[poll] What do you want to see in Age of Empires 5?

Off-Topic Forum
1

If they make an AoE5, what do you want to see in it?

Time Period

  • Antiquity (AoE1, AoM, AoEO, Chronicles)
  • Middle Ages (AoE2, AoE4)
  • Early Modern (AoE3)
  • Modern (none)
  • Future (Halo Wars)
0 voters

Yes I know Halo Wars is not really officially part of the AoE series but it was made by Ensamble Studios.

What part of Antiquity?
  • Bronze Age (before 1000 BC)
  • Classical Antiquity 1000 BC - 500 AD
  • All of Antiquity (everything before 500 AD)
  • No Antiquity
0 voters

AoE1, AoM and AoEO cover most of antiquity with both Bronze and Iron Age civilisations.
Chronicles only covers Classical Antiquity.

What part of the Middle Ages
  • Dark Age (500-1000 AD)
  • High Middle Ages (1000-1500 AD)
  • All of the Middle Ages (500-1500 AD)
  • No Middle Ages
0 voters

AoE2 covers all of the Middle Ages but is more focused on the later parts.
AoE4 clearly focuses on the High Middle Ages with little to no Dark Age content.

What part of Early Modern History
  • Exploration Age (1500-1700 AD)
  • Revolutionary Age (1700-1820 AD)
  • All of Early Modern History (1500-1820 AD)
  • No Early Modern History
0 voters

AoE3 covers all of early modern History and even goes into the Industrial Age.

What part of the Modern Age
  • Industrial Age (1820-1920 AD)
  • Atomic Age (1920-2020 AD)
  • All of Modern History (1820-2020 AD)
  • No modern History
0 voters

AoE3 covers the Industrial Age on paper but in practice the game play is more Early Modern.

What part of the Future?
  • Near Future (2020-2120 AD)
  • Far Future (2120 AD or later)
  • All of Future
  • No Future
0 voters

Halo Wars is probably what AoE5 once was supposed to be (after a Modern Age AoE4). Though the game has a reduces strategical depth because it was made for console first.

Economy

Resources
  • Food, Wood, Gold and Stone (AoE1, AoE2, AoE4)
  • Food, Wood, Gold and something different (AoM, AoE3)
  • Less then 4 resources (Starcraft and Warcraft)
  • More then 4 resources (Empire Earth)
0 voters

AoM and AoE3 replaced Stone with a less physical resource with favour and XP. AoE3 also has a few civilisations with unique resources (Export and Influence).

Warcraft and Starcraft both only have 2 resources.

Empire Earth was made by former AoE1 devs and added Iron as a 5th resource. A reasonable and interesting addition.
Empires Earth 2 added more resources that changed between the Ages making things a little more complicated.

Trade
  • Only with allies (AoE1, AoE2)
  • Neutral markets exist (AoE4)
  • Self trade possible (AoM)
  • Other trade mechanics (AoE3)
0 voters

In AoE2 trade just doesn’t exist in a 1v1 while in AoE4 it depends on the map.
In AoM you can trade with yourself but you only get half as much Gold.
AoE3 has a completely different trading system that pretty much just gives you a fixed trickle of resources.

Civilisation differences

  • Very symmetric civilisations (more then AoE2)
  • Semi symmetric civilisations (AoE2)
  • Hybrid (AoE4, AoE3 European civs)
  • Asymmetric (AoM, AoE3 none European civs)
  • Very asymmetric (more then AoM, like Stracraft or Warcraft)
0 voters

AoE2 has relatively similar civilisations with most civilisations having access to the same core units (Crossbows, Knights, Cavalry Archers, Light Cavalry, etc.) or in some cases even all civilisations (Long Swordsman, Mangonel, Scorpion, Spearman, Skirmisher, etc.).
AoE4 has the core units being shared between civs but unique units often replace them so much so that there is almost no unit available to all civilisations despite the game having a lot less civilisations then AoE2.
In AoE3 the European civs have a very similar tech tree with each civ having some unique units replacing some generic units (besides the French). The none European civs have a lot more unique tech tree including different buildings and technologies.
AoM is the most diverse with not even the villagers being generic units and only half of the buildings being shared between civs.

Game Speed

  • Very Slow (slower then AoE2)
  • Slow (AoE2)
  • Medium (AoE4)
  • Fast (AoM, AoE3)
  • Very Fast (Starcraft 2)
0 voters

Mostly about how long it takes until the first action and how defensive you can play.
It takes longer to reach the 2nd Age in AoE2 compared to most other games in the series. AoE3 has home city cards that make it easy to get your first military units as soon as you reach the 2nd Age. AoM just has high resource collection rates and fast villager train time.
This is also kinda related to Stone being a resource. Allowing strong defences without making games last forever.

Should I add more polls?

I thought about more polls like Home City Cards, what kinda units should exist or other special game mechanics.
But those would be too specific I think. Also heavily depends on the time period and other factors. Most other questions here are mostly time independent.

