OP did you hear this?
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It’s hard for me to read the original post without concluding that AntiComet genuinely does not understand how manned siege works in the Age of Empires franchise.
I am surprised to see nobody has posted images yet to help visualize. I really enjoy how siege is handled in later Age games. I don’t mind the larger siege weapons having no units, but I find it best when smaller siege has operators. Something like this in AoEO is nice. The Ram, Onager, and Palintonon run themselves, but the Scorpio has two buddies.
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That’s a misunderstanding. I didn’t say all animations should have a functional purpose, I said that some do.
Animations that have functional purposes are far more important than ones that don’t so it’s not valid to compare them when trying to say whether time that was spent implementing them should have been spent implementing some other animation.
When you have limited time to implement things you have to prioritize them and animations that directly assist/impact gameplay are more important than ones that may or may not improve immersion or the overall gameplay experience.
I didn’t accidentally fail to see it, it has no value so I didn’t respond to it.
They’re side units because functionally that’s what they are. They’re full humanoid models that have to be animated; they are not comparable to putting a quiver on an archer model.
I don’t know that AoE2’s was “done perfectly”, but it’s also not an even comparison when you have everything pre-created and you’re playing what is essentially a movie vs calculating and rendering the animation in real time.
Regardless, this argument has two major problems:
- Just because something was done in another game doesn’t mean it’s the right choice in any other game.
- It only applies to one type of siege unit so it doesn’t work for the group as a whole.
Fine that would be a fair argument.
Did AOE4 really have that limited time and resource though? Company of Heroes back in 2006 have quite good animations of the crew turning the gun instead of sliding on the ground (as well as reloading of course). Is AOE4 budget so low that even implementing reloading with men is impossible?
No they do not die independently or act like “real” crews that could discard and pick up siege engines like in Company of Heroes, so they are aesthetic assets just like everything I’ve mentioned.
And if men and horses can turn instantly (sliding on the ground when doing so) I see no problem if the crews act like an “accessory” to the siege engine and slide on the ground when turning. It would be great if they don’t, but I find it no more jankier than all the things I’ve mentioned.
And it doesn’t make it the wrong choice either, and it was OP who started with saying it would be a wrong choice, so you should say this to him.
First of all, I don’t think it would create a huge mess if only cannons get crews and trebuchets do not, just like in AOE2. That’s the bottom line. Even the cannons being manless in AOE4 falls below that line. Then we can talk about whether trebuchets need crews.
Secondly, if cannon crews can have no animation (AOE2) or simplified animation (AOE3), I see no problem with trebuchets as well. In Rise of Nations the crews just stand next to the trebuchet doing little, which is exactly the same as the quivers and shields that are never used (again, it’s an aesthetic asset).
Finally, when you said “it doesn’t work for other groups” are you also trying to defend something that is objective and not right or wrong (according to your own words)?
This is all I have to say
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I feel a typical approach (since AOE2) is that
(1) Typically small and narrow structures tend to have crew and large structures as tall as buildings (like trebuchets) do not.
(2) Cannons specifically are not a full square shape. They have a long barrel and big wheels and handles and give a strong impression that “it needs to be pushed by someone”.
Empire Earth I had cannons running on themselves but look quite…imbalanced? I can’t think of a better word to describe this.
That being said I can probably accept some excuse for not having crews on trebuchets (which imo is still bad in 2020s) but cannons should have crews.
And the bottom line is: okay I know implementing crews is more difficult than siege engines running on themselves. But same can be said with 3D graphics, region-specific unit skins, all animations, and all aesthetic effects. It’s 2020s and you guys are paid as professionals to work on this. It’s your job to solve it.
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I wanted to quote every specific statement but it’s easier to stick to the franchise as a whole. That example is great, in AoE 4 we can apply the same logic, have rams without a crew but the other siege with crew, there are several ways to resolve that. Actually I am not sure if this person (from the post) has played all AoE games, I doubt it to be honest. AoE 3 is a perfect example of great execution of crew in a game. And it was made in 2005. All the arguments on this post are assumptions only, because there’s not any game that can be related to those kinds of problems. And you can actually see that all RTS after 2005 included crew on siege, it reflects a lot of love in the working tbh. Also improve visuals and inmersion. Would always rather have them (even with an option to dont) than looking at them moving themselves without anything around, plus that makes them look cheap and inoffensive.
Anybody who says manning siege is not possible in AOEIV has not played any AOE ever
How bloody cool was that turn and fire animation in the second GIF. Like wow
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yeah, have you lost a cannon in AoE 3? bro that feels horrible, you feel like you lost your whole empire. When I lost a mangonel in AoE 4 I was like meh. Several times did not even notice when I lost it hehe and its in part because they dont feel like powerful units I guess.
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It’s not so much about budget as time, and that’s assuming that the animation was excluded due to time and not because someone just preferred it that way.
When it comes to adding more people it tends (from a business side) to come down to whether the investment will make more money than it costs, so if adding another artist would make the game look better but it won’t make more sales most publicly traded companies will not hire another artist. 
It’s not about what their function is, it’s about what they are. Adding an animated crew is not the same as adding a quiver.
