Aoe 2 was not advanced for the time. There are other RTS games that released in the same year (1999) that were utilizing full 3d models and and modern graphics for their time. Aoe purposely used older 2d technology to get their desired style.
3D rts games with realistic animations:
VS aoe 2
¡Thank you for encouraging mediocrity! 
This is the forum that deserves to be supported:
Yep! They are called the “dark ages” not because it was a terrible time, but rather it got that name from the very little literature and other surviving artifacts from that time period, that make it “dark” as far as information was. But there was certainly festivals, and joyous times, people in colorful and imagintive outfits, and a society capable of building astounding creations.
Due to the limited technology of the time, that wasn’t the case. But the previous game had always been surreal and gritty with skeletons remaining after the fighting. Not really sure which games you’ve been playing for the past 20 years, and hopefully it wasn’t Age of Mythology or Age of Empires III / Online, as those games have spun the series 180 degrees in surreal theme, but that wasn’t normally the case with the earlier Age of Empires.
This is even more appearance from the opening cinematic:
So apparently, the only people trying to change the narrative of Age of Empires are yourself and possibly those fist bumping into the air and liking your post; and maybe the current Creative Director for Age of Empires IV.
Go ahead and argue against gameplay while you’re at it, I have plenty of screenshots to prove to you otherwise.
I believe Bruce Shelley has repeatedly gone on record to describe the warm visual atmosphere of the franchise (as opposed to a gritty realism), which he’s famously summed up as “The sun is always shining in Age of Empires.”
Here’s a nice capture of release-era AoE3 marketing. To suggest that ensemble attempted to go into a different direction than AoE2 would be to directly contradict their statements here.
https://www.agecommunity.com/game_overview.aspx
“We first set out to reproduce the rich detail of Age of Empires II: Age of Kings. As we strove to make the fascinating Age of Empires III time period come alive, that goal quickly evolved: We at Ensemble Studios wanted to create the best-looking game ever.”
The man originally produced an earlier prototype of Age of Empires called, “The Dawn of Man”, where your villagers would die from starvation if they couldn’t garner enough food resources to feed themselves. I’m pretty sure Bruce Shelley would be acceptance of Age of Empires maintaining it hints in immersive aspect and not sway into the direction of joyful fairy tale atmosphere.
I also feel like several people are using the phrase "The sun is always shining in Age of Empires.” out of context. Personally, that felt more like the graphical verbatim that there exists an unseen sun in the game that gives out light to the surrounding environments. Unfortunately because of the limitation to 3D technology during the late 90s and early 2000s, those kind of concepts (such as ray casting and High Dynamic Range) weren’t fully conceptualized until Age of Empires III. That doesn’t take away the fact that I believe he meant the graphical aspect as oppose to the general art style of “sun is always shining” as someone pointed out with impressionist painting earlier.
Fortunately of us however, 3D technology has gone through several revolution from relying on the Genie Engine that was used on Age of Empires I, where you could only control 2D sprites, to Essence Engine 5.0 used in Company of Heroes 2, with showcases several new authentic atmosphere. The majority of the uproars regarding to the graphics are understandable as most people were expecting Age of Empires IV to be more ambitious and capture the immersion with the present day tech.
Also to paraphrase your last statement,
Here’s an upcoming game called Manor Lords utilizing today’s technology to create immersion:
And here’s a fan made Age of Empires Town Center reconstructed using Unreal Engine 4
https://www.reddit.com/r/ageofempires/comments/pfh0os/i_recreated_an_aoe2_feudal_age_town_center_in/
You posted the right phrase: make the best-looking game ever. I could Say that AOE4 Failed abou this.
“As we approached the finish of AoE, an article in a game magazine listed over 50 RTS games in development around the world, but all were either sci-fi or fantasy. AoE was the only one drawing on history. Plus, our game and our worlds were bright and lively. The sun was always shining in Age of Empires. Tony Goodman served as our art director and our artists created beautiful worlds people wanted to learn more about.”
It really seems like “bright and lively” are ingredients in this recipe.
I have no problem with the current art style, but that would have been jawdropping 
Probably need to drop the pop cap to 25 
Age of Empires series were certainly bright and lively, and does make me want to learn more about history. If anything, I have Age of Empires to thanks to for being so deeply focused on history, as opposed to most games, with maybe an exception for Total War series and Civilizations.
Age of Empires II (1999) with Definitive Edition (2019)
Age of Empires III (2005)
However, no where did I look at those images and feel like something was out of place and I couldn’t explain why, as with Age of Empires IV (2021).
I’m sure the developers for the game did their very best, and I don’t want to give anyone a hard time for after the amount of efforts they’ve put in. As someone who actually have played Age of Empires IV beta, there were some aspects where I was enjoying the game. But being 2021 and with the breakthrough in 3D technology, I felt like maybe the art direction wasn’t where it was suppose to be.
