Out of these examples, I’d only consider the boar and Cata to be inintuitive as the game doesn’t mentions its resistence against spears. The Huskarl on the other hand is labeled as a unit with high pierce armor thus an anti-archer infantry. The militia-line recently received a new tech with Gambesons that gives them +1 pierce armor that that does a lot against archers, the proper counter is now Hand Cannons.
As 2’s tooltips are kinda cryptic, people already made mods that explain all stats.
Edit: I just checked the Byzantine tech tree - the Cataphract is labeled as “Byzantine unique cavalry unit. Strong vs. infantry. Weak vs. archers.” So you can kind of guess that spears normally won’t work against them.
This video came out as soon as ageIV was released, the minute of the video is the most relevant to understanding the meta counter to an average player.
To play aoe2 I need something similar and simple to understand.
Spirit got you covered. He doesn’t have a fancy chart, but it explains in 10 minutes how the usual counters work in Age 2. As both games take place in the Middle Ages, their counters 90 % behave similar.
Most players btw consider Spirit as one of the best learning resources for AoE 2.
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two civs that barely did anything to player count when they were released back in October.
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Sure , it only changed the game from having a 7k player base on weekends to having a 17k on weekends peak.
Well, the price change definitely boosted the player base as it was super cheap.
For example, in Kazakhstan, it was only $9-12, which is same as AOE2 DE on sale at 9.99
Of course, many would buy it when it is super cheap.
Why do you think the WZ community was so huge?
It was free and a decent game
Dota2, CSGO the same.
The updates didnt do much!
Trust me, it didnt change anything about what others want to see in this game.
Ottos and Malians didn’t improve the game significantly, it wasn’t enough.
It was mostly the price!
it was 49.99, deluxe 59.99
after the price change, it was 39.99, deluxe 49.99
And as I mentioned, in some countries it was super cheap, so people did hop in during that sale period.
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Archer line beats militia line. But not unique unique militia like Huskarl. Spears should counter cataphracts, right? Think again. Again, aoe2 has a lot of stupid game design choices that leads to bad new player experience.
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Yeah it is because the developers did not know how to design a game.
No. It was intentional.
Funny that op’s id gets censored so you cannot properly quote him.
I can foresee AOE4 inevitably getting more and more AOE2-ish in its units and AOE3-ish in its mechanics, if the game continues to develop. I am curious what op would think at that time point.
It’s already a pretty obvious trend with the Malians and Ottomans, however streamlined the original civs are. They have units out of the existing counter system and far more unique mechanics.
Side note: some people may disagree but AOE3 (“the too complicated game”) has far more streamlined unit designs than AOE2 (same unit type almost always have the same counters) which only gets a bit more unique after DE. And AOE4 is even more streamlined than AOE3.
People don’t keep playing a game because they saved a tenner somewhere. The game itself, on some level, has to be worth playing.
Simple as that.
I don’t care about this “AoE IV vs. AoE II” thing, but saying that new civs didn’t do much in a game about civs (when everybody always talks about how many civs previous Age titles have) is just funny.
Units being the same has never been a point of contention when it comes to how fun the game is. Star Craft 2 was, is, and will be the king of RTS for another decade. Why? It’s just incredibly balanced and cater to any kind of gameplay style. Repetitive gameplay is a nonissue in SC2.
If we are to take videogame out as a factor, games like chess will exist as long as humanity exists.
It’s never about unit variety. It’s all about how the game is played.
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If we are to take videogame out as a factor, games like chess will exist as long as humanity exists.
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If I want to play chess I have a hundred free apps and websites, and I can spend $10 for a (pretty good) chess set.
I don’t want to spend $50, a decent computer, and 50GB space, to play chess.
But the post he is refering to is someone quoting a bump up in player count. He pointed out that this coincides with sales of the game. Regardless of whether the game is good or not; it is clear that when it goes on sales, people who otherwise were not purchasing, did.
You’re right that people don’t play bad games just because they are cheaper. Perhaps the rapidly bleeding playerbase showcases that those who held out probably regretted their decision shortly after.
No one knows what a good game is until after they try it afterall. So yea, no one buys a bad game even if it’s cheap. But, what if you don’t know the game, buy it, it stinks and you quit? seems to line up.
It’s fine to point out factors, but individual factors aren’t the whole picture. The price changes, the updates, and the free content, will have all played a part. The price increase secured a large immediate bump in players, followed by a drop-off as you approach October 2022, with the free civs being released with the Anniversary update at the end of October. As you can see, there was sustained moderate growth in the following months, only going down as of last month.
Stuff like this is why you can’t have a serious discussion comparing these games on this forum. Too many people have just drunk the nostalgia koolaid and will blindly support anything AOE2-related regardless of any facts or reasoning, refusing to give any credit where it is due. I would seriously think this statement was a troll if I didn’t see constant comments like this.
In AOE2, compared to the Arbalest, the Elite Longbowman has:
1 extra range
1 extra attack
10% less accuracy
Does not even wear its quiver properly
In competitive play it is completely overshadowed by the Arbalest and almost never used because its upgrade is extremely expensive by comparison, it can only be built from Castles, and the extra range ends up not being worth the cost and lower accuracy since Briton archers already have so much more range than others.
In AoE4 compared to the archer, the Longbowman has:
1 extra attack (2 extra vs light infantry)
2 extra range
3 Unique abilities
Is slightly slower
In all levels of play, it is literally the identity of the English army and used in 99.9% of games. And if that’s not enough, the English get an actual ‘elite super ranged unit’ in Age 4, with +4 attack (+8 vs light infantry), +4 range, and +30HP compared to a regular archer.
But no, AoE2 longbowman is ‘cooler’ because its game has a 2 in it
the current one filters a lot of players coming from developmentr countries as I said before. Also this game graph is so underwhelming for the posibility and potential that its engine can do if its so good as other confirm or defend aoe 4
