Assuming the Return of Rome content will be completely separated from the current AoE2DE content with no crossplay ability
How much AoE2 should be in Return of Rome?
As close to AoE1 as possible
Only some AoE2 features
Many AoE2 features
Most AoE2 features
Make them normal AoE2 civilisations with an ancient theme
0voters
As close to AoE1 as possible
Trying to make the game as close to AoE1 as possible.
No gates, same building scale etc.
Only some AoE2 features
Only a few features like being able to exchange resources at the market or adding gates.
Many AoE2 features
More AoE2 features like unique units and technologies.
Maybe even castles or a castle equivalent.
More AoE2 like navy.
More AoE2 like units like adding the skirmishers and spearman lines.
More AoE2 like blacksmith (Storage Pit) upgrades.
Most AoE2 features
Make it play like AoE2 for the most part but without corssplay ability.
Make them normal AoE2 civilisations with an ancient theme
Just make them AoE2 civilisations that are balances against AoE2 civilisations.
This is so illogical it wouldn’t be fun. A bronze age civ has no chance against gunpowder, or even just most high medieval stuff, it’s like showing up to fight medieval armies with tanks and modern infantry. Not even a contest without an unbelievable amount of luck. Far better keeping the two separate, there’s also no point in a port if it’s just going to be an expansion of AoE2 civs, rather than an actual port, not to mention there are way more civs that realistically fit with AoE2. And then you can open the can of worms about doubled civs from both eras, or needing to redesign a ton of stuff because the civs are too similar bonus wise.
I mostly agree with you.
AoE1 units technically have better stats then AoE2 ones but realistically they shouldn’t, especially not before the Iron Age. (Even though AoE2 already kinda does that with Celts, Goths and Huns.)
But it would be practically impossible to make them weaker because you can’t give units 0.5 attack/armour or something like.
Better to keep it a separate gamemode.
Interesting to see that people apparently want a lot of AoE2 features for the AoE1 civilisations.
The survey would likely have different results in the AoE1 sub forum but I posted it here because it technically is an AoE2 DLC.
Well we could have some “battle of the ages” or something like this then.
If it’s a gamemode specifically designed to make this happen I don’t have a problem with it
I actually think it could be quite interesting.
A gamemode balanced for 2v1? Could be cool.
But then again it would be very hard to make AoE1 civilisations weaker then AoE2 ones without completely changing the AoE1 balance.
I voted for only some AoE2 features. I think the stats, units, tech trees, and civilisations should be kept essentially the same as the ones in AoE1. The only features from AoE2 should be quality of life ones, e.g. formations, better pathing, gates, tower stats displaying the correct range; also possibly some superficial ones, like female villagers, civ-specific languages, farms being terrain rather than sprites. I’m not sure about market trade and herdables, I guess they’d probably be ok.
My reasoning is not so much that I wouldn’t ideally want changes, but that everybody’s idea of what those changes should be is going to be different. Also, I’m wary about making it too much like AoE2 – in that case, why not just play AoE2?
I totally agree with you, but I think it’s important for a poll like this to have exhaustive options. (Also, right now “make them normal AoE2 civilisations with an ancient theme” has 29% of the votes!)
Well, AoE2 civs have castles, gates, and comparatively insane siege units. I’m also pretty sure a lot of them outmatch anything from AoE1 in terms of range. AoE1 civs may deal more damage and have more durability, but I’m not sure it would be enough to completely outmatch AoE2.
This is all technicalities, though, if there’s a game mode to have both game compete I’m pretty sure those differences would be toned down.
Hard to compare because AoE1 tiles are smaller then AoE2 tiles.
So on paper the catapult outranged a castle. And every unit is 33% faster too.
Easily 2x the HP and a higher attack speed while also having lower costs overall.
Not really. For example AoE1 and AoE2 villagers have the same stats.
Clubman and Militia have similar stats.
But Legions are easily 2x as strong as Champions while being cheaper.
AoE1 units get a lot stronger though the ages compared to AoE2 while starting with similar numbers.
Personally, the best thing, especially for age 1 fans, imo, is to just have it be as close to age 1 as possible, just on the age 2 engine. Basically a seperate game
Agree. There are a couple of features that would be extremely nice in AoE1 to have, namely all pathing, formations, possibly gates, and the like.
But I’d never introduce any additional defensive buildings or garrison-mechanics with all the follow-up changes that need to be made to keep balance. That was always the key difference between AoE1 and AoE2, and in my opinion it’s a good distinction.