My main issue with including the 19th century past Napoleon is the very rapid improvement of military technology.
The 19th century has arguably seen more improvement in military then the entire human history before that and after that.
In 1800 they were using gunpowder weapons that were barely improved over the ones from 1700. The British were even still using a musket from 1722 until well after the Napoleonic Wars.
While in 1900 there were some weapons already in use that are still in use today. Smokeless powder, high explosives, machine guns and so on were all already invented.
I think the American Civil War is already too advanced compared to the Napoleonic Wars, that is like 2 Ages later. If you want both in the same game you would have to cut of the Renaissance and 30 Years War era to not end up with 6+ different Ages.
The whole Industrial Age is interesting enough to be itâs own game. There are so many military improvements to simple Infantry guns alone:
Percussion caps (make reloading faster and more reliable)
Minie balls (allowed to reload rifles as fast as smooth bore guns massively increasing the range of line infantry)
Self contained cartridges (increased firing speed and reliability)
Breech loader (massively increased the rate of fire and allowed reloading while laying down)
Magazines (allowed even faster reloading)
Smokeless powder (removed the black powder smoke that used to cover the battlefield, also reduced the need for regular cleaning of the gun)
Easily 4+ Ages worth of improvements within 1 century. We went from Muskets to basically modern rifles. The rifles at the end of the 19th century are basically the same as modern hunting rifles and some models like the Mosin-Nagant that is still being used in war today.
I would love to have an AoE5 that represents the time from the end of AoE2 until Napoleon. AoE3 skips like 200+ years essentially and starts with 18th century Musketeers.
The Ages of of AoE5 could look like:
Middle Ages (like the Dark Age from AoE2 there would be very limited Military, maybe just 1 unit) before 1500
Renaissance (Some mix of Medieval and Early Modern units) 1500-1600
Reformation (Pike and Shot armies with Arquebusiers, 30 Years War) 1600-1700
Enlightenment (Musketeer armies from the times, 7 Years War and American War of Independence) 1700-1800
Imperial Age (Bonus age at the end like in AoE3, Napoleonic Wars. And in AoE3 there would be the option to do a revolution instead of going into Imperial Age) after 1800
Alternatively with an Imperial Age setting:
Enlightenment (Like the Dark Age again just one Military Unit, the Musketeer) before 1800
Steam Age (First Steam Engines and factories. Minie-Ball Rifled Musketeer) 1800-1850
Industrial Age (Complex Industries and new things like railways and telegraphs. Breech Loading Infantry like Needle Gunners) 1850-1900
Machine Age (First cars, Zeppelins and maybe even planes. Modern Bolt Action Rifles for Infantry) after 1900
I would personally love to see an ancient setting too but I think going for an Earl Modern setting would make more sense since they currently have games in an Ancient Setting that are doing well.
Yes, for me, Age of Empires 5 (if itâs like Age of Empires 3) will have four ages as always:
Renaissance Age (1500-1600): Italian Wars and the Pike Shot era
Mercantilist Age (1600-1700): Thirty Yearsâ War and the Crisis of the 17th Century
Imperial Age (1700-1800): Wars of Succession, Seven Yearsâ War, American and French Revolutions
Industrial Age (1800-1900): Napoleonic Wars, American Civil War, and the Industrial Age up to WWI
And then, AoE 6 (if it becomes a modern Age of Empires game) will have four ages after that:
Modern Age (1900-1950): World Wars with the interwar period and the 1929 stock market crash in between (this could be a random event at the beginning of the game that slows down progress to the Atomic Age for 2 minutes)
Atomic Age (1950-2000): Cold War and Space Race
Digital Age (2000-2050): War on Terror, Development of AI and Robotics in the 2020s, and Space Exploration from 2030 onwards
Space Age (2050-2100): Full Space Colonization of the Moon and Mars
If you would have read my post you would know that Napoleonic Wars and WW1 had completely different levels of technology.
The Stone Age is technologically closer to Napoleonic War technology that that is to WW1.
And we are technologically closer to WW1 then WW1 is to Napoleonic War.
A single machine gun from 1890 (Maxim Gun) could defeat half of Napoleons Army. They actually managed to shoot down a modern Russian cruise missile with a Maxim Gun (Model from 1910) in Ukraine last year. And they are generally still being used to shoot down drones regularly.
Throwing Napoleon and WW1 into the same age utterly disregards the reality of the technological change of that time.
Thatâs also the thing I hate most about AoE3. You have Longbow Men fighting against Gatling Guns.
Well, you canât do much in just four eras⊠or else you have to finish the game (AoE 5) during the Napoleonic Wars and start the next one (AoE 6) in the American Civil War and from there on to the present day or the near future⊠European War 6:1914 starts with the American Civil War as a tutorial, then you have the German campaign, which is the Franco-Prussian War, and from there it jumps straight into WWIâŠ
As I said I would rather put the entire human history until Napoleon into one Age and the entire human history since WW1 into one age then putting Napoleon and WW1 into one age.
