My thoughts so far (release version)

What happened to the campaign? It’s a total mess… I currently “try” to play the greek campaign, but it’s stupid. The AI is COMPLETELY broken.
For example the first two missions of the greek campaign on normal:

Mission 1:
2 of the AIs spam. And spam. And spam. And you lose. And again. And again. “Ok, let’s try another location for my town centre - oh there is a third AI? Let’s kill it before it spams me down! Done.” 15 minutes later I attack one of the other AIs. Then I realize that the only cause why I’m living is because one of the AI bugged and has ~30 units that stay around the barracks. Ok lol. I’m definitely not new to the age series, I played AoE1 years ago and AoM is still one of my favourite games of all time, but I needed 3-4 trys to complete the first mission of the first campaign on NORMAL and only had a chance because the AI bugged.

Mission 2:
The AI seems to invest everything it has into military units and stomps you after 1-2 minutes. It begins with a wave of 6 units (remember: it’s the second mission!). The spam goes for several minutes where you have to invest almost everything you start with into military units.
BUT: If you manage to get past the first 2-3 waves, the AI does almost NOTHING for the rest of the game (except killing its own villagers by sending them to my towers…). When you finally manage to get to the position where your goal is to build 2 towers, it just doesn’t recognize them. I can’t complete the second mission (see the screenshot attached…)

We had a beta. A beta where the Single Player Campaigns where disabled for all the time I had access to it. What happened there?

People read usually what they like, that is the reality and that will continue in the future…

(Oh sry, some grammar issues in my previous post. Since there’s no edit button for me there I can’t correct them <.<)

@S4Luux said:
(Oh sry, some grammar issues in my previous post. Since there’s no edit button for me there I can’t correct them <.<)

Same issue with me brah. I have some kind of allergy to the fact that I cannot correct my stuff later, after I have spotted errors in messages.

@S4Luux said:
What happened to the campaign? It’s a total mess… I currently “try” to play the greek campaign, but it’s stupid. The AI is COMPLETELY broken.
For example the first two missions of the greek campaign on normal:

Mission 1:
2 of the AIs spam. And spam. And spam. And you lose. And again. And again. “Ok, let’s try another location for my town centre - oh there is a third AI? Let’s kill it before it spams me down! Done.” 15 minutes later I attack one of the other AIs. Then I realize that the only cause why I’m living is because one of the AI bugged and has ~30 units that stay around the barracks. Ok lol. I’m definitely not new to the age series, I played AoE1 years ago and AoM is still one of my favourite games of all time, but I needed 3-4 trys to complete the first mission of the first campaign on NORMAL and only had a chance because the AI bugged.

Mission 2:
The AI seems to invest everything it has into military units and stomps you after 1-2 minutes. It begins with a wave of 6 units (remember: it’s the second mission!). The spam goes for several minutes where you have to invest almost everything you start with into military units.
BUT: If you manage to get past the first 2-3 waves, the AI does almost NOTHING for the rest of the game (except killing its own villagers by sending them to my towers…). When you finally manage to get to the position where your goal is to build 2 towers, it just doesn’t recognize them. I can’t complete the second mission (see the screenshot attached…)

We had a beta. A beta where the Single Player Campaigns where disabled for all the time I had access to it. What happened there?

Yeah the Greek campaign is almost impossible on moderate difficulty - the AI spams you with so many units you just can’t keep up. You have to play it on standard difficulty.

(I just managed to do first mission on moderate, mission 2 on moderate was impossible).

@SvelterPenny568 said:

@S4Luux said:

What happened to the campaign? It’s a total mess… I currently “try” to play the greek campaign, but it’s stupid. The AI is COMPLETELY broken.

For example the first two missions of the greek campaign on normal:



Mission 1:

2 of the AIs spam. And spam. And spam. And you lose. And again. And again. “Ok, let’s try another location for my town centre - oh there is a third AI? Let’s kill it before it spams me down! Done.” 15 minutes later I attack one of the other AIs. Then I realize that the only cause why I’m living is because one of the AI bugged and has ~30 units that stay around the barracks. Ok lol. I’m definitely not new to the age series, I played AoE1 years ago and AoM is still one of my favourite games of all time, but I needed 3-4 trys to complete the first mission of the first campaign on NORMAL and only had a chance because the AI bugged.



