Making Age of Empires a 21th century RTS

Age of Empires: DE I - Discussion
1

Hey people!

I believe that some aspects of the original Age of Empires aren’t attractive anymore even for the fan base of the game, let alone fans of SC 2, WH 40k and other popular RTS franchises. So, I would like to share with you some of my thoughts about how the development team of AOE: DE could make the game more attractive for the next generations of players, and better for the old ones.

Campaign improvements

Full voice acting - some audio commentary after completing a objective, discovering a important place on the map or losing a hero unit. The idea here is to make playing the campaigns a more unique experience, and improve the storytelling aspect of them.
Imagine “Well done, warriors of Carthago! The filthy Romans will not dare threaten our people again!” being epically acclaimed at some moment on the First Punic War campaign!

Optional objectives - could be killing a target, building a tower above a hill, bringing an artifact to the designated place, and receive rewards, like units or resources. Most of the campaign maps have lots of blank space, ready for these adds.

Visual improvements

New environment elements - In AOE II we have statues, carts, tapestry, ruins and fallen leaves to decorate the map.

Unique wonders for each civ - sumerians building Egyptian-like pyramids, that’s weird. Recent discussion about it here: https://forums.ageofempires.com/discussion/1748/wonders#latest

Gameplay improvements

Defensive stance as default - If I want my units to persecute an specific enemy unit, I click on it, right? I always thought to be really annoying have my units behaving like psychotic serial killers.

“Don’t attack” instance for catapults - Well, you know what I mean lol

Formations at the gather point of units - In WC III, units don’t move in formation, but they organize themselves on a basic square-like formation when they reach a designated point. This proved to be useful, because it helps to keep the units together when they move again.

Please, share your opinions about these topics below!

2

This one they probably won’t be adding triggers or unique units. Since we are getting DE of all games and also AoE 4, this one will still retain old playstyle.

There will be voice over for campaign instructions /story pages. I’m unsure if they will have in match commentary. It would require triggers is my guess, though the game can already recognise if units reach a certain area or if a unit dies, so it may be possible to add.

Stand ground already stops catapults attacking in Rise of Rome, will likely be same in DE.

The issue with adding all these features is that AoE 2 is already mostly like your suggestions.

Personally I don’t want formations. Randomly spread units is a charm of the first game.

Unique wonders / env would be cool, if they decide to change their minds and can fit in the extra work.

Defensive stance default should be an option, as otherwise units will stand still in battle - it’s easy to forget what parts of your army is doing in battle and so aggressive works there. Some people will just like aggressive.

3

Mostly aggree with your wishlist there, ExemptedScarf68 . I would perhaps add;

  • Ensure the maps are large

    Modern RTS games have a tenancy to limit the engagements to single-battle size maps, rather than large sectors ripe for conquest. I want to see a return to that, preferably in maps with multiple geography types. I would not mind an Empire Earth 2 style “territory division” either.

  • Formations should definitely return, along with other specific unit behavior controls.

  • DOW 1 style “behavior at building”, where you could tweak what new units behavior will be specifically.

  • Larger, not smaller.

    Relating to point 1. I want to see large numbers of units and buildings, not fewer like in AOE 3.

4

+1 on the unique wonders.

5

At this point is useless… but I’m not sure about extra content.

6

You do realize that this is not a compelte remake, but the old Genie engine and code is working under a new, shiny hood, right? Most of the stuff you mentioned seems nice (and a lot of them where implemented in Age of Empires 2), but weren’t in Age1, so adding them would not make it a remake but rather a reboot.
I would suspect something like that in Age4, but not in essentially a HD version of Age1.

7

@ExemptedScarf68 said:

Defensive stance as default - If I want my units to persecute an specific enemy unit, I click on it, right? I always thought to be really annoying have my units behaving like psychotic serial killers.

I support that.

8

@PhatFish said:
+1 on the unique wonders.

I really hope they consider this as well, if not at the launch, perhaps on future patches.

9

@ExemptedScarf68 said:

@PhatFish said:
+1 on the unique wonders.

