I don’t know why people expect a revolution in this genre. Modern gaming is more to ‘revolution’ on indie market than AAA
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Would people be happy if AoEIV was a good game but not a great one, or a revolutionary one in this case? Those kinds of games don’t grow on trees.
“There was never a goal to pull players off of Age of Empires 2.“
Wow, so failure of the game was actually a design objective! I had been wondering why anyone would choose to play 4 rather than 2, now I know the answer, they’re supposed to play 2, 4 was never intended to be better than 2!
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Clearly the person who wrote the article is a noob that’s for sure but he made a good point… game went safe route… To the point that game can become boring after some weeks because you have a lack of unit roster and lack of unique units…
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I agree that we don’t need that revolution but come on, we are in 2021 and we sti have castles vs castles battles, no siege crew, lack of animations for buildings ( they use machine gun arrows) what’s bothers me the most is the lack of units for tier 2-3
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The game was never supposed to be revolutionary though, since the “council” formation you could tell that they would make a classical rts aiming at the currently public of the age of empires games . This chaos installed when people started to realize that the new game would have a gameplay of a 15 years old game and some people (including me) were expecting more. This choice brings the question: is this outdated gameplay going to be enough to bring people from other genres to rts? At the hype phase i am sure it will but after a while I personally don’t think so , unless the game becomes a relevant e-sport fast and people consolidates at the community. Does it mean is it gonna be a disaster then? I don’t think so either, i think overtime it will have an active playerbase at least as numerous as the currently age of empires games, I think the game will have positive reviews too on the stores based on the fact that the game buyers mostly will be, as i said, people that is established on the genre .If this happens it would mean a positive outcome for Relic and maybe will justify their choices. As i said here in this forum at multiple topics I don’t like some of their choices, but i understand them. Would I rather a 2020+ gameplay? Yep , Did i have fun playing the game? Yes and I will sign to gamepass to participate on the hype phase and maybe buy the game afterwards depending on how things go. I am trying to be the least bias possible on this analysis and I am not trying to refute anyone here , just giving my opinion about the future. One thing it is worth mentioning is that I am more excited to see the battlefield that this forum will become at the release day than actually playing the game.
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You, my friend, are always positive about the game.
For me personally, I’m very excited to play the game. I’ll be excited everytime a new Age game comes out.
But unless it’s something very different from the beta, I would be disappointed by its lack of creativity. I really want the game to succeed, but as a fan of the previous releases, I don’t see any reason why AoE4 will keep me hooked.
I have 500 hours each in AoE2 and AoE3. And I’m not a great player, but after a while, I feel like AoE4 doesn’t have enough to keep me playing. The UI in particular is very cumbersome to use and I’d rather just play AoE3.
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Basically what you are saying is bring back all that was good about AOE
without those innovations that totally flopped the respective games that introduced them.
-I think we all agree on this?
While I’m glad that everything you love about AOE has been copied and pasted into this game. Nothing of yours was removed.
For many of us though, things that we loved and enjoyed the past 20 years have been removed from this game. Things we thought was core only because in the last 20 years, it’s only been built upon, and improved. Getting better and better each game or remaster. Until AOE IV, for some God unknown reason decided it was a problem in the game and took it away.
No one critical of this forum has asked to introduce something new in the game. It’s all been successful things from the pat, that have added to their fun of the game or their childhood experience.
- The unique and aesthetic unit designs from AOE II and AoM
- The ragdoll physics from AOE III, and AoM.
- The immersive animations from AOE III, AoM and AoE II DE
- The blood and decay animation from AOE II
- Fhe manned siege from AOE 2, 3, AoM, AOE II DE and AOE III DE.
- The unit textures and not making units look like plastic dolls (All previous AOE games)
Nothing of this is new to the AOE franchise. For as much as they put into the game, they took out 50 things. While copying and pasting game mechanics.
And if a part of the game mechanics didn’t fit the way they wanted the game to be, such as hill damage, they took it out.
Things AoE players considered core to AOE has been removed.
I’m glad that your basic needs were met. We all cheer that you can enjoy everything you’ve always enjoyed in AoE. Wish it was the same for many of us.
When AOE II was released to children back in the day, which most people have memories of, playing when they were a child, it didn’t matter that pikemen have 2x multiplier damage against cavs, or microong or anything like that. For many of the people sitting in single player mode, it was the silly animations or the graphics of the game and the immersion that got them to play the game since it’s release. The history of the campaigns for everyone to love history. Competitive play was not even introduced to AoE till waaaay later. What do you think people have been playing for them? How awesome their micro is against AI bots?
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they never promised RTS revoloution, thye promised an AOE game and they delivered.
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If age of empires 4 fails to impress its fans I think you should not hope for a AOE 5 … AOE4 will determine if the franchise will live or die
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i did not say coh are bad games, but they are games from the era where basebuilding became unimportant and everything was about the battlefield actions. and look at the last big rts: iron harvest-three buildings for the base…. the game was good but something is missing
- The unique and aesthetic unit designs from AOE II and AoM
AoM had very basic 3D models with very little details and AoE2 had very low res sprites.
