AoE4 Gameplay. Is it possible to bring it up to date and keep people happy?

Please compare side-by-side the first image in your post with a similar environmental scene, but from another game of your choosing. I would dare say, though the two are not within the same genre; how their intent for detail and realism through graphics is evolving similarly with the Forza franchise.

Each Age of Empires PC game contains a graphics and artwork theme across all their attributes and within their artistic categories such as realism. During AOE I the theme was realism as it was applied to the appearance of its buildings, soldiers, and also the environment including animals. The eagles were less realistic during AOE III. AOE I being their first installment, was essentially for those people of the pre-PC game movement and who played with actual toy soldiers bought in a toy store; and they created realistic environments for them and re-enacted various battle scenarios upon their toy set and within a historical context of their choosing; however, their buildings were not necessarily created to scale for various reasoning. Those who enjoyed both toy soldier re-enactment were many and also amicable to PC gaming, so they transitioned to the genre easily. AOE I would later have earned 8 million according to resources, and likely a main reason was because of their pursuits for historical accuracy which was appreciated by certain strategy game players. Maybe utilize this forum to ask them for ultra-realism and to scale dramatization should there be a 5th version. Which competing games do you have in mind and which you believe to be superior?

It’s not that it’s ugly but it needs to be a bit more gritty.

ok lets compare AoE4 vs other modern day RTS like indie Ancestors Legacy
Realistic, dirty and bloody graphics by Destructive Creations who are a small studio are simply light years ahead compared to video and picture material we have so far from AoE4. And Ancestors Legacy is their first RTS after 2 small shooter project.

https://destructivecreations.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Gameplay-Screenshot-07.png

I don’t think AoE5 is going to exist, at least anytime soon, if AoE4 flops.
And why should AoE4 succeed ?

I am afraid they are going to repeat same mistakes like by AoE Online.

I think problem isn’t if game is alike or different,
but rather if the ideas and design are fleshed out.

And a “fleshed out” RTS is a thing we didn’t see for years.

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Why they can’t make graphics similar to ancestors?yes,ancestor’s gameplay is boring.but graphics better than aoe4.aoeo was a disaster.just kids played it.but aoe isn’t a child game.it is a rts.s meaning strategy,not mobile child game.they have already clash royale etc.but we don’t have a RTS game in this years


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Age of Empires IV will likely succeed because of its ease of use, clarity of detail; combat style, villager resource gathering, campaigning, and all during real time playing with strategy involvement which allows players to test their military strategies and empire building with expansion and conquering techniques.

Ancestors and Ancestors Legacy seemed more comparable to Lord of the Rings.

Ancestors Legacy: I do agree the game you posted for, Ancestors Legacy, is very detailed for an environment art form; however, it was too dimly lit to enjoy their fine detailing. The constant energy bars below military units seems to me as being too much of an arcade style with their addition of a constant icon below each unit was cluttering the playing field. I preferred the icon selection 1C created during Men of War. In fact I would only compare Men of War with Age of Empires III graphics.

After viewing those two games you provided I can understand why they are your preference up to now. They won’t compete directly against Age of Empires because they lack historical context.

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One more mention though we were discussing graphics; Ancestors Legacy is technically a fantasy game. I thought you were going to post a video of another competing game within the historical context of real-time strategy games being accurate to actual historical events and civilizations. Every Age of Empires campaign has a relevance and accuracy to historical events which occurred in history. Every single player empire building scenario is also historically relevant. When the story-lines are fictional they take place within an actual historical timeline. Because of the historical relevance means to me, the Age of Empires franchise is the most accurate and finely detailed when viewing their units and environment at once; which means they are equally realistic than the historical story-lines of other competitors. Civilization: realistic environment, but cartoon styled military units and buildings; Total War: similarly realistic units when compared directly to their environment, but no resource gathering by villagers, no visible villagers, larger than life military units reminded me of playing Chess; and their turn based game-play slows the games progression dramatically. The Total War franchise is a historical game experience I believe to be Age of Empires largest competitor because both occur within a historically relevant context during game-playing.