I really hope they consider this as well, if not at the launch, perhaps on future patches.

Future DLC may be.

10

@Penelinfi said:
This one they probably won’t be adding triggers or unique units. Since we are getting DE of all games and also AoE 4, this one will still retain old playstyle.

There will be voice over for campaign instructions /story pages. I’m unsure if they will have in match commentary. It would require triggers is my guess, though the game can already recognise if units reach a certain area or if a unit dies, so it may be possible to add.

Stand ground already stops catapults attacking in Rise of Rome, will likely be same in DE.

The issue with adding all these features is that AoE 2 is already mostly like your suggestions.

Personally I don’t want formations. Randomly spread units is a charm of the first game.

Unique wonders / env would be cool, if they decide to change their minds and can fit in the extra work.

Defensive stance default should be an option, as otherwise units will stand still in battle - it’s easy to forget what parts of your army is doing in battle and so aggressive works there. Some people will just like aggressive.

Actually, we can find all these features in Age 2, but the idea of having some of its characteristics on the Definitive Edition of Age 1 is pretty exiting! I expect, at least, a reformed scenario editor, that gives the players the possibility of developing their own maps and campaigns with such features, like voice acting.

11

With all the other changes they’re making, I don’t see why they can’t do anything on the list. Most of these changes would actually be quite a nice addition. I believe the creator of RockNRor has said his AoE modifier should work with DE (I maybe wrong), but if it does that opens up many more possible features that can be added to AoE.

The creator, Chab, reverse engineered the game to add features like drop points, auto farms, Player 1 controlled AI, Random generated AI, AI that plays on any population and much more. It’s really good and if it works it means that many features not added in DE could be added at the users digression, as you get to customize it yourself, so you don’t have to have every feature available.

A link can be found here: https://aoemodder.wixsite.com/rocknror

12

@Epid said:
With all the other changes they’re making, I don’t see why they can’t do anything on the list. Most of these changes would actually be quite a nice addition. I believe the creator of RockNRor has said his AoE modifier should work with DE (I maybe wrong), but if it does that opens up many more possible features that can be added to AoE.

The creator, Chab, reverse engineered the game to add features like drop points, auto farms, Player 1 controlled AI, Random generated AI, AI that plays on any population and much more. It’s really good and if it works it means that many features not added in DE could be added at the users digression, as you get to customize it yourself, so you don’t have to have every feature available.

A link can be found here: https://aoemodder.wixsite.com/rocknror

Nice one.

13

agree to all, however a part of me is aginast formations and the other part says it is a great idea.

14

SC 2 is still making my laptop a hot boilerplate, but I do agree on much more improvements in general, of course with AOE style and suitable to it’s genre. I wouldn’t like to see AOE become a Massive Multiplayer Online game, there are enough of those games already, so they will have to take great care of balancing the number of units in regard to tactics and RTS in general. It should not become a Total War kind of game in my opinion.

In addition to your fine suggestions, I would like to see groups of units to be able to follow another unit or group of units at some distance but close enough to interact in a fight when necessary. It’s done by right clicking on the unit or a unit in that group (to my memory this had been implemented in WC III and with the follow/guard function in certain AOE versions). Also if a single unit in a group dies, the other group should still follow the remainder of that group of course. This in combination with different attack stances and formations could deepen tactics and gameplay.

15

@ExemptedScarf68 said:

@PhatFish said:
+1 on the unique wonders.

I really hope they consider this as well, if not at the launch, perhaps on future patches.

No reason not to other than a cost v benefit appraisal. Would be nice but realistically how often do you see wonders in multiplayer? If it’s cheap to render they may as well do it, If not they may as well not bother as it doesn’t substantively affect the game experience. I suspect it would be cheap to implement and to be honest I don’t have a problem with Wonders doing something in conquest (like a small trickle of gold like an AOK Feitoria) as wouldn’t break the overall feel of the game (unlike overland trade, which some AOKers have been advocating)

To answer my rhetorical question about a week ago a player actually built two wonders in a game I played. Totally foolish as he could have killed me and my ally instead of defending the building site. His horse archers actually ran past my woodies to protect the unthreatened building site, crazy.

