migrating: where a development cycle of one AoE ends, thus beginning another AoE that will become a priority in DLC releases and support.

  • The AoE2 is extracting as much content/DLC as possible, while there are still themes and possibilities.

  • The difference in work involved in making the DLCs for AoE2 vs. AoE4.

  • Difficulty in creating complete DLCs for Age of Empires 4 every year, involving new civilizations and campaigns within the same DLC.

  • The reason and the real possibility of the birth and emergence of the new “Age of Empires 5”.

  • And what would be the solution for a stronger and more efficient launch of the Age of Empires 5 DLCs? Answer: In this case, the ideal choice would be a balance in the development style used between AoE2 and AoE4.

Basically, it would be good for Age of Empires 5 not to try to imitate Age of Empires 4 in the aspects that hinder its development and content release. I hope they can find a perfect balance in their development and content production.

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Because this totally went swimmingly when they did that with AoE4

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Bro i watch the video and if those are all the reasons it dont make sense because successful and good game requires all the eforts.Yes units and buildings need to look different and you need new voices but thats necessary for success.When compared to AoE4 AoE2 is so bad.Like amazingly bad.If they made AoE 5 i hope it has the detail AoE 4 does.

He is saying in the video game is not suitable for dlc i didnt understand that part what is he trying to say?Is it harder to code or something?How can be a game compatible or uncompatible to dlc?You just make it and add it to game.Am i wrong?

Edit:Ok i understand him wrong,at one point he said “they made the game standalone and not planed dlc’s for it so game is not suitable for dlc” that make the confusion for me.He is trying to say they didnt planed the dlc so made the game very detailed and now that game is success they are having a hard time to make dlc because they set the bar too high.But it need to be high to be successfull.

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you’re not wrong. he makes no sense. he tries to reason on a lot of assumptions without base. he first assumes out of nowhere that the devs had a hard time making the game or its dlcs. he then reasons on why he thinks that - because apparently they were too ambitious (first time i heard someone saying that) -. He then assumes there were no planned dlcs?! and the bottom line is that he wants the bar set lower. He then jumps on a different topic, on why he thinks someday aoe5 will happen - because apparently they want to make money (who would have thought) -. i see little substance and a clickbait title to generate views.

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Well, “Age of Noob” explained it well.

It doesn’t make much sense for me to speak for him.

He talked about facts and gave examples with graphs to show the difference in development effort between the two games. The difference is gigantic.

But I would add something more…

Age of Empires 4 has a bad and difficult engine to work with.
Why?
The game has already corrected many problems, whether animation or model problems… but why release it with problems?

Things that, if they were easy to work with, would never need animation fixes and subsequent corrections; they would have been released well-made.

Example:

  • Elephants didn’t have a visible and decent animation for melee combat. The animation was added much later.
  • The Crossbowman and Handcannoner didn’t have reloading animations. After a long time, it was added.
  • The “Bombard” cannon, when packaged, didn’t have wheels; it floated or slid across the map. Later, wheels were added so it could move.
  • There was a warrior, I don’t remember his name now, who would strike with his sword using the opposite side. The non-cutting side. And they only fixed it later.
  • There was another warrior, “Limitanei,” who has a horrible texture error on his head, totally crumpled and crooked. I don’t know if they fixed that one, but I believe they did.
    And so it goes,

Another problem,
The game is still “broken” in terms of its compatibility or stability.

The game closes or freezes or shows a black screen for several people, but nothing happens to others.

Here in my region, 6 friends abandoned the game in the last two years. And why? Because they can’t play private matches with friends… This error has happened to each of them, which shows that it wasn’t a problem for just one person.

This error only happens with AoE4. This error doesn’t appear in any other game or any other Age of Empires.

The strangest thing is that if you play ALONE, the error doesn’t appear. However, in private/custom matches with friends, it will happen occasionally.

The issue is:

Age of Empires 4 has difficulty fixing certain problems, it seems difficult to develop, since there was a lot to be fixed later, and it also can’t release robust DLCs with civilizations that come with new architecture and with several campaigns included (not just one campaign) in the same DLC package.

—> And this certainly explains why Age of Empires 5 will change engines.

A “detailed” game with incredible visuals won’t necessarily be an absolute success.

We have games that are very “bad” graphically and games with “few” animations, customization, and movement, and yet they are successful and extremely popular.

