Ancient Friends

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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You already have Pope Leo I unit…

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Yes, you have to be cold-minded about adding more skins to the game…

Yes, maybe you are right, but it is what there is, the games have a more or less fixed chronology for a historical reason and for reasons of balance…

Yes, also in AoE 3 DE you have the historical battle of the expedition of Cristobal da gama to Ethiopia where you can defend an Ethiopian village (in fact I had in mind to adapt that battle to AoE 2 DE)…

Very late for AoE 2 DE…

At least the latter sounds more feasible…

Yes, in addition to the fact that Gatsi Rusere lived until the first quarter of the seventeenth century, he sounds like a leader of the Mutapense faction for that game, and he was also contemporaneous to Queen Amina of Zazzau (leader of the Hausa in AoE 3)…

Yes, let’s also remember that AoE 2 was already adapted for PS2 in its day…

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Yes, let the devs see what they want to do… if they want to port AoE 1 DE to AoE 2 DE, well and if not also…

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Ahh, the console port. My first time playing AoE 2. With a mouse it worked well enough

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I never played it on PS2, although I did try the Red Alert on PS3 and it handled relatively well…

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I am referring to proper and unique unit sprites both for additional units and hero units in the editor. Not just a unit icon. Don’t be facetious man.

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I really like the idea of AoE1 with the extra features of AoE2, but there’s a clear answer to this question: stat imbalance. The main thing is that AoE2 buildings have much higher hit points than AoE1 buildings. AoE1 production buildings aren’t much tougher than a section of palisade wall, so a Men-at-Arms rush from an AoE2 civ would pretty much flatten an AoE1 civ. It would be way too imbalanced to provide as an official feature.

I do like the idea of having AoE1 civs as a completely separate thing though. I think it would be fairly straightforward to do as a mod for someone with the knowhow (and energy, and AoE1 assets in a usable form).

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+1 to this we need historically accurate skins for all heros.

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Yes it is compared to aoe.And no we dont need anything ancient skins or other in a medieval game just a waste of time and money.

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Ok, first off, it’s the first game of the series: everything about the game is going to be worse than Aoe2 on principle due to the fact that 2 is a sequel, and sequels tend to have more features than their predecessors thanks to the fact that the devs can see what the 1st game is missing and add those things into the sequel.

Secondly, the whole point behind the DE games was that they were supposed to recreate the original experiences of the games, not change up the mechanics completely. I even stated in my previous post that i think they do need to update/uplift the engine with some QoL aspects from 2 to make the game more bearable, but you’re either blind or triggered about the topic and missed that apparently.

And thirdly, the reason that Aoe1DE doesn’t get updates anymore is thanks to the shitty release and the backlash it recieved. You can blame both Microsoft and the impatient customer base for that entire mess.

Because porting an entire game into another game essentially means that the og game won’t be played anymore, thereby cluttering another game with content it doesn’t need to include and fully killing off the game that content came from. That doesn’t really sound like you want to help Aoe1, it sounds like you’re a whiny little kid who wants to eat their cake before eating their vegetables.

Firstly, and here’s the neat part, I don’t hate the idea of getting certain cosmetics/scenario units from Aoe1 in Aoe2, as long as you can justify their inclusion in some way, shape, or form within the scope of the timeline for Aoe2. So, more late Roman stuff for a Vandal campaign? Sign me up! But I highly doubt you can justify Hoplites or clubmen the same way, so no thank you.

Secondly, quit putting words in my mouth. I never said I hate anybody. What I clearly stated was my opinion about the conversation, which I’m allowed to have. Plus, I don’t believe you ever stopped to ask if I was one of those AOE1 fans, did you? I am one, and I would love to see more content for 1 DE, but not like this. What you’re proposing is how you kill 1 DE off forever, and I would rather not see that. At least right now it still has a concurrent playerbase, even if it’s small. If we port everything over to 2, guess what? You’ll never even have a snowball’s chance in hell for content for it again. It’ll sit as a glorified mod in Aoe2 forever and you’ll have no way to revert if Microsoft ever returns to it. At least however unlikely that may be currently, there is still a chance.

