honestly i don’t care how they pull of the economy management as long it doesn’t have the no drop off site bonus which i really dislike since it’s one of laziest way to make an eco bonus, i really hope the devs will get creative with creating eco bonus either for currents civs or future one.
No drop of is a fine bonus for a civ like teh Atlanteans in AoM, which have much more expensive and pop-intensive Vills, and I can easily see a civ with Llamas or Donkeys alongside the Vills, that emulates this.
It is a good Eco bonus, but should be limited to a single civ, not all of them like in AoE3.
3 Likes
yeah agreed it was fun when it was only for Atlanteans, but it got really boring when it came for all civs in aoe3, since i was hoping for more creative eco in aoe3 but i was disappointing with what we got
i hope we can see a units like the aom Ox Carts for future civs, since now the only mobile eco i can see is just the mongols atm.
3 Likes
aoe2 drop off buildings suck because the pathing is awful. if they remove villager collision, then drop sites might be okay
rise of nations’ system was way better than the age games though. we got the benefits of drop sites without any of the micromanagent / pathing nonsense. the income rate is fixed, not based on how often the villager AI decides to bump into each other. that was the main aoe-like game where you played like a king focusing on important matters instead of a babysitter of harvesters
but where aoe2 balance fails is because of the actual combat mechanics, not the armor/damage math. none of the fights the game is about actually happen in a multiplayer game. people only fight when they’re going to win and they can retreat with zero consequence if they aren’t going to win.
xbows can kite against everything. knights can run away from everything. and nobody uses any of the other units because they cannot actually engage in combat under those conditions. whether aoe4 will get fights to actually happen remains to be seen. if not, then it will just be another single-player-only game
3 Likes
AoE2 is the most played game in the series, precisely because it got stuff like combat, right.
AoE3 has snare mechanics, and it only made fights even more floaty, where players refuse to engage until they are absolutely sure they would win.
5 Likes
what you saying is not logical if you can retreat with zero consequence why engage?
with snaring mechanics yes you need to know if you win or not before or you lose a lot if you retreat
1 Like
Consequences for retreating really depends on what your army is made up of in both games
1 Like
lol no
2 is the most-played one because it got installed the most. part of that was box sales. part of that was piracy. the setting was good, the system requirements were low, every store had it on shelves for years and years at a low price, and it actually came out long before the RTS genre died
most people don’t even play multiplayer. probably less than 1 million people out of maybe 25 million. the low sales of the other games has nothing to do with whether armors are addition or subtraction or random math stuff nobody even knows about. it’s all about timing and access and competition
aoe3 / aoeo had to compete with stuff like 3D games / counterstrike / world of warcraft / mobas / HD consoles. aoe2 had to compete with ps1 games and primitive PC games
i’m not saying aom / aoe3 / aoeo got it right. i haven’t even played much of those beyond campaigns. i’m just saying that aoe2 combat mechanics aren’t enough if we want armies to actually fight before the final age. in single player, sure the AI will suicide its units. but humans won’t.
i’m not sure what you’re asking
from my point of view (PvP multiplayer), most of the units in the game don’t get used if they need to fully surround the enemy to do anything. getting full surrounds is not an achievable state until you’ve basically already won the game
aoe2 works if you play on a map about contesting resources that are outside your town, but if aoe4 wants to be about building a nice ring of walls around your town and your economy is inside those walls instead of outside on the map, then it would run into the same problem. that doesn’t necessarily mean to do aoe3/aom/aoeo stuff, but aoe2 stuff won’t be sufficient
9 Likes
Well said. One very tempting trap for aoe2 fans to fall into is the sense of self grandeur that goes like this: “If aoe2 is the best selling game, then clearly [x feature] from AoE2 must be superior to how it is done in every other age game, because, again, that feature must be why aoe2 is so successful.” be careful with that line of argument because it can really dumb you down and lose grip on the details of designing a game. other games different than aoe2 actually do plenty of things better than aoe2
We all agree that AoE2 is successful. We all agree it is more successful than the others. The real art is knowing why.
10 Likes
The most important reason to having drop off sites is because it adds depth.