Example:

  • Minecraft isn’t a “beautiful” game in terms of quality and detail, but it’s fun to play. It’s a very popular game worldwide.
  • Counter-Strike 2, even though it’s inferior to Battlefield and Call of Duty because it lacks gameplay with various animations, gameplay mechanics, and weapon modifications, is extremely popular on Steam. Despite having extremely simple gameplay, many still prefer it.
  • Tibia, a simple MMORPG, but with many players.
  • World of Warcraft, despite having an incredible story, its visuals are far inferior to many other MMORPGs, yet it’s preferred by many.

So success isn’t tied to visual “quality” or robust animations, but rather to whether it’s fun or something along those lines.

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29

This means that to maintain the trend, many voice actors must be paid.

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If making dlc’s for AoE 4 is hard atleast they can make cultural units and buildings in AoE 5.Like European,Middle Eastern,Central Asian,Asian,Indian and African.Every culture group will have differnet buildings and unit skins but nations in that cultures will have same units and buildings.French and english will have same unit and building skins.Every nation is gonna have maximum 2 unique units other units will have the same stats.

But on the other hand AoE4 reached that stage already.We still have missing some unique civs like Spain but they can make easly a african civ using Malian skins they only need to add new unique units and landmarks.They can change the name of Donso to African Spearman for example and make new african civs easly this way.First variant civs was a disaster tho.

I hope they find a clever way for AoE 5.I think using cultural skins will make the dlcs come faster.

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Because software is complicated and release dates are defined by the publisher mostly for financial reasons, leading to a permanent compromise on the release quality of any given title.

Unless you’re familiar with game engine development, you’re going to struggle to extrapolate more than that in a convincing way.

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Well, if you want my explanation, “It’s not that difficult” or impossible to make DLC for Age of Empires 4. I mean, with current modeling technology, you can do amazing things with less money than before, as Expedition 33 proved.

It’s simply that there were some bad decisions (the first 4 variants) and problems in the gaming industry (2024), but after that we have 2 DLC in 2025, and we gonna have 2 more in 2026. So we are in a good way.

If you look at them chronologically, it makes sense:

2020 - Covid-19 problems

The game was originally going to be released this year, but then COVID-19 hit, delaying many things, preventing many expected changes, and putting the project on hold.

2021 - Game release

The game was released, with bugs, no mods, no taunts, no editor, all because of the pandemic. Many people waited for those features to be added before buying the game, but overall, it’s a good game with potential.

2022 - The Anniversary Edition

Featuring two additional civilizations. The Taunts Mods and Editor have been added, along with a rework of the marine system. The game’s potential is recognized on the fandom wikis: seeing civilizations with more than two unique units, up to 20 unique technologies, unique mechanics, etc., helps the game begin to build its fanbase.

2023 - Sultan Ascend

The first paid DLC, Sultan Ascend, an “Enhanced” campaign, is released. It’s a huge success. HOWEVER: the four variants weren’t well-received, mainly due to a lack of historical accuracy, being perceived as low-quality copies of their parent civilizations, and as a way to fill space.

  • New changes: More unique units per civilization (Japanese 14 UU), visual improvements for Landmarks and Wonders, which are now larger, and other visual enhancements.

  • Theory: It seems there were some discussions within the company regarding how to develop future DLC. It seems they really did plan for all the variants for every civilization, but since they didn’t like the first four, they had to re-engineer the systems and consider being more careful with the next DLC. However, something happened that delayed the project.

2024 - Video Game Crisis 2024 (delays)

Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and other companies made the mistake of believing that because people were at home playing video games during COVID-19, they would continue doing so after the pandemic. They attracted many investors, and with the money, they bought mansions and hired extra staff like a politician’s cabinet. Big mistake: Once the pandemic ended, people migrated to movies, music, concerts, travel—things they had missed out on during the pandemic. Certain failures didn’t help, ruining the hype for many, e.g., Concord, Suicide Squad video game.

  • Massive Layoffs: This led to a chain of events. Many business owners, to hide the fact that they spent money on private islands and gold mansions (it’s an expression, it was probably drugs and ##### haha), started laying off employees to cut costs. Among them was SEGA.

  • SEGA: To save money, they decided to lay off employees from EVERY company that was a producer, including successful companies, as was happening with RELIC on AoE4’s latest DLC.

