“Manor Lords”? I forgot about it when the AoE IV was announced. Thanks for reminding me, although I’m not likely to play ML ever. Lesser readability and playability, too focused on city-building, which is too complex, and especially small battles compared to Total War but almost identical battle style with the TW franchise… Not a great game at all, just a decent one. Better stick with Total Wars than playing Manor Lords.
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As said in the previous thread the main problem for many people Is that AOE4 doesn’t look Better than AOE3de
A possibile solution? This, imho
You should make a video about what people think on a possible Graphic DLC.
Bla bla bla. So many words with no content. 
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Yet another person assuming that I’m judging the game solely on its graphics. Reforged didn’t fail because it looked pretty - it was a disaster from start to finish, including its launch tournament. If Reforged was built and handled significantly better, it would’ve been treated the same way AoE2DE is right now. Attributing Reforged’s downfall to its graphics is straight up wrong. Also attributing good looking RTS games’ failure to only graphics is also wrong. You hurl an insult to folks that “mentioning graphics have 0 idea what they’re talking about, end of the deal.”, yet you make general statements like this as if the crappy RTS games that failed were because of the graphics.
The games you’ve referred to failed because they were primarily bad games. Civ 6 got a huge backlash for its graphical direction compared to its more realistic looking predecessor, Civ 5. Guess what? Despite a section of the fanbase boycotting the game, Civ 6 still looks amazing and is an expectedly polished game like Civ V. It became the best selling entry in the franchise because it’s a bloody good game. Games with different art directions, like Civ 5 and Civ 6, can co-exist, but they need to achieve that high level of polish for both. Civ 6 was bought and played primarily because it’s a great game - but if its graphics, regardless of the art direction, was significantly worse and less polished than Civ 5, it wouldn’t have sold as much. Graphics are a part of every game - not everything, but certainly not nothing.
Here’s what people skip for some reason: It’s not binary - games can look good AND readable. Why do you think they’re charging $60? What are the designers’ job? It’s to make games pretty AND readable. So if they are going to charge the same as other AAA games, we expect both great gameplay and great graphics. Why should Age of Empires get special treatment? I don’t agree with the argument: “As long as gameplay is good, they can be absolutely awful with anything and I’ll be okay with that.” Not at $60.
While possible, I’m not sure the devs would go for it. Interestingly, I remember seeing an unofficial mod that changed Civ 6’s cartoonish graphics to Civ 5’s realistic ones. For folks who got so bothered by the art style in Civ 6 but really liked the game, it seemed like a working solution.
Whether or not the devs could do this is a separate question. And even if they could - whether they would is ALSO a separate discussion as well. 
TLDR; I’m all for giving the consumer options and I like the DLC idea, but I highly doubt the Devs would spend the time/resources to implement this.
I’m not sure I agree, but I acknowledge your points and it’s definitely subjective. Manor Lords seems for now (we don’t know yet) that it will sit between AoE and Total War. I personally don’t like Total War games, it just doesn’t appeal to me - the scale and the gameplay. That said, I still wish the AoE would have more then the 200 pop cap… perhaps 1000? So while I do like AoE’s model better, I wished AOE4 would’ve upped the ante a bit and still play like an AoE game.
The complexity of the City building is subjective - some people like it, some don’t. I don’t mind either to be honest, but everyone will have their opinion on this. 
A reasonable theory:
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This is a very good point which puts the whole thing in a completely different light.
It makes perfect sense and more understandable why the pricetag is so high… it’s just a market strategy to focus more on the Xbox Game Pass and establish it in the long term.
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Well for me AoE4 is not expensive, it’s exactly the price it is supposed to be. Every AAA title is like that or even more.
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For me it’s okay with the price, because for me the Age of Empires series is a childhood memory, I grew up with it. I’m just happy that there is a successor after such a long time.
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You can always find something to argue about if you just search, but I think Microsoft is doing pretty much right at the moment.
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Overall Xbox Game Pass reminds me of their Streaming Service Mixer, launch too late very expensive half baked idea, while your competition is well established and has legitimately the better product.
Even Electronic Arts realized their store won’t sell enough game passes, so did team up with steam.
And Steve Job is with his old quotes very right, so Microsoft hired Relic and told them what to do, so the result is clearly not the best Game Relic could have had made.
Homeworld is Relic game from 1999. ^^
Homeworld 1&2 are absolute masterpieces. Relic at its peak.
Except that the Game Pass is actually a really well thought out idea. After seeing the Video from Aussie Drongo I’m actually considering getting it because I think it would actually be really nice to play all these games on launch as well as AoE4.
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An Idea, somebody else has already better done.
The games there are either something people already own, or won’t spend much time with.
Relic at its peak would be Dawn of War and Company of Heroes their Magnum Opus of game design.
The thing is, back there they had a completely different publisher. THQ.
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Ok, now I know you are just against everything Microsoft by default.
And a completely different creative director…
The Magnum Opus of Relic was Homeworld, not DoW (a Warcraft 3 mod clone, literally) and not CoH either.
CoH is not even RTS, it is RTT.
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Game pass is already successful and great service with huge membership base. Homeworld series are really good. But I wouldn’t compare them to Age4, they are totally different games.