Not changing my idea but my Hopes for a Better result are growing up a bit.
Je penses qu’il y a un mélange de AOM et AOE. J’apprécie beaucoup de mon côté…
you don’t like the level of detail of the terrain? do you like the elevation of the terrain for greater strategy, and you dont like that the maps are TOTALLY randomly generated?
Those units that look “better” are from era different era (tier) they still look cartoony and lack in any texture detail… Again readability is =laziness
I don’t like the unit textures. Models are pretty good but they need some more details: chainmail, armours, weapons colours have to be more detailed, imho. About terrains and landscapes some screenshot shows good textures other ones not.
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I don’t know but you could be right
You’re still posting. So much for giving up on this game, huh? 
Lol. A lot of noise by just a few posters and 53 likes. Very impressed. Not.
But hey, they are entitled to their own opinion of course. Although one time per thread would be enough I think. Imagine you really have to read all 500+ messages. 
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They have to convince everyone else that they are right though, didn’t you figure that out awhile ago?
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I’m a wise man, not the smartest.
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I think you hit the nail on he head, that is essentially what feels off about these, all the other age games, 1, 2 and 3 were at the cutting edge for their time. The games all looked better than anything else that was out and felt ambitious. This instead looks like it’s at least 10 years behind the times as I can think of half a dozen other RTS games that have come out over the last 10-15 years that look better than this.
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So i feel
After playing AOE2, when I saw Age of Mythology trailers and gameplays I was blown away. Effects, units, divine powers, it was incredible
But one day in 2005 when I entered the Ensemble Studios page and everything was dressed as Age of Empires 3, I froze. I felt something magical and that’s because it was visually very attractive. Watch the trailer hundreds of times. Everything that was seen was incredible.
But now I don’t feel any of that. I don’t feel anything impressive about the Age of Empires 4 gameplay.
I think i’m old or idiot
Now, the franchise is in the hands of Relic, and perhaps more important is its playability and the number of people who can play it. It’s a company. I do not know 
- User makes a post critizing the graphics
- People come in and disagree, trying to prove he is wrong
- User replies to these people as usual
- PCS70 comes in and: “LoL lOoK tHe guY JuSt rePeAt HiMseLf l00lz!!!1! Just 53 likes!!”
Classic pre-ordering NPC comment right here.
But hey, keep in denial. All those people on the polls and in reddit, steam and fb all unanimously love the graphics.
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Almost 600 messages meant something, don’t you think? And this is the main thread here, try to look at the other communities (there are many more).
These are our opinions, thank you.
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Lidakor interview with developers
For context Lidakor is an AoE2 commentator and tournament host (recently organized the 2 Pools Tournament) and is an AoE 4 community council member. Below are my notes. I bolded things that I thought were relatively interesting.
- 1:12 Game modes
- They are starting with core game modes
- But they have tweaked victory conditions
- new conquest mode - destroy landmarks (i.e. buildings that age the player up) and starting tc
- They also mention sacred victory point victories for controlling sacred locations and wonder victories
- have some ideas for other modes but planning to wait for community and live team feedback
- 2:40
- more diversity in building models when ageing up
- 3:20 map diversity
- big map diversity
- multiple biomes
- lots of options for custom games
- looking in to how support modders, scenario makers, and random map makers
- new maps take inspiration from classic AoE maps
- some maps geared towards turtles w/ e.g. more mountainy layout
- 5:16 map size
- devs talk about need to support up to 8 players including Mongol players who will need to move around a lot
- added a smaller map size at request of community members for 1v1 matches
- Community council pretty happy with current sizes
- 7:11 is combat more complex?
- there’s probably a few more relationships
- they want to maintain rock-paper-scissors core
-
more emphasis on armor and armor penetration
- so, for example, crossbow counter armored guys and light cav counter crossbows
- these decisions driven by history
- not a crazy complex web of unit relations though
- some special units mix up unit relationships
- e.g. chinese repeater crossbow fires quickly that does great against masses of units
- units on walls and stealth also adds depth
- 9:25 unit special abilities - are they common like company of heroes?
- abilities are rare with purpose of supporting the uniqueness of individual units
- AoE4 is not a tactical game like company of heroes so has fewer abilities
- abilities sometimes breakdown typical rock-paper-scissors relationship (e.g. Longbow placing spikes to protect against cavalry)
- 11:12 new mass conversion – why the redesign?