And you are like a child throwing a temper tantrum because you were told no after you ask for a shiny new toy in Walmart. You can stop with the personal attacks, they ain’t doing you any favors Skadi.

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  1. Buildings in AoE1 effectively have 5x HP because all damage against buildings in reduced by 80% (yes even bonus damage against buildings)
  2. Having something totally unbalanced is not an issue if it’s an option. You can also play AoE2 with all technologies enabled or even with cheats. Does the fact that those options exist make the game any worse?

It’s like protesting a restaurant because they are adding one item to the menu that you don’t like.
Just don’t order it.

No it’s can’t.
AoE2 has some hard coded differences that can’t be changed with a mod. It’d probably be pretty easy to enable those things again for developers that have the source code.

Also they have the raw sprites and even 3D models used to make the sprites for AoE1DE.
So for them porting them is a lot easier and the result would be better.

You mean AoE1DE is better then old AoE1 and therefor it’s fine?
AoE2HD was better then the original no need to make an AoE2DE then?

AoE1DE is in fact so bad that they actually using RoR 1.0 in the upcoming tournament.

Or So you hate on everything the developers do that is not exactly what you want. So your argument is irrelevant.
Would you also shout at them when they stand at the coffee machine for too long because they don’t spend every minute at one of the things you want in the game?

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Aoe2 DE compared to aoe DE.

For the rest of your post im not even going to bother responding.

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I didn’t know that. A bit weird, but i guess they did it to avoid number bloat. You’d still have unbalanced stats elsewhere though.

I don’t have a problem with cheats being available, but they’re balanced in the sense that they’re all players can use them if they’re enabled. I don’t really understand why full tech tree is an option, to be honest.

I’m not protesting, just stating my opinion about how I’d prefer something to be implemented.

To be honest, I don’t understand why you’re so het up about this. Suppose you could play a game where one player used an AoE1 civ and the other used an AoE2 civ. Would you actually want to do it? And if so, why?

What are they?

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I know that very well because I was autistic enough to go though every unit in AoE1 and compared the stats (including upgrades) to AoE2.
AoE1DE should become an AoE2DE Expansion

Wouldn’t be the same thing be the case of AoE1 civilisations.
Everyone can use them. Doesn’t if they are OP or underpowered.
A lot of people are just playing casually with friends, against each other of vs. AI.
In my experience there are always some people that are better and some that are worse in any friend circle. So you could kinda see it as a handicap system in a way.

Yes absolutely.
Why? Because why not?
AoE2(DE) got boring for me. I’ve played it for every 20 years now but every new civilisation is just slightly different from the old ones, I still build the same knights, crossbows or what every other generic unit that civilisation is good at.
Some of the new civilisations are bit more interesting because of regional units but they are often just worse then the generic ones.

I’m still a causal player so I don’t care about the small balance differences between civilisations. I don’t care if that civilisation can get 5 crossbows out 10 seconds faster then any other with the perfect build order because I won’t learn that build order.
AoE1 civilisations are fundamentally different and would mix things up a lot, especially in team games.
In a 2v2 where both teams have one AoE1 and one AoE2 civilisation it doesn’t matter if AoE1 is stronger or weaker.

But my biggest argument is custom Scenarios.
the timelines of AoE1 and AoE2 overlap so there is enough reasons to want to use civilisations from both games in scenarios.
It’s obviously stupid to let the Spanish fight the Summersians but isn’t it already stupid to let them fight the Goths or Huns?

And this is the main reason I don’t want it as a mod.
I wand to be able to have then Goths fight the Romans instead of the Byzantines.

Just having the AoE1DE units added to AoE2DE would already enable that for the most part. (Would be a pain to completely rewrite the AI to train AoE1 units instead of AoE2 ones).
Buildings would be nice too of course. This might even make it easier because then those buildings could be setup to train and upgrade those units by default.

