anecdotally, I think this is a big factor. the guns detract from the game for little old me. I am a swords and sandals guy – classical antiquity all the way
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I really enjoyed reading your constructive critique. I’d like to contribute with some personal insights:
- PC Graphics Performance: Currently, I have 3.9 VRAM on my gaming PC. While Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition (with its almost 42 GB) runs well on my system, even in 4 vs 4 matches, I was disappointed to see that Age of Empires IV, with almost 14 GB, runs on my PC at medium/low resolution. I acknowledge that it’s a significant achievement that Age of Empires IV is capable of running on lower-end computers, but it was a negative surprise for me to witness how the graphics of AoE III: DE were far superior on my PC compared to AoE IV. This is one of the main reasons why I’m less inclined to play AoE IV, preferring to play AoE II or AoE III instead.
- Interface: I had very high expectations for the interface, not only for the main menu but also for the player panel during matches. In my opinion, one of the best interfaces in RTS games was StarCraft II, and I thought (perhaps naively) that with better technology, a superior interface to that of StarCraft 2 could be developed for AoE 4. However, I found the interface to be even inferior to that of AoE 3. It’s as if the current interface’s inspiration was drawn from the dull part of museums (as if the inspiration came from the textile exhibition, rather than drawing from the brilliant armor exhibit in the room next door).
Perhaps some might find it exaggerated, but I had very high expectations. AoE 4’s motto was “Experience history,” and I envisioned that it would focus on living the historical experience, being in the midst of events and feeling the pivotal moments in history. However, instead, it felt like I was on a school tour through a museum (and the voice acting in the Spanish-dubbed campaigns is truly dull).
- Boring Campaigns: We’re dealing with medieval history, an era that has gained fame in popular culture through medieval fantasy tales like “The Lord of the Rings,” “The Witcher,” or “Game of Thrones.” AoE 4 has the privilege of drawing its history from the original source, so I felt that the campaigns of AoE 4 squandered a lot of potential material. Even AoE 2’s campaigns, despite their limitations, offer better historical immersion than AoE 4 does at present. If they’re looking for a benchmark, they could draw inspiration from Empire Earth’s campaigns, which exude epicness from start to finish. Everything feels epic: the music, the narration, the storyline, and more. Personally, I didn’t find the motivation to complete AoE 4’s campaigns (I haven’t completed the campaigns so far
).
Special thanks to such a glorious music section of EE that gave me one of the best memories in my gamer life.
Come on, it’s not that hard to figure out that the coolest thing about historical games is to delve into the epic details.
In the positives of AoE 4, I can highlight:
- The “rock-paper-scissors” system.
- Soldier interactions during matches (whispering when hidden, shouting upon spotting enemies, battle cries, etc.).
- Age advancement system through wonders.
- Retaining the resource mechanics of AoE 2.
As a personal note, in medieval-themed games, I’m accustomed to a certain level of violence. I understand that AoE’s current development is aimed at being “family-friendly,” but many of the current players are adults already, accustomed to other types of games like action and horror. I emphasize that this is my personal opinion, and I’m aware that today’s society is more accustomed to such content. However, cases like Enhanced Blood being the mod with the most subscribers can’t be denied. I’m not asking for gory or overly graphic scenes, but integrating simple elements like those in Warcraft 3 would be interesting. I’m also aware that this could potentially be added through a mod in the future. One of my memories of AoE 2 was surveying the battlefield after a massive battle.
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Yep! Me too. This is why I love the Total War franchise with Blood and gore DLC.
I love to see the scenery of the large battle, in other words, it is like a movie.
Yep, at least corpses should last a little longer etc.
Current one disappears almost instantly and makes the game senseless.
I love how the original AOE2 did it.
Corpses last longer and death animation got blood.
AOEIV’s death animation is like someone tripping on the rock AHHAHAHAH
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I like the period of AOE-3 for scientific achievement and globalization, but this period represents such drastic changes that an AOE barely fits the mechanics that an AOE is meant to represent. For example, walls and castles became practically obsolete during this period, melee attacks began to be replaced by long-range weapons, and animals in war and the economy began to be replaced by machines during the industrial revolution. .
That’s why I understand that most people think it’s a bad time for an AOE. I think we should go back to classical antiquity, and use some AOE-3 mechanics like mercenaries and minor factions. this would fit almost any historical context. We could even have 2 independent games of classical antiquity, because people only usually imagine Romans, Greeks and Egyptians mainly, but the Romans were one of the last civilizations that existed in that period that includes thousands of years. We could have civilizations that existed merely in the Bronze Age, and then another separate game for a period like, say, A.D.
Great campaign for SC-2.
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To my knowledge, part of EE’s soundtrack was also used in documentaries.
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The fatal flaw has been mentioned many times already but seems unfixable:
You cannot micro your units in Aoe4 because of the input delay (sluggish). I only have to mention skirm-uhlan in Aoe3 to make my point.
