I guess it’s no secret that a good chunk of players within the AoE series just loves to play casually vs the AI, whether with friends or in Single Player and imo, AoE 4’s AI lacks in this department.
In past AoE games, the AI had a lot of personality attached to it. This was achieved through various ways, e.g. naming the AI after historic leaders of the faction it was playing. It also had multiple possible names available as you can see in the example screenshot from AoE 1 below where all AI opponents were playing as Egyptians:
AoE 2 then allowed the AI to resign, so you didn’t had to hunt it down vill by vill. It also added a selection of “exuses” on why it resigned:
AoM itself didn’t change much from AoE 1 and 2 with the exception that instead of leaders, the AI was named after cities related to the civ it was playing (e.g. Norse could play as “Oslo”.)
AoE 3 took the AI to another level when all civs got a person that represented it: Napoleon (French), Elizabeth I. (British), Cuauhtemoc (Aztecs) etc. The AI now also actively trashtalks you and reacts to certain stuff that happens in the game, e.g. when it destroys one of your Trade Posts or when you collect a lot of treasures early in the game. Imo that’s the best AI in the series when it comes to interaction.
Now, the problem with AoE 4’s AI is that it’s missing the stuff from the other AIs as it’s just named like “AI - Easy” and on top doesn’t know when to resign, so if you’re playing with Standard Victory, you have to fulfill one of the three win conditions and not hope that the AI will resign earlier when you’re clearly playing better than it.
9 Likes
Thinking bout aoe3’s ai…
Spain alone has over 60 voice lines. Like 30 minutes of pure 1 leader voices.
I agree that the AI should get a real personality, it’s quite a huge downgrade
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Yes give them names or something even basic stuff just name the faction and its flag
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Yeah AoE 3 has awesome voice lines for each personalities. I wish Age 4 gets this features too.
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I look at the ai files and found a “personality” folder that holds a set 3 personalities that the ais pick at random. Offensive, defensive, and balanced. The only thing it adds is a slight influence to what buildings they build 
. Even if that was true, the amount of buildings that could be affected by this is very limited, I can only really find that it can affect what landmarks they chose when they get to the point where they want to build one. Hope they can expand on this more.
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AOE4 really needs to focus its AI, biome, variety of gaia animals on the map and graphics.
All these things in every map are the same (except biome). Same animals, no matter the biome…
AI’s also need settings, where they cannot build certain buildings, units etc.
This will allow the player more freely, the way they want it be played.
But, as always, devs only care the 1% of the player base. They dont care the +90%
This one bugs me as well. AoE 4 has sheep, boar, deer, wolves + cattle for Malians. AoE 2 on the other hand has turkey, ibex, goose, cow, pig, elephant, rhino, lion, water buffalo etc. Some of these animals overlap with AoE 3 as well.
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AoE3 has a ton of different gaia probably over a 100 at this point or close to it. Some are purely for eye candy such as the swans and turtles you see here.
I loved what the season 5 update did with the terrain but the maps lack the little details and immersive qualities that help make them feel alive.
Despite the improvements since release I haven’t touched AoEIV in two years because none of my issues have been addressed. I know I will still get that hollow feeling due to a lack of immersion.
There is no reason why AIEIV can’t go the AoE2 route with each civ having a pool of historical leaders. This is a game marketed as being historically friendly after all? Speaking of that, where is the compendium?
3 Likes
. AI personalities has always been part of AoE series, I highly support this suggestion 