Someone made a list but I can’t find it anymore.
For example the Storage Pit in AoE1 allows villager to deposit Wood, Stone, Gold and Food from hunting but not food from berries or farms.

And of course artefact and ruins victory but that’s a minor concern.

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It seems we’re talking at cross purposes, then, since your proposal is actually to rebalance the stats of AoE1 units to be closer to those of AoE2. Personally, I’d rather keep it as close to AoE1 as possible (other than the universal AoE2 features like formations, herdables, garrisoning, space under Town Centres, random maps script support, etc.). I don’t see compatibility with AoE2 civs as a good reason to rebalance what is supposed to be a revamped version of AoE1.

Hahaha, I think of being able to return all food types to the same building as one of the QoL features AoE2 added! Sure, returning meat to a granary doesn’t make sense, but neither does returning it to a mill.

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If you got bored with the incredible amount of campaigns and scenarios, that’s on you, not US

Also, the fact that you play multiplayer one way, doesn’t mean we all want to play the same way

And in the timeline overlap, AoE2 already has more civs than AoE 1. You may as well port Huns and Goths to AoE 1. And again, if you don’t consider Byzantines Romans, that’s on you, not us. With triggers, change their name to Romans and enable legions and centurions. In the overlap, there weren’t hoplites or phalanxs

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This is one proposal I have.
It would be the best solution in my opinion but not the easiest one.
I don’t like AoE1 because of the precise balance between units. AoE1DE has already massively changed that.
For example the Legion lost 20 HP while the Long Swordsman gained 20 HP turning an 80 HP gap into a 40 HP one. Or the Cataphract went from 180HP 3/1 armour to 240 HP 5/3 armour.
So there were some massive changes in AoE1DE already.
AoE1 has a lot of design flaws that AoE2(DE) removed but AoE2 also changed the setting and therefor removed a lot of what made AoE1 good.

Not everyone will agree with me but I’d love to see an AoE1 that plays more like AoE2 but without the big new things like castles or gunpowder weapons.

That would be a massive balance change though, especially if it’s allowed for Town Centres.

You mean making 3/4 of the Town Centre walkable? Not sure if that’s needed because the AoE1 Town Centre is relatively small.

It’s kinda boring if you have 90% of the same units available in every single mission.
And it’s not on you. It’s on me and the developers.

I never implied that you want to play that way.
I said I want to play that way and nothing would change for you if I was allowed to play this way.

So you are against something that wouldn’t change anything for you? Because the developers dare to spend time working on things for other people?

My point is that the separation between any two times in history is artificial. Transitions are always fluent. There are not hard cuts.
If you think Legions and Centurions are enough, ok, I don’t.
There is no good reason to not at last give us all the AoE1DE units in AoE2DE.
I know that a full port of AoE1DE would be crazy and a lot of work, and I know it’s unrealistic to expect that to happen but just simply adding the units as Scenario Editor objects would be relatively little work for them and would give scenario creators a lot more to work with.
It’s less then 1 AoE3DE DLC worth of units and they are already made.
It would increase the file size of AoE2DE by a few MB, wow!

A lot of AoE1DE units look relatively neutral only a few one look really ancient like the Chariots, Phalanx or Trireme.
But then again, even a Phalanx wouldn’t look more out of place then a Champion in America, Africa or Asia.

It’s the same with AoE2DE for the most part. Some generic units like Skirmishers look relatively neutral but Man-at-Arms just look very European.

But also if a few AoE1 units overlap in time with AoE2 that means there is a cain down to Stone Age. Because the AoE1 units overlap with other AoE1 units down to Stone Age ones. There is no hard border that has to be set between Antiquity and Middle Ages. If you don’t like going down past 400 AD then just don’t.

The same goes for the buildings.
The AoE1DE Asian buildings would work perfectly in an Early Medieval China setting, better then the AoE2DE buildings even.

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The game usually breaks when the base game updates. It’s definitely not worth this, considering the awful number of bugs that would arise.