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In my opinion, when it comes to gameplay, blood is a great element for RTS. It makes the game more serious and the player feels the need to try his best to “save the lives of his soldiers”. At least that happened with me in the learning campaigns every time I saw the corpses of my soldiers (and not to mention in games like Warcraft 3, the faction of the undead became stronger with the corpses of your soldiers).
Made it worth the years of waiting.
I wasn’t aware of that, but I don’t doubt it. The musical score of Empire Earth had an influence that made the campaign cinematics stick in your mind.
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That’s true…as long as AoE 4 doesn’t improve its single player content fast, Stormgate will eat it raw…
At least AoEO had 4 civs in its first year of life from October 2011 to October 2012…
Less popular historical period, limited buildings, fewer campaigns, fewer civs, when it came out, it only had European civs and American maps, decks of cards that made it difficult for you if you were new and had to face someone stronger than you… Only now are they managing to pick it up, but it’s very difficult, because people already think of it as “the black sheep of the saga”…
With TAD, since TWC was still somewhat colonial because it happened in America plus the Fire and Shadow campaigns that have a strong anti-colonial sentiment (American Revolution and American-Indian Wars)…
AoE Online?
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Not sure what you’re trying to say with that screenshot? Maybe your post didn’t go through properly?
The 5th civ (Babylonians) was released at its one-year anniversary. The 6th civ (Norse) was released about two months later.
We released the Romans in 2021 and are on pace to release the Indians soon.
A table with all the games that use the Essence Engine, I mean, I agree with you, that the problems with the engine come from CoH 1, not DoW 1…
Sure, that’s why 4 civs in a year… it’s a pity they canceled their support in 2013, we could have had the Romans, Indians, Carthaginians and Chinese that same year and in 2014 Scythians, Japanese, Olmecs and Paracas…
Only few days until Gamescom. Since we didn’t see any clues about AOE i’m thinking that we’ll not hear anything and this Is not a good sign, imho.
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I don’t see how one could assume they are working on new civs at this point.
it would very curious if they actually were still actively developing aoe4 yet not be taking an opportunity to remind the public and the press about the game at the world’s largest gaming event where MS is showcasing 30 other titles. This is especially true where AoE4 has appeared at gamescom in prior years and last year used this moment to literally announce the new civs released last fall. More so given they even stopped releasing development roadmaps many months ago.
Meanwhile, we know World’s Edge is actively developing the next franchise release — AoM Retold. We also know Relic suffered huge and unprecedented layoffs recently.
It very much feels like we are in one of those natural, inevitable valleys where focus on the last game has waned and focus on the next one isn’t quite ready. We’ve been here before many times.
It’s human nature to grasp onto hope, but I’m having a very difficult time finding even a trace of evidence that aoe4 will see another round of new civs anytime in the scheduled future.
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That this happened to AoEO with its disastrous model at launch and a low number of players does not mean that this will happen in AoE4.
Let’s remember that they have promised to keep updating the game as planned (it is being done with patches) and Beasty (someone influential and surely knows something) expects new civs.
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If I am understanding you, then presently the entirety of evidence that they will be releasing new, unannounced civs is (1) this tweet saying only that they will deliver everything they’ve already announced and (2) some dude who makes a living having people watch him play aoe4?
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They also say the development of the product will continue as planned. Unless you have evidence that it was suddenly intended to stop after the S5 update, we have no reason to believe this to be the case.
Of course, the developers giving us a roadmap would help a lot in this regard.
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Yes, this Is also my opinion. I mean, we supposed for a while that there would be new civilizations but i think MS Is going to invest less on this game for several reasons.
And as you said the recent and massive layoffs suggest me that Relic Will concentrate their efforts on DOW and Company of Heroes.
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We are moving on “Later 2023” and we already have seasons 5 and we know about Aoe4 console version.
We don’t know nothing about “more to come” and of developers don’t share these informations during the main PC gaming conference in the world, there are some problems.
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That “as planned” phrase hits me as particularly slippery and carefully chosen. If they laid people off at Relic because they were no longer planning to develop AoE4, then they can absolutely truthfully but misleadingly tell us they will continue to follow their plans.
There’s been no roadmap. While perhaps reasonable minds can disagree about whether that’s significant, given things are resembling the other times they quietly canceled games in this franchise, it’s pretty chilling that they’ve never said the magic words that would set the matter to rest: “we are developing more civs.”
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What I also said:
I think it’s damned if they do, damned if they don’t. If they omit “as planned”, people can claim they’re scaling back updates, that plans are being abandoned. If they include “as planned”, people can claim a cessation of plans. Different people, generally. Folks vary in their concerns, in the language they pick up on, etc.
The reality is that nobody knows either way. I just wanted to highlight that your quote wasn’t all that they said (and reinforce, as it feel like I do in every other post, that a roadmap would be really welcomed).
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