I wish that was my experience my enjoyment ended when I hit level 40 the game was terrified of you unlocking too much it made everything a massive grind. The rewards for skirmish were so pitiful I’d rather of not had anything. It was all funneled into those frustrating legendary quests with their awful looking giant red ‘elite’ enemies.
Once the meta aspects were taken away I realised I’d much rather be playing just about any other AOE game. For AOE4 I can say at least I will log on just for the fun of playing without needing some epic sandals to dangle in front of me.
Normal, AoE Online is for AoE 4 what AoM is for AoE 3…the problem is that you could not do the cards or advisors, since there is no capital system in this game (AoE 4)…
It would also fit in with the way the Campaigns worked. The Hundred Years War was a conflict between the French and English. The Rus battled the Mongols. The Mongols battled both the Rus and Chinese (and perhaps the HRE if you squint – the Hungarians). Byzantium interacted with the Abbasids and Rus, as well as the Normans in Italy and the Balkans.
The Slavic interaction was more with the Bulgars than the Serbs, but yes.
It would open the gate to the Turks who entered Anatolia as the Sultanate of Rum. The Ottoman civ could have a campaign starting with the Mongol invasion of Iran (Persia), the Seljuks (sort of Abbasids) and end with its battles against the HRE with the Sieges of Vienna.
You know, it’s weird that AoE 3 was considered as a failure because it strayed too far off the classic AoE formula, but a few years prior, AoM completely reinvented the whole thing and was very successful at it.
First AoE in 3D, first non-historical AoE, first AoE with “god” powers, first AoE with strategic decisions when aging up (demi-gods), first fully asymmetric AoE, first AoE with playable heroes and “boss” units.
In hindsight I don’t think AoE 3 failed because of its cards or home cities, but the colonial ages were not really that popular or interesting in modern culture so it had a hard time convincing people it had variety and complexity. People often picture Mel Gibson’s The Patriot or Napoleon movies as what colonial warfare was and that’s it. Instead, for medieval and classical ages there’s has been a ton of free advertising done by Hollywood, so the homework was already done for them (same goes for the mythical stuff in AoM). It’s a similar story with WW1 and WW2 settings. WW1 just doesn’t have the same pull to it.
It is important to keep in mind that AoE3 was not even close to being a failure. It was released in the end of October, 2005 and still ended up being the 8th best selling game of the year. It sold over 2 million copies by May 2007 and supported two separate expansion packs, which was more than any other game in the franchise ever.
There is a weird and false sense around here that AoE3 was some kind of failure, presumably because AoE2 was such a success and there are lots of people here who were too young in 2005 to remember or came to the franchise later after the original run of AoE3 was no longer supported. I think AoE2 players outnumber the rest of us here and seem to have their own weird version of history. I dont really care what they think, but it bugs the crap out of me to think that maybe some devs would stumble along this forum and actually believe them.
AoE3 was a great success and is still an amazing game. It pushed the franchise into great directions far beyond the scope or abilities of AoE2. And, for that matter, what Forgotten Empires has been doing with the game in recent years is nothing short of a clinic on how to steward a legacy franchise into the future.
Oh no and I agree with you. I am mostly talking from the current context of what people think of AoE 3 and AoM. I think the only thing we can all agree in all the subforums is on AoE 2 being a success, then and now.
But I do find strange that nowadays folks really long for something as strange to the AoE franchise as AoM, while still considering AoE 3 the weird, mostly unloved one. The previous big flop, whether the word is appropriate or not.
In the eyes of most people, AoE 3 had the really, really massive responsibility of succeeding AoE 2 and my guess is that people expected it to absorb all AoE 2 players, looking for the new shiny game. AoM was saved because of that being sort of a fork in the franchise, so it wasn’t really thought as a successor to AoE 2.
When I ask around what folks think of AoM they all say: “oh, I LOVED that game and I really wish they made a new one/remaster the old one”, but when I ask about AoE 3 the most I hear is “meh, good graphics but meh”.
I find that super weird, sales numbers notwithstanding. That is what leads me to think that sticking to the known/classic formula because that’s what AoE fans like is a mistake. AoM is the proof. That being said, if you are coming up with something fresh, you do need an stellar game in the appropriate setting. Another mostly symmetric, medieval AoE is just the safe approach and will fall into the same trap AoE 3 did. The only difference is that we now know the AoE 2 player base is not going anywhere, no matter what.
