Danes are sure to get involved, now Celts I don’t know, maybe they will make an English variant called Scots (843-1603)…
Scots are unique enough to get their own civ, maybe the Welsh could cut it as a variant, although it would need more work for things like the speech.
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While AOE2 does average about 70% more players online through steam, the online matchmade games/players is actually about equal.AOE2 has a much more sizeable playerbase that plays singleplayer and custom game content which AOE4 still lacks. Also AOE4 has more gamepass players which aren’t included in steamcharts.
And this also doesn’t count the AOE4 console release (which is admittedly not the biggest playerbase)
I mean in case they don’t make them a main civ…although a Scottish campaign (1124-1603) would be super cool…
Of course, that’s true… maybe everything is half equal…
There’s a reason they don’t release any numbers of gamepass subscribers because its probably not significant, the fact that a game released 2 years ago is now played mostly by console players instead of the original channel speaks volume of its downfall. But since we don’t have any verifiable numbers I ignore that player base could be 1000 or it could be 200 console players we don’t know. Scientifically we had 75k+ consistent players via steam in the first quarter and now down to 10-12k on a good day. In any business that’s a colossal failure when your 25+ year old game matches those numbers. Whatever market research and stakeholders they listened to clearly lacked the experience and completely failed in capturing its target audience.
Not really, no. Most, if not all, games have that kind of drop off. But this is a talking point that’s been done to death and I don’t think any opinions are going to change here.
Certainly, the design decisions that’d need to be made to make the game eclipse AoE II would be to remake . . . well, AoE II. Again. I wouldn’t think that’s the direction a lot of folks here would like the game to go in. But I could be wrong.
(also, small correction - the DE is where the players are at, not the original game itself)
lets face it, anyone thinking this is a recent phenomenon is an absolute moron, feedback that wasn’t in line with relic’s/WE’s own agenda landed on deaf ears since day one, DEs had a bit of this too, but with 4 its gone completely off rails, also its poetic irony the devs on the game most vocal about listening to feedback keeps doing the opposite of what they claim when smt pops up that they refuse to change, like french variant naming, zoom levels or god forbid UI, minimap icons still don’t scale with the minimap
I dunno, we wouldn’t have gotten Panoramic Zoom (which some people do like, and for others it simply doesn’t go far enough) or rebindable hotkeys (which I consider a complete win) without community pressure. It’s a resource game for the devs; what do you bend to while keeping your roadmap, vs. what do you sacrifice on the roadmap to pivot to in the short, medium and long term?
They changed the names of (imo) the most egregious names (in historical terms), the problem of “Jeanne isn’t a civilisation” is different to the “Empire of Jade” which (as many have pointed out) isn’t a name for anything.
It’s obvious what they want to stick to their guns on. I don’t think that’s the same as deaf ears. The (significant) backlog of features and QOLs enhancements people want are a separate thing to immediately reactive “change it now” issues.
What good is a car without wheels?
This isn’t some great mystery that the relic developers must consult a shaman with bone trinkets that can tell the future. If anything, game development has been figured out year after year as they add more MBAs, scrum masters and managers to handle scope.
As many things as they have decided to polish and fix since release, the game remains without some critical components that past iterations always featured. A user friendly in-game editor is a form of content that is entirely absent for example. What must you sacrifice to make a well rounded actual product? This is not a good question, because I don’t ask what they compromised on to make the car without wheels.
And nor should I. Products should aim to be their best to sell the most. They are the ones who need to think about what they must give up to make something properly. As a customer, it is not my job to care, and it is for them to figure out. But, you can be damn sure that I’ll ridicule the wheelless vehicle they are attempting to sell, especially after they’ve maybe patched some scratches here and there and polished it’s windows for it to still be wheelless.
And everybody else will criticise what they consider wheels (which can, will, and does differ, and that’s normal), and the devs will continue to adjust course. These things are mysteries. It’s why software houses often have product teams (or some named variant), in addition to QA, development, and so on.
But again, there’s a gap between “QOL and backlog items” and “changing an aesthetic choice they’re obviously willing to stick to”.
the concept and game fndamentals sucks as it dont fit with aoe 4 and its figure wasnt enough to carry +500 year pre morte It just not right
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well smth to notice is that since the announcement of the dlc the playerbase number started to go down so yeah the game is dying by the incopetence of this civ and others.
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The playerbase goes up and down, assuming any decline is because of the things you also don’t like is nothing but wishful thinking. Just like me assuming it goes up because of stuff I like / am looking forward to would also be wishful thinking.
For example, let’s look at AoE II: DE:
Obviously their numbers have also started to decline in the past month because of the AoE IV expansion news! Or maybe it’s gone down because they announced they’re bringing new campaigns to Return of Rome.
I mean, neither of those things make sense, but hey 
Is there any reason you stopped the image so short as well? Let’s look at the whole year!
Pretty good retention really. Actually better retention than AoE II: DE has managed (net positive compared to net negative, though obviously neither game is doing badly).
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Game is good i dont think dlc will effect this , people will not buy the dlc thats it , maybe they buy for ### and byz
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aoe 2 didnt need a big update to keep afloat in comparison with aoe 4 need it to mantain 12 k on non peak. Even after failed dlc like return of rome still mantasin abig number.
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You keep changing the argument 
You’re the one who claimed the reception to the Sultan’s Aascend was killing IV. Remember? It’s obvious from the actual statistics that this isn’t the case at all.
yes and still dying. the number never went up and go downhill until this update. as you can see each update is regaining lower and lower peaks and this one is making way less than previous peak when a major update happened.
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The update hasn’t happened yet. But sure, whatever you say.
including announcements because it does effect
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Yes, besides requiring a lot of money…that’s why AoE 4 will be what it should be…
Yeah, F in the chat…
Yes, lastly, let’s wait for the DLC to come out and then at Christmas we’ll see where the game is… AoE 3 DE had a boom when they made it free a month ago and now it’s stagnated again, but with a higher level of players…