No squad mechanics please and talk about innovation

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
1

“Research and develop cutting edge real time strategy game AI at multiple levels including, squad, session objective, and campaign”
from https://boards.greenhouse.io/relic/jobs/533132#.Wft5NWjWyUk

Squad mechanics from other similar games:
they can die individually within the unit
healing brings back members
the death of a unit reduces dps
any member may be targeted individually picked at random
putting 2 of the same squads against each other can result in one of the units being down to 30%. its completely random and imbalanced.

This is not an aoe mechanic, so please don’t bring it into AoE. stay close to the fundamentals of aoe2 and aom. innovation is fine. but not this type of innovation or straight copy from the other relic games.
In aoe each unit should have a decent impact if you micro it. control groups already exist so no need for squads.

hopefully the “squad” mechanic is not what I think it is in this job post, and if it is, I hope they see this and change their mind. (if aoe4 becomes a ww1/ww2 era game it’ll already be a big mistake, but still manageable however, if they stay true to the aoe formula that is.)

good innovations as shown in aoeo(even thou it had a lot of bad new aspects as well):
-changing clothes of units with gear(but it shouldnt affect the stats)
-showing a number on top of units to show that its controlled group as 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 or 8,9, 0.
-Having colored squares moving around in the minimap showing what your ally is looking at.
-having seperate leaderboards for 1v1 and 2v2, but still need a 3v3 leaderboard
-in the UI you could see which units were being queud up and when they would be ready without clickong on the buildings.
-playing campaign co-op with friends

bad innovations and lack of features in aoeo(the latest aoe installment):
-removal of the lobby system
-no 3v3 quicksearch rated(with the ability to team up with friends or randoms)
-no match history, no replays. (and of course when a replay system is added, players need to be able to select a previous patch to watch older replays.)
-no editor while it was available for devs and using the same engine as aom and aoe3, where you could make your own scenarios and host them in the lobby. and charging money for these scenarios called defense of crete(easy to remake in aom editor in less than a hour, and host it in the lobby for free)
-no clan system
-to play different civs in pvp you had to log out and and log into your other civ. let us select civs in the lobby/quickmatch screen.

2

Agree with you. A squad mode could definitely ruin the game.

3

that’s why I don’t want a modern warfare aoe .

4

I agree with this too. I was concerned as well when I saw that job posting. It would change the AOE gameplay significantly and I don’t know why they would do that.

5

Yep, combat needs to be deterministic. I’m cool with formations though.

Also I know there are lots of things in AoE that don’t make sense too, but healing “resurrecting” units in a squad is just maddeningly ridiculous.

6

@IamDalv said:
I agree with this too. I was concerned as well when I saw that job posting. It would change the AOE gameplay significantly and I don’t know why they would do that.

I think RELIC should approach this title as “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach. I just pray that they keep their RTS elements such as covers and squad away from AOE 4. Lets keep it like if it was made by Ensemble people. #makeEnsembleProud

7

I really hope there are no squad mechanics and a need to add abilities to every unit, something Relic has had a ■■■■■ for in the past.

8

squad mechanics are not suitable for AoE since it would be awkward to have squads in a prehistorical setting since the term is relatively modern. I don’t think we have to worry about this since most people want to keep it emblem style.

On the off chance that they don’t know this already, perhaps they can take a page out of video game history and see that “squads” are overdone and not really that rewarding in terms of game play. I remember playing dawn of war and how silly it was that squads get new members out of thin air. This just does not work in this setting and it would detract from the realism aspect of the game.

The innovative things I want to see in an AoE game are new ways to collect the base resources, like getting settlers to pan small streams for gold or perhaps fishermen can get wood from driftwood floating in the sea. More innovations I would want to see is that all units can be countered in some way. Pikes/spears beat horses. Perhaps units could put anti cavalry stakes in the ground. I would like seeing arrows being effective against light troops and guns would be the bane of heavier troop types. Light infantry would be good against archers. Cavalry would be effective against artillery and light troops.

Would horses occasionally trample a units and push them back further since they have so much horse power to them? That would be a pretty cool innovation. I am pretty sure a full on cavalry charge would hurt way more than what they depicted in AoE III

Another pretty cool innovation they could go for weather affects your units in the game. Rainy weather makes ranged units less effective and fog would greatly reduce your units viewing distance. Snow could slow your units down and your units could leave footprints/trails in the snow just for visual effects.