Because Ancestors Legacy is technically within a Fantasy category means when viewing their graphics for units and environment often included one aspect which is most realistic and detailed than the rest and to a greater degree. So if I were to design a PC game which belonged somewhere within the Fantasy genre and it was a top-down perspective of many units; you would notice how it might contain ultra-real units, but something else in the environment which is not as realistic and thus fantasy. The budget for Age of Empires is lesser than games with both ultra-realistic environments and units.

If two studios were given 1 million each for their game budget; the realistic graphics and design for the entirety of the game would depend upon whichever studio was able to source the better game engine and likely hired the best artists.

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Guys, we have already several threads for the graphics.
I would like to focus here on the gameplay.

I think problem is even bigger.
Where did we have last time a good and successful base build RTS?

If we won’t count Starcraft 2, AOE2 and Starcraft up-to-date graphics Editions.
that probably Tiberium Wars from year 2007 or even older game.
Relic did mainly make WW2/ Sci-fi squad mangers, with no relevant base build like 4, max 10 buildings.

So the task for Relic is basically to make a game, in time and gameplay they have no experience.
Where for over 12 years every team failed.
All other teams also had money, experience, IPs, new and old ides.

So how are they supposed to pull that off?

My personal conclusion is, something very fundamental must be broken by that “modern day design”
So the question is, can they understand what it is?

I am just realistic here, if they bring us something like 0AD , Empires Apart, AoE Online, War Selection or Warparty even in best graphics, it’s still going to fail.

The approach for the gameplay requires something, to make the game playable for 2020.

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“So the task for Relic is basically to make a game, in time and game play they have no experience”.

However, most real time strategy game players who choose historically relevant story lines such as, Age of Empires, for their PC prefer games offered by studios such as Relic because of their titled franchise called Company of Heroes, and for its ultra-realism within the genre; Ultra-realism within the genre should be an award title. Relic will be a substantial studio among the Age of Empires series specifically because of their experience with Company of Heroes. Bear in mind Relic is not the sole alone studio involved; ultimately Microsoft is a co-developer. Without having a bit of insider knowledge regarding their reasoning for choosing Relic; mainly because I’m not personally involved, but I would gander how Relic was chosen because of some kind of previous involvement with Microsoft and Company of Heroes; perhaps solely because of their work within the WWII genre PC gaming franchise.

In conclusion, Relic seems to possess on their resume the 50% of the PC game play creating experience required by Microsoft because of their war-faring game play in Company of Heroes; whereas, Microsoft would provide the other 50% necessary to complete their AOE IV project including budgeting and directing.

Just because lots of money are put in the project, doesn’t mean something decent is a result,
nobody there can say how the game does play and if people will like it.

OK lets speak about the 2 Elephants in the room.

-1- Second World war is something completely different compared to Middle Ages,
for Relic every aspect of the game has to be created from the scratch and for an RTS even slightest change can have a massive impact. Especially if I think how Microsoft supervised the creation by Age of Empires online, they do bring together 0% experience.

-2- Em, for AoE4 the most logical Studio would have been Creative Assembly.
With Halo Wars 2 and Medieval 2: Total War, they look 100% qualified for the task.

My mayor concern is simply Microsoft.

Let’s take a short look at Supreme Commander from year 2007, from Gas Powered Games,
what is assumed to be one of the best base build RTS games of all time. Look at this simply even by today’s standards astounding graphics and a most complex base build gameplay game ever.

How did Microsoft manage by having Gas Powered Games Team as Developer to create 2011 Age of Empires Online?



Age of Empires Online is the definition of RTS extinction. It didn’t simply look bad, it was very boring to play. A project where everybody involved didn’t believe about its success, but still somehow money was wasted for it. The only logical explanation I did ever found, is that game creators try to convince kids to play their games with modern day design such as colorful graphics and simple game play.
So the result ends up to be for an Adult gamer, people who do buy RTS games, to be simply boring.

I have simply Impression from AoE4, they still try to create this “game for All ages”
RTS do have there a big problem, as kids simply don’t have yet the maturity to play one.
You require as player a certain amount of History knowledge, Calculation and Skill to play RTS.