Or do you mean “unique and aesthetic” as in Throwing Axeman having axes so big that most people couldn’t even carry and certainly not throw.
I think you’re just being nostalgic.
- The immersive animations from AOE III, AoM and AoE II DE
AoE never had that good animations, especially not AoE2.
AoE2 has 0 transitions between different animations because it’s a 2D sprite game.
- Fhe manned siege from AOE 2, 3, AoM, AOE II DE and AOE III DE.
Manned siege is only in AoE3.
AoE2 and AoM have like 1/10 siege units that are manned. And I think inconsistency is worse. All or nothing.
- The unit textures and not making units look like plastic dolls (All previous AOE games)
How does AoM look more realistic? Generally I don’t understand why people just claim AoE3 (or 2) looks more realistic.
What is “Core” that has been removed?
Manned siege was only really a thing in AoE3 and AoE3 didn’t have hill damage bonus (I think all other AoE games did).
AoE2 and AoE3 are different games and you can basically trace any feature or any decision for AoE4 back to either of those two.
- No manned siege → AoE2
- No hill bonus → AoE3
- Arrows always hit → AoE3
- Most building and units → AoE2
- Resources → mostly AoE2 but farms are infinite and gold mines are large blobs like AoE3
- Unique units → More like AoE3 (often replace generic units and don’t need special building to be trained)
- Civilisation bonuses → More like AoE2 (In AoE3 they are often done with home city cards)
- No hero and no home city → AoE2
- Landmarks → AoE3
- Trade → AoE2 (with the small addition of neutral markets)
- Armour system → AoE2
I can’t think anything they took from AoE1, AoM or AoEO that wasn’t also in AoE2 or AoE3.
Also I can’t think of many things that weren’t in either of those.
- Mongols can move buildings (Planned for AoE2 though)
- Camels debuff Cavalry instead of bonus damage
- Some civilisation mechanics like Tax collection
- Influence system
- Secret Sights (kinda like trade posts in AoE3 though → give gold and trade monopoly victory)
- Relics used for conversion
Most of those aren’t huge things though. More like small gimmicks.
Disclaimer: I never played AoEO so maybe some of the mechanics already existed there but no one ever mentioned that.
This. After a 15 year brake you can’t come back with something revolutionary.
The chance of you failing is very very high. You have to be conservative if you want to revive a series or even genre.
Yes AoE4 might be a bit boring in some ways, I agree, but it’s the first new RTS of this kind since SC2 (and if you don’t count SC2 than since AoE3) that has a chance to success.
The problem is that some people apparently imagine 10-15 years of innovative new successful RTS in their mind.
Other genres developed a lot in this time period but that’s because new games were released every year. Like we got many new shooters and action RPGs every year but basically no RTS and especially no successful ones.
One developer can’t make 10+ years of AoE development alone.
We have to go back to basics first and then start from there.
Make the 8 base civilisations mostly conservative (besides the Mongols) and than be more creative in the Expansions.
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I’m sorry, what now?
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Totally agree. And even now, the core of many shooting games still the same. SC2 was SCBW with some new things and some new units. AoE 4 takes the good things already and implement some other. And civs bonus will give new strategies nor seen before. Also, AoE2 was a constant working game. AoE2 in his release wasn’t half as good as some years later with constant development. The plan is to do AoE4 as a plataform continiously developing the game, so the game will develop with the community.
Of course there are things that must improve and they will. But the revolution expectation or criticising to do a game with things already implemented in my opiion are wrong. SC2 did the same and worked fantastic. Don’t remember nobody criticising that. I only see this in AoE community. (I was SC player until I rediscovered AoE2 DE which I love andd is the only RTS I play continiously)
Another good thing from AOE 4 is that I am seeing a lot of comments about tpeople demanding AOM2 and they have hundreds of likes. In fact, this time is perfect for AOM DE and 2. People have got bored of the same stuff. A new RTS with mythic theme will change everything. I read many posts suggesting civs like Aztecs and indians and their gods. Imagine their godpowers and our army of myth units with epic music. Goosebumps, right? 
It would b incredibly beautiful game with the today’s next gen graphics. and since its mythology, they can show all their creativity and imagination.
I can already imagine millions getting excited and hyped just by a AOM2 trailer. I have no doubts that it will bring all people who forgot playing rts and a new age in this genre will begin. 
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AoT would still be a great game if they hadn’t decided to bury it themselves by removing macro from the game.
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The Bombard Cannon from AOE 2 is a manned siege.
I always love the shadow of projectiles in AOE 2.
That’s not the problem. The boring part is the lazy civ design. The civs are reskins with a different macro flavor and 2 unique units that a lot of time don’t even make the core of the army. All in the name of DLC.
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Doesn’t even have reloading animations.
I wouldn’t consider that real manned siege.
I think people who criticize the game have a build order to critisize the game and the spelling of words is also a part of that .
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