  • Microsoft intervenes: This must have infuriated Microsoft, which was contracting Relic, so there were deals between them that resulted in SEGA losing control of Relic, and Relic becoming another independent producer, now free to work more calmly with Microsoft, and even with other groups in the Age of Empires franchise.

  • Problem: Restructuring any company takes time (Bureaucracy, those who work and have to pay taxes and comply with regulations will understand), and this DELAYED the DLC planned for AoE4 in 2024, pushing it to 2025.

  • Good things: The end of the Siege Wars, with the Springdale rework.

2025 - Two DLC for AoE4

Now in collaboration with other groups in the Age of Empires franchise (Forgotten), allows for the Templars and Lancasters. By the end of the year, another DLC with historically more accurate variants: Dynasties of the East.

  • Visual improvements: The issue with Spearman spears has been resolved; they are now different for each civilization. Improvements have also been made to the water generated by certain Landmarks, bug fixes, etc.

2026 - Another 2 DLC for AoE4

With things calmer, two DLCs have been announced, one with a campaign and the other finally including new base civilizations. Yes, the future looks promising.

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You know, you shouldn’t suggest to the devs that they be lazy.

French and English were different nationalities, and it’s fine that in AoE4 they take that into account to give different models for all the basic units of each civilization, even if they’re villagers or even monks.

And we already got past that thing of unique units limited to 2 since AoE3, I don’t think it’s right to regress.

In fact, the reason I switched to AoE4 from AoE2 is because it has more historical depth and representation of civilizations, exceeding the limit of 2 unique units and technologies, and even the Japanese have 14 unique units and that’s fine.

If AoE5 is going back to the regional theme of AoE2 and limiting units and voices just to save resources, I didn’t gonna play it.

And it was precisely because the “saving resources” you’re suggesting allowed the 4 first variants to be created.

Be aware of what you’re suggesting.

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I know but they say game is dying because its too detailed and hard to make dlc so i thought we should test this in AoE 5.

The variants are good but first 4 (3 of them in that 4 wasnt even a civ) was bad at least 3 of the 4 was bad.Nothing wrong with the variants some civs have same culture and same language.I think its ok aslong as they did it right way.

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From what I’ve read, the variants aren’t disliked because of gameplay or mechanics. They’re disliked simply because they don’t represent a different and original culture.

Players want to play as the Chinese, not Dynasty X or Y. It’s that simple.

The AOE-IV civilizations are designed to represent changes throughout the centuries (and they have good points in that regard, such as variations in languages ​​and dialects depending on the era, and dynamic music depending on the period), and the variants only represent very specific contexts and periods compared to how long-lived the core civilizations are.

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Actually, the first four variants, or at least 3 of the 4 (Jeanne, ZhuXi, and OftD), weren’t well-received due to their gameplay, mechanics, and lack of historical accuracy. That they werent “base civs” were a secondary complain, since the same DLC included Japanese and Byzantines.

We’ve already discussed these variants several times on this subforum, but I think bring a summary will be helpful for those who aren’t regulars on this aoe4 forum, as many come here because of Age of Empires 5:

  • Jeanne: She was 90% identical to the French; the only difference was that she was a hero with Dota-like mechanics. She was also overpowered when released and was seen as a pay-to-win version of the French. The fact that Jeanne used a hand cannon on horseback in Age IV didn’t help matters either.

  • ZhuXi: She was “novel” because all her landmarks were different from the Chinese. However, ZhuXi wasn’t a Chinese military officer, but a schoolboy who never commanded an army, and this is a war game. It doesn’t make much sense, then, that this civilization had extensive feudal rush mechanics and even fast castle gameplay compared to its parent civilization. The original name of the civilization didn’t help either (Jade Empire). The civilization had too many advantages over China; it was practically China 2.0, with more units than its parent civilization, and even the same units in its early version.

  • Oftd: This variant took advantage of the fact that HRE didn’t have many unique units, so they converted all its base units into gold versions. It was initially despised precisely for that reason: For being a very “cheap” version of the variant. On the other hand, the royal order was from Hungary, and while its founder was Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, there are few Hungarian elements in the civilization, or from several of the founding member countries.