Those 100 years (1820-1920) where the 100 years with the biggest change in military technology in the entire history of mankind.
So I would be more ok with anything else being put into the same age but those 2 things.
OK, thatâs fine⊠AoE 5 from the Renaissance to Napoleon, AoE 6 American Civil War/Belle Epoque to the near future, AoE 7 directly into the future (a futuristic space-age AoE 3 like Halo Wars/SC2 with experience, decks, shipments and homecities?) and AoE 8 a reboot of the saga in the Bronze Age up to before Iron Age/Chronicles/AoE OnlineâŠ
Halo Wars was kind of âAoE5â back in the day, it was made by the same developers then AoE1-3 but exclusive for Xbox. So having an âAge of Empiresâ in the Halo universe would make some sense.
But AoE5 has to come out before we can really talk about AoE6. Maybe the Medieval games (AoE2DE and AoE4) will stop getting supported to it makes sense to make AoE6 Medieval again. But maybe Antiquity would be the better choice.
It would be nice to have an active AoE game in each period of history.
Yes, youâre right about that. However, if you really analyze Age of Empires III, thereâs nothing truly special about the Industrial Age besides the factories, and the Imperial Age doesnât have anything unique beyond just buffs. The gameâs main focus is on the 1700s, and the 1800s and the Renaissance arenât well represented.
Thatâs why I donât think an Age 6 is necessary; we just need to make each era more special.
Although a game focused on the Industrial Revolution and the Victorian era wouldnât be bad.
Yeah I would like to see AoE V as a IIIâs sucessor
Basically by taking the classic core gameplay from II but with cannons, more gunpowder and a Modern Era /Industrial Age setting
We need whole human history like Rise of Nations, Civilzation, and Empire Earth!
We can also add a few easy government mechanics like what we have in Rise of Nations, just meke them not too complex, and suit for a competitive RTS game!
Rise of Nations has a somewhat slower pace comparing to AoE, but a 1v1 game can still end in 25 minutes and a team game can still end in 40 minutes (except for the E meet W map)!
Yes, for me, the idea of ââEnsemble Studios/Robot Entertainment in 2005 was to make a modern AoE 4 (1901-2001) (from the end of the Victorian era to 9/11) in 2011 (instead of AoE Online) and AoE 5 that would be a prequel to Halo Wars (2025-2525) (space exploration until the end of the Spartan development) in 2017, and only then make Halo Wars 2 (2559) in 2021 and in 2027 rebooting the saga in Antiquity with AoE 6 (an AoE Online but with ultra-realistic graphics or maybe semi-cartoonish like AoE 4)âŠ
Yes, I donât think theyâll repeat the medieval historical period again, since they already have AoE 2 and 4 set in the Middle Ages that are super active (AoE 4 was medieval simply to play it safe and reconnect with the saga; it was an âAoE 3â but medieval to attract those who played AoE 2)⊠now with AoE 5 they can take more risks and set it in other historical periods (Antiquity is possible, since AoE 1 DE is super abandoned, AoE Online is maintained by Celeste, and Chronicles doesnât allow them to make more asymmetrical civilizations due to the limitations of AoE 2; the other possibility would be early modern, justifying that they left AoE 3 without support and anticipating that CA will make a TW: Empire 2 in 2029 after releasing Medieval 3 this year)âŠ
Yes, I can see them making an AoE 4, but further along in the timeline. If AoE 4 delves deeper into the Renaissance, the Italian Wars, and perhaps the conquest of the New World with the Aztecs, Incas, and since theyâve already opened the door with The Last Chieftains, Tupi, and even Mapuche (c. 1550-1600s) in future DLCs, then AoE 5 should start with the Thirty Yearsâ War and continue through the Napoleonic Wars (1618-1815). It wouldnât have decks or homecities, but it would have a tab to customize your cities post-game.
RoN is dead⊠Civilization already released Civ 7 last year and you have Empires Eternal as the spiritual successor to EE1âŠ
yeah lets not talk about AoE6 before AoE5 is even announced.
A dream AoE5 would be somewhat in between AoE2 and AoE3 for me.
I donât want to see the same generic units for all civs but I donât think every civ needs to have a big gimmick like all AoE3 civs.
Home cities are probably also too complex but Age op choices (maybe with monuments like in AoE4) would add some variety compared to AoE2 where everything is always the same.
âAge of Empire Earthâ would be like a dream game.
Empire Earth 1 was somewhat the alternative successor to Age of Empires 1. The game that Age of Empires 1 was supposed to be.
The big design challenge for such a game is how to make it feel continuous for such a long time period. There is only one China, basically every other civ would be limited to some time period.
Some civs have clear successors but then almost every Bronze Age European civ would end up as Rome and Rome would then end up as basically every Medieval European civ.
Civilisation 7 solved that by forcing you to choose a new civ in every Era but that proved to be very unpopular, so much so that they even removed the feature now.
