How do you possibly justify dropoff buildings in your mind? It slows the game down and adds unnecessary macro for the sake of having unnecessary macro.
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Haha, pardon me, but what a bunch of non-sense on why AoE2 is the most successful. Gonna take them separately because they are absolutely hilarious:
aoe2 had to compete with ps1 games and primitive PC games
AoE2 came out during the golden era of PC games, end of 90’s - beginning of 00’s. Only the competition in the RTS genre alone was overwhelming with the likes of Starcraft, W3, C&C, TA, Homeworld etc. Nevermind some of the most defining PC games of all time: Half-Life, Deus Ex, Q3, UT, BG2, Diablo 2 , CS etc. You might argue that later there were more games and new genres and the rise of consoles, but there were also way more gamers than before, and access to them was way easier and cheaper. And RTS fans tend to stick with RTS, it was always a more niche genre, competition for AoE3 in the RTS field was way less than what AoE2 had. SC2 came out even later than AoE3 when you could say RTS was even more niche, and it still succeeded. Who did AoE3 even have to compete with in RTS?
2 is the most-played one because it got installed the most + sys req + availability etc
Erh, what? I mean, duh! It was installed a lot because it was an outstanding game. System requirements weren’t low for that time, most people couldn’t afford to run it properly with more than 75 pop and more than 800x600, which was the minimum resolution. Compare that to SC1 which at the time was actually low in specs with a resolution of 640x480. And it wasn’t as easily available as later games because you couldn’t just buy it online, you had to find a shop which actually sold it, and advertising for such games was a rarity, unlike now. Most people didn’t even know about it. And the fact that it succeded even when RTS genre was during its prime means that it was good enough to defeat great competition.
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
Low sales had to do first and foremost with horrible freemium paywall design for AoEO (not gonna even touch on the cartoony graphics and other stuff), basically being a pay to win game at launch; you could release AoEO during any timeframe for videogames like that, it would still flop immediately because RTS games dont work with paying for better stuff, simple as that.
As for AoE3 I could write a ton on why it really didn’t take off, starting with same pre-advantage mechanics, only that now they were behind a grind, which still doesnt work for an RTS.
Of course, I could have just said something like even today AoE2 attracts way more NEW players, alien to the series, while AoE3 is still doing worse with all its retouches, and it would have been enough, but wanted to touch on those because they do not reflect the reality. Just like someone else said, AoE2 singlehandedly ressurected the whole series more than once.
TLDR answer: it actually IS about the design of an RTS, how well it’s made, for casuals and competitives alike.
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This is a game where you build a Town, not just a Military Base.
Some Sim City elements are required, unless you want to end up with AoE3, where players have no attachment to the Town they built, and they are just spread out accross the small maps like military bases whose only purpose is churning out troops.
C&C did that way better already.
In an Age of Empires game, I want to build a Town, with Churches, Markets, Taverns, Mills, Houses, and a few other buildings. It does not need to go very deep, but deep enough that it actually superficially looks like a booming Medieval Town.
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I prefer my Age of Empires games without churches. I much prefer Temples, Templums, and Sacred Groves. Perhaps a Shrine or Ziggurat, too.
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To me, I like dropoff buildings because it forces a bit of commitment when you want to gather from an area. You can’t just walk away from raids like in AoE3 and go to some distant woodline, you have to spend a bit of time establishing a camp before starting to collect - and that camp is also harder to hide if raiders come knocking (and can also be torched, though admittedly they’re probably a bit too tough in AoE2 to be worth destroying too often).
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Well seeing as 25 million copies sold is a lot for a triple A game nowadays, especially for an RTS, that makes sense that AoE4 won’t outsell AoE2, doesn’t it? Not to mention the fact that AoE2 has been rebooted twice now…
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Thanks for saving me from the headache of having to reply to some of the nonsense we’ve read in this thread by doing it yourself. You took one for team logic, good job!