From AoE4 presentation I did instantly have AoE Online flashbacks. And from the information so far, it doesn’t sound to me, like they did understand why DoW3 and AoE Online flopped.

Huge, you seem to assume AoE Online defines what the AoE franchise is, which is like comparing copper to gold.

As far as I remember, AoE Online was a fan project that became so much more. It was shut down for having used the Age of Empire affiliation unauthorized.
Then it was approven and available anew, and additional project teams from differently-experienced-studios added elements of higher standards.
Various reasons brought holes into the project as it wasnt supervised as a genuine AoE game from the beginning.
There were many reasons behind why AoE Online was terminated. Policies, economical, game-iseas

So please dont assume AoE Online was developed like the AoE 1-3 franchise.

This is my memory of it.
I wasnt part of it, so others may/will have different perspectives on it.
———
This thread’s title is
“Age of Empires 4, is it possible to keep the game up to date and people happy”

I guess a late-added-charm of AoE Online was how it contained sooo many game-features a new player were bound to uncover something new whererver they clicked/searched.

~ Maybe the game became the exploration itself, the player sought to make in a peculiar setting ~

RTS do have there a big problem, as kids simply don’t have yet the maturity to play one.

this comment by you and other on the forums always cracks me up as people continually say they started playing AOE as a kid 20 years ago. Its such a weird ageist view that’s just
not true.

Em, for AoE4 the most logical Studio would have been Creative Assembly.

you mean like the major rival for historical RTSs? why would CA do it? like relic made rts but modern/fantasy ones so them going to historical for age of empires doesn’t really clash with them. However CA has SEVERAL RTS games in this era.

Supreme Commander seemed too much dark lighting and icons over each unit cluttered the map.

Did you send us a riddle? You’re comparing two different graphics themes. Supreme Commander is nearer to realism than the version of Age of Empires you’ve chosen.

+1
It is indeed a riddle to me.
I just don’t have a logical explanation why in last 10 years we get so many bad RTS.

My point is such “maybe” rather kids focused design like by AoE Online, rather leads to lose Adult people.

The problem I do see, by bring up RTS games to today’s definition and standards, people don’t like the result. This means today’s set standards and definition of an RTS must be than very, very wrong. Do people really want a modern RTS, if we rather see them play old games?

AoE4 is possible the last attempt to create AAA RTS. I honestly think the project did already flop. Because with Mobile bases, unit abilities and different factions sounds like they try once again, to make rather the “today’s definition”, that almost nobody does like.

Sure by a small scale game if you have handful of buildings and like 10 units to lead, you might figure out how to integrate those, but for large scale base build RTS, those mechanics just don’t fit.

-1-Mobile Mongol bases means the gameplay has to be adjusted to make them valuable vs normal base build. Problem is this entire idea makes timing very complicated. As main point of base build RTS is to build, especially all those fortifications AoE is famous for, nerf it would be very counterproductive.

-2- Another bad Idea are abilities, by larger scaled classic RTS, you simply run into problem to not have time for it, as an army of 40- 200 units and several dozens buildings won’t leave time for it.

-3- different faction also sounds to me, like a lot trouble to balance.

We basically see each game to have troubles with those ideas, so why try it again ?

-Maybe same base build with good pace, is the core feature we need to rediscover.
A pace where you can frequently build what you want and need

-no distracting features, where you can focus on base build and lead your large armies.
With necessary elements for it like Walls and Area Damage Units

-And maybe have once again, access to a lot of factions, factions that have access to necessary technologies. I really don’t want to see something like AoE3 Aztec again that can’t play defensive or siege the enemies, simply because they don’t have walls and siege units.

I surmise how the folks at World’s Edge studios are more involved with supervision then most would assume because they’re already internal to the developments within the gaming department at the Microsoft Corporation.

Thats internal studio from 2019 Xbox Game Studios, of 15 people who do not directly develop any games, but oversees efforts from external studios, such as Relic Entertainment, Forgotten Empires and Tantalus Media.

Xbox Game Studios - Wikipedia

And as far I am aware, they did not have to oversee many RTS projects.
Just bring graphics up-to-date for AoE2, is a different task than make a new modern RTS for 2020.

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