In the last 25 years i played a lot of RTS games. In that time there where a lot of things i would like to see in a game. Some idea’s are realistic and some look cool but might make the game static and dull. Some of the idea’s have already been brought up by other people. But hopefully a extra comment wil help the cause. Here are a few things i like to see in the new Age of Empires 4 game>
Possible and almost a must for me:
More colors then the maximum of players. More Choice.
Set-up teams ( 2 vs 2 vs 2) (2 vs 3) ‘‘Because of diffirent player Experience’’ etc.
All siege equipement must have units to move and fire it.
Ships with units on it. (its 2020 so no AOE1 empty boats anymore)
Cool but maybe not practical:
Draw bridge
anti horse spikes
moat with water and a dry moat
In a lot of documentaries and movies you see a redoubt with spikes. Like in the movie Braveheart and Joan of Arc. AOE is focust on base building. A lot of people build forward bases to attack. In stead of building stone wals with castles close to the enemy base, maybe the game would encourage the player to build the main base with stone wals and forward bases with palisades and spikes. Just like Company of Heroes 2 people are more focused on the enviroment and troops placement but stil stick to the basics of a AOE game.
Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War had units on boats in 2006, with the best naval combat in rts i’ve seen in my life. There’s no excuse to keep the same formula and go for an underveloped naval mechanic.
just compare AoE1 trireme vs Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War trireme
Problem here is simply the unit size, as “realistic” unit size would be too big to move properly, or you would have to see on ships much smaller people, than regular units.
If i see the size of the map and the units on the wall in the AOE 4 trailer, its certainly possible.
Some AOE 3 ships where very large too. Nice images you added.
Tayroth is right, AoE3 reduced the number of ships and increased their size. Some campaigns even have units inside boats during cutscenes.
I believe increasing the size of boats can allow for a different kind of micro too - less hit n run with giant galleons - and make things like encirclement possible.
Well there is one slight issue, way find and map size. People rather do prioritize game flow, then game aesthetics. If ships don’t fit into map and ships move clanky and get stuck everywhere, they are not going to like such feature.
With “big boats” i didn’t mean fckng Yamato sized ships - unless you think of an atakebune, then yes, i did meant fckng Yamato sized ships.
If the map presents a coastline with few accidents, and goes on a “open sea” rather than rivers approach, then it’s ok. In AoE3, for instance, the only maps that ships have trouble moving around are the Amazon River (only in late game tho - this map is very popular anyway) Yellow River (flooded) and sometimes Patagonia (coastiline sometimes go crazy random). Could make for several interesting naval chokepoints battles tho (battle of salamis come to my mind). Way more strategy than stacking galleons.
Prioritizing game flow is cool and all, and i understand it - but i would cum in my pants if a realistic naval battle system would be implemented in aoe4, with “slow” ships, difficulty in turning, inertia focused movements and ramming/boarding. But that’s my opinion, discard when received.
The moment a person does start the game and is stuck, is the moment he won’t play.
Modern RTS seem to be not aware if such thing at all.
Problem is, modern games do not Prioritize game flow.
They do prioritize ideas and features, but not how the game does play out.
That’s why I think even decade older games are still these days popular and modern ones flop. Out of my experience, it seems to me bring up new ideas into existing RTS franchises did rather harm then help.
