Wow that’s, 20 different soldiers, 11 different riders “some even unique with camels” and 8 Artillery units.
I do not say Total War is the better game, its just the impression is different if you see only 1 unit as soldier to buy or 20 very different.The impression is by total war, they did put a lot of work behind it. Because 20 different soldiers is a visible work, what ever “stitched together work-around” is not really for all clear and visible, like just the 1 single soldier type for Ottomans in AoE3.
But is a work-around a good concept?
My problem with Ottomans was simply lack of cheap infantry.
Janissary are weak vs Archers, a very common cheap unit in AoE3.
It was quite painful to back him up with quite expensive guns.
So my game impression was very bad, as each game was simply to see archer spam. And while my enemy can very easy distract with cheap archers and advance his tech, I am stuck in past with very expensive units.
Problem is RTS designers did tend in last years always to present such extreme and even far worse measurements for gameplay design. There are a lot of people who do see this, as not necessary and actually as very bad for the genre. As you are not playing variety of strategies, but rather a quick time application.
Why would someone want to play more than 1 civ or why should the game even feature multiple civs if all strategies can be played in the same way and just as well with each one of them and the experience is almost identical with any other?
Is the name of a civ written on the top that important to make a difference even when that name is not translated into meaningful gameplay changes that both reflect the game’s historical setting and offer a unique experience to the player?
So, all civs should be armed with everything and do not lack anything, possibly with a couple of different skins and names, basically just having one thing under multiple skins. Is this what you want?
Because it is such an old, outdated and backwards approach that surprises me every time it is brought up as the better option to go with.
Yet ottos have a great Jan rush.
They also have one of the fastest FF progressions. Plus great colonial shipments, plus the strongest artillery at later stages to back up your jans, plus a great cav with fast training cards that let you train them automatically, plus automated vill training, and so on.
Have you ever though that to have different civs is not a flawed design like you think, but it is rather you or others that have learnt to play the other way around and now find it difficult to adapt to this way of gameplay?
Those civ differences are the beauty of AoE3 and hopefully in AoE4 they are going to be even broader and more interesting.
As long as there is gameplay, and avoid; ‘rail-play’; onesided plays with only one road/railway to follow for the civ.
I wish for opportunities, various choices and emerging civs.
AoE3 has entertained me the most.
Im still saying i agree that more units could be implemented in aoe3. But not in a way aoe2 did. To me historical relevance is more important than having options on units that won’t particularly have a big impact on game. In wars of liberty there were some extra units like nizam-i cedit, humbaraci etc and that was nice. But a crossbowman as an ottoman empire? No thanks, im good.
CAMELS are mount animals that are particularly good in some geographical conditions and they were of course used in those conditions BUT their military system did NOT include a specific unit that involves camels.
In my opinion abus gun - longbowman imbalance is something that should be in the game. They may be expensive but their are also stronger than longbowman and they are more reliable units than longbowman. For example when you have fair ammount of them you can use them to take down artilleries, while facing artilleries would be then end for longbowman.
You can very easy build swarm of cheap units from same building, where Ottomans require at least 2 and lots of resources. A perfect combination to be frustrated with the very broken card system.
Exactly this is Total War doing for years. Looking at the current market situation, where Total War, a game series with no real innovations and creativity does dominate market with simply make lot content. Like 20 Factions and 40 Units for each faction.
In Same time to see RTS to instant fail, is it really necessary to take such risk again?
Sure it is possible to be “creative” by RTS games, but is it actually requested in the first place ?
Problem is the high risk of bad faction design.
The “unique experience” they all provided in last years was very bad balanced at launch, slowly and not significant supported and patched.
A unique experience where rush is not stoppable, because they did forget to add counter units for it.
A unique experience where you can’t siege your enemy, because they did forget to add Artillery units for it.
A unique experience where you can’t kill heroes, tier 2 and 3 units, because they did forget to add counter units for it, as you don’t even have a mirror unit.
A unique experience where you can’t properly build your base, because the mobile base factions needed to be valuable to be played, so it was necessary to have by normal base build factions to have lame and boring base build.
A unique experience, where people are abusing only available 1 single play style.
Considering how RTS developers did badly handle it, I simply doubt their ability to do it.
It seems to me, this concept does bring in more troubles than benefits.
Sure I can perform the repetitive one sides meta, but that isn’t fun to do all time very same thing. And check any RTS feedback from last games, it goes like this “ok this is obviously broken, why can’t you fix it ?” Can the game developers still handle it? After all those years, I started to doubt this concept.
I’d say that balance issues are there for many games that can be played competitive despite the civ design. AoE2 De gets them as well.
I do not expect Aoe4 to be the perfectly balanced game upon release, but I expect it to be well supported with balance changes and updates for years after its release and all its other content releases.