Mission 2:

The AI seems to invest everything it has into military units and stomps you after 1-2 minutes. It begins with a wave of 6 units (remember: it’s the second mission!). The spam goes for several minutes where you have to invest almost everything you start with into military units.

BUT: If you manage to get past the first 2-3 waves, the AI does almost NOTHING for the rest of the game (except killing its own villagers by sending them to my towers…). When you finally manage to get to the position where your goal is to build 2 towers, it just doesn’t recognize them. I can’t complete the second mission (see the screenshot attached…)





We had a beta. A beta where the Single Player Campaigns where disabled for all the time I had access to it. What happened there?



Yeah the Greek campaign is almost impossible on moderate difficulty - the AI spams you with so many units you just can’t keep up. You have to play it on standard difficulty.



(I just managed to do first mission on moderate, mission 2 on moderate was impossible).

Well, I’m playing moderate and managed to get further in the campaign, but I admit it is somewhat difficult.

I had the same issues on standard as well as on moderate. I have no problems with games being difficult (yes, I’ve played Dark Souls :P), but it’s not my definition of “difficult” when the cheaty AI just spams you down with everything it has in the beginning and is completely useless after that. When even the FIRST mission (after the tutorial campaign I didn’t play because I’m familiar with AoE…) is all about “how do I abuse the AI issues because I don’t have another chance to win” it is a thing that MUST HAVE been discovered during testing.

I agree with everything in the first post. We obviously didn’t want a remake. We wanted a remake with new features and lots of quality of life fixes that the old game didn’t have. We accepted it back then, because we didn’t know better. But this is 2018.

Some things you didn’t mention is the bugs! So far I’ve encountered two bugs.

First bug I was unable to get Legions as Romans in a custom game (even though I researched everthing).
The roman tech tree states that they can upgrade the Longsword to a Legion. But I couldn’t. The uprade never appeared.

Second bug happened while I was playing the Rise of Rome campaign. Even though I placed all the Sentry Towers near the flags (mission objective) I was unable to win the first mission. I upgraded the towers and everthing.

Aoe2 HD didn’t bring any new features. AoE:DE did bring most needed ones. Thing is that not everyone have original AOE or like 90s graphics -AOE:DE bring game available again with more modern graphics and with official multiplayer. This makes remake/remaster already successful.

Gates are least used building in AOE2(i think outpost are used more than gates) and not used in normal games. no real need for them(would have been nice to have gates in scenario editor though).

What game should have had:
Improvements to AI (bug fixes aren’t enough)
Pathfinding should be even better
and maybe:
Triggers in scenario editor(scenarios without triggers are just boring and makes game lack content )

@S4Luux said:
When you finally manage to get to the position where your goal is to build 2 towers, it just doesn’t recognize them. I can’t complete the second mission (see the screenshot attached…)

Oh, I noticed that the problem wasn’t the trigger. After comparing the screenshot with my current session, I noticed that I forgot to upgrade the tower. So the only remaining problem there is the AI :wink:

I’ve noticed the AI isn’t as buggy in a skirmish as it is in the campaign. In a skirmish the AI is relatively competent on moderate difficulty. They build up and then they hit you with hoplites/cavalry/slingers.

In the campaign they hit you hard in the beginning then they kind of break down and don’t produce anymore units.

I’ve also noticed pathfinding is better in skirmish mode with the largest map. In the campaign pathfinding is horrendous but in skirmish with the largest map it’s pretty good.

@“Lt Matte” said:

@ExportedClown72 said:

@Fyrapan said:



@xGurbyx said:

You are just one of those typical negative people, just focusing on the negative things you see when this is a great game already. I know it’s not a perfect game and I’m sure they’ll keep working on fixing details and making it better and better, but why just focus on the stuff you dislike?



