It’s tough to see the units and resources. Sometimes the terrain is so rich and lush green that seeing the units is challenging. In comparison, AOE3 TAD graphics are much crisper and it helps me to play the game really easily. The units can be identified easily. I would like to discuss prospects for allowing users to switch to TAD/legacy graphics on AOE3 DE.
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can also turn the foliage to medium
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Try experimenting with the graphics settings, I think you can change the appearance and disable bloom and other effects to your liking.
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There is also an option on the Accessibility tab to add an outline to the units.
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Just play lowest graphics settings problem solved
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Never had a problem with readability with DE, but like others said, reduce graphics quality, which removes most of the foliage.
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Never had an issue with readability in de compared to TAD. I find it easier to find units because the zoom is farther so I can observe everything much easier
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Disable any mod you have installed. Graphic settings are not recognized as mods
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I have not installed any mods. It worked before I made these changes.
It is a shame ranked cannot be played with ANY mods enabled including those which don’t affect gameplay such as graphics mods. AOE2 DE supports them, in fact I made several myself. For example I replaced War Wagons with a Balilsta elephant graphic because I think War Wargons are ugly and dumb. I even made a ranked compatible mod to replace chu nu ku with ninjas and rename China to the name of a historically accurate ninja house in Japan, as well as renaming various techs. However if that is what is needed to ensure stable ranked gameplay, so be it.
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check your mod page I think some event mods which are on by defaults are bugging with multiplayer
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My bad, turns out some mod was automatically enabled. Some spring event yada yada mod.
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Recently I picked up AoE4 and find it did a better job in unit identification on the battlefield. Is AoM made with the same engine of AoE3? I hope AoM Retold can absorb some of the nice features of AoE4 and perform better on acceccebility. And bring them back to AoE3 if feedback is good.
I should hope not.
aoe3 units can be easily recognized by their animations.
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Totally agree, but this shouldn’t mean to be a simple cartoon.
Yes the best result is perfectly balancing graphics and readability.
Ten years passed and I still feel there is no game that does this better than StarCraft 2. The visual is so clear that It is impossible for me to miss anything.
AOE4 uses very saturated color and disproportionally big weapons (also very bright and clean) to distinguish units. That’s a totally different design logic.
What AOE3 can improve in readability is the terrain not the units themselves. Sometimes there are too many color patches in the terrain.
I tried a game today with the applied suggestions. I turned the camera acceleration to 20% too. I was able to find it much more playable. Thank you everyone for their suggestions! 
7 Likes
I don’t think so. I think there is more that can be done on unit recognition.
Take Rise of Nations for example: There are 18 nations and 8 ages in this game, and different culturals have different costumes.
The picture below shows Light Infantry, basically they all hold long long-range weapons. They might have different movement animation, but they always maintain a standing posture:
The picture below shows Heavy Infantry. Except for soldiers holding melee weapons, All HI with ranged attack always adopt a squatting position when they are idle and firing:
I don’t know how it feels for a player who is very used to AoE3’s vitual. But for me I can more easily interpret their unit types just by the outline of their silhouette.
Basically I only need to remember that except for those with swords/pikes/shields and those who alway squat when idle/shoot, they are all Light Infantry with NO exception. Just bring Heavy Cavalry to kill them.
Whether those visual designs of RoN and AoE4 are applicable to AoE3 is not the point. The point is that I think AoE3 should do more. AoE3 is an asymmetric game. After several DLC expansions, the number of regular troops, mercenaries, outlaws, and natives has reached an unprecedented height. I have never seen any other pvp RTS with so many units and upgrades.
So I think further strengthening the identification of unit types should be a top priority. And since this will not affect the mechanics and graphics of the game (There must be some methods to make them more recognizable without touching their fancy costume), so I can’t think of any reason to object.