How should Civilizations be designed by AoE4?

Sure Mobile Base Mongolians and Eagle reveal map ability sounds new first for AoE, but that’s over 20 year old stuff from Starcraft Terrans. The big problem I see, AoE4 brings nothing new to the table. And it can’t, all possible combination have been already tried out and are years on the market, to a point where I have to ask are they necessary at all?

AoE4 doesn’t have to be creative or reinvent the Wheel. I would rather like to have a game again with lots of units and Nations. That would actually stand out, compared to other lame games we have today.

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I think many specific units should not be a problem as long regular units can not only beat them, but are the best counter.

We have in AoE2 this option “all tech available” , maybe it can be extended?

-common faction specific tech
-uncommon faction tech
-all nations tech
-tech from other nations

Hello, the looks of starcraft units are irrelevant…the game play aspects can be achieved:
Here are a few MAJOR gameplay differences i remember from starcraft and how it could be achieved in a historical game:
terran buildings flying --> obviously flying buildings are out of the question but a civ like mongols could move with tents on ox carts etc like the nomads they were.
terran medics --> obviously doctors, maybe they can only do it out/away from combat for balance purposes or whatever
zerg movement speed on creep --> various units of civs that were known for to specialize in certain terrain can get that, for example nomad light cavalry can have extra speed/line of sight on steppe/flatlands type of terrain… you can do that for other units on woods or lakes etc
“spellcasters” --> could have a few special units that can use an ability to throw a grenade for example (they had grenade from sulfur or something in medieval times) obviously for balance i consider it doing some damage but not killing a ton of units outright
stealth of various units, or burrow of roaches -->pretty much similar to the terrain point above, some units could specialize and be harder to detect from distance in certain areas, or could even toggle a crawling.
I only say these ideas as a proof of concept, i don’t necessarily believe they could/should be added in AoE IV. The buildings one i really like and to a certain extend some civ (or special unit) enjoying certain buffs/benefits on a specific terrain type, but the rest are just random ideas of how to achieve a unique design of civs in a historical game.

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I liked the city building aspect of AOE Online. I wouldn’t mind something like that where you can build your own little visual empires for each civilizations (or pick one).

AOE3 had it barebones in the sense you had a city you could level up.

I don’t know if they can incorporate that into the game (I doubt it) but I would like it. It would provide something permanent you can build and tweak while playing random map/supremacy/whatever they’re going to call it.

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Sure its technically possible to do a lot of today,

but is it than a selling point or no deal?

I mean just because they copy some mechanics from over 20 year old Starcraft doesn’t mean it turns game good.

I think having not many factions in the game for AAA is a bad idea.
The original AoE had 12 civilizations at launch.

Medieval II: Total War launched with twenty-two factions. Man 22 factions and that was an AAA game 2006.
https://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Factions_in_Medieval_II:_Total_War.html

Wouldn’t it simply look lazy if there are not many factions? Its not like AoE is done by a small indie no name, no budget studio.

And just say, ok 3 or 4 nations play a little different, does it justify to pay 50 or 60 Dollars for it?

I rather would like 12 factions with full unit and buildings tech tree, then some 3-6 factions that have weird and odd gameplay mechanics.

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Certainly not, the game doesn’t get any better because it copy pastes mechanics from other games.
Your initial point was that AoE can’t have so unique civs/units/dynamics because it is a historical game and you can’t see how it can implement things that fantasy or sci-fi games can. My answer was only to refute that point, they can do it and i provided a few examples i could think in a few seconds while having no experience in actual game development.
Arguing that AoE can NOT have these mechanics because of its setting is a different thing than arguing that AoE should not have these mechanics because of copy pasting them or some other reason.
I hope that the devs can come up with brand new ideas that serve similar purpose instead of copy pasting exact old ones, but if they don’t come up with original ideas, i do think that in this case copying the old successful ones will indeed improve the AoE franchise. As i stated - and that is obviously my personal opinion, but got decades playing RTS games - the one thing that AoE2 was bad at and that could be taught from other games is the civ uniqueness. Everything else, (again imho) AoE2 is the perfect recipe, economy, micro/macro balance, replayability and uniqueness of each match even after you play for 20 years etc.
So in this light i would advocate for more unique civs wether they accomplish that by copying mechanics from other successful games or can come up with their own original ones is not up to me to say.