First you talk about formations, in my mind really dont get why you really need that, it’s ridiculous, the original game never had that, why would they include it in this remake? it makes no sense, for me when I see formations in my mind it’s already aoe2, I dont want that for this remake at all.



Then you talk about farms reseeds, same thing again, THAT NEVER EXISTED in the original game, and I love that it forces players to be extremely focused on the economy AND army, having the automatic reseeds just make things way too easy, I know it exists in aoe2 and that’s fine but I see no reason why they should include it in this one, dont be lazy and multitask, that’s it.



Gates… seriously? you complain about not having gates? are u gonna tell me that u create gates in every match you play? I dont know but I barely use regular walls when needed to prevent rushes and that’s it, once your economy is good you just destroy the walls and go ahead to attack, again, not a big deal not having it and that was also never a thing in the original game.



I know pathfinding was a thing in the beta, even I mentioned it too during the testing, but right now it’s working good to me, in fact, it has improved A LOT since the first version of the beta.



About the AI, I have no comments, I just dont play single player, in my opinion the fun in this game is all about multiplayer.



I’m not gonna keep going with every single point u talk about because it’s just pointless, I just wanna say that I do not agree with anything you said at all.



“No way to switch to the old music. Let’s face it, the remixed tracks just aren’t as good as the OG.”

WHAT??? the new music is in a whole new level, much much better than before and they keep the same vibes



Enjoy the game guys, it’s awesome to have this one back! :smile:











First of all if you really like the game then GOOD for you! Please by all mean go play it and have a good time but don’t speak for the rest of us! A lot of us are very passionate of getting a very solid AoE remastered edition and this is NOT it.



1) I don’t care that a lot of these features wasn’t included in the original game but it probably had to do with different things like not enough time or even a restraint of what they could do back in 97 technology wise which created technical issue’s.



2) What worked back then in 97 doesn’t always work right in today’s standard of 2018. Anyone can see this that has some experience in gaming in general. There has been HUGE amount of improvements, quality of life changes in RTS games + in games in general that make old games look like garbage.



I’m sorry but this is the hard truth, I loved the old game but it’s in nowhere near a remastered edition that most of us expect it to be.



3) And if for some strange reason you should have any issues them fixing this for us you can always go back to play the original game, because you like it so much! That’s alright but I don’t understand why anyone would not want to see their beloved game to become even better!



This is my opinion so please respect it as I respect yours.



Take care











Clearly you do NOT understand what the definition of remaster is lol. In short, a remaster is NOTHING more than old content being repackaged with better sound and graphics. If anything beyond that was done, it would NO LONGER be a remaster. It’d be a full on remake. Their goal was NOT to remake the game but to remaster it. The game currently is a very solid remaster of the original AoE actually, contrary to you claims, because it does simply what a remaster is actually suppose to do. That being said, there are certainly some bugs that should be looked at, and I’m sure they’re aware of most of them and are working on them.



The campaigns are similar, but have been modified in the DE, so is it a remastered or remake? I believe DE is a remake, so I can expect some difference from the original.

How exactly have the campaigns been modified beyond some new narrations and tid bits here and there? Nothing groundbreaking was really added to them beyond some narration. The goal was simply a remaster to update graphics and improved music and sounds with a few QOL improvements but not so much that it takes away from the feel of the original. It was expressed really, really early on that it was just a remaster and not a full on remake. You not get the memo?

@ExportedClown72 said:

@“Lt Matte” said:

@ExportedClown72 said:

@Fyrapan said:



@xGurbyx said:

You are just one of those typical negative people, just focusing on the negative things you see when this is a great game already. I know it’s not a perfect game and I’m sure they’ll keep working on fixing details and making it better and better, but why just focus on the stuff you dislike?



First you talk about formations, in my mind really dont get why you really need that, it’s ridiculous, the original game never had that, why would they include it in this remake? it makes no sense, for me when I see formations in my mind it’s already aoe2, I dont want that for this remake at all.



Then you talk about farms reseeds, same thing again, THAT NEVER EXISTED in the original game, and I love that it forces players to be extremely focused on the economy AND army, having the automatic reseeds just make things way too easy, I know it exists in aoe2 and that’s fine but I see no reason why they should include it in this one, dont be lazy and multitask, that’s it.



