[Poll] Population Limit

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
1

Age of Empires 4 uses a population limit of 200.
That is the same as Age of Empires 3 and what nowadays is standard for Age of Empires 2.
Age or Empires 1 and 2 originally where designed to be played at lower limits like 50-75. Now Age of Empires Definitive Edition allows 250 and Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition allows 500.

According to what we know about the game so far and assuming that you can choose the population limit in the lobby.

What population limit do you think you’ll usually play with?

  • 50-199
  • 200
  • 201 - 300
  • 301 - 499
  • 500
  • 501 - 1000
  • unlimited

0 voters

6 Likes
2

I always wanted to make really huge armies, and eco etc. So I would love to have n unlimited game against AI. Hopefully they wont be inactive, but also wont destroy me XD

If my PC can stem it, Im all in for no limit at all :smiley:
Sadly resources will come to an end at some point

5 Likes
3

Why can’t they just make the population like AoE 2 DE, goes up to 500 but you can choose whatever amount you want

10 Likes
4

This thread is not about arguing it there should be an option to increase the population, it’s to see what people would prefer to play with.

No one in the right mind can be against having options.
Options might be displayed in a way so it’s clear it brakes balance but it still should be an option without having to install mods. Modding tools wont be available till next year.
Looking at that survey so far, while the majority prefers 200, there are a lot of people that want to have to option to have more.
Performance is not an argument, if AoE3 could handle 200 in 2005, we can handle >500 today. It’s an option anyway.
(AoE3 units sometimes cost more than 1 population but you can also train natives at 0 population that equals that out.)

4 Likes
5

200 pop limit will be enough if it’s gonna same system like AOE2(1unit=1pop). But i think it’ll have Population counting more like Aoe 3(one siege elephant=7pop).so It’ll be good to see for more pop limit.
Seprate population for Ships as well. It’s kinda Weird but balancing.

3 Likes
6

performance is an argument actually.

Because even in age 2 it strongly depended on your hardware. Devs tend to dislike giving ppl with low hardware options that crash their game, and that is understandable.

It will be the same with age 4. exponentially more load the more unit cap is.

1 Like
7
  1. The raw single core performance of 2005 is much lower than the raw single core performance of 2021.
  2. Software has improved since 2005. Games got a lot better at utilising more cores.
  3. You can add a warning to higher population options telling players that it can cause lag.
  4. You will be able to get more units in custom scenarios anyway.
  5. If the game supports 4v4 with 200 population per player it can also support 1v1 with 800 population per player.

Age of Empires 3 has Natives that cost 0 population. Having 20-40 Native units equals out the higher population cost of Cavalry and Artillery.
Also there are some Cavalry that only cost 1 population. So with civilisations like Russia and China it’s easy to get 200 units even without Natives.

3 Likes
8

Yes but that are few cases only.

1 Like
9

look at the minimum system specs.
You probably wont want 500 pop limit with these :smiley:
I know its technically better, but there are still some very low end PCs. So you cant just factor out performance.

I agree though, a warning (especially if it were changed depending on your hardware) could be an option. However some ppl may see this as fraud then because they cant play 100% of the game with their hardware. I assume in america you could sue MS there, and mybe even win :smiley:

And yes of course, palyer dependant pop limit should definitely be a thing

2 Likes
10

Higher Graphic options are also not available with the minimal specs. That’s the whole concept.
Age of Empires 1 even had the option to change the path finding algorithm for more/less performance.

Also if the minimal Specs allow a 4v4 with 200 population a 1v1 with 500 shouldn’t be a problem.

There is no real argument against adding options that aren’t pure elitism.
You just take fun away from people because they don’t play the game in the “correct” way.

Making a population selection require a mod is not a real option because:

  1. There is no mod support on release so people would have to wait half a year for it
  2. Mods are still probably annoying to use, everyone has to install and activate it beforehand and in for AoE2 they even brake on every update.

Having options that modify the gameplay including things like resource collection rates, unit training rates etc would be nice for people that casually play the game and want to have some flexibility.

At this moment over 40% people want to play with more than 200 population. That is a major part of the playerbase if this survey is in any way representative.

2 Likes
11

I don’t see anyone arguing against the possibility to set up custom games etc with >200 pop and having that option. But I think from a ranked perspective and as far as the “standard” game setting is concerned. People tend to want 200.

I think its important to distinguish between the type of “play” people will play at, and this question currently conflats the people who would play more competitively vs those with more scenario/mission/single players etc.

Yes, I think its fairly safe to assume the lobby pop system will be identical to aoe2. With added non-standard population for custom games at the computers own risk.

2 Likes
12

yes, and I am one of them.

I as always just try to elaborate why maybe specific things are made.

Higher graphics are not gameplay, but higher pop cap is, so a part of the game will be lost with lower harddware.