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if you want to explain why you prefer aoe2 combat, that’s fine. but use actual sentences to do so. don’t drag me into some fanboy discussion about popularity
the only thing popularity proves is overall sales volume. for example, aoe2 HD sold more than aoe2 DE. that doesn’t prove anything about the relative quality of either product. it’s just an outcome based on factors that have nothing to do with the design choices.
the inability to actually have the armies fight is where aoe2 falls short for competitive play from my point of view (as a PvP player). i still play it casually around the top 300 level, but it’s not because of the combat. none of the rock-paper-scissors counter stuff actually matters if the armies don’t actually engage. there are some maps where fights do happen, but they are almost never in the ranked map pool.
if aoe4 can get the armies to actually clash instead of hide, then aoe2-style combat might be a good idea. but so far i haven’t seen anything that shows how that might happen. all i’ve seen is lots and lots of walls and some completely contrived single-player-style skirmishes
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and at a third of age 4s price 
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so…because it seems YOU dont like or cant keep up with the gameplay and fights, age 2 is bad?
Looking at any real competative games from streamers or catsers, I asee a lot of fighting and armies. But in the end its a strategy game, nota who amasses the biggetst army first game
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0)mostly it add some kind of realism to the game, aswell as more strategic gameplay, as
- you need to somewhat defend the dropoff point
- you have to know the resources carried and
- time the bulids etc right becaus there is no resources dripping in each second.
- I just dislike upwards counting countdowns. it smuch more satisfying to see your res count go up 10 at a piese than sloooowly rising 1 by 1.
just to name the first few coming to my mind.
yes it makes the game slower, but also more strategic. then you also bond with your base more, which was always what I loved about age 2 almost as much as the campaigns themselves.
Age 3 has a very different style of gameplay and strats, it is much faster. Which eliminates players like Daut from being able to play it competattively.
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my main worries about drop sites is the pathing and lag issues it creates, especially late game with many players. StarCraft has resorted to no collision gathering to mitigate it, but the cpu cost from this alone can still be massive. just play a game of aoe2 with the ai and you’ll see villagers stuck on the cpu side while they lack the ability to disengage and fix it like a human would, not to mention having your own villagers stuck without you noticing. this is not good gameplay, this is you fighting the game just to make your units behave the way you expect them to while having a major impact on fps.
the armor/bonus system in aoe3 is just flat out better, agreed. cavalry tag with cavalry armor? mamelukes with archer tags and receiving bonus vs huskarls? eagle warriors being countered by champions and not pikemen? its a confusing mess that requires you go into the game files or read a guide to understand since the game wont bother to explain it to you, and the flat reductions means that it is far less balanced.
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But there are different type of armor to reduce different type of damage.
It can create the diversity too. They also designed Huskarl in AoM.
Huskarl
HackArmor 15%
PierceArmor 50% (This Armor let Huskarl have double HP to resist the Pierce Attack)
CrushArmor 99% (Crush Attack is designed to target building.)
It can let Huskarl have advantage to counter Archers in AoM.
Besides, the armor can also be improved by techs in AoM.
I said: Some special counter-units have huge multipliers against atypical type of units.
These units with huge multipliers cannot deal with the other type of units because they have lower damage, HP, or armor.
Of course not, If I want to make AoE4 become AoE3+1, they should get the shipment system back.
Shipment system is the strategic key in AoE3. It is like myth units and god power in AoM.
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The shipment system in AoE3 is more strategic than drop-off buildings.
If they are really players in AoE3, they don’t care about drop-off buildings.
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That’s why they changed the drop-off building in AoM.
Some designs in AoE2 is really outdated.
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Some AoE2 players don’t like no drop-off buildings, but some of them hate the Micro?
It makes sense. 
It is not very big problem in AoM or AoE3.
You can predict the location of resource collection and use cavalry to attack
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My point is easy to balance. I wasn’t talking about aoe2 or aoe3 which is unbalanced.
A unit have +10 cavalry, +20 building, +50 elephant.
If you nerf the damage of the unit, you should consider the armor of all units. It will make the balance complicated.
If this is not RTS game, you don’t need to balanced it and create a lot of new units to let you but like the mobile game. OK! It’s fine for the additive calculation.
Snare mechanics is very important in aoe3. If aoe3 was no snare mechanics, the fast units are more superior than the other units in the game because they can kill your villagers or army. If they can’t, they just run away.
The FE team designed a unit Chimu Runner who cannot snare the units and be snared by other units.
Then lots of Inca players used Chimu Runner to kill villagers and run. Their speed are not fastest, but you cannot control their speed by melee attack, so they can always run away.
If the Lakota which have the fastest cavalry don’t be snared by melee attack, they will be the most OP civilization.
I don’t think you are a real RTS player.
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