Ayyubid was the only one that survived, precisely because: its mechanics were interesting, it had many new unique units, and it was “different” from its parent civilization (Abbasid), which, while focused on economic boom, was more of a rush-or-die strategy, with a weaker economy and a different age progression system.

In any case, the variants that came later, practically those from 2025 (Lancaster, Knight Templar, Sengoku, Tughlaq), were much better, in terms of historicity, gameplay and originality. Furthermore, the game has been constantly “balancing” so that many of the four original variants don’t feel like their parent civilizations and instead feel more original:

  • The French gained more bonuses to differentiate themselves from Jeanne, who lost some shared bonuses; ZhuXi was nerfed on some of her passive bonuses; OftD now has different bonuses for some landmarks; and the HRE has a new unique unit that OftD doesn’t copy.

In fact, many Chinese users wouldn’t mind if the Chinese variant had been “Song Dynasty" or even "Ming Dynasty,” and some have even asked for ZhuXi’s name to be changed to “Song,” and they would accept it more readily.

It’s more a matter of historical accuracy than anything else, but as I said, the gameplay and mechanics also have to feel original, and not be a 90% copy of the parent civilization’s tech tree, or an improved version that makes its predecessor pale in comparison.

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As long as there isn’t another Covid-19 pandemic, another jobs crisis, or another global event (WW3?) that disrupts development, I don’t see why not.

And now that there’s better coding and operating systems than in 2019, now in 2026 they have every chance of making a good game with at least the same amount of good mechanics and historical depth as many of the AoE IV civilizations, and one that can launch with an editor, taunts, and mods from the start.

That said, technology is one thing, and ideas are another:

  • If your idea is bad, it doesn’t matter how you dress it up, nobody’s going to play it.
  • It happened with Concord, with Suicide Squad, Atari’s E.T., and it could happen with Age of Empires V.

Nothing is predetermined in the entertainment industry.

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Beasty also released a react video to the one that started this whole thing.

According to Beasty (30:30), is unlikely that there is a Age of Empires 5 coming soon. Ultimately, the only clue we have is that they’re looking for new developers, nothing more.Beasty also released a response video to the one that started this whole discussion.

Making another Age of Empires game, even with the minimum standards of Age of Empires 4, would cost enough for a publisher to have to announce that something big is in the works, and that doesn’t seem to be the case.

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Yes, I understand you.

But Age of Empires 4 isn’t a game from a small company with financial difficulties, nor is it a game that was in early access indefinitely.

AoE4 is a big game in the RTS category.

I don’t see any other RTS games having the same problems as AoE4, maybe some smaller ones that have funding and early access problems, but in general, I’ve never had problems with other RTS games released, because when a problem appeared in another RTS, they literally focused on fixing it as quickly as possible.

The biggest problem is the delay in fixing certain issues.

Example:

These two problems took several years to be resolved.

So, regardless of the release date, they made no effort to fix it in the first few months or the first year. It took several years.

It seems that only some developers have the ability and training to fix certain problems, but if they don’t have “authorization” from the management team to fix them, the error persists indefinitely, since the rest of the team can’t fix it.

Therefore, I hope that AoE5 will actually change its graphics engine and use an engine that is easy to use so that more team members can work and speed up the process.

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I said for “any title”. I haven’t played a single game without bugs. That’s not to excuse them - they should be fixed. But all games are released under time constraints. No title is shipped bug-free. No title ends up bug free. Name a game, I can find a bug.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t expect developers to fix games. We should. I’m just explaining the economics of releasing a complex piece of software.

Agree to disagree. I was responding to how and why games end up released in the state they’re in. This is a different thing, where different people are going to have different answers.

(for example, I’m a modder, and the mod tools have received close to zero attention. But other players might prioritise different fixes)

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Well, I have different ideas than yours! Your idea boils down to closing your eyes and never criticizing.

I don’t support and don’t agree with errors being unnecessarily extended. That doesn’t change the fact that the AoE4 engine is bad.

And yes, many games have bugs, but tell me one RTS that has done this?

Imagine if they released Dawn of War 4 in the same way:

  • A vehicle without wheels that surfs on the ground.
  • A large melee combat unit that doesn’t hit! It just sways its body gently.

This is not normal for me!

This is not normal for me!

And YES, I want it to be tidied up and FAST, because these ERRORS were already there and are still there for a few years!

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