Historical Total War Nations are not unique. And its anyway a really successful Franchise even today.
My main concern is: make for AOE4 “unique civs” might turn the game bad.

How is having Mongolian faction with mobile buildings, units that cast reveal area a selling point?
It might be a bad thing for an RTS, as you have to babysitting each unit to make them do their casts, it ends up in a game about fast hitting key board, instead of properly plan what you are doing.

Time is money, and each “new” mechanic consumes a lot of it. The more factions are added, the less is room left to make them different. Sure it does not look like a lot if a faction does have mobile buildings, but what if instead we could have 2 or 3 more factions?

The bigger question is, how much does it impact the main selling point of the RTS.
The actual Strategy.

RTS tend to easy mess it up, what if the factions A is so unique, that it does mess up the balance of the gameplay? Because it ends up as too strong, so nerf it till faction A is no longer playable, and faction B turns into overpowered?

There are so many ways to easy mess it up, maybe it would be better not to start with such experiments in the first place?

For various reasons, I just have by unique factions simply a bad feel how it does turn out.

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So I thought I’d chime in with a bit of a different angle on the topic.

Im a player who started on AoM and then moved to AoE3 without ever touching AoE2 until very recently. Also I’ve never played the games online vs other players, strictly playing vs the AI.

I loved AoM and AoE3 but absolutely hated AoE2. For me it was so much fun to explore new Civs and what they offered since every Civ played differently and had so much customization options. Most importantly they had fun units such as Colossus, Minotaur and Grenadier. You could even make “builds” based on those units by focusing different techs in Decks or Gods. When I decided to try AoE2 later it felt so unfun. No fun units with special abilities or ways to make fun builds around single unit. Every Civ felt like copy of each other with 2 special units and slightly different visuals. Im sure veteran players could figure builds for every single unit but I never explored the game fully. Couldn’t bother.

Its important to remember the more casual player base. Guys who never wonder into ranked and only play for fun. They want FUN game. They often don’t care as much about balance or cookie cutter builds.

I personally love the direction game seems to be going. I would absolutely love to see fun and unique units or Hero unit like Explorer/Warchief but it could be too much for competitive players. I think the hard part for devs is striking balance between fun and new stuff while still maintaining competitive aspect of AoE2.

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im fine with civs that are more different from each other and more civ specific units…Im really not a fan of hero characters :confused: not as a standard part of it anyway. Unit abilities are fine, like a scout uncovering a bit of the map or a shield unit doing a shield wall…but when you start getting into hero characters it starts to warp the game a bit around them. they’d be increasingly hard to counter and deal with.

yes a segment of the community doesn’t go into a rank but a balanced game still benefits them.

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In my opinion a games design should not ignore the market and player base preferences.

Age of Empires II (2013) Current Players 8,325
Age of Empires® III: Current Players 1,538
Age of Mythology: Extended Edition Current Players 986
Age of Empires Online Current Players 12

Again, even with Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition out there with 16,994 Current Players
AoE2 from 2013 still does beat by numbers Age of Mythology by 8 times.
It just looks for me that Age of Empires franchise is a historical one, that just requires and rather “traditional” and focused on “actual problems of previous game”, approach by the design.

Maybe it better if they reserve “creativity” for Age of Mythology 2?

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I also think for AoE4 we simply require just to add more civ specific units.
But that factions should not be too different.

One in my opinion very bad designed faction was Aztec from Age of Empires 2 and Age of Empires 3.

Ok its nice to have such skins and they had some fun units, but it was completely unplayable vs real people in Age of Empires 3, without horses and artillery you had zero chance, the “wacky” mechanics did not really compensate the gaps in the technology tree. The Age of Empires 2 make zero sense as they have access to technologies they never had.

In case of Aztec and other native nations I always wondered why they were not simply combined with an European one or Europe’s Colony, to close the tech gap. It makes more sense to me to play full tech Mexico as nation with Aztec mercenaries, than Aztec as own faction, that does lack lot of tech or makes no sense.