Example 1) Woodcamps in aoe2, you can just build one, and have 50 vills on it and big woodline for the rest of the game, is it most efficient? no, does it matter because at your level of play you stockpile tonnes of wood anyway? yes, is it effectively the same thing as having no drop off, yes. However, contrast that to pros who split woodcamps after 5+ vills, and micro villagers on either side to minimise bumping, and also refresh frequently. You dont have to do these things, but allowing high skilled players to be high skilled and grab those bonus’s for caring about their economy is part of what makes the game so simple to learn, and difficult to master.
example 2) Having different resource drop offs mill/lumbercamp/mine are important, they separate the place where those technologies are researched, which is a nice separation of mind imo, much more importantly, what if you want to buff the farms of 1 civ by making their mills garrisonable or a type of tower? But you dont want it to affect more than just the farms, if the drop off buildings were merged, this would simply be impossible, as their entire eco gets this building related bonus which was not the original intention, again this adds potential depth to the game.
Personally I think economy is %50 or more of the game, and should be a focus throughout, this whole ‘set and forget’ mentality removes the macro strategy of Aoe, and replaces it with military micro. The best aoe games tend to treat eco and its associated depth just as importantly as military.
It is also important to distinguish between the making of decisions vs tedious stuff… which is where quality of life such as farm reseeding etc come in. These are not quite the same as the eco micro I mention above, because that is early game intensive stuff, which falls off towards late game where your attention is necessitated elsewhere.
Fun personal idea I would like (in aoe2 and aoe4) is being able to set the gather point of a Towncentre to the Mill… villagers which get built automatically go to the mill and build a farm in the nearest available place. This would make the setting up of late game mass farming when your already floating a bit of wood much less tedious, but maintain the decision, and you can do this to all other resources already. This is one winning factor of mills in age3, the decision is separated a lot from the micro of building many small farms, albeit I think the many small farms is a better implementation of the farming as it forces more land use, and that itself is more susceptible to raiding, its too easy to defend a mill due to its small footprint.
Phew, I always end up writing too much on these forums =P have a good day everyone.
9 Likes
Nope. In fact, AoE2 was the one that ressurrected the whole series, with HD.
Like it or not, there is no excuse nowadays as to why AoE3DE is doing worse than 2DE.
AoE2 is just the superior game, even new players vastly prefer it.
9 Likes
And Medieval Era is just more popular across the board.
Will be very interesting to see if Relic can deliver the first (to my knowledge) historically accurate medieval RTS. 
3 Likes
But it is not just the Medieval era, it is that the whole gameplay package is timeless, and instantly connects.
The game is simple and logical, it does not have to explain you too many systems, or tie down your MP performance with a lot of clickable skills or complex hidden mechanics.
It is literally a game where exploring the map, having some general Medieval Warfare knowledge, and practicing efficient ways to build a Town; are all IMMEDIATELY rewarded.
Anyone can pick it up and play it well enough after a few days, at most. No other AoE game (not even AoE1) managed to nail simple yet efficient gameplay, as well as AoE2.
It may have been on accident, but it is a masterpiece of RTS gameplay. Several games have built on what AoE2 left behind, and it made the Middle Ages (theme of the game) a much more well known subject, because it made them fun.
3 Likes
Yes medieval history is much more popular than anything else. Along those lines, I saw today in the newly released guide that the franchise is using that term much broader than simply European history of a certain time. No real surprise there.
2 Likes
Link me to this please
I also think they do this for current zeitgeist rather than anything else
1 Like
Yet still has more European civs than from anywhere else, because that is what Middle Ages means.
2 Likes
it’s because aoe2 has more fans than aoe3
it’s not because customers did a comparative analysis of the games and decided to buy 2 instead of 3. it’s just a factor of popularity
it’s not an excuse. it’s just math.
if 20% of aoe2 fans buy aoe2:DE and 20% of aoe3 fans buy aoe3:DE, aoe2:DE will outsell aoe3:DE
even if aoe4 ends up being better than aoe2, aoe2 will have sold more copies. it’s not proof of anything either way
anyways, don’t let villagers bump into each other and i won’t even care about what drop sites they decide to use or not use.
5 Likes
It has more fans, because it is the better game. In fact, AoE2 has YOUNGER fans than AoE3, despite being the much older game.
6 Likes
It’s way too plain and symmetric for me 
I would say AoM, AoE2
And weirdly i seem to beat anyone in aoe1 multiplayer lol
1 Like
I started with AOM and when AOE3 come out I committed myself into high level play in aoe3 with good success then after 1.5 years we move with my entire team to a better mechanical game and competitive game who was StarCraft 2
after playing more casually but still competitive I have trying out aoe2DE then I think it more superior in term of fun and competitive scene
Of course, i buy AOE3DE but I played like 50 or 100 games then back to aoe2DE
Sorry but I don’t think Snaring mechanics or no drop off eco is Fun at all and the majority of player think that
3 Likes