In some light, past AOEs can feel a tad bit whimsical. Lack of realistic fight/movement physics, AI, cartoon-like art style, minimal interaction with the environment aside from wolves/boars/sheep/etc., and virtually no interaction with the natural elements such as rain, snow, storms, disaster, fire, disease. This is a game about war and strategy, and although in the past I had much fun playing, some part of me always wanted it to be a bit more… realistic, which I think would add greatly to immersion and entertainment. Although some other titles are lacking in other areas, they have already surpassed AOE in this sense, and a simple iteration of the most recent AOE titles would be far from progressive for MS Studios. Many of the missing things Ive mentioned were essential to the victories of some monumental conflicts, but also add to the surprise factor that is at the heart of battle. Considering AOE to be a game about strategy and war, and it missing crucial components of the realism of war that affect strategy, I think its safe to say its time that we try to bump it up a notch beyond cheesy shaders, repetitive physics/AI, uninteractive elements to something we know is feasible and would still maintain the vision of the original AOE.
It is unlikely that this features will come to the AOE DE because it’s a remaster. It would be nice, yes. But i think these are some things for a totaly new Age of Empires.
Some elements like day to night passage, new types of terrain like snow would be really cool by UX! However in relation to realism, this is not the goal of the AOE, it simply passes through the historical context an insight into the ability of humans to evolve (Anthropocentrism) but does not necessarily have to be related to realism, but, as I said before, with the User experience.
Note: I do not know why people charge realism of most games, I think it is the new trend of a new generation of players.
Isn’t very a new game, the engine don’t support real physics.
No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no NO!
Keep your gritty realism away! If you want that there are plenty of games out there that try so hard to be “gritty and realistic” that they boil down to being miserable, drab, and boring. I want my bright colors and original gameplay which is exactly what this is supposed to be: A remake of a classic! You go playing around with stuff like this and you may as well rename it to something else.
Ok, the game wouldn’t be historical accurate.
Realistic, lol, no.
The game is an arcade rts with great remade graphics.
Personally, I don’t think AoE should be too gritty and realistic. But if it was, it would have to be in a new game, I’m not sure the old engine can really handle weather events well. Remember the DE is not technically a “new” game, just a graphics update and simple mechanics changes. It only plays a bunch of pre-rendered frames as an animation, so you’d either have to have 2x the animations for rain areas, or apply a screen filter which might look tacky.
Then you’d have to worry about effects that occur under rain - do units have less los, less range, less accuracy? Do buildings take less damage from fire projectiles? Do ships sail faster or slower? Fishing, farming, hunting is affected in rate of gather?
I suppose you could go over board with the effects though, it would be simple things like -2 range and Los for ranged units, making swords more effective, for starters.
Gritty and realism are two different things for a start 
… Grittiness adds suspense and drama, which may be confused with realism if you’ve been watching too much Saving Private Ryan. Look out the window however, and you will find the world full of colour.
Regarding the idea of adding realism - simple graphical effects could be welcome (fog/rain, maybe even day/night or just different lighting post processes could potentially work very well)… Infact we have already seen some of these - note the shaders being used for the new water, which is beautifully animated and probably works in a similar fashion to the Aoe2HD water shader.
One thing I would like to see is to use a shader - similarly to the water - to add what would look like little grass fronds swaying in the wind on terrains with grassy bits.
A second thing I would like to see is for the cliff sprites to be slightly modified depending on the terrain underneath them (cliffs with grassy/dirt/sand bits etc) - simple enough to do.
Finally I think new terrain types like snow etc for the scenario editor, and new random map types wouldn’t be a bad addition, and obviously dont detract from the original content at all.
Should these updated graphics have any affect on gameplay? I would say for the intention of a ‘remaster’ - absolutely not.
If they make a new AoE, I’d certainly like for clean, colourful graphics with nice terrains like the water and grass mentioned. Absolute realism isn’t needed, just “realistic elements” .
In terms of the DE, waving grass would be cool, but I wonder if it would look odd because units’ graphics will simply walk over the top of it and will stand out like a bad cgi in a live action movie We already have chariots that have wheels on the top of cliffs while being on the bottom side of a cliff facing away from the camera.
The first AOE was released about 20 years ago, and the technology used to produce this game was great at that time by adding shadows for example, you couldn’t expect to have snows or other realistic graphics to be great at that time, also, the time “flows” in AoE, you can take a look at wonders, it says “you will lose if it stands for 1000 years”, you cannot make realistic weather with typical winter, summer in a game that 5 years pass with seconds. Also, this is a remastered game, so, it is a clone of the original with better graphics, if it didn’t exist in the original, why add it to the remastered version? It would take away the first AOE characteristics
The DE’s new mining sounds and blood spatter is laughable; fix that stuff and you’ll get automatic grit!
The stiff animations, on the other hand, are probably a bit too difficult to fix now…
@Ekus said:
The first AOE was released about 20 years ago, and the technology used to produce this game was great at that time by adding shadows for example, you couldn’t expect to have snows or other realistic graphics to be great at that time, also, the time “flows” in AoE, you can take a look at wonders, it says “you will lose if it stands for 1000 years”, you cannot make realistic weather with typical winter, summer in a game that 5 years pass with seconds. Also, this is a remastered game, so, it is a clone of the original with better graphics, if it didn’t exist in the original, why add it to the remastered version? It would take away the first AOE characteristics
@Ekus said:
The first AOE was released about 20 years ago, and the technology used to produce this game was great at that time by adding shadows for example, you couldn’t expect to have snows or other realistic graphics to be great at that time, also, the time “flows” in AoE, you can take a look at wonders, it says “you will lose if it stands for 1000 years”, you cannot make realistic weather with typical winter, summer in a game that 5 years pass with seconds. Also, this is a remastered game, so, it is a clone of the original with better graphics, if it didn’t exist in the original, why add it to the remastered version? It would take away the first AOE characteristics
Have new pop capacity
Rally points
Automatic villager rally point after build something.
GUI improved with with idle units and even behaviors.
Agree with OP but definitely wont see this in this game, as they want to keep the same feel.
But I have high hopes they will go in this direction with AOE4, Relic is good at this.
We get cloud shadows and tides as graphical effects ;p