A lot of people imagine that score is like a crystal ball. I want to create a meme about aoe2 score giving Bitcoin price in 2022 
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aoe2 score absolutely does leak information about what opponents are doing
and even if they changed it so that it did not, it lets you play without taking risks. when the score tells you are ahead, then you can play in a completely safe and boring way to ensure that you don’t lose. you know for sure your opponent’s economy is behind yours, so you never have to even consider leaving your base, and the game won’t be as dynamic.
the more interesting games are when both players are doing something interesting in each stage of the game, not just camping in their base until they reach 200 population faster than their opponent because the score tells them that they will reach that milestone first with 100% certainty.
whatever people they had doing aoe2 balance patches don’t really play the game at a high level. we asked them to fix the score calculation several years so that it stopped leaking information, but they have done nothing. this type of organization will not be able to incorporate score properly. even if it’s possible to do it (and i don’t even think it is), it just adds more landmines into the design for them to step on.
show the list of players and what age they are in. give some progress indicator when your allies are advancing to the next age. you can even show your allies’ population/score on the scoreboard. but any information about enemies should be hidden.
you might think scouting is easy and pointless in aoe4, but you haven’t even seen all the civs and strategies yet. if you explore the opposing town, see a landmark and few military buildings, you might think your opponent is investing in economy. when your build wasn’t as greedy as that, a natural reaction is to try to raid a little bit and either kill villagers, cause idle time, or force opponents to rush out defenses. but your opponent could actually be making troops from forward military buildings near your town, and have a much bigger attack than yours once your army is sent forward. score would reveal stuff like this.
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I think you are exagerating a lot what information score gives. If you invest in eco, your score will be lower, but it can also be lower because you have no eco. There is absolutely no way to know. But if you did a big exploration it could be higher. It depends, maybe you have 5 units in queue, that kills your score, and maybe…etc… This is not something you can count in. Active scouting is 100x better.
Score information is approching zero, unless for big big investment, that can be catch because the score moves a lot. That’s why I propose to not use landmarks and maybe monument in the score calculation.
You are talking about secret forward, but that’s happens often in aoe2, sneak and secret army, and I never saw players anticipating this because of the score, always by active scouting, or because they know the favorit strategie of their oppoents.
Yesterday, I casted Stark vs Mbl, and Stark in megarandom did a secret army behind mbl, and he was completely surprised. Sneak and Forward strategies happens everytimes in aoe2.
“but your opponent could actually be making troops from forward military buildings near your town, and have a much bigger attack than yours once your army is sent forward. score would reveal stuff like this.”
If that was true, I will obviously not be in favor of the score, but it’s not, score in aoe2 does NOT reveal secret strategies. What can I said to convince you?
I casted all the tournaments the last 2 years. And no one heard about stories like this. I did that strategy (hidden and forward archeries) in my last tournament 3 times in row vs 3 opponents : Visible Cup 4 - Liquipedia Age of Empires Wiki
I can provide you my pov stream twitch, and we can go on a discord call, and watch together 10 games with forward and sneak strategies. I will be happy if you tells me how I can see that in score.
Maybe I will start to beat players like Hera or Viper 
Score is for noobs. U dont have a real reason why u need it. Just play the game not the score.
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Sounds like you won’t be missing much in AOE IV then.
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You did not understand, I dont want score to replace exploration. Because I do not need it, You can watch me playing, and tell me If I need score for that, iam active with my scout, cuz that’s how you play any RTS game : Twitch
Could you read the whole first post? 
I did it because there is a lot of honest players like you, that think score is a big thing. It’s not, unless when you start to build your landmark. That why I propose to remove this from the score count. And exploring landmarks enemies is extremely easy anyway
By your own account, score can provide misleading or uncertain (so unhelpful) info, which then begs the question - why bother to include it? I haven’t seen any good arguments for including it.
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The score is not about exploring enemy strategies, it gives an aproximative number of my strenght and opponent strength.
Let’s say I have more ressources and buildings compared to my opponent, but I did not balance well my economy, I have 1000 golds. and 50 of others ressources.
My score will potentially be higher, but in real iam in a bad shape.
Score gives that brut information, it’s so nice to have it, like a compass for the player, like dragon ball and forces numbers, extremely hard to explain that to someone that does not know the feeling.
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For twitch streamers, this is so important for viewers, often they do not understand exactely what is happening because a competitive player click to fast, it’s a nice information for them. So much viewers asked for this feature.
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In team games, it helps to decide to continue the game or to resign, because you cannot know what is happening eveywhere. It just helps, the decision remain to players*
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In FFA wich is an important part of aoe, often the score determine the winner after 1 or 1h30. If you cant see the score, how can you play to win the game? FFA competition games are always stopped after 1 or 1h30.
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I had that in my head when I wrote it
9000 in force is just a brut information, it does not tells you what’s your speed, your energy, your buildings, (Eco or military) etc… 
Yes, noobs are the way majority of players. Exploration in aoe4 is for noobs also. The most easiest RTS for that. There is also noobs that watch streamers in twitch, they need the score.
Age Of Empires 4 is a game that has been built for noobs. Not for starcraft pro or aoe2 pro. Almost every aoe2 pro player already said that they will not go for age4 tryhard.
It will be nice for you also. I do not consider myself as a noob atleast regarding my aoe2 rank and how I performed in the beta. And I want the score.
So again, why is it nice to have unclear, misleading info?