To get back to the point of this thread, there wasn’t even a single person manning those cannons in the trailer, even if siege crews did exist in Age of Empires II. I’m not sure if it was the art direction that they were going for, or if COVID-19 interrupted their workflow and schedule, or if they wanted to increase the gameplay performance by removing unnecessary characters. Whatever the reason though, it made the game look really un-immersive.
To quote a certain famous person, “Come on, man!”.
Wouldn’t you want your game to stand out from the rest and make everyone compliment the level of minute details you’ve placed into the game?
The art of this game feels like a painting to me. Definitely more stylized than its predecessors, but so is AOEO as well. Combined with the yellow holographic figures during gameplay, it feels like I am running a animus simulation of some sort. I don’t dislike it, but I know many wanted way more from this game.
And having played the beta I can say that the battles still feel epic to me, especially the charge animations. The sound design is also very good.
Bright and lively has always been the motto of AOE, definitely. Even I at times actually felt that certain things about AOE IV wasn’t bright enough. Or something was way too dark it didn’t look appealing. But Ensemble Studio’s motto was “to create the best looking game ever” and put a tonne of resources in detail for their units. The look of the ships, the details of the units, the details of the architecture.not once did people have a problem with the details until modern games started to emerge. Then people were starting to get annoyed that why do the buildings burn but nothing happens. Why do the civs of all asians look the same? Needs more uniqueness. Then the graphics mods started to emerge, crimson blood bod, various unique civ and mods, and even unique unit texture mods to better represent the the civilisations. And in this regard upgrades keep on happening.
And AOE II was actually dropped by a huge portion of the fan base. If AOE II had not evolved into this new competitive play to match the new games of its era, then AOE II would be just a nostalgic memory.
And then the revitalisation really happened when AOE II got its DE pack. You brought that 20 year old game back to life and brought it to the modern era. Appealing graphics, nostalgic gameplay, competitive streams, tournaments. All this which AOEfans could never have thought of for AOE II back in 2000.
But despite a game choosing to make necessary changes to EVOLVE and COMPETE with all the games of the modern era, people think it’s is totally okay for a game in a dying genre to be just OKAY. Again not show the evolution of AOE into the modern era. Just pander to the cult like RTS fan base that just want a new RTS game. Don’t care if it fares way less to all the games of the modern era. They don’t want the game to take off and become one of the top games in the century. Infact they just gave up on that idea and think if it just survives, that’s enough for them. Talk about if the game just gets 25K players, that’s all good and done. They can then form their own tiny little group while AOE IV gets buried by all the current and upcoming games that use unreal engine to add superior level of detail.
Even a game made by 1 guy has far superior level of detail then this company franchise and apparently that’s totally okay.
People in the AOE franchise worked really hard to bring AOE to 2021 and keep it alive. Make concerns were addressed as much as possible, many changes made, and the game progressed to now so many people talking about it again and hyping up for new content. Even kiddo’s who wernt even born during the time it came out.
Then by AOE IV, you are basically starting from scratch where all the concerns which were in previous games, people have to fight and develop it all over again in a game that hasn’t even come out yet.
Damage control is done when a game comes out andeveryone goes into how do we improve the game. But here damage control has begun before the damage done 
meaning even the people who enjoyed the game and are defending tooth and nail against people trying to make it even better, know the game won’t take off at launch. It will just survive. And all they need is for it to survive
Yeah it’s true the game isn’t so bad that it will turn into DoW III. But it definitely isn’t so good that people will want to choose this over other games except for that it is AOE. And people will dump it as fast as they picked it up.
I could not agree more. Well said! 
The AOE 4 image you’ve posted is a perspective rotated one with the shadows at the forefront. This was already mentioned before to you, and yet you insist on using that to portray a false impression of the brightness of the world there.
… What? I didn’t even remotely mention anything regarding to the lightning effects.
My argument was that compare to the previous Age of Empires games, Age of Empires IV feels somewhat off-balance and unsettling. I’m not sure if it was the themetic art style choice that they were going for, but it doesn’t really captivate me as much. Maybe it’s unfair to judge the game at its current form, but we haven’t seen the final build release yet and there hasn’t been anything released regarding to the ordinary gameplay, aside from the promotional video trailers.
I just think it’s unfair to use that particular image as an example what AOE 4 looks like.
He may have used one dark photo but at the end of the post, all the rest of the AOE IV photos look pretty bright so I don’t know if that could be classified as being dishonest. Especially if he isn’t using it in a context of lighting as it is still a game screenshot, albiet a different angle. It’s not a manipulated photo.
I think you are probably in the minority on this one. By the same logic, why should we expect projectile animations, destroyed building animations, decent water effects, etc? These things are expected because they make the game more immersive and thus more fun to play. It isn’t as though adding this would even be that big of an ask. I don’t accept that face paced play has to come at the cost of visual realism. I think you are just making excuses. The chess example is also a false equivalence. The chess board and pieces are limited by practical considerations to make it convenient to play whereas no such limitations are in place for a digital product like a game. Adding men to the artillery will not suddenly break the game.