- a couple reasons
- wanted opportunity for big events
- wanted to modernize the iconic monk conversion
- will keep an eye on it from a balance perspective
- a couple reasons
- 12:52 balancing historical accuracy and gameplay/accuracy
- tried to define their approach ahead of time
- their plan was to er on side of gameplay especially in skirmish and multiplayer
- devs don’t want to try to replicate Mongol dominance for instance
- history comes to life during campaigns
- 17:55 cartoonish graphics
- 2019 trailer more saturated than what it is now
- saturation informs gameplay so that most saturate item on screen is what players should look at (units, hud, etc)
- want to have a painterly style
- want readability of characters on landscape
- tried to visually show distinctions between buildings (e.g. warm rooftops for military buildings vs cool for civilians)
- red is rarely used except for enemies
- talks about visual change as game transitions from dark to imperial
- 20:12 altering layout and UI
- They have no plans for supporting UI/layout changes beyond altering keybindings (I think they mean there won’t be an in game menu for this)
- More significant UI modifications like reskinning HUD may be handled by mods or the live team
- 21:02 mod support
- they know it’s important
- will share more before launch
- 21:36 esports
- they hope to have an esports scene just as good as AoE2 and 3
- they’re trying to make the game as fun to watch as to play and to make buildings fun to build
- want to have cinematic moments for people watching
- they can’t force esports to happen but it will probably happen organically if they make a good game
- 24:41 physical release
- you’ll hear more later
- game will be available on game pass day 1
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Thank you very much for the information. it’s nice to give us summaries. Moreover I see that the game is going in the right direction. I can’t wait to play it.
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Some of the English archers seem to correspond with the same era (where they only wear clothing and not real armor) and the ones from the norman campaign to me look much better and not cartoony anymore.
This type of philosophy is what can hurt the game. Not saying it will, but it is definitely risky.
I’m a strong proponent of just building the game mechanics in a way you think they should be built, but don’t force the player to play how you want the game to be played. Emergent gameplay is a good thing, not bad. Like, let the player build walls however they want (walls, houses, etc.), but don’t force the player to build them for their town’s perimeter just because you, personally as devs/designers, think houses look silly as walls or because there are memes? I’ve not seen these memes, but it doesn’t matter. Maybe favor the use of walls for walls, but don’t prevent houses from being used as walls or make houses or other buildings so incredibly weak they would never be used. That’s just my opinion.
I’ve never once thought it’s silly to have houses or other buildings used as wall-like protection. Now we’re maybe being told it is silly and possibly won’t be able to do it or will be heavily dissuaded from doing it? Risky. Risky in that it may hurt the overall enjoyment of the game. Having your hands tied as a player is no fun. Is one big reason I didn’t care for Rise of Nations and AoE3. Couldn’t build outside your sphere of influence in the former; couldn’t build as many towers, forts, etc. as you wanted or walls where you wanted in the latter. In the latter, the dev probably thought it looked silly to have 50 towers all over the map, for example.
In Thief 2014, devs removed the ability for you to jump whenever you wanted because they thought it looked silly that you could “bunny-hop” around in Thief 1 and 2 (their words). The original games were known for their freedom of movement and was embraced by players, but now we had a dev forcing a different way just because they didn’t want silly jumping. That didn’t turn out so well, with all the contextual movent and dev-implemented restrictions. The player was fighting the game mechanics the whole time, wondering what the devs would allow them to do or not do at various points throughout the entire game, rather than just freely enjoying the game how they wanted to play it.
I hope AoE4 isn’t filled with a bunch of red- and green-colored HUD stuff constantly telling us what we can and cannot do because of restrictive game mechanics… “you cant build a house here, you must build a wall there, you can’t do this, you must do that.” You’re fighting the game at that point and just wondering what the devs allow you to do vs. just enjoying the game
We’ll see how this pans out, too, but it also feels a bit like gameplay is maybe being dictated to us rather than being more emergent. I happen to like the econ aspect of AoE a lot. If AoE4 de-emphasizes that considerably, or makes it so every match is a non-stop adrenaline rush of military unit building and battles, then hmm…
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cmon devs are right here. You were just taking advantage of an old tech to bypass the need of walls and invent your own fantasy game where houses are impassable walls.
unrealistic and unimmersive.
something like that today would feel outdated. More like a bug and get patched.
I dont see any dictation. just corrected stuff. If we call this dictation then you were also dictated in aoe2 to create a base by walling yourself up with buildings if u wished to have a chance. We see that everytime in competitive matches.
similarly for the vill/army ratio. in late game I was actually feeling forced to keep such a large number of vills to not fall behind in eco. and the fighting was ending up a vill hunting joke. I want my empire to have an actual army than seeking to exploit tiny buggy corners on the map where your walled houses dont make good contact in order to penetrate in.
I suppose we are poles apart 
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