Projectile system?

One aspect of the game I was wondering about that didn’t seem to be answered by the trailer - how will the projectile system work? Will it work like it AoE3 (and I think AoE Online? I’ll admit I never played it), where projectiles are guaranteed to hit their target, or will it work like in earlier games like AoE2 and AoM where projectiles had a travel time and could sometimes be dodged by attentive players?

I’ll admit to being a complete casual, so I can’t talk about any potential balance issues it may have caused, but I always preferred the second system - to me, it both felt more realistic and more interesting to play with.

Realism-wise, it meant that fast units were actually better at dodging projectiles (like what you’d expect) and that clumped units would have a chance of someone getting hit even if the arrow’s initial target moved out of the way.

Gameplay-wise, it gave both sides of the interaction something to do rather than just accepting damage - especially for units like the mangonel, where damaging but slow shot could create mindgames between the defending and attacking player as the former attempted to dodge and the latter decided whether to simply attack or try to predict the dodge with an attack ground move. It also meant that different units could have different projectile types - some, like the bombard cannon, might have a faster projectile with more ‘guaranteed’ damage but a lower potential overall, while more risky options like the mangonel could do more overall damage if they could land their shot.

Which system would you guys prefer?

Even on AOE2 Ranged units were broken so…dodge able projectiles but attack ground for archers to make it fair

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If melee would be stronger none would use ranged. To be honest you had to use both in AoE2 not only archers and I played mostly Britons with Longbows. They were strong and squishy, I can’t imagine to have only 200 longbow units.

i just make a massive longbow army with some monks…only paladins/elephants and some siege weapons could take them on…

They have the same range of the trebuchet…

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It’s quite fair to have archers you can use other units to counter archers like cavalry