AoE 3 definitely has blood but it’s barely noticable
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I’ll look at it then, how weird, it may be that I have it disabled and I haven’t noticed… because in my case the units fall to the ground, but then they vanish without leaving any trace of blood…
AOE3 units really disappear when died. AOM units will “sink into the ground” and leave a skeleton which does not last long. You even have bizzare skeletons for myth creatures.
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You are right, it happens that in AoM I usually create many mythical units and in the middle of the battle I do not notice the corpses…in AoEO for example the troops die and leave a tombstone with flowers and all xd…
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The graphics of the game is bad and the icons are the most boring design they could think of.
There is really no visual pleasing playing the game. By all the flaws Age3 had, at least it was very cool looking.
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AoEO uses icons to additionally immerse the civ in its unique culture.
One example is the Barracks. Of the 8 civs in AoEO, 7 have a Barracks. They each get the same icon, which is simple and effective:
The Romans, however, have a unique building called a Castellum instead of the Barracks (the Roman military buildings are based not on type of unit (infantry, ranged, cav) but instead on the historical type of unit (Roman soldiers train in the Castellum, hired auxilary units from the greater Roman empire train in the Auxilia, and Roman Officer units (Centurion, Decurion, etc.) train in the Praetorium). Anyway, the icons help immerse the player in the Romans. Here is the Castellum:
Another good example is the Temple/building that trains Priest units. Every civ trains priests from one or more buildings, but every civ’s buildings are different. Here is the icon for the Greek Temple, which is pretty much a standard icon:
Now, here are some others for other civs (Egyptians, Celts, Babylonians, Romans, Indians) presented in jumbled order. I bet you can do a pretty good job figuring out which buildings belong in which civs just from the icons alone:
Well designed civs are so much more than collections of units and buildings and techs. They should ooze personality. They should handle differently. You should feel like you are transported into different worlds.
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This shocked and then saddened me:
Not only in this subforum. Also in those for AOE2 and 3. People forever talking about gameplay, balancing, esports, complexity, identifying this, memorizing that…
Rarely does one consider this series as a historical game where you can experience different and distinct cultures
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Neither have historical accuracy , neither show the civilization cultures. Maybe you play some other game
At least they have more cultural flavor than the extremely pvp-optimized simplified generalized designs.
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AoE4 does a tremendous job with vocals, which is super important to represent the different cultures and immerse the players.
I wrote the vocals and voice some units for the Romans (classical Latin) and Indians (Sanskrit). It’s super fun and rewarding.
I’m not sure why the AoE4 devs went so deep with language but stopped so short in other areas. But they deserve heaps of praise for the language changing as the civs each age up. Brilliant move.
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Okay my mistake, language is actually pretty cool, props to that !
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Well I guess it is the same old story of aesthetics colliding with esports/pvp/“wider audience”, etc.
I wrote a long analysis on how AOE3 has traces of a similar collision: on one hand you have native settlements and a lot of region-specific fauna and purely aesthetic objects, on the other hand you have the most symmetric and compact maps (and very few options beyond that).
They all end up being a compromise of the two perspectives I guess.
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I’m unwilling to concede that esports requires bland, two-toned, uninspired icons.
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I don’t know what the developers really think. Maybe they do this to achieve some desired functions. Maybe they consider it as fitting to the overall UI design. Maybe they have to cut budget on this part.
but most arguments here against more interesting icons are “it’s hard to memorize and recognize for a pvp game”.
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I believe the icons were a specific choice driven to unify the ingame and out-of-game UI. I’m not saying it’s perfect, or that there couldn’t be another way to do it.
But these things have to be committed to, and then implemented. You can’t just generate icon sets and related UI components infinitely. Not in a for-profit product with deadlines. It’s the biggest limitation on gamesdev, and why a lot of player complaints would be solved if we could just mod the game in this regard. Because then everybody would be able to get whatever icon sets they wanted to play with (assuming the mod was shared, enforced, everyone had it, etc - or even if it wasn’t something that required everyone to have it, imo, modded icons should be a personal choice and not enforced by the host).
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A concern voiced exclusively by people who have never played the AoE games after AoE2. Their opinion is loud, it is many, and it is nuts.
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Not really…AOE2 also has very interesting icons.
I remember writing long posts arguing why AOE2 icons are not so difficult to memorize. Because someone was like “how can I memorize the function or tier of a list of icons about forgery when it is not the same icon with dots?”
In fact I never have problems memorizing anything in any RTS. Maybe because I don’t jump into pvp immediately.
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There’s really no way around this. The AoE2 building destructions look so good because it’s all prerenderd 2d sprites. There’s only one viewing angle of them.
The AoE4 ones unfortunately could never look as good since they’re actual 3d pieces. It’s the same in AoE3, except there they cranked the physics up to 11.
Agreed. I personally like the icons just fine. They communicate the relevant information clearly (more so than AoE2 in some cases) which is what I care about when it comes to icons.
UI mods though would let people make the icons as colorful and varied as they wanted. I hope this is something in the works, although I haven’t heard anything to indicate it is and the one time I asked I didn’t get an answer.
So for those that keep saying they prefer the current icons over the ones in for example, AOE2, or other games, can I ask of you to share your favourite icons in AOE4?
I’d like to see what you find to endearing about them. I can point towards many icons in other games, whether it is because they look funny, expressive, cool or just interesting and unique, I tend to float towards liking and disliking icons based on what they convey as well as how it is expressed.
In AOE4, I can’t think of one from the top of my head that I like. I really thought about it. So I went and looked into individual civilizations, and I guess like the Malian’s Poisoned Arrows? Thought I’d like the new Palace Guard, but it feels too busy and shrunk. Overall, I don’t think there is a singular one icon that I actually like like.
So, yea, please share icons that you feel really happy about.
In case one of you responds with “you don’t need to have a favourite icon for them to be good”, then I think that kind of reveals the split in logic between people who like and dislike the current style of iconography. It reveals people who care about these things, and those that don’t. Neither group is more important mind you, and that is why I keep suggesting a style that satisfies both camps by utilizing the vivid simplicity that you guys are so fond of, as well as the colourful expressiveness that the other camp loves.
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My favorite is that the madrasa has the same icon as the university because nothing matters anymore and all of us who fell in love with the franchise for its attention to detail are horrible old curmudgeons.
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