AoE4 is less interesting than AoE2 because its units lack ‘coolness’ and ‘personality’

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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The main problem I see is, that they overfocussed on convincing as many players as possible. This often results in the exact opposite. Problem of many games nowadays.

They want to make the game playable for everyone, they won’t harm someone, they want to implement their own political messages, they overhype their games, they want to make a big E-Sports title, they want a clean modern UI (no creativity) etc…
This distracts them from the most important, making a finished and overall authentic atmospheric game. This should be priority number 1 by far.

Don’t exactly know, if this was the problem for Aoe4, but at least of many other modern games, which released under the name of big publishers (Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft…).

Sometimes I also wish a bit more honesty and less marketing “positivity talk” from developers. Some honest words could enlighten some things here.

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?
STRAELBOOORAAA???

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True I’ve forgot about them

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Actually they are the best example why unit design in this game sucks, they have nothing special about their looks or animations they look like normal archers, and for long shots you can see pretty clear how bad is the arrow physics in this game.

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I’m sorry but their cool voicelines don’t make them a cool unit.

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Already been mentioned in this thread that the sound design in the great. Doesn’t constitute a cool unit or make them interesting.

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Well, actually I’d say it DOES play a role. It is design, voice, animations, etc.
Just like in a real person.

I’d say the biggest problem that AoE4 has is the design and feel of its units + the lack of real important unique units that make factions in RTS games in general interesting.

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The khan is a cool unit :sunglasses:

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Visually they differ more.

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It’s like an AoE3 explorer in terms of its abilities.

Honestly it might seem like I speak about AoE3 a lot, but that game really makes everything here pale in comparison.

The only thing truly new cool thing that AoE4 may have introduced is mangudai, khans and tower elephants being able to shoot while they move. Me like.

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Mangudai suck in 1v1 but they do look/function cool yes!

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Uh no, longbows do not look like normal archers.

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The English longbow is an old member of the AoE family and it is a staple in the franchise at this point. I am not expecting much from him anyway. I’m always happy to have him around even if he’s the most vanilla guy around.

But there could be more nuances in the armies. The longbow looking different or having nice voicelines doesn’t excuse that.

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I actually found an interesting take from some Devs of the old Java game “Need for Madness” from way back.
nfm2

Particularly the line, “It does not try to emulate any rules of physics correctly. In fact it was programmed on the bases of ‘If it looks and feels cool then it’s cool’”.

I believe the same sort of thing was expressed by the Devs of the original Doom game, about realism and storytelling being useless in comparison to fun factor and was an important part of older games. Yes, yes, I do know they had to leave realism on the sidelines because everybody was gaming on potatoes until just five years ago. But many new games go in the direction of realism and cool graphics / mechanics and lose of charm of being simple to get into, at worst they become laborious.

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If a previous game in the series has certain features and a newer game in the same series lacks features that its predecessor had, then this argument becomes a little weaker.

People base their expectations off of previous games. If AoE4 was a direct sequel to AoE2 and none of AoE3 or AoM or AoEO ever existed, I’m sure fans would be in a very different position right now.

Not saying everybody would be super happy. The graphics by 2022 standards aren’t really cutting edge

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I’ve played AoE3 (AD & WC) for a couple of months with my group of friends way back in 2009, then I played AoE3:DE a bit during pandemic, but I had to leave it, since the guys prefer playing AoE2:DE; however, I have to Say it: AoE3:DE is a better game than AoE4, it is more balanced, there are more alternatives for strategies, civilizations feel more unique and even have better aestetic.

The only thing that really seems amazing about AoE4 (Compared to the rest of AoE games) is that units can walk over walls, allowing you to create actual fortress and providing actual usage to the siege tower, and that mangudais can shoot while running. The ambush mechanic is pretty neat, too.

From a competitive and balance point of view, it’s a shame that the gunpowder units can deal with almost every other unit in the game, AoE3 and AoE2 solved this in a more elegant way, keeping the rock-paper-scissors model pretty much balanced. Siege should be nerfed somehow (research time, construction, make it slower or more vulnerable)

Now, I understand that in real life gunpowder was a game changer in medieval warfare, but they started being mainstream on XVI century. Before then, they were unstable and prone to explode, their logistic was chaotic and their most common location was being used as defense on fortress or for long sieges, since the mounting and dismounting took a lot of time and manpower.

Taking that historical reference into account, it would make sense that the first gunpoders weapon in early imperial age would take ages to move and to aim, or even take damage when shooting; then you would need to invest a lot in the university to improve them, eventually unlocking the field guns that are more dynamic and reliable, but that would be late imperial.

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CnC feels like an odd comparison as that series is known for being hammy especially with the Red Alert series. The units and style is very exaggerated and over the top. AOE has leaned into silliness but a lot of that was due to technical limitations and mechanics rather than actual intention.

Command and Conquer can get away with B-movie fake Russian accents and Arnie impressions its part of the style. The same goes for Starcraft which also avoids taking itself too seriously.

Age of Empires has already tried to go in that direction with Age of Empires Online with very exaggerated and toony units. To its credit it did make units very readable and distinctive. Scout cavalry or skirmisher cav would be on very scrawny horses while heavy cavalry sat on huge chunky horses so you could very easily tell it was a big hitter. I think thats the kind of thing you are looking for? The problem is I dont think thats the visual style the main series should adopt.

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in aoe2 you lock yourself in with buildings, the fortresses are very strong, so its gameplay seems tedious to me, unlike age4, which I love. I do not share your opinion.

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What a weirdly unfounded point. only AoM had more diverse/culturally aware units that 4, but had less than half the number of civilizations. AoE 2 had the same models for knights/maa/archers etc. regardless of your civilization, and AoE 3, while having more diversity than 2, still shared models across most of the civilizations (musketeer, ranger, pikemen all being the same model etc.) at least for the civilizations that were there at launch.

I think this is one thing that is uniquely cool about AoE 4 – that units have models unique to their civilization, despite being the same unit.

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Yes I should mention that I’m talking about AoE3 as it stands today in my examples.

The AoE3 base game is pretty much how AoE4 is, except for unique models across civs. And while these models are unique, the emphasis on these models is so absent in AoE4 that I can’t seem to appreciate it as much. I blame on drab UI and the fact that all units have the exact same stats across civs.

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