As long as the issues get addressed its fine for me, I think this is the case for most competitive games out there. Some things just have to be tested out first.
I can understand your frustration with aoe3 because the game was abandoned. There are decade old imbalances, bugs and exploits in there that people make use of to win and no one cares, let alone the cheating.
That shouldn’t be the case for a fresh big title like Aoe4.
Actually in case of every fresh big RTS titles from last 10 years, gameplay flow and faction balance, seemed to be a complete alien concept for the teams, issues were not addressed, so they failed.
Because different factions means it requires time to do it right, a lot of time, but they do not get it.
Why should situation for Age of Empires 4 be any different,
if it does basically apply similar concepts again? ? ?
First of all my first opinion what i stated twice in the same post was that it was my opinion. I found it an improvement for a new age but like i said my opinion.
Second, AoE III doesnt force you to use your unique units, which atleast is true to the Europeans which by far are the most played civs. They didnt handle unique units wrong, because you didnt like it. There is no reason to say, because you can use standard unit it is superior verson to one were you have more unique onces, there is no superior version in that and lies souly in opinion.
It is again clear you do not play AoE III seeing you use the wrong image for the elephant. Although its true the icon itself doenst change, the second image is one of the special one unit of Indians you get from a wonder. Also in my opinion are the AoE III icons superior because it is actually an interesting icon then just a snapshot of the unit in game.
You forget with units that there is alot more options for Ottomans.
Next to the units you named you have 5 different merceneries/outlaws from saloon.
You have possibility of natives. Which can be either 1-4 depending on map.
Ottomans have Saphi unique unit from home city and bombard cannon from factory
I only count 18 units for AoE II you posted but i am on mobile so could be wrong. But the ottomans have atleast 20 and even more with natives so you are wrong.
Edit:
Technically you have even more possibilities with revolution and extra mercenaries and natives from home city of which there are cards that can be send infinite times.
The look of upgrades for some units could be better better but most standard and some unique have good difference. Naming cant be different seeing the unit type is justed called like that, the term Hussar is the term of that unit type. I would also say the naming of AoE III because its more simpel superior because you instantly know which line it is.
crossbowman are not even an option to use against janissaries. Common and op stretegy for ottoman is jan rush. i don’t know how you managed to get rushed as ottoman and by crossbowman?? ottoman villagers with upgrades could kill a handful of them. itshouldnt surprise you that they are cheaper. Even in campaign it is stated by morgan black that crossbowman are not good option against jans.
Yes. It CAN be different. NOTHING, is “just called like that”. Those names were chosen. The developers did not understand even the basic concept of “name diferentaition”.
It is MORE DIFFICULT.
Having a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT name, makes it EASIER to understand which unit you are facing. Since there are ONLY 3-4 upgrades for a specific unit. It is quite simple to remember 3-4 different names, for a specific “unit-line”.
Yes. There are superior units. Knights beat long swordsmen.
That is NOT proof that when does not play AoE 3. That is at best, “anecdotal evidence”. Evidence, does not constitute proof.
Whether or not an icon is “interesting” is irrelevant. The SOLE PURPOSE of an “icon” is to “convey information”. If the objective is not achieved. Then the “icon” has failed, and is thus useless.
Can this concept still work 2020? By the current team we have.
We don’t have the AoE3 team, they are all gone.
I am just listen some of their projects.
-Age of Empires Online, Microsoft did pull the plug.
-Rise of Legends, you can not buy this game from Microsoft in an online store.
-Universe at War, “game lead AoE4 designer was working on” you can not buy this in an online store.
-Dawn of War 3, recent game from current developer team flopped.
You can not present today a raw concept and expect games market to back it up.
And new gameplay +different factions are raw concepts.
So how are they supposed to pull it off with AoE4? With exactly same/similar ambitions?
I understand “maybe” some long, long, long ago, a completely different team had successfully launched such game, but that’s simply no longer the reality of current games market and their actual abilities. That’s why I think AoE4 should not pick up such extremely risky concept.
Those are developers concern. As an aoe fan im not supposed to say “hey just gives a balanced game that is not so complex and dont challenge youselves to make unique civ, ust copy paste them and give them differnt names it will be faster”
The i expect them to impress me. I won’t be impressed by the graphics of aoe4, if it looks like an “aoe2 wanna be”.
If you know it better come with 4 unique hussar names that fit AoE III time period.
Also it is easier because when you actually play AoE III you know the difference between Veteran, Guard and Imperial. Then you see its hussar and you know imeadiatly which unit it is and at ehich upgrade, for AoE II if you dont know all the units by name and for example the knight line. Cavelier has no indicator if it is one of the knight lines. For all the player knows it could be for the hussar line or even unique unit.
