I am not denying that there are players disliking the graphics. What I am denying is that it’s the vast majority of players as you claim it to be. Because we simply don’t know that.
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So most of the top comments have nothing to do with complaining about graphics? Makes you wonder why people say that the majority of people dislike the graphics, doesn’t it…
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I say: Majority would prefer more realism.
I don’t say: The majority hates, dislikes the graphics or wouldn’t buy the game because of the graphics.
But because there is almost no one, who said the game looks too realistic, it’s very likely the majority had no problem, if the game would be more realistic. Even those, who are okay with the graphics or who haven’t say anything about it.
I never said the majority dislikes the graphics. I said the majority would prefer more realistic graphics.
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I think to solve this, they can make a DLC like for Aoe2 DE with ultra graphics
I just ask you? So if you had the choice between more realistic graphics and Fan Preview graphics, you would choose Fan Preview graphics? If you would choose the improved graphic, the discussion is ended
That is also a statement that you simply can’t make because you don’t know. It might as well be like you describe it, but until there is proof that what you are saying is actually true that is all just something that you believe and you should present it as such.
It depends on what the game looks like when it is more realistic. Right know I like the way the game looks apart from a few small details. But I can’t tell you if I would like more realistic graphics without seeing them. I might not. It all depends on what that would look like.
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I wouldn’t choose fan preview, I would choose X019, those graphics appealed to me.
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Well, I don’t know it for sure if it’s the majority, but we also have a like/dislike poll Graphics likes/dislikes Poll
Or a Twitter poll from Maurice Weber (Gamestar), where 28 % say it looks like a mobile game and 37 % wish little improvements (1836 votes). 35 are totally fine with the graphics https://twitter.com/MauriceWeber42/status/1382261263900798977
Maybe it’s not the majority, if we only look at the Age of Empires core fanbase, but if we iook at other RTS fans from Total War, Stronghold, etc., I highly doubt it’s not the majority who prefer more realism. Not hyper realism, but more realism. Stronghold Crusader is very popular too, not far away from Aoe popularity, but since Stronghold 2 the community is waiting for another great Stronghold.
Also many people are interested in Manor Lords. This definitely shows the interest in strategy games with realistic graphics. Or Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator - I don’t like the animations, but it looks epic and realistic at first look. Millions of views on Youtube.
Some of them are potential customers of Aoe4.
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Yeah I too feel that the graphics need improvement in some places but I wouldn’t necessarily say that they need to be more realistic. But rather that there are some aspects that don’t quite fit together yet. So I don’t know if wanting the graphics to be more realistic is something most people would want. To me it seemed that my perspective is that of most but obviously that’s purely subjective.
AoE was never really realistic in my eyes. Of course I understand what people mean when they say that aoe2 and aoe3 were more “realistic”. But to me it was always different in style from those other RTS that were trying to be actually realistic like the Total War series. And I don’t believe AoE4 should go I that direction.
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The graphics of the “maps” seem nice to me, the units (especially with the zoom) are rather caricatured and they seem “out of place” compared to the rest (buildings, map, vegetation, etc …)
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I believe most people here, whether liking the current graphics or not, at least recognize that “graphics is not the sole reason that determines the success of a game”.
Similarly, graphics is not the sole reason to like/dislike the game as a whole, or to give it positive/negative views either.
That also applies to every single aspect of the game, including lighting, coloring, historical accuracy, and a lot of minor details. People can have negative opinions on any of these details but remain positive towards the game as a whole at the same time.
Like, every recent Total War game removes some nice details (like visual upgrades of armours, reloading animations of firearms and siege engines, ability to view cities in the campaign map, etc.) or even large parts of the gameplay (naval battles), that were already well-established in earlier games, and people complain about that all the time, but these games remain critically positive and even sold better and better after all.
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To depict the Warhammer universe, clearly some parts of the TW formula had to be adjusted.
There is a big difference between Historical and Warhammer Total War. In Historical they can re-use every model, ships, weapons and unit proportions are pretty similar. In Warhammer, that would be a massive chunk of work to put there the ships. Where each faction has own desing.
I mean, I can understand why they removed naval battles for warhammer.
But for other historical total war games I don’t see the point. I can even find an excuse for Three Kingdoms because it is more land-based (but there are still two great rivers crossing the map and important river battles fought in real history). But I cannot find one for Troy, where the whole map is centered around a massive body of water.
That’s for naval battles. For other details like visually upgradable armors, or reloading animations, I can’t see a good reason for dropping them. It turns out that, similar to what happened to naval battles, when the devs found a good excuse to remove an older feature for one game, they end up removing it for all subsequent games.
Empire has a good reason not to include visual armour upgrades because there were no armours, but that didn’t return in Shogun 2, Rome 2 or Warhammer.
Empire and Shogun 2 had firearm reloading animations. Rome 2 didn’t (because there were no firearms of course), but then in Warhammer when firearms returned, the reloading animation was gone.
And for other details like city views or pre-battle speeches, they just disappeared.
These might be good business decisions because they save resources for more interesting elements, but players would love to have more options in games like this. Especially in Total War where close-up examination of battles has always been a fun part, and a lot of these details do not interfere with its gameplay.
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interesting. well at least age will still hae them easily recognizable it seemed. I hope 
The only criticism I have of Age 4 is the size of buildings. That’s about it. It looks way too tiny for me.
To me the art style is amazing. I really prefer it the way it is and I actually like the more stylized look. So far the systems sound really good.
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you may be lucky then, as they did say they worked on the scaling ( meaing either bigger buildings or smaller units).
However I am on the same page as you, and if they didnt change that from the preview, I wouldve still gotten the game ^^
The Age Online community is great. We also have some extremely competitive players.
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NO.
PARTIALLY true. 
Minecraft is a TERRIBLE comparison. It DOES NOT cost $60.
MOSTLY (but not fully) true. “Context” specific graphics, are important.
That is NOT “technically” what i was stating. I was stating that, “the vast majority”, of “casuual” gamers, only buy the newest release games, because of the graphics (mostly). THIS is relevant, BECAUSE, “the company MUST meet a minimum number of SALES for the franchise to be viable”.
The game is NOT being made for ONLY 1-2 MILLION SALES… The game company that owns the AoE franchise WILL EXPECT approximately 8-10 MILLION in sales, in the FIRST 3-6 MONTHS.