I get that you are just used to it from AOE2 and you probably have some very specific, nuanced ways to sometimes interpret the score and so it’s become like a crutch but those specific AOE2 instances will not translate the same way into AOE IV anyway.
I guarantee you Relic has already heard all the debates of pro and con on this topic from the council of players they get feedback from, which apparently includes some AOE2 pro players, and decided earlier in development it wasn’t useful or necessary.
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It’s not an unclear or misleading info because the purpose IS NOT to have free informations by the score.
I already explained in my previous post why this is a good feature to have. Specialy in team games and FFA. If you have never played with score, you cant understand.
There is like a weird and an irrationnal blocking about the score. It was also an Age of Mythology feature, it’s not about aoe2. You dont want to consider the score by himself. And do not want to read my posts. Someone proposed to give that as an option in ranked and custom lobbies and then let players decide, this is the best way to go in my opinion.
Secret council? XD Most of AoE2 pro will never leaves AoE2 for their own interest. And I understand that, they dont care about age4, it’s just an opportunity for them to have 2-3 months of hype. Personnaly I want more for age4. But to be competitive vs other RTS, it needs some basic features (Hotkey’s, Scores, more zoom etc…)
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Primary Age of Empires II player here. While I did understand exactly everything that you’ve mentioned, and, admittedly, I also felt a bit uneasy in the first few games not knowing the score of my opponent.
However, Age of Empires IV is not Age of Empires II. Scouting is easier and that’s for the better. What you lack in info from score, you make up by exploring most of the map and checking what your opponent is doing constantly.
Does this simplify the game more for casual players? Absolutely. I know casual players in Age of Empires 2 who REFUSE to play the game if it’s not set to map = explored. Those casual players will not feel claustrophobic in Age of Empires IV because scouting is generous and easy.
Honestly, I think the scouting in Age of Empires IV is great as is, and I don’t think we should go back to the AOE2 ways.
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Hail Relic they never wrong. [sarcazm]
Did great with DoWIII, did right with Zoom (also sarcazm)
The decision about score is controversial…
but people who never understand how score works thinks that it’s “map hack”.
TGs and FFAs - score is a must.
People who never play aoe2, never will understand it. Cause SC2 has no TG nor FFAs
+ council of pros probably just forget about FFAs and TGs cause they also dont care about them.
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I literally used your own words and examples where you explained why and how a score number could be misleading and unclear or mean many possible things. Yes, the only useful purpose I could see for it from your OP is in a team game or FFA where the score ‘could’ be proxy for how badly your team is doing and help you quit faster.
I totally agree with you, that’s why the informations that score can gives does not matter, cuz he is not reliable. Scouting is so easy, means you will always scout and never try to interpret score. Wich gives zero information unless landmarks. That’s why I propose to remove them from score just to reassure people’s that are aware of it. So it will not be “like aoe2”
We can be in a win-win situation. Score+Easy scouting. This is a good way to go.
I accept AOE4 gameplay, I do not want to change anything, to make it more “aoe2”. Actually I like to have 2 different games. Because I can continue to play both games. I want to add a feature that is NOT specific to aoe2. But also to AOM. And in aoe2, you can disable score by mods etc. I remember a tournament without score.
Agreed especially for 4v4 TGs it can be very difficult to understand how the team is overall doing, since you often are busy enough with your side. If you are queuing alone in ranked and don’t have a good team with TS or discord, it’s easy to misinterpret the situation and for example resigning too soon. Not all your teammates will be as talkative as your TS discord squad and not always provide information.
The only reasons what speak against a score in aoe2 is score-reading of very specific things: 1) upclicking, 2) making army in early dark age. 2) will not be a thing at all in aoe4, standard infantry can’t do 5hit, since the tc nearly always ranges/protects gold/wood/berries and standard infantry also takes ages to arrive, your opponent will be in the second age before you even get to him. 1) can also be solved by only giving a score drop/change once the landmark is completed and NOT when you place it (in aoe2 you see an insta scoredrop when clicking up). From competitve view this is the only situation where one could say “you get that information you shouldn’t get”. Outside of that it’s way too complicated to read a lot from score since military and eco more or less increase the score evenly and missjudgement purely based on score is very easy.
Since this that issue would be so easy to solve, I honestly don’t see why score can’t be a thing for everyone in ranked aoe4. For the majority of playerbase it will be quite helpful. Remember not everyone has VIper scouting, game knowledge etc. and sometimes it’s better to have at least some ruff orientation in which spot you are ineast of having no orientation at all, eg. because you are new or not the best player. When i played aoe2 for the first time with friends and not just vs AI, it was the only thing that told me ruffly where I am in the game, without it I would have been even more lost and confused. I’m very sure I won’t be the only one, which had such an experience in his first aoe2 games.
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Did u play arena?
How will u play against fast imp?
or even better example 20 elephants rush?
It’s yolo strategy, U cant scout on arena.
will do pikes/monks but opponent will go boom, and u are ded.
will bet on boom, 20 elephantos will destroy ur base.
only gambling.
PS sc2 has scan\flying units. etc. and dont have “arena”
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- can also be solved by only giving a score drop/change once the landmark is completed and NOT when you place it (in aoe2 you see an insta scoredrop when clicking up). From competitve view this is the only situation where one could say “you get that information you shouldn’t get”.
Nice idea. It will reassure Relic devs about “free informations” while helps a lot of players, specialy noobs.