Early Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings Screenshots!

It’s literally a real cathedral in England

They would have to be remade for the Definitive Edition though.
I really hope we get the AoE1DE buildings in AoE2DE, especially for Asia.

But it would be nice anyway.
As someone who spends more time in the Scenario Editor then anywhere else in the game I love every new content I can get.

Here are some examples, not all of which apply to RTS games: number bloat, currency/item bloat, time-limited objectives and events/temporary content, microtransactions especially for QoL features, excessive complexity (e.g. multiple competing systems that serve the same purpose), game balance based primarily around pro/high-level play, RPG-like features in non-RPGs (this is not necessarily bad).

I don’t have a problem with cartoon graphics, it’s just that the style of these particular graphics doesn’t appeal to me. It’s too goofy. I can’t think of a better word for it.

I’m not sure what it means for a game to have charisma…

Good point, probably not.

Um… no. At a push, I can just about believe that it’s supposed to be Chichester Cathedral, but I hope not because it’s a terrible likeness. I think it’s more likely that it’s meant to be a generic English cathedral, but the artist was not well-versed in medieval English church architecture. Some of its features make no sense at all (slate roofs on the spires, triangle-topped window in the west front, windows cut into the walls with no mouldings, way too many doors, etc.).

Speaking of wonders and buildings - I hope every civ will get a unique castle like the DLC civs from LotW on. For the Britons you could probably use the Tower of London as that one’s already in the scenario editor.

It’s obviously meant to be it, they’ve taken some creative liberties (not unlike the ones they took with a lot of the other wonders) with exaggerated features, like the added front spires, but you can’t deny the overall shape is 100% based on that building

Yes, it is understood… very good campaigns can come for 1 DE in the future…

Yes, it’s understandable… just like modern RTS, as long as they maintain the basic essence of RTS, they can allow themselves some flexibility on some mechanics and as long as these are not abused with the player (for example exaggerated microtransactions)

Yes, it’s understandable… I wasn’t too convinced by the cartoon aesthetic either, but then when you play it, you forget about it later and say “it’s an AoE of a lifetime”…

A game that has charisma is a game that has personality by itself, either due to aesthetics or playable mechanics…it’s like when you meet someone and you see that he/she is very happy and it makes you laugh and you say “I like this person,he/she has a lot of charisma and personality”…

True, maybe one day they decide to change and put the Tower of London as a wonder…

There’s taking creative liberties, and then there’s getting things completely wrong. Large sections of the wonder aren’t even in the right style for Chichester cathedral – almost every visible wall. The west towers are Gothic rather than Romanesque; the central window in the west front has a Saxon shape (triangle-topped rather than an arch) although is much too big to be Saxon; the windows at the end of the north transept are a weird mix of early English and perpendicular that never occurs in reality. They did correctly put a decorated Gothic window in the north transept, but put it in the wrong wall!

So I think it’s plausible that it’s supposed to be Chichester cathedral, but more likely that it’s just a generic English cathedral. If it was supposed to be Chichester, I think even an artist who didn’t know what they were doing would get the style of the west towers roughly right. Plus Chichester is such a weird choice – there are at least five more obvious choices (Westminster Abbey, and the cathedrals of Lincoln, Durham, Wells and Canterbury).

The overall shape is cruciform with two west towers and a central tower over the crossing – it’s the standard layout for an English cathedral. Some don’t have spires, and some don’t have west towers, or not such big ones – but it’s definitely the layout one would choose for a generic English cathedral. To me it actually looks more like Truro cathedral (which is way too late for AoE2) than Chichester.

In any case, whether or not it’s based on a specific building isn’t actually relevant to what I said, which was

I stand by that. There are too many details that are completely off, too many stylistic errors. Maybe all the wonders are this inaccurate, and I’m only seeing the inaccuracies in this one because I know more about English church architecture than any other kind of architecture – but I think I made it pretty clear that what I said was my opinion.

1 Like

I think this is it

There is a lot of the game that is like this, remember, the vikings didn’t have horned helmets, Mamelukes didn’t ride camels or throw swords, Obuchs actually are ceremonial weapons and Thirisadai were completely made up by some dude on Wikipedia

1 Like

Maybe I missed but did anyone give a correct name and model for the dravidian uu ship?All I remember seeing is people complain its wrong.

It seems strange to me that these weren’t changed for DE, considering Cataphracts got changed quite significantly.

Unsurprisingly, Berserks and Mamelukes looked different in prerelease versions of AoK. The Berserks (which were called Berserkers) didn’t have horns. Here’s how they looked:
berserkers
and a render from a press kit:
BERS0031
Here’s some Mamelukes:
mamelukes
Not sure what’s going on with them since they don’t seem to have weapons.

Here’s a thread suggesting a couple of different names:

You definitely didn’t miss it – you were the first person to reply!

1 Like

I mean, you can choose any ship from the Chola of the time period to replace it, there is no “correct” way to depict that specific unit as it is because it’s literally entirely made up

You can read more about it here, there the poster recommends renaming it to either ########## or Kalam

Edit: aparently one of those is a bad word? anyway, it’s in the original Reddit post I linked

They probably didn’t want to change an iconic part of the game, even if inaccurate, but they were inconsistent about that, they did change the Spanish jingle because the Flamenco vocals were anachronistic, which people didn’t like and as you said, they did change Cataphracts, tho, they later changed the Cataphract model again, making it a bit more like the original and arguably less accurate


Updated_cataphract_model_2DE
(OG Cata for reference)
C51d9bbe1ec59e44cc75f7b6c14bd091_400x400

If you google “Byzantine Cataphract” you’ll see most depictions have the more “pointy” helmets, similar to the first DE model

Sorry for the continuous off-topic, tho, this Cataphract model kinda fits the spirit of the post, as it’s an early DE model that was later changed

2 Likes

The look of the old cata was also probably hard to emulate realistically since the way the horse armour looks is just weird. I liked how it looked but in hindsight its kind of ridiculous

1 Like

Cataphract from beta.
ezgif-3-f2e3c95845
ezgif-3-02cb6f8496

2 Likes

To be honest it looks more like a knight than actual cataphract.

1 Like

That’s because it’s kinda is lol, that’s probably the reason they were changed

If I’m not mistaken they actually reused part of that model as a base for Joan of Arc’s model

Thank you very much for this file! I love those old game magazines, and this one gives a great insight into the Age of Kings development process! Too bad they abandoned a lot of great ideas, like the mechanics of raider civilizations.

Yes, I’m reading it… It’s a blow to nostalgia… images of AoE 2 along with images of Tiberian Sun, Stacraft and Total Annihilation… what incredible games and what good times to live…To this day I still have the Tiberian Sun and Starcraft installed…

1 Like