Never said I prefer a fictional storyline.
I mean small separate scenarios fit better to fictional stories centered on characters, because you can’t have a character experiencing 100 years of events.
The documentary style, especially the non-character-centric one like in AOE4, goes the other way round: it fits better to grander and broader scopes. I find it a missed opportunity that they choose a very small and limited scope in each scenario. They don’t fit each other well enough.
This just like a lot of things discussed on the forum is eventually a problem of options.
Older AOEs also have small, linear scenarios like Caesar 1 in AOE1 and Joan of Arc 1 in AOE2. I wouldn’t mind if there are such scenarios, or tutorial-like ones that help you familiarize some parts of the game.
But on the other hand, if I want to play a bigger scenario one day in the later games, there is very few.
Oh and you’re almost always blue facing red 99% of the time.
to clarify, here are some of the mission types in aoe2:
joan of arc 1: an RPG style mission where joan needs to find a way through occupied territory. you can’t produce units or collect resources
viking scenario (battle of york? i forgot the name): you play on a gigantic map and need with 7 other factions. you can win by beating 5 of those factions, collecting 10 000 gold or by building a wonder iirc. it’s a huge and complex scenario
one of the bari mission: sneak into the enemy camp at night and weaken the enemy army, afterwards beat them in the field
etc etc
i think it increases complexity rather than difficulty, which is something I appreciate. but to each their own
More AI factions could also open the way for missions like the final Saladin mission where you have to defend Acre at all cost but would also bring the old campaign ally problem where allies can be put in two categories: 1) they’re useless (Tabasco in Montezuma) or 2) they betray you (The Triple Alliance in Montezuma or Henry the Lion in Barbarossa)
there are also missions like one of the lithuanian ones where your ally generates resources for you as long as you protect them. so they are essential, as you can’t produce your own.
or the allies in the attila scenario where you attack rome, where they usually take out 1-2 of the castles you need to destroy
In my mind, the Art of War scenarios are going this way, but I agree that more variety in the types of campaign and how they play out would be great.
Don’t get me wrong, most campaign missions are heavily scripted (even when they don’t appear that way), and I like facing varied opponents.
It’s just that I don’t like facing multiple deathball-capable AIs. That’s a problem for future me though, especially as in Age IV they don’t actually get resource cheats until the (new) highest levels of difficulty (that are only in skirmish anyway).
if you spend like 10k making a game and it sold 100k copies for $10 each i’d consider that as massive success. it is only when 1 mill copies generated profit when compared to what big corporation expects, thats when they see it as a flop.
also remenber that aoe4 used to look diferently and at some point it neede to restart and done again from scratch or relic engine one.so the production time took at least 6 years
it was an old pic that was published on a website a few weeks before aoe 4 release. it was an pic of an 3d asset of an building (ruins of it?) on an green plain. It claimed that this one was supposed to be around 2014 or something. unfortunately the pic got lost with the actual aoe 4 news. regardless the veracity of it, it can may shown a reason why it was rushed in the best case.
Sounds like a false, speculative rumor. To my knowledge, the closest there was to aoe4 was AoEO, which had originally been developed in mind to be AoE4 before they very early on pivoted. That would have been like 2009 or so — after AoE3:TAD.
I spent the last 3 months basically learning aoe2 from scratch, i play on the xbox and been playing halo wars for many years. Aoe4 is supposed to releease on xbox and the dev team really need to optimize the controls before they do.
Talking to friends the main thing keeping new players away is how hard managing you economy is and how many civs there are.
I do think some things could be done to make the game a bit easier. For example we could set a TC rally point to a lumber mill and any new vill could go work the nearest unsaturated tree to that lumber mill, another would be to allow players to rotate the camera etc.
Then there are other thing to consider like diminishing economic return and unit veterancy, aoe2 does seem to favor players with higher apm a little to much imo. The players that can do more seem to have a big advantage despite maybe playing a sub optimal strat.
In halo wars for example economy is extremey easy(too easy and it could be improved) which just means most you atention is on your army which means taking smart fights is more important than spamming TCs, vills, and managing idles. Also the fact that healing units is cheaper and faster than building new ones combined with the fact that if they win fights they gain veterancy(dmp and hp) just makes the game fun.
Also unlike aoe2 where one really good player can probably take on multiple no so good ones, Halo Wars is so simple that even a 2v3 between very good and bad players is really hard. I actually think this is a good thing because the better player would still win a 1v1 and the bad player despite being bad is still worth 70-90% as good as the better player which just means more upsets and closer games.
I just think that a great RTS game better than anything out there can be made, keep it fun and simple. Of course from a money perspective idk if its even worth making.
I believe the mechanics are constrained by the game engine, which, unlike the engines of every of age game, was not made specifically for age of empires. It’s no coincidence the game feels off. bang engine for life
I’ll stick with that part, for lovers of "depth". You will also witness how easy it is to make defensive structures and how difficult it is to destroy them, especially with this cardboard siege.
Given what I’ve seen modders do, nevermind the devs, I disagree here.
I have no doubt the engine has presented problems for the devs in both performance and breaking down the squad model Relic’s games have always been built around, but in terms of game mechanics? Nah.
Plenty of game engines are re-used for other games. The Genie engine was, after all.
I feel confident in pointing at the issues the Definitive Issues have had to say the Bang engine isn’t infallible. What you seem to want is the Bang engine with the original team who made and maintained it. Only this way can you get the engine you think is best, with the team that has the firsthand knowledge of how it works. Which is kind of a holy grail in games development. And obviously not realistic at this point in time.
thing is bang has been, as andy points out, and this applies to genie as well, purpose made for aoe games and RTS of this kind first, hence why this kind of game has such great synergy with them, its well known essence wasn’t designed from the ground up for this specific kind of RTS game, i still think relic did well with adapting but quirks that make it feel off are likely not smt that can be harmlessly changed
one thing I would like to see returning is the Map Style : Real World, exists in AoE2:DE. There were some fun maps to play, where it was possible to play on both land and sea. I miss that in AoE4, there is almost no land and water map that is good and fun.
In AoE2:DE there were some cool maps in Real World style, with land and water, some names are: Italy, India, Indochina, Iberia, Central America, Straits of Malacca, West Africa, Amazonia, Byzantium, France, Middle East, Philippines , Nordic Lands.
I miss good maps that mix land and water. These types of maps are great for passing the time or for those who enjoy a strategic mix of land and water.
Will we see in the future a category of maps called Real World, as it exists in AoE2:DE??
it is not possible for a mere campaign DLC and new civilization to bug the maps rr even a Balancing Patch. If so, then AoE4 will have a lot of problems in the future.
The Problem with AoE4 right now is the lack of content to attract and keep people playing. Imagine if everything crashes. I can’t believe this new engine is so bad or unstable.
