Yes, I would prefer that there are few landmarks by civ, but that you can advance with any of them in any age similar to the Asian wonders of aoe 3…
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European civs are half meh the truth…those who are more or less saved are the Asian civs, especially the Chinese and the Mongols…
Yes, at least in aoe 3 you have the galleons and frigates firing sideways with their skills and besides that they are mobile barracks making the amphibious attack sea-land more viable…
Technically Ensemble didn’t create AoE: Online. Robot Entertainment did, which was founded by ensemble members. Though it wouldn’t have been 1:1 the same company and Gas Powered Games took over development as well.
That game look very nice, I instantly added to my wishlist.
Relic, take note how to do a great trailer…
I don’t think they removed any synckills from Dow2, DOW2 had amazing synckills, they just reduce their appearing with simple squad units and for DOW lll people complained a lot for synckills so you are wrong, you can verify that with a single DOWlll synckills in google, that game has 0 players, there are many reasons for that and one was synckills, do you think people that bought previous DOW will be ok with no synckills? Lol maybe only the 0.2% of eSports
Yes, and it’s use of the same engine as the two prior games is further similarity.
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Goes to show we all have faith in our favourites, at the end of the day. I mean, For example, Online wasn’t even made by Ensemble, but you like it. Featuring icons and a UI that is divisive to this day.
I wanted a bit more exploration than “Ensemble would never make the same mistakes”, I guess. But that’s on me. I respect your belief and appreciate the answer.
For me personally, it’s far more complicated than that. Ensemble existing and making RTS games, 17 years on, with how the industry has changed over that span of time? I could write forever on that. A developer only tends to mature so far before getting thrown to the mercy of economics. Very few franchises are robust enough to keep a studio that intact over time.
They literally removed every T1 non-Commander sync kill from Retribution. If you’re going to keep using Dawn of War II as something to throw at the devs, at least know what they did with it.
Your post is the first I’m hearing in 11 years that AoEO’s icons and ui are divisive.
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And what’s the problem with that ? The game has sync kills, I also noticed some videos of tier 1 units like banshees doing synckills(probably squad leader ) the point is DOW3 has 0 synf kills so again you are incorrect.
no point in argueing someone who defends dow3, if he personally likes it thats his thing, but there’s not much worth defending in it imo
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The in game UI is probably what I like least about AoEO (not including the monetizion and stuff that’s now long gone). Not sure how divisive that specific aspect of the game was overall.
I don’t mind the super cartoony style really, I know a lot of people hate it.
Fair. What exactly don’t you like? The building and unit icons are in the same vein as aoe1 through aoe3 imo.I suppose maybe the units are more cartoony to match the art style, but overall seem to be consistent with the series?
I haven’t even played Online and I’ve seen people criticise them for being cartoony and the like.
I love the look, it’s distinct (well, less so if you’re already familiar with Robot Entertainment’s work like Orcs Must Die). But you’re telling me you’ve never seen Age fans rubbed the wrong way because of the art style and direction (carried through into the UI)?
I was never arguing that DoW III didn’t have sync kills. I was pointing out that Relic was already removing them from DoW II years before DoW III was even released.
The art style in AoEO is criticized but that’s different than the ui, particularly in the way the ui of aoe4 is bland and an outlier in the series.
If someone said they prefer the icons of aoe3 to AoEO, then I bet they would be talking about the cartoony artstyle of AoEO. But if we say we prefer the icons of AoEO and the other age games to that of aoe4, we are most likely talking about the blandness of aoe4’s two-tone icons.
In criticizing aoe4 by objectively comparing it to all the others, it’s important not to create false dichotomies or something similar by watering down the criticism to a broad “well people always complain about every game so there’s really nothing to this aoe4 criticism other than unavoidable subjectivity.” My entire point is that aoe4 can be objectively demonstrated to be beyond the normal design of this franchise and we can explain how and where those details were missed.
I don’t think aoe4 will ever change most of them, but many of us are lifers and are here so the next game corrects them.
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Oh, I’m not trying to water anything down. I fundamentally disagree on certain particulars, but that wasn’t really my point. That’s been well-explored.
But back to UI for a second - no, you can’t divorce the UI from the art style. It follows through. Much like how you wouldn’t have Online’s UI in a different Age game. But I’d prefer a whole separate thread from that and it’s past midnight 
I originally raised Ensemble, and later AoE: Online to do a thought experiment. Not navel-gazing, just trying to find out what you / anyone thinks. I attach value to Relic, the company, even though its staff change (often dramatically) over time. You do the same for Ensemble. I’m not saying you shouldn’t - but I’m trying to tease apart the brand name from the people doing the making.
When you say you trust Ensemble to not make the mistakes you see in IV . . . you’re welcome to that faith, but it’s just faith at the end of the day. The same as mine. Do you know what made Ensemble work? How they got it “right” for the four games they were involved in? This is also why I raised II vs. III earlier.
You want to “correct” things the next time around? That implies there is some concrete feeling that makes an Age game an Age game. And perhaps there is. But as someone who played an awful lot of AoE II back in the day (which apparently counts for little, lol), I’m struggling to work out exactly what it is. If Age II and Age III are both Age games, what’s the common thread? Can you boil it down to some kind of mission statement?
For example, Civilisation is about “building an empire that stands the test of time”. They’ve got that one so well-defined they use it in marketing.
I don’t see that for Age. I just see attempts to exclude IV based on personal preference.
Feel free to call out mistakes. Bugs, missing features, any of the above. Feel free to ask for more and better things. But Age IV is an Age game, and to “correct” that all you’re essentially committing to is rolling the dice again. You have no guarantee such corrections will work out. We don’t even know what they are, other than “maybe give the game more time before it’s released”. And I’m sorry for the cop-out answer, but that’s not a Relic problem. No game released these days gets the time and budget it needs. It’s a huge problem, and outside of these forums it’s something I feel very strongly about. But you won’t be able to correct it.
AoE4 makes a countless number of mistaken deviations from the age formula. Boiling this discussion down to a’ mission statement would overcook the meal. The ui in aoe4 is fundamentally different than that of all age games. I’d be happy to explain more in depth, but I know others have tried with me and relic wasn’t interested then. No idea why they’d be now.
We have provided them visual slides demonstrating the entire franchise’s approach and analysis how to fix things. They don’t seem to care. So that leaves us with standing on the sidelines and firmly stating this game’s icons just aren’t good enough. They are not.
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Good point… That’s true… AoE 4 is an RTS medley of both ES classics and modern Relic…
I support what you say…imagine that I have more hype for the Indians of AoE Online than for an expansion of AoE 4 (although I still hope they surprise me and improve the game with those civs)…
True they wanted to appeal to many audiences at the same time, to aoe 2, to aoe 3 and to sc2 and they did not get any…since the players of aoe 2 feel it as a remake of aoe 3 but in the Middle Ages, the players of aoe 3 feel it as a remake of aoe 2 and the players of sc2 who say that the game lacks more desire…