Since there are a bunch of sweeeeet qol features in the current release of AOM, I’ll drop most of the ones I enjoyed here, hopefully you guys can cooperate with more.
So, off the top of my head…
Hotkeys for finding scout units (If there is one in AOE3DE please let me now).
ALL scout units can use the “Auto-Scout” feature (Only AoE3DE explorers have this rn).
Most abilities have an automatic/manual toggle to be used (Useful for priestesses and explorer abilities).
WAY simpler unit regeneration tell in the unit stats UI (In AOM-R it shows in the little heart, including a green cross), which also shows the amount of hp regenerated each second.
Units special bonus indicator (Lower right corner shows if a myth unit can inflict poison damage, for example).
A couple of flags for easy unit finder (We could have flags for quick finding a cavalry unit, or artillery piece (I think they have that in Wars of Liberty))
A badass UI adorned according to the civ you use (Yeah, like we are ever going to get a UI overhaul “Taunt 28”).
Map zoom and rotation reset (I don’t use camera rotation in AOE3-DE anymore, but when it accidentally happened in the middle of a fight, I could’ve used it…)
Slightly larger in game UI to show the lower buttons AND their hotkeys (So we can use patrol, attack move and other commands easier, besides, the hotkey indicator covers the entire button).
A BLODDY SHIP COUNTER SYSTEM (Or something better than big ship, bigger ship and even bigger ship).
Units or buildings that can garrison units show you exactly how many they can garrison.
The indicator for an idle vill is VIBRANT RED (Si it’s more evident).
Say you have 2 barracks, you want to research 2 veteran upgrades, so you select both barracks and click the upgrades, but nope, the game puts both upgrades in queue at 1 barrack, then if you start to train 1 halberdier, it also puts it at the end of the queue of THAT barrack (In AOM-R, the game calculates what takes longer, so, for example, both upgrades get queued in both barracks separately, and if you train a halberdier, its sent to the queue of the barrack with the faster researching upgrade, which btw “Chef’s kiss”).
A complete tech tree UI, politicians and all.
1,5 minute tutorial for every civ (or continent) with the MAIN features.
When a unit is being healed, it gets highlighted (Wait… is that already a feature?).
The game chat is faster to switch between “To allies”, “to all” and others (Have you ever divulged state secrets with the darn chat set “to all”, I sure have, and paid for it).
The button in the TC or maybe a livestock pen to RALLY ALL livestock in the map to it.
The “seek shelter” and “go back to work” buttons for villagers, SUCH a good feature.
If I were to make another list for AOE3 features to go to AOM, I’d start with the ability to slightly configure the in game UI.
Currently in AOE3, you get to choose between legacy UI, DE UI, and anotheroneIcan’trememberrightnow UI, which is pretty cool when you move from one game to the other.
Then add the locked upgrades in the in-game UI (Button shadowed since it’s locked by the age).
Among other features.
Most importantly, farm placement for African civs - the ability to place a granary, select a villager, select farm and click on granary to place it. No struggling with manual placement issues.
3DE needs to improve how it queues techs over multiple buildings. It is a little ambiguous with units due to batch training: If I shift click a unit with 2 barracks selected, do I want 5 units or 10 units?
In 3DE, I mean 10 units (up for debate if that’s better than 5 units), but upgrades that can only be selected once automatically gets queued to the first barracks, and I believe this can be bettered.
One thing that I like is auto-queueing on buildings in AoM is so easy-simply right click on the button in the training building. But this is so controversial - Imagine if you didn’t have to worry about going to the stable and making sure you barely got the full batch of dragoons, the pro players might complain it simplifies everything. I mean I’m iffy about being able to auto-queue villagers - this is the actual skill that RTS is all about (if you just remember to continuously make villagers you’re probably a good player already), but I guess the design choice is to make it casual friendly.
I would also love it if the caster mode for viewing replays comes to 3DE, although I doubt they care.
The abilities which have a toggle are like “charged attacks”, I don’t know if you ever want to turn them off. I played through the whole campaign in AoMR, and turning them off means you essentially lose (at least on Titan anyway)
And by the way, In AoE3 currently units already get highlighted when they heal… radiating green glow.
Giving into hopium as we all do, If I had to think of one more excuse to give upper management (I say upper management so as to not keep faulting the devs themselves) for their absence and complete lack of communication, it’s that they were waiting to see what full development of AoM looks like and work backwards to hopefully seamlessly apply said updates/changes to AoE 3 DE.
That might be the silver lining in all of this. The fact that we know a big update IS on the way is reassuring.
Still, not even one sentence of communication is what’s really driving everyone crazy.
In AoMR if you double click villagers, it somehow doesn’t select all villagers on screen but only those associated with a certain activity. So double clicking a vill working on trees will select all the lumberjacks on the screen, if I’m not mistaken.
There should be an option to turn this on/off as many may prefer the original system. But seems handy in 3DE.
It’s so nice to be able to quickly check which technologies I have researched or not without having to check all my buildings. I know AoE3 is more complex, but at the least the generic techs could be shown like this.
That is my hope too. The good thing is that Tilanus did confirm that is the same team basically for both games, so there is high chance to get some of the good stuff from AOM into AOE3. I would also like to add that the main screen is somehow more “friendly” and is easier to get into a multiplayer game. Also, this is a controversial take, I would like that aoe3 could be Xbox compatible, so some of its features be present like the work wheel to automatically redistribute your villager according to the resource you need the most. Yes it´s worst optimized than manually doing so, but I hate to be in the middle of a fight and go back to TC to move the villagers around just to found out my army was wipe out while I was not watching
I don’t think that’s controversial - there are always many comment on the AoE instagram alone when AoE3 content is posted, asking for an Xbox version. The more visibility and saturation, the better - more users and more money to be made.
I’ve got a fairly good feeling that they may implement a few QoL improvements from AoM:R.
Yes, I think they will make an Xbox version of AoE 3 DE next year (since it is the only game in the series that is not on Xbox yet) (AoE 1 DE is available through Return of Rome in 2 DE)… then there is talk that AoE will come to Playstation 6 in the next few years (2026 and 2027)…
Units being able to push other owned units when you move them.
It’s a bit annoying when, say, you use a group of units along your explorer to take down that big group of treasure guardians, and when it’s time to take the treasure, the explorer is stuck in the middle of the regiment, so you have to move EVERY unit to make way for it.