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The numbers are so low they don’t matter. Yes Age of Empires II was the best selling game… only because it came right before the decline of RTS as a genre.

If you’re chasing after glory days gone by, you’re not going to be successful. Take what worked from that time and make changes to other aspects to appeal to the people who play games today. I would imagine lots of unique looking models might attract people. Civilizations playing differently from each other might attract people. Campaign style multiplayer instead of 15-20 minute games might appeal to people.

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But starcraft is over 20 years old, this concept with unique looking models and Civilizations playing differently from each other doesn’t seem to attract people to the genre. “if we dont count Blizzard games”

In my Opinion decline of RTS as a genre started with Civilizations playing differently from each other.
The more Civilizations are playing differently, the less differently is strategy to play the game.

Total War Series is a very good proof for it. Recent Total War: Three Kingdoms has just similar china nations and sold over million copies in a week.

Tell me a single new RTS from last 10 years with even half of it in their lifetime?

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It panders to a nationalistic Chinese gaming audience. And despite this it only sold a million copies in a week. It may be Total War’s best selling game to date but it’s not selling very well for a country with over a billion people in it.

So no. I disagree with the idea it sold well because the factions in Total War Three Kingdoms are similar to each other. It sold better than previous games because it pandered to a Chinese audience and did not sell well when you consider it in that context.

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Well there was on reddit a chart how good Total War did sell.

So basically historical games with very similar factions did sell better than those with Warhammer fantasy setting, despite the fact in Warhammer they are very different. In Warhammer 2 TW they have even Dinosaurs, Rat people, zombie pirates, Vikings and a lot other very creative designed factions.

I mean the available information does show very clear, what people did in the past prefer.
Is it wise to ignore it? There is a very clear pattern,
maybe the thing with “different factions” is not the solution, but the problem?

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Now take a look at the steamcharts and see which ones are actually being played the most - in this case, it is Warhammer, which had about 3 times the number of people playing it at the moment as the next game (Three Kingdoms) specifically because of the variety of strategies and armies that can be deployed. And even historical total war games tend to have more varied factions than AoE2 did, with pretty much unique unit rosters that lead to different focuses on the battlefield (like generally weak but cheap infantry, or cost-effective archers) - in fact, Thrones of Britannia suffered massively due to complaints that factions played too similarly to one another, while Rome (which has one of the widest arrays of playstyles in a historical game) is near the top.

Edit: Also, it is worth mentioning that Warhammer II is a much younger game than either Rome or Empire, with fewer large sales and definitive editions to make it more of a freebie buy. I won’t say that explains the entire difference, but it is something to take into account.

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Em, right now even Total War: MEDIEVAL II has more people play it, than Warhammer.
maybe you do mean Warhammer 2? And we should not forget how much work over the years was put into those games, with all the DLCs and expansions.

https://steamcharts.com/search/?q=Total+War

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Yeah sorry, I meant Warhammer II (it’s not really a sequel in a traditional sense, more like a large expansion, so I just referred to it by the base name). And while it’s true that it’s gotten plenty of support from CA, the same thing can be said for the fully-updated Medieval, Attila and Empire, as well as Rome II itself (which continues receiving DLC to this day) and Three Kingdoms, all of which have have had lower playerbases (EDIT: Consecutive players at once, not necessarily purchased copies) on average.

And like I said, Total War doesn’t really have identical armies in the same way that AoE does anyways besides Shogun and Three Kingdoms. Sure, armies are all going to have infantry, archers and cavalry, because that’s just how they’ve been structured throughout history, but the different units that make up those ranks like phalanx, horse archers or legionnaires and the variance in quality, cost, speed, etc. between them are what give them their unique fighting style on the field.

As for AoE4, we’ve been told we’re getting unique unit graphics for every faction that gets added - if they’re already going through the trouble of doing that, which is already a large part of what makes unique civs expensive to develop, we may as well make more ‘generic’ units at least a bit unique from each other rather than just having one or two bonuses for each faction that can be hard to see at a glance. Like, celts have a 15% speed bonus for their infantry - why not just build that into their playstyle with a fast, lightly armored infantry line from the start, rather than just having a small speed bonus and a unique unit (which is pretty much just a faster champion) that can only be built from castle age?

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