Home Cities for AOEIV

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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One of the coolest innovations in AOE3 was the concept of “Home Cities”. It added a pseudo-RPG progression mechanic that encouraged you to play more. By leveling up your city, you could unlock better cosmetics and really #### out your city.

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Frankly, I miss closing out of my post-game graph and returning to my city. Always brought a smile, whether I had just won a game or lost one. So I’m thinking about initiating a side project to bring this back. These are just some early thoughts I want to run by the community.

Here’s how it’d work:

  • Create a companion game-app, that can be played on desktop or mobile.
  • It’d play as a city builder game in the same vein as Manor Lords. Gather resources, and build out your city.
  • The progression of your town would be in some way be tied to your performance in AOE4 games.
    • I imagine we could call the API that AOE4World is calling, or pull from AOE4World directly.
    • Might work like - “Win 10 ranked games as English” to unlock the next level of cosmetics for the English Home City.
    • We could probably also track more specific data - ie. “Build 10 Stables as China” would unlock a special horse asset perhaps. Or, “Build only 0 docks on Canal and win” unlocks a special statue.
  • As a stretch goal it’d also be nice to have a Rimworld-like RPG element for your Home City denizens. For folks who are unfamiliar, I’m talking traits, decision-making, memories, etc.
  • Personal side goal is to include historical notes you can read through as you go through your city.

A few questions for the community:

  • Does this sound interesting to you? Or is there something else you’d rather I spend my time on? Feel free to be direct.
  • Would you want to see multiplayer?
  • You’re my boss, so let me know - what kinds of other features would you like to see?

I’d be willing to take this on as a side project, so it’d be totally free. And of course, if anyone is interested in helping out just let me know. I’d especially be keen on receiving help from artists/animators, but all help is welcome.

  • The game would most likely be built in Unity.
  • If I can, I’d like to pull assets from AOE4 directly. If it’s not possible, I’ll try to approximate things where I can.

Project spec doc: Home City Project for AOEIV - Google Docs

Feel free to reach out to me in this thread or in my Discord if you have thoughts.

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This is an idea that I like a lot, reminds me of AoE Online capital cities as well. Capital cities were something that you could level up outside of gameplay, served as a quest hub, and you could improve to change up or upgrade the army you used in skirmish/ranked.

I think having multiple layers of interaction would be huge for the series, and have been hoping for an addition like this since AoE 3 and AoE: Online dipped out of the public consciousness. MMORTS style games have been playing with the idea for a while, and I think a mobile app blended with PC/console gameplay would be ideal. Much better application for the IP than what we’ll be getting with AoE Mobile.

I would prefer if it were a more cosmetic thing though, changing gameplay around what someone does or doesn’t do in a mobile app can lead to a P2W kind of environment.

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It would certainly help the game with immersion and customizability. Tying upgrades in with completing masteries seems most logical to me. The only thing you can do with Home cities in AoE3 is change the buildings, adding citizens, decorations, and other things that make the cities even more pleasant. This could be expanded upon in future titles.

These elements provide a personal touch for the player, which, regrettably, has been neglected. The decorations for the Town Center are simply lackluster.

I wish you the best of luck with this project :slight_smile:

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As long as your homecity doesn’t directly impact gameplay i love this idea.

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I agree with this! It would be a nice visual bonus for us to enjoy, but I don’t want to see any gameplay being impacted by this in any way.

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7

This would be ideal for a ‘world conquest’ game mode.

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