Gates… seriously? you complain about not having gates? are u gonna tell me that u create gates in every match you play? I dont know but I barely use regular walls when needed to prevent rushes and that’s it, once your economy is good you just destroy the walls and go ahead to attack, again, not a big deal not having it and that was also never a thing in the original game.



I know pathfinding was a thing in the beta, even I mentioned it too during the testing, but right now it’s working good to me, in fact, it has improved A LOT since the first version of the beta.



About the AI, I have no comments, I just dont play single player, in my opinion the fun in this game is all about multiplayer.



I’m not gonna keep going with every single point u talk about because it’s just pointless, I just wanna say that I do not agree with anything you said at all.



“No way to switch to the old music. Let’s face it, the remixed tracks just aren’t as good as the OG.”

WHAT??? the new music is in a whole new level, much much better than before and they keep the same vibes



Enjoy the game guys, it’s awesome to have this one back! :smile:











First of all if you really like the game then GOOD for you! Please by all mean go play it and have a good time but don’t speak for the rest of us! A lot of us are very passionate of getting a very solid AoE remastered edition and this is NOT it.



1) I don’t care that a lot of these features wasn’t included in the original game but it probably had to do with different things like not enough time or even a restraint of what they could do back in 97 technology wise which created technical issue’s.



2) What worked back then in 97 doesn’t always work right in today’s standard of 2018. Anyone can see this that has some experience in gaming in general. There has been HUGE amount of improvements, quality of life changes in RTS games + in games in general that make old games look like garbage.



I’m sorry but this is the hard truth, I loved the old game but it’s in nowhere near a remastered edition that most of us expect it to be.



3) And if for some strange reason you should have any issues them fixing this for us you can always go back to play the original game, because you like it so much! That’s alright but I don’t understand why anyone would not want to see their beloved game to become even better!



This is my opinion so please respect it as I respect yours.



Take care











Clearly you do NOT understand what the definition of remaster is lol. In short, a remaster is NOTHING more than old content being repackaged with better sound and graphics. If anything beyond that was done, it would NO LONGER be a remaster. It’d be a full on remake. Their goal was NOT to remake the game but to remaster it. The game currently is a very solid remaster of the original AoE actually, contrary to you claims, because it does simply what a remaster is actually suppose to do. That being said, there are certainly some bugs that should be looked at, and I’m sure they’re aware of most of them and are working on them.



The campaigns are similar, but have been modified in the DE, so is it a remastered or remake? I believe DE is a remake, so I can expect some difference from the original.

How exactly have the campaigns been modified beyond some new narrations and tid bits here and there? Nothing groundbreaking was really added to them beyond some narration. The goal was simply a remaster to update graphics and improved music and sounds with a few QOL improvements but not so much that it takes away from the feel of the original. It was expressed really, really early on that it was just a remaster and not a full on remake. You not get the memo?

“The year of four emperors” seems complete different.

It’s basically a reskin of the original, but the original was beautiful, updated its still beautiful. We miss the camaraderie of the Zone, but that’s because of Xbox Live. Throw some hours into multiplayer with shared exploration off, and be prepared to be hooked :).

We need a working ELO though.

I am fairly happy with the release version, but I strongly agree with the OP. The devs should continue working on this game. I would like for there to be optional settings to make the gameplay and mechanics more modern because it feels very dated. Modders can’t do it since it’s only available on the Windows Store (big mistake for the game/series) so it’s completely dependent on the developers.

@ExportedClown72 said:
How exactly have the campaigns been modified beyond some new narrations and tid bits here and there? Nothing groundbreaking was really added to them beyond some narration. The goal was simply a remaster to update graphics and improved music and sounds with a few QOL improvements but not so much that it takes away from the feel of the original. It was expressed really, really early on that it was just a remaster and not a full on remake. You not get the memo?