I am no expert in aw, but from what I heard from america, I am certain a judge may rule in favor of suing MS for not explicitly telling the min specs wont be able to handle part of the game etc.

I am however all in for no pop limit at all

1 Like
13

The vote options are not the best in my opinion. For example, most here will agree that 200 must be the default option for pvp and rank games.
I am from these that I believe that for large maps it would be good the option for more population if someone wants. ( with population limit in the whole map so that we do not have lag problems. So I would like to vote the option 200-300 or something similar. But in this vote we have only the 200 option if we want the default to be 200.

PS: I will say and another more complicated and dynamic option as an extra option only if people select it. We will have 2 options.
Population limit per player
Population limit for map ( max value: 200x8 = 1600 )

At population limit per map, the options to be something like this:
200 , 300, 400, 500 , 600 , 700 , 800 , 900, 1000, 1100 , 1200 , 1300 , 1400 , 1500 , 1600 , 1700 , 1800 , auto
Where auto means we see only the max population per player.

At population limit per player, the options to be something like this:
100 , 150 , 200 , 250 , 300 , divided to players.

And what the options divided to players means:
Lets say we put 600 in max population at map and we have a map with 4 players.
Started Population : 600 / 4 = 150.
After the elimination of 1 player : 600 / 3 = 200
After the elimination of one more : 600 / 2 = 300

This option obviously might give population limit not a number divided with 10. For example if you say that max population in map 700 and we start with 8 players, than started max population for each player will be 700 / 8 = 87,5 → 87 cap. ( yes , I like the idea when many players to start with small pop limit and as the finalists goes to the end of the game to increase their pop cap in logical numbers, especially in big maps )

2 Likes
14

Yes this is another good option. Some civs to have an extra pull of units above the 200 pop limit and these units have their own pop limit, something like this in AoE3. But I guess, if they didn’t added this option to a civ like Chinese, it is not logical to add it to any other civ. :slight_smile:

2 Likes
15

Empire Earth had a per map population limit of 1200 in 2001.
The limit was divided by the player number. But there were also technologies that increased the population limit by a fixed number but not too much.
That means only 150 population with 8 players unlike the 200 that Age of Empires already supported at this point.
But that resulted in a population of 600 in a 1v1.

I think the per map population limit made sense 20 years ago but now computers are a bit more powerful.

If it was possible to make a game tat supports 1200 units in 2001, it couldn’t be a problem to at last double that today. And this game had target seeking missiles, animals and other things to calculate too.
And also software got better since than.
There is a reason why the number of units you can give a command to at once is limited because it has to calculate paths for all of them.
Starcraft 2 let’s you select 200 at once, which only theoredically becomes a problem when you play Zerg because their Zerglings only cost half population. Oh year Stracraft 2 could easily do 4v4 with all Zerg in 2010.
We can even do path finding on GPUs now.

Performance is just not really an issue.

But this thread was made to see what people normally prefer to play at not to argue if 200 should be standard.
Also not to argue if there should be an option to increase it. Of course there should be, removing options is always bad, especially if they are so easy to implement.

5 Likes
16

Specs needed for the game are already very low, so I will not argue that there could be and a map with above 1600 units. But I don’t think it is something that is needed. When there are 8 players, some will loose before someone reach 200 pop. So practically you will never have 200 pop limit in reality. And when you reach 1v1 you will have practically an 800 pop cap.

As a programmer, I don’t like a system not to have any limitation. The phrase ‘on your own risk’ is a little dangerous if you think that a baby might play in its dad PC etc. :slight_smile:

1 Like
17

You think the computer will catch fire? It will just be laggy nothing else.
The GPU will likely even have less load so the computer might even cool down.

I think in 20 years we can get a bit more than 33% increase in population from 1200 to 1600.
Even in 10 years if you would want to have the game run on a 10 year old computer.
The minimal requirements for CPU aren’t actually that low.

Also what is minimal requirements? Stable 60FPS on 1080p in a 4v4?
Or Stable 20 FPS in 720p in a 1v1?

Play AoE2DE or AoE3DE at the minimal requirements and you will get a lot of lag in a 4v4.

Taking something that 40% of the people want away just because of the rare case that maybe someone could have a worse experience because he is an idiot is not a good idea.
It’s like forcing all cars on the highway to drive at 30 km/h because there could be people maybe running over the street in rare cases.
I think we should allow people to make mistakes. This game is rated for 12+ years olds not babies.

1 Like
18

They’ve already confirmed it won’t be like AoE3

2 Likes
19

For someone who says it is ok to have opinions, you sure seem to be annoyed that people have opinions about the subject :slight_smile:

1 Like
20

If Tower Elephant with 2000 HP uses 1Pop space then it’ll be most OP civ.

2 Likes