Depending on what’s announced for AoE 4, I’m ditching it and buying AoE 3 with all its expansions. I’m really tempted to go back to a game I played so little in the past.
I am surprised this would surprise anyone. These players lived through three previous new Age games and never left AoE2. They aren’t the kinds of people who adopt new games.
For years before AoE4 launched, a few of us here were predicting the Age 2 crowd would never leave their beloved game.
That’s further reason why I see the copying of AoE2’s symmetry and repetitiveness to be misguided. We AoE3, AoM, and AoEO players have already self-selected to be willing to follow the franchise into new horizons. I have bought every single AoE game at launch day since I discovered AoE1 in 1998. I am exactly the kind of person who would buy AoE4. But it fell so short for me that I havent installed since the beta. Alas. I will live on for the next game!
Age lll was not a failure is just that the time period is boring, is like empire total war, people simple prefer ancient or medieval times, the same applies to age lll, AoM is classical age with mythical units of course people will love that.
You should do it anyway regardless of AoEIV. You won’t regret it. As an AoE3 diehard from the beginning, I will piggyback on @AndyPXIII sentiments about what FE has done. Just a stellar post. The updates are wonderful, the AoE3DE player base is highly creative with suggestions and very appreciative of all the work the devs put into the game. It really is in a grand state with hopefully more content coming for years to come.
The civs FE has released have all been really fun and deep. The maps are immersive and full of little details that show the devs really love the game.
I feel vindicated after all these years for defending this game’s place in the franchise.
And I feel vindicated as an AoEO fan watching all the AoEO stuff FE upcycles and repurposes into AoE3. I love them dearly and am happy to see they are well aware of how to take the best parts of lesser known games and incorporate them to a new audience. We AoEO fans see what they are doing, even if the rest of the players credit FE for their brilliant ideas. The ideas are still brilliant even if they aren’t exactly new. They are new for you all and executed brilliantly by FE. If only AoE4 was doing the same thing. Sigh.
But FE is a homegrown pool of talent who were Age players first and then matured into Age developers. They really demonstrate how important a solid foundation of knowledge of our franchise is to making our games.
I’ve been a fan of AoE3 since I started playing it in November 2005 and many of you have some misconceptions when it comes to analyzing numbers.
AoE3, without the expansions, had good numbers for the time the game came out, but also note that those numbers have been inflated by previous AoE communities. Also keep in mind that the expansions, aside from ES’s blunders in game management, were nails in the coffin. The important thing is to see how the game is doing in online players months or a few years after being bought.
AoE3 was not a failure compared to other RTS, but it was a failure regarding being an AoE that takes the game to another level. A game can improve on the above and make some controlled changes (slightly more asymmetric civs, some new and understandable mechanics), but you can never change 80% of a successful game to make another, as Bruce Shelley said.
In this forum there is an over representation of players from other AoE, there are many more AoE2 users in other forums and that’s why there are not so many here.
Perhaps since you like a much more unsuccessful game like AoEO (as much as Project Celeste wanted to revive a dead person, hardly anyone plays it), you think that any other with better numbers is not a failure.
You can use them or not… the gameplay of aoe 3 does not affect the cards at all, except for the experience… in fact there is an achievement of winning a game without using cards…
like Elden Ring, think age is good game, we are too bad with the game, we can say what we want, but for now it is one of the best rts of this year, I also criticized it a lot, but honestly I have about 2000 hours on the game and I continue to play it, we don’t need a too arcade game like age of mythology, the strength of age is precisely that of trying to be a historically accurate game, yes there will not be millions of contents like age 3 or age2 , but at least you understand what you do, it’s a clean game, there are many small things that have improved the genre a lot, to bring out a new age there is no need to add new content, so you can improve what is already there, like games like elden ring, they have only changed the formula and the graphics, but it’s still a fantastic game, people underestimate the complexity of making an rts game, even if you are a large company, money is not enough, to love what will come, first we must love what is there, and I love it, I think that if they only added the Byzantines it would not be a problem at all, we expect too much from the games and updates that revisit the mechanics are still updates that are fine