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Really? So you’re justifying generic unit sprites as a reason for anachronistic units to be included? Ok, then I want Photon Man as a recruitable unit because Aztec Champions are out of place.

Seriously, I don’t know how you’re making this jump in logic here. Yes, european models for units are out of place, but they are at least period appropriate. It’s not like that wasn’t present in Aoe1 either. Hoplites in China? Legionaries in Japan? Those aren’t accurate either. Champs, halbs, and knights all belong in the game that was built around the Medieval period, whereas Clubmen and Chariots from Aoe 1 clearly belong to the game focusing on the Ancient Era. Quit pushing your double standards on other people and attacking them disingenuously when they try to argue against them.

:man_facepalming: Yes, there is in fact a hard border between Antiquity and Medieval; the Fall of Western Rome (476 AD) is widely considered the end of the Antiquity era and the beginning of the Medieval era. Sure, this is from a purely Western outlook, and the actual game’s timeline allows it to go back to as far as 400AD, but there is a clear separation of the timeline that the game has thus far followed and I (and also others, it seems) would prefer to keep that separation the way it already is. If you want the Aoe2 engine’s QoL, get the devs to update Aoe1 to 2’s engine or hope AoE 5 is about the Ancient period too. Leave Aoe2 out of it.

And if you are asking for the entirety of Aoe1’s roster to be ported over, then that means you have to port all of the units with no exceptions, including the ones that are too ancient looking to be included. I don’t want units from 2000 BCE to be in a game that starts ~400 AD, period. They don’t belong, and the devs shouldn’t have to accommodate your unreasonable demands just because you’re unhappy with the game these units came from.

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The only thing I agree with Skadiesku is that there’s no hard border BUT we all have agreed that we want the game from Late Antiquity (late Western Roman Empire to Rise of Islam) to Rennaissance.

But if we ported AoE1 to AoE2 we may as well port the whole thing to AoE3, because not hard borders, right. Let’s make hoplites fight against Jaguar Knights or Rodeleros or Frigates against Trirremes

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About the only thing id support is having age 1 on the age 2 engine. But as its own game.

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As far as I know you can already do that in the Editor, you should be able to make the Photon Man trainable.

That is not a hard border. It is something that some people afterwards decided to make a border.
For most people in the world nothing changed between 475 and 477.

Yes AoE2 decided to use that as a start point and then already changed that in the first Expansion.

It’s not like it’s that many units.

Yes I have to agree that some units look very distinctive ancient like the Chariots. They even look out of place in AoE1 for every civilisation but Egypt because they are just Egyptian.

But all the Tool Age units are quit simplistic. They could easily be used as bandits or similar in an Medieval Scenario. The Axeman doesn’t even look like he is using a stone axe, no one in Stone Age build an axe like that.

The Bronze Age units often look more unique. The Broad Swordsman is already in AoE2DE though.
The archers look timeless, not like you can see bronze arrow tips or something.
Some Bronze Age units even clearly have iron parts like the Camel Rider that just has iron armour or the Hoplite with an iron spear and iron on his shield.

The Iron Age units make more sense to be added because there more or less Late Antiquity. The Phalanx uses a Roman looking tower shield and the Heavy Cavalry wouldn’t look out of lace between the AoE2 Catapharct and Sogdian Cataphract (Editor Unit).

There is one very very big difference between AoE3 and AoE1/2, it’s a completely different engine and even has an additional dimension (3D).
AoE1DE sprites are already there it’d be likely less then a day of work for one developer to add them to AoE2DE and just copy the stats from some existing AoE2DE units.

In AoE3 you already have Medieval units fighting against Gatling Guns!
If anything add AoMDE units to AoE3DE but AoMDE doesn’t exist.
AoM has a lot more units so that’s not really reasonable and on top of that there is also a massive time gap between the games if we pretend AoM was historical at all.

Just to put it into perspective the last AoE3DE DLC added more units to AoE3 then AoE1DE has over all (including none military units and ships).

I’m supporting that too.

I’m not demanding anything. I’m just thinking about possibilities.