How many people play aoe/ror to make it worthwhile to add new things to it?
I wonder if they added TC arrow fire, if it would have retained some of the popularity when it was first released.
I recall when I was a child doing forward Assyrian Archer ranges and rushing opponents with their inability to save their vills, they could only run. Then with the AoK, Age II, release being dumbfounded and annoyed by the garrisoning function as well as the arrow fire.
Now 25 years later, they added the original with adaptation to Age II. While I had thoroughly enjoyed the addition of having gates and felt that the garrisoning of vills into the TCs did help against the early days of rushing with slingers from RoR, Axe men, Assyrian early archer rushes and for the brave Clubmen rush. I wonder if more they had made the game basically more like Age II with arrow fire if it would have kept more its player base.
Thoughts?
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It essentially remains a national sport in Vietnam (and China to a degree) and both still play on the CD version.
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Wouldn’t mind seeing that. We don’t have any evidence at all what they used.
I don’t see much difference in AoE2 Mongols and Koreans having knights.
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Wild Camels, Llamas and Snow Leopards are available in the Scenario Editor. But yeah, every animal added after RoR is not there, and herdables never appear in the official random maps.
I created a related thread:
Return of Rome - what I would change to make it feel “complete”
It’s not about new civs (and honestly, I don’t have high hopes for them right now), more about rounding out what already have (or used to have before Return of Rome).
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I think one of the reasons RoR did not work so well in the end, was because they tried too much to please the AoE 1 crowed (but that failed the first time they tried with AoE DE).
With RoR they should more looked for what the AoE II crowed liked and expect of their Age game, thinks like Unique Units and more quality of life like TC arrow fire.
In a way Battle for Greece was RoR should have been.
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The gap still remains indeed.
Also not having voice lines not unique wonders, while most of the languages have been reproduced to some degree (yes, some more than others, latin and greek have a huge edge above some others).
Entirely rebalancing the units to match the AOE2 power scaling may have been an option too, is would allow mixing RoR and AOE2 civs in the editor if players want it (while AOE1 units are much more powerful).
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RoR is the aoe1 in aoe2 engine. RoR couldn’t be anything else.
Improvements and additions based on aoe1’s identity are, of course, welcome. But, you couldn’t have, for example, removed aoe1’s exclusive drop-off buildings (like Granary or Storage Pit) to put aoe2’s in their place (like Mill, Camps, or Blacksmith); which is exactly what Battle of Greece is, a reskin of aoe2 to antiquity.
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Well… if that would mean abandoning Return of Rome’s development, that’s a no for me. I’ve seen what Microsoft did with AOE1DE and now Return of Rome, and I don’t like it. Fortunately, the game is within a popular one, and maybe in the future, if discussions and interest surrounding Return of Rome are kept alive, more content could be added in future expansions and patches.
I approve all this. After all, people have already paid for Return of Rome and AOE1DE, so having the entire package in one place (Return of Rome) would be fair—and honestly preferable—rather than having incomplete products scattered across multiple online stores.
I do think it’s solid enough, or at least compared to other products on the market, even with Mythology Retold and AOE4, especially the latter. AOE 1 and 2 are classics, but that doesn’t mean they are irrelevant. 2D graphics may not be that popular, but that is the thing that made me love the first two games. I did like SOME of AOM and AOE3, but not that much, and they were more of a casual experience to me, whereas with Return of Rome and AOE2DE, I began to see myself as someone who wants more and more from them, both through experience and additional content (and that’s considering I like other games as well, but that’s beyond this topic’s argument).
Well, I don’t think it would be a bad idea, but I’m probably too open to changes (except for the ones that completely deviate from the game’s essence and turn it into something else, like what happened with the inclusion of heroes via The Three Kingdoms DLC). Arrow fire would be nice to have, although not several shots at once, but one arrow for every garrisoned unit, and with a considerable/reasonable delay—like one shot per 1.5 seconds or so.
Thanks for correcting me. I do not have enough experience with AOE2DE, and the editor is even newer to me than the game itself. I do think all animals should be available for RoR, even the American ones. Why limit them? Why not make them available in official maps/scenarios? It would be cool to have access to them anyway, for modding reasons.
Thanks for creating and sharing that thread. It shows that you too care for Age 1 and want Return of Rome to grow bigger and improve above all things. That is what I mainly want for Return of Rome. I think adding what’s missing and slightly improving what’s already there would be a great example of “fan service”, showing appreciation to customers and also showing more respect toward the game that literally started it all.