You’re right, it doesn’t. It has no baring so it doesn’t need to be mentioned. It isn’t a reason to add crews or a reason not to, it’s just fluff that people can debate. 
Yeah, but a lot of folks want it for all siege and some don’t want it for any.
I don’t understand what you mean here.
If you have an argument that only applies to one type of siege unit, it doesn’t apply to all the other groups of them so it has very limited value in a post about siege as a whole.
If people are saying that siege shouldn’t have crews because they don’t like how it looks, saying that one type of siege should doesn’t do anything to address the other siege groups.
When I see siege do the Houdini poof. I don’t even feel like making more siege
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so true, seriously it kills a lot that feeling of an important unit. Would be nice to see it disarming and having it remain as a battle ruin on the map that is then removed by troops or weapon impacts or something like that would add more to the battlefield, at least in my opinion (just like it happens in COH 1 when you destroy a vehicle).
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And with that totally unrealistic explosion…I cannot see why some consider it clunky if the crew gets killed along with the engine.
(tbh it is even worse than AOE2, which is a 1999 game, where you can see engines collapse…vanishing with a poof? Seriously?)
I said that’s the bottom line I can accept (which AOE4 didn’t achieve) but I’m definitely among the folks wanting it for all siege.
Because you said the entire decision about crews is not good or bad whatever way it is done. Having crews for some of them, or all of them, or none of them, are all part of this argument.
When you say “sth doesn’t work” it means you’re judging something that is not good or bad as bad.
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Ehhh I don’t really care about that. But I just want a proper death animation.
But the problem is all our requests are just like starting from scratch. Never knew that in the new AOE IV I’d be asking for things I never had a problem with since AOE1 lol
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Love this room.
It is alive!
Whit deep love!!!
May i say it is actualy easy to hadd crew to canon. (Actualy did it in the past)
It is all about synchroniser diferent sprite together.
You must see the siege units has a group of individual units.
Set canon has a inanimated object.
Set enginear has a animated objest.
When engineer come close to canon, he will circle it to put it self in animation posititon, depending on canon angle and de number of friendly engineer that manipulate it.
Each action to reload canon or to move it , is a separate engineer animation.
If there is too much engineer, they will just form a separate platoon from the canon.
If a enemy engineer come close to canon, they will circle the canon to attack you engineer separatly, and your engineer will circle back to defend canon, unless some ally units is beside to defend.
Cavalery units will circle canon to attack engineer, then torch it, if you oder it.
People who call it clunky are most likely people who would play the cube mod in AOEII. They are people who themselves don’t care about graphical detail, but refuse to let people who want it, enjoy the game their way by asking for Atleast something 1999 standard if not 2021 lol
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Exactly my point everytime I see this thread, but that surprises me to see some people defending the not manned cannons lol and I am okay with their opinions, but almost 100% of their arguments are regarding readability or gameplay and other stuff that (at least for me that have played even AoE O) in my case I know are not real excuses to dont implement them.
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They are not players who spend 6 hours per game in single player or campaign. I respect their play styles and their priorities in play styles. What I don’t respect is their attempts to shut down any one else’s attempt to want things for their own play styles.
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The RTS (or more accurately, AOE) community is among the most conservative. RTS is not about this not about that if you want realism go play Total War.
FPS was not about inspecting or customizing your guns. RPG is not about dressing up your characters or watch them do some badass martial art moves. Grand strategy is not about looking at little men fighting each other, or birds, wild animals, civilians and ships roaming on the map. They all got added smoothly and nicely with few objections.
Maybe because it has been halted for so many years and did not thrive with booming technology. I don’t know if there is something so special about RTS gameplay that neglects any detail that just “looks good”. I guess the need to process a lot of units at once? Is that really so difficult compared to other genres? Or simply because it has stalled for so long and people have yet to find a solution?
That’s why I really respect total war (despite some downgrades in certain aspects in recent games). The game is played with such a large zoom, both in strategy map and battle map, that all you can see are mostly texts and flags, but they do not bother adding small fine details like fighting animations (which sadly got downgraded), unit varieties or map aesthetics like traveling caravans and wild animals.
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I think the problem itself is that RTS players have created their own small little box that they want to stay in and feel comfortable in. Like a small little community. They don’t care what’s going on outside the box, they don’t care if the world is moving miles ahead, and they don’t care how much they are being left behind. It’s a reason why RTS is more and more of a niche genre.
RTS’s biggest weakness is its most appealing feature and that is creating huge armies real time and sending them off to fight while managing so much stuff in real time. Not like the ugly TBS games where it’s like chess pieces across a board. You actually feel like you are watching a battle of hundreds clashing against hundreds.
But yes, then that involves 100’s of meshes to render, with each mesh having its own normals map, textures map, materials map etc. so a lot to put into a package. Plus all the environmental textures.
In the past, a scene from a game like AoM with their super low poly characters and a basic painted UV map would take up to a week to render. Processing speeds were super low and clunky and production took up a lot of money and time.
However now you can generate entire worlds in a fraction of the time.
Relic designing a whole new advanced engine just for this game. The capabilities are endlessly. And as time goes by, more and more opportunities will arise but it depends if they are utilised. And whether the RTS community will want their games to become more popular and ambitious.
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