Building a wonder is totally pointless outside of a set campaign objective

16

I take it you haven’t played wonder wars :wink:

17

Suggested FE looks at what Chab has done too. RocknRor has many new features that should be included in AoE DE.

18

@Epid said:
With all the other changes they’re making, I don’t see why they can’t do anything on the list. Most of these changes would actually be quite a nice addition. I believe the creator of RockNRor has said his AoE modifier should work with DE (I maybe wrong), but if it does that opens up many more possible features that can be added to AoE.

The creator, Chab, reverse engineered the game to add features like drop points, auto farms, Player 1 controlled AI, Random generated AI, AI that plays on any population and much more. It’s really good and if it works it means that many features not added in DE could be added at the users digression, as you get to customize it yourself, so you don’t have to have every feature available.

A link can be found here: https://aoemodder.wixsite.com/rocknror

I never heard before about this mod, and it looks really awesome! Many thanks for your suggestion. Downloading it right now!
Certainly, having some of those many ads suggested by the community been officially implemented on the game would be incredible, but is good to know that we can always count on the community initiatives to improve the game.

19

@PCS70 said:
SC 2 is still making my laptop a hot boilerplate, but I do agree on much more improvements in general, of course with AOE style and suitable to it’s genre. I wouldn’t like to see AOE become a Massive Multiplayer Online game, there are enough of those games already, so they will have to take great care of balancing the number of units in regard to tactics and RTS in general. It should not become a Total War kind of game in my opinion.

In addition to your fine suggestions, I would like to see groups of units to be able to follow another unit or group of units at some distance but close enough to interact in a fight when necessary. It’s done by right clicking on the unit or a unit in that group (to my memory this had been implemented in WC III and with the follow/guard function in certain AOE versions). Also if a single unit in a group dies, the other group should still follow the remainder of that group of course. This in combination with different attack stances and formations could deepen tactics and gameplay.

I’m totally with you on the MMO subject. One of the reasons Relic messed up with DoW III was their awful decision of designing the game to necessarily resemble the gameplay of those MMOs as default. Good RTS games with strong presence on e-sports, like SC, were never meant to be MMOs, but it was their so well done design that made them popular.
About the following command, I ain’t so used to it, besides following an enemy unit back to his base or ordering one of my units to conduct the sheep back to my own in AoE II, but I would like to learn other ways to use such feature more strategically against the enemy.

20

@ExemptedScarf68 said:

@PCS70 said:
SC 2 is still making my laptop a hot boilerplate, but I do agree on much more improvements in general, of course with AOE style and suitable to it’s genre. I wouldn’t like to see AOE become a Massive Multiplayer Online game, there are enough of those games already, so they will have to take great care of balancing the number of units in regard to tactics and RTS in general. It should not become a Total War kind of game in my opinion.

In addition to your fine suggestions, I would like to see groups of units to be able to follow another unit or group of units at some distance but close enough to interact in a fight when necessary. It’s done by right clicking on the unit or a unit in that group (to my memory this had been implemented in WC III and with the follow/guard function in certain AOE versions). Also if a single unit in a group dies, the other group should still follow the remainder of that group of course. This in combination with different attack stances and formations could deepen tactics and gameplay.

I’m totally with you on the MMO subject. One of the reasons Relic messed up with DoW III was their awful decision of designing the game to necessarily resemble the gameplay of those MMOs as default. Good RTS games with strong presence on e-sports, like SC, were never meant to be MMOs, but it was their so well done design that made them popular.
About the following command, I ain’t so used to it, besides following an enemy unit back to his base or ordering one of my units to conduct the sheep back to my own in AoE II, but I would like to learn other ways to use such feature more strategically against the enemy.

The tactical advantage of using groups and rightclick them on another group was in the basic max unit selection limit. You could only get that much units by dragging a box. So everything airborn I used in groups and right click them on another unit in a ground formation, defensive or aggressive stance didn’t matter that much in those games. Follow the leader principle.