Only partially, since Chronicles deviates from both AOE1 and AOE2, but all things considered, Chronicles is more similar to the second. I think RoR should have unique units and regional skins and it should be made more culturally accurate, as well as visually pleasing regarding units, buildings, and of course WONDERS. Gameplay is very important too, so adding features like town center defensive arrow fire would make sense—especially since AOE2DE players access Return of Rome through it.
All in all, Return of Rome is a game mode that should receive eventual updates and, especially, missing content added, with attention to detail and as a consequence of taking notes from what the community has said and felt, having experienced that game mode, AOE2DE and the former AOE1 titles.
To the owners: I suggest not being afraid of making gameplay changes based on AOE2DE, since that is the game that worked the most compared to AOE1DE—even though the latter obviously has its charm too. Moreover, if players want a more traditional experience, new optional settings could be added to satisfy old-school fans (such as “vanilla soundtrack”, “no garrisoning”, “no town center arrow fire”, “no land trade”, etc.).
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I think adding TC arrows to game wouldn’t be bad idea, however I would make it tied with tower upgrades, which means TC won’t fire before you have researched Watch Tower tech. If that would be added then TCs have to also cost stone.
Watch tower upgrade would make TC fire with 6 range and 4 damage.
Sentry tower upgrade would make TC fire with 6 range and 6 damage.
Guard Tower upgrade would make TC fire with 6 range and 8 damage.
Range/Wood upgrades don’t give TCs extra range. Every 3-4 villager will add another arrow up to max 3 arrows.
It would not mean that. It would just be stand alone, still aoe1 in aoe2 engine, i.e full support.
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You mean like a custom launcher or app shortcut while still having the “base” AoE2DE engine files that would, in theory, get updated everytime that game gets a patch? If so, that sounds really cool! Being sold separately and not requiring AoE2DE to be bought is something I prefer.
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I kinda dont want this if the design of the town centre sprites doesn’t change. Because currently they don’t even really look like buildings so much as they look more like a town square. The TCs in AOE2 look like actual buildings so it makes sense that someone would be firing arrown from inside them. None of the TCs in AOE1 look like garrisonable structures. In the first age they are like a little more than a collection of bones sticking out of the ground, honestly it just looks weird when villagers “garrison” inside that, it’d be even more weird if they start firing arrows from it. Also lets think about it historically. The first age in AOE1 is literally the Stone Age! The villagers don’t even use bow and arrow to hunt, they throw spears. It just looks anachronistic for them to be shooting arrows all of a sudden out of this non-TC looking clump of bones sticking out of the ground. Its just wrong on so many levels. This is the main problem with midnlessly copy pasting features from one game to another. It just looks slapped on and doesn’t really gel with the rest of the game’s design and aesthetics.
Now as a solution to this I would suggest maybe allowing villagers to garrison inside houses. That makes more sense anyway on so many levels and we already have that mechanism with Khmer in AOE2. Maybe then they can garrison inside towers and TCs from the second age and only then are they able to fire arrows from those buildings. And even then it would be good to change the TC graphics to look more like a defensive structure.
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That’s true, making town centers casually shoot arrows without changing their appearance would feel aesthetically weird, but the solutions you provided are top notch, especially the one that involves towers. However, would that mean that more projectiles should be fired, too? What about ballistae towers? Should they fire faster when having units garrisoned? I think that would be ok instead of making them shoot several projectiles at the same time like castles do in AOE2DE (which by the way I think should be changed in order to make them shoot asynchronously by small, random amounts).
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I don’t honestly have an opinion on this. Whatever feels balanced I guess. I don’t think they should shoot extra projectiles from Ballista towers though. But then again I am not really familiar with the strengths of all the projectiles and the armor of all the units of that game and how it all adds up.
On a completely unrelated note, I did notice something weird the other day that I don’t remember noticing before and that is that monks heal siege units in AOE1. That’s bizzare IMO. It also means repairing siege doesn’t cost resources in AOE1. How this isn’t considered OP I don’t understand. I think they should change it to the AOE2 way of doing things where villagers repair siege. It makes way more sense.
EDIT: Also is anyone playing ROR online? I’ve logged in a couple of times to try and play and there were no online games. Is something wrong at my end?
Priests “healing” siege units is the same as it would be to have villagers “repair” standard (flesh and bone) units, which is ridiculous. I agree on making the game more “realistic” in aspects like those mentioned.
Actually I also just realised repairing doesn’t cost anything in this game, so even if villagers were repairing it would still be free. Is this intended or is this a bug?
Really? I do think it’s either an overlook or a bug. Don’t remember right now whether repairing costs resources or not in original AOE1
Yea try it. I played a game and was just repairing towers endlessly without stone in my stockpile. Its actually really powerful when playing against AI.