So Age 2 DE has now been out for a little over 6 months, and i wanted to see what people thought about the state of the game and moving forward.
Design
Design is exactly where it should be for me. The devs did solid work here, building upon the solid foundation of AoK/AoC. It advertised itself as a complete edition of AoE2 and it has delivered without trying to reinvent the game.
New Features
For the most part i like the new features the game has introduced.
Auto reseed is a nice bonus all around in my opinion.
Auto scout i am not a big fan of, but manual scouting is superior by design and that is a good thing.
I donāt mind the āFuture techs/Unitsā feature.
I really like the Art of War missions, as its a great way to train new players in core multiplayer game play.
Bugs and Fixes
Just like every game, Bugs can creep up, and OVERALL the devs have been pretty good about getting them fixed in a timely fashion.
Balance
I can honestly say that this game has never been better balanced FROM A LAND BASED PERSPECTIVE. Some civs need love, but were miles better then the days of only seeing Mongols/Huns/Aztecs/Mayans.
However, Despite improvements to Land based games, Water based play has been stagnant, mostly revolving around Vikings vs Italians, and rarely anything else.
Moving Forward
From here on out, besides the obvious bug fixes and balance changes, i would like to see strides made to diversify water balance.
I think Balance changes should become further between (3 months between changes), and actually make a balance test map to test changes on. The test map should have changes posted to the forum, allow for 2 weeks of testing and feedback. Scrap what changes donāt work, and put out another round of testing. The Immediate Future should focus solely on getting bugs stamped out and focusing on ways to test changes going forward without introducing new bugs.
I would also like to see Further Single Player content added to the game, whether they be Campaigns, Historic Battles, or a type of higher difficulty Challenge Missions with rewards added to them.
I would also like to see Region Specific Unit skins, though this is a lower priority for me.