Age of empires IV a very lucky game!?

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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ill be soon, the game was released completely incomplete, but incredibly it’s still a very good game…
how thats possible? in your opinion, what are the reasons we are still happy in some way to still play this game?

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The game released in a very great state, balance problems are relatively minor, and only a few major bugs that don’t get in the way of the game too terribly often

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You can take a look at this thread:

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The gameplay is fluid and the junction of old and new mechanicks are very well done.

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Aoe 4 retains the core framework of aoe 2.

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People expect that the updates will eventually fix and balance the game. I mean there is hope for that. If there had not been the hope the game would slowly die.

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Smooth gameplay, smooth servers, and of course awesome campaings. Maybe there are things that are still not in the game like the scenario editor, but there are plenty of things to explore until then.

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This game is fairly good RTS game which is (former and current) AOE series and SC1,2 fans waiting for. It is easy to gain attractions and fans, but game still need to be improved to sustain.

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It runs surprisingly good. I haven’t really had issues with getting dropped, but the beta ran pretty good too. When they released aoe 3 de the servers were terrible. People always getting dropped or disconnected and it took forever to get into a lobby

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There’s nothing “lucky” about it.
Some reasons that come to mind (no particular order):

  • It just runs fine everywhere. Up-time and allowing the game to be played on as many machines as possible seems to have been of highest priority for the devs (and something they are proud of, going by their recent stream). It’s not well optimized for what it is or wins any beauty contest, but it will naturally cause more people to buy and play it.

  • The genre is free of competition… I can’t play a different, new, Age-like RTS game, because there simply is none.

  • On the surface level and for people who don’t know other games of the franchise or genre, there are barely any issues. Even the absolute multiplayer showstoppers (like relic duping and infinite resource refunding) can be seen as just “bad sportsmanship” or “cheating” by the opponent, if you just believe hard enough ^^

  • It builds up on a lot of mechanics that were established by the predecessors over 20+ years. They are timeless, work and pull people in.

  • The name sells. People were waiting for a long time for this. Add to that the power of nostalgia, a ton of good faith in the brand and a dash of buyers remorse.

  • Existing fanbases and e-sport scenes they were able to build up on. A lot of free advertisement and pre-built community structures to dip into. A lot easier than to prime and grow those by yourself.

  • It can be accessed via a subscription model. Not sure about the exact numbers (~20 million xbox-gamepass subscribers earlier this year?), but being part of a subscription certainly helps with exposure and player numbers.

  • A lot of production value when it comes to sound, music and the television-documentation-like presentation.

  • Having SP and MP (including bot support). Games with those historically fair better than games without one of those elements. Gives people more things to switch between when they get tired of one aspect. And some won’t ever touch the campaigns, while others never queue for a multiplayer match, but all of them bought and played the game.

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I just really want some new life in the RTS-genre and I hope/looks like AOE4 can do that. I’m positively surprised by the gameplay and love how they worked out unique civs with their own playstyles.

I personally do not agree that it is released in a great state tho. The amount of bugs and wrong tooltips/wrong maths/wrong information is disappointing to me.