The campaigns have different units (stone thrower instead of ballista in the religion tutorial, for example, or in the trading tutorial the stone thrower island is farther from yellow’s dock, which makes it accessible), different unit placement (same stone thrower starts in the woods North of your town, instead of in the enemy town, or in the trading tutorial you start with a tower and two axemen near yellow, which makes 'em completely non-threatening), different AI (more aggressive AI, same stone thrower aiming straight for the marked area it needs to be in, or in the trading tutorial brown attacks red’s dock instead of yours, and once yellow gets all of his starting archers killed he never attacks you again)

The campaign was completely rethought and remade. This game is NOT a remaster.

@tempires said:
Aoe2 HD didn’t bring any new features. AoE:DE did bring most needed ones. Thing is that not everyone have original AOE or like 90s graphics -AOE:DE bring game available again with more modern graphics and with official multiplayer. This makes remake/remaster already successful.

Gates are least used building in AOE2(i think outpost are used more than gates) and not used in normal games. no real need for them(would have been nice to have gates in scenario editor though).

You’ve… never played AoE II HD, have you?

@Ibuuyk said:

@ExportedClown72 said:
How exactly have the campaigns been modified beyond some new narrations and tid bits here and there? Nothing groundbreaking was really added to them beyond some narration. The goal was simply a remaster to update graphics and improved music and sounds with a few QOL improvements but not so much that it takes away from the feel of the original. It was expressed really, really early on that it was just a remaster and not a full on remake. You not get the memo?

The campaigns have different units (stone thrower instead of ballista in the religion tutorial, for example, or in the trading tutorial the stone thrower island is farther from yellow’s dock, which makes it accessible), different unit placement (same stone thrower starts in the woods North of your town, instead of in the enemy town, or in the trading tutorial you start with a tower and two axemen near yellow, which makes 'em completely non-threatening), different AI (more aggressive AI, same stone thrower aiming straight for the marked area it needs to be in, or in the trading tutorial brown attacks red’s dock instead of yours, and once yellow gets all of his starting archers killed he never attacks you again)

The campaign was completely rethought and remade. This game is NOT a remaster.

@tempires said:
Aoe2 HD didn’t bring any new features. AoE:DE did bring most needed ones. Thing is that not everyone have original AOE or like 90s graphics -AOE:DE bring game available again with more modern graphics and with official multiplayer. This makes remake/remaster already successful.

Gates are least used building in AOE2(i think outpost are used more than gates) and not used in normal games. no real need for them(would have been nice to have gates in scenario editor though).

You’ve… never played AoE II HD, have you?

The campaign wasn’t completely rethought and remade at all. The changes you describe sound more like little tweaks and bugs getting fixed. This game most definitely IS a remaster as was intended.

Considering I can’t play the game, I don’t really see the problems. The graphics look nice.

Oh god, please, stop with farms auto-reseeding and gates again… that discussion has been replied over and over again among last months. Let’s focus on the important things here, and the one in which I mostly agree: formations.

Age of Empires is a skirmish-focused game, and the only thing that really harms the playability is the bad pathfinding, together with the lack of formations (that idea of allowing it with a new technology in the Bronze Age seems OK to me), but including gates and auto-reseeding farms will destroy a nice part of the gameplay: planning your defense&mobility more accurately and that little attention you need to pay from time to time to your economy is a good part of AoE. If we have all those AoE II features included, then we will only need focusing in creating units and fighting, and no more (what leads every balanced game to a boring, repetitive post-Iron Age).

Other things I agree are: modding support (it’s a shame) and having no option to queue different types of units (anyways, I can handle with it). But really I can’t understand people saying things like the new soundtrack is far worse than the old one (they really have made a great work here), or complaining about the amount of map types (of course would be great having more, but I think actual ones provide enough variety). It’s OK to be critic with obviously awful lacks like formations and pathfinding, and complain about some other details like classic mode with campaigns and so… but please, don’t get extremely negative because yes.

BTW: I cannot believe that anyone can hear the new “Cave” theme (“Wonder of the World” renamed) and dislike it. Simply impossible.

Some People need to Learn what the Differnce between a Remake and a Remaster is. And this game is a Remaster.