Future of the game?

CoH has little in common with AoE, besides some of the most basic… basic of RTS functionality. Technically- here and there you erect buildings, there might be some situational bonuses related to map geography, you can garrison structures, create control groups etc. Very different type of RTS.
It’s a pretty good series, I’m not super into point(control)-based design but I like WW2 and the theme alone carried me through CoH and all expansions, and the sequel.

Overall I prefere Dawn of War II much more than CoH. Sadly Dawn of War III was a big letdown and a weak game. It had many of the same issues AoE IV had (and still has). Not sure what happened with Relic after Dawn of War II era. I guess some experienced people left or were fired and a couple of recent games were subpar and released in a poor state.

Dawn of War II - 89% Steam score.
Dawn of War III - 48% score.

AoE IV is too important to be abandoned, Microsoft ain’t SEGA, and slowly IV is shaping up to be pretty good. Still a far cry from what I hoped for. Fundamentally I still stand by the opinion that this would do better as some kind of spin-off, didn’t and still does not carry enough weight to be 4th mainline installment. It never was bad, even after release when it felt like v0.7, but the change of design direction doesn’t appeal to me enough.

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No, Napoleonic Era Mod was done by Tilanus and Kastor, and others modders of the NE development Team. That two joined FE, but FE was born with the Forgotten Empires fan mod.

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FE has already been working with Relic from the beginning (they said so themselves) and AoE3 and AoE2 have not suffered from that. Also they’re hiring additional people.

AoE 3DE and AoE in general is in such a weird place. Leaving theme and period aside, there is no clear path ahead.

Personally I’d love a sequel to 3DE, maybe in Napoleonic Europe, or even a slight prequel- game focused on actual conquest and expansion in the New World. So campaigns in the Caribbean, Central and South America. So Spain and Portugal and natives would be the main focus of the campaign content.
WW1 is a super hard line for me. I love games like Empire Earth, but AoE should focus on more distant history.

But who could make it? FE handled things great, but they didn’t make AoE III. Ensemble did and it doesn’t exist. I don’t know how much time, money and freedom Relic had when creating IV, but they probably should stay focused on their upcoming CoH3 and it’s post-launch support.

What engine? I’m very much not impressed by what has been shown in AoE IV. Not even talking about aesthetics, just tech behind everything.
3DE looks amazing, but in many places is dated and janky. The engine was written 20 years ago. Can it even be heavily rewritten and upgraded, could a new version be made based on it? I doubt original creators are around.
It would be awesome to sea dynamic weather, seasons, terraformation, advanced destruction and physics. But that’s well beyond what Bang! Engine can do.

11 bit studios did a great job with Frostpunk and assumably FP2, but that’s a smaller studio and these games are on a different scale.
Blue Byte did a fantastic job with ANNO games, but that’s a bit different RTS genre. I’d be totally for slower AoE with more focus on building, economy and grander-er strategy but it might not fit the series and certainly it would make a lot of people mad.
Series can’t go on with many mainline games being developed and active at the same time.

Will the next developer and Microsoft have to kill 2DE, 3DE and IV to make V successful and financially viable? :thinking:

Maybe it’s time for Age of Empires I remake?


Maybe Age of Empires: Battles for Middle-Earth III is what we all need :smiley:

Yes I rarely see several games in one series get supported at the same time. Except Total War but their historical/warhammer/saga are already different series. Maybe they can treat AOE games as so but there is no precedence.

I don’t really feel like “we want to focus on this new project so we just hire 10 more people” is a typical practice. More likely one would shift some existing (and experienced) crews to the new project AND hire some more people to help them.

2025? How do you know?

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I’d be thrilled with updates or new content.

But frankly, I’d be happy playing AOE3:DE as is for the rest of my life.

Of course I’m pretty old so don’t read too much into that.

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I think World’s Edge is gonna handle development for future Age titles.

I’m guessing this game has an older player base. Wonder if that is so…
I’m 53

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The teams working on age2, age3 and age4 are different, so releasing new content for 1 of them doesn’t mean removing people from the other 2.

CoH has a limit of 100 population and has 3 resources (troops, ammunition and oil), which are collected by capturing areas on the map… wins who keeps the three points of victory and leaves the enemy with 0 points…

Yes,CoH is more of an RTT more than an RTS per se…

Not necessarily, the saga means “age of empires” which means that it can be set in any period where empires and empires existed until the twentieth century included (the Central and Axis Powers)… When the European empires disappeared in the 1960s and 1970s, modern nations emerge and empires become “economic empires” and you can even make an aoe in the future that symbolize new empires that emerge in the future, such as Mexico and the BRICS.

AoE Online 2.0 xd…

For the 20th anniversary of AoE 3 and also because by 2025, Relic would release AoE 5 or DoW 4…

Me too… I actually taught my younger brother to play AoE 3 to follow my legacy xd…

Of course, they would be like the new Ensemble Studios…

Exactly, I wouldn’t have said it better…

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I am having nightmares that MS stop supporting the game and leave us with Malta as the last civ added while there are many better opportunities as potential civs to be added still…

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There will be more. The game, after all this time has legs!

People still want to throw money down on DLC and as a whole it offers a different enough experience to AoKDE and AoE4 to keep it going.

Whilst KotM was a very welcome addition with the two civs (and a huge host of other things), I think there’s scope for a ‘big’, more expensive expansion on the level of WC/AD I’d happily purchase.

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Holy smokes you’ve learned how to quote. Kinda. Now just keep it to one post. :slight_smile:

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Quiet; Bert Beeckman already said today at Gamescon that they will continue to support all games…

Yes, after the forums of aoe 2 explained how to do it and to silence my account for a day for spam xd…

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