2 Likes
2

Personally i’d love to see an AoE5 and AoE6 from that released image years ago. But AoE5 would be what was goign to be AoE4 in the industrial and modern times, and AoE6 the future.

1 Like
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I’ll say Chronicles can easily be AoEV. It needs to be separated from AoEII and more contents need to be added.

4

We all know how to play AoE by now. The 4-age advancement system is a little tired and trite by now (i.e., Dark → Feudal → Castle → Imperial). I would like a much heavier focus on single player skirmishes that take longer to win, perhaps multiple sessions. Civilization games suck the hours away while you play. Similarly, I think AoE shouldn’t be so afraid of matches that might take hours and multiple sessions to finish. Not to the extent of Civilization. I just think I’m a little tired of AoE feeling like a fairly superficial gameplay experience lacking depth

To achieve this, I want more ages to go through, going from Neanderthals where you have to invent fire and the wheel, and survive weather events (cave shelters) and more at the mercy of animal predators, and go up thru AoE2’s timeframe. This all means more technologies to research, more tech paths to take (some paths should be forks in the road so you can’t research the other fork), and so on. Maybe more econ focus in some parts of the game, too

Just an overall deeper gaming experience, with ‘very good’ graphics and animations (not mediocre ones), as well

If this needs to be called Age of Civilizations due to fear of change from diehard fans, then so be it

5

I’m kinda surprised by some of the results of the polls.
Most results are currently looking like people want to have another AoE3. Not really surprising I since that’s the one game that just got abandoned.
We have 2 ancient games (AoM and Chronicles), 2 medieval games (AoE2 and AoE4) but no early modern game anymore.

You’re not the only one who wanted AoE4 to be a modern setting game instead of a (failed) AoE2 replacement.

I personally think it works well as part of AoE2DE. I’m looking forward to seeing where they are heading with it.

Would it still be AoE if it took hours to finish a match?

Neanderthals are a different species, they are not humans, lol.

You want to go from Stone Age all the way to modernity or even future in one game? Sounds like Empire Earth or Rise of Nations to me.

So you basically want a spin off like AoM? Sounds good to me.

I generally like the idea of having longer matches with a slower progression.
Not super slow though. Like I don’t want to have to fight lions to survive for an hour before starting to build my first settlement.

1 Like
6

Most of the answers are ‘I want it like Age 3’

7

Some thoughts that I had.

Time Period

Early Modern seems to be the best pic.
Antiquity is covered by AoMR and Chronicles that are both still getting updates.
Middle Ages is covered by AoE2 and AoE4 so it’s not surprising it got now votes yet.

I know there are always a few people talking about that one image showing AoE4 as WW2. But I feel like that doesn’t fit AoE that well and would not sell that well either.

Economy

Resources

The AoE3/AoM model is leading but I don’t think it would be the best choice.
Going for the traditional 4 resources is probably the safe option.
Making Stone a resource is in my opinion the best way to balance defence with offence. It allows fortifications to be strong because they are finite.
Artificial limitations like AoM and AoE3 have are unpopular for good reasons. They just don’t feel right and you can just infinitely replace buildings that get destroyed.

I also like Gold being more finite in AoE1/2/4 compared to AoE3. In AoE3 Coin is less valuable then Wood, which just feel so wrong.

Trade

Gold is too hard to get in 1v1 games in AoE2 but too easy to get in team games. I think the contrast is too big.

The easiest solution is adding neutral markets that you can trade with bit give less Gold then trading with an ally.
Also the trade mechanics itself should probably be changed. The current system that has everyone build markets at the edge of the map and then has a massive line of trade carts going back and forth extracting infinite Gold out of thin air is pretty goofy.

Civilisation differences

The AoE1/2 way of having a base techtree and then taking away some technologies never felt right to me. Having all those holes in the techtree feels wrong.
Also every civ always having all of the same base units with some unique ones sprinkled in is boring.

AoE3 and especially AoM reinvent the wheel a lot though. Like does it need to have 5 different Spearman with very similar but not identical stats?
AoE4 just gives everyone the same base units, gives them unique skins but then doesn’t shy from replacing some of the lines with unique units entirely.

The big thing I like about AoE2 though is regional units. Giving multiple civilisations from the same area a shared identity. Making them actually feel like they belong together.
AoE3 does that though shared mechanics but it feel kinda forced since it puts the civs into buckets instead of naturally having some sense of similarity.

Game speed

Most people voted for Fast but I don’t think that would be the best option. It’s always harder to get people to learn a new game when it’s fast.
AoE2 is more accessible because it doesn’t force you to make to many decisions very early on. I also think many people subconsciously like gradual ramp up in excitement that the game provides. AoM and AoE3 switch to aggression very quickly.

But starting with just 3 villagers and then having the lame train time from AoE2 kinda drags out a little too much. AoE4 might be the sweet spot.
Maybe just AoE2 speed but with 6 starting villagers (TC provide 10 population) for all civs while still having enough food to queue up some villagers (unlike Chinese in AoE2) would make the start quick enough.