What should AoE4 inherit from AoE3 and AoM?

What should AoE4 inherit from AoE3 (and AoM)?

There are lot of people denouncing AoE3 as if it was a blasphemy against the glorious AoE franchise. But the AoE3(and AoM) was a game that tried to introduce many new things which didn’t exist in the previous series. I want the devs to be aware of that.

The trading posts and more animals to hunt gave players a reason to take a map control. In AoE2 herds were scarce and players had to swiftly shift to farms even in early ages. I think abandoned settlements to build TC on in Age of Mythology had the same concept, making turtling more risky.

Card systems allowed players to build a variety of strategies, making a game more complex and sometimes unique.

Units being slowed down by melee attack. That was genius in my opinion. That made players do more micros.

Everybody, let’s make devs aware of good sides of AoE3 and AoM! AoE2 is a legend but I don’t want AoE4 to lack good aspects of AoE3 and AoM. In order to make AoE4 the best game in RTS history, it has to learn not only from AoE2 but from every good aspects of every AoE and AoM!

What else do you think of on good things about AoE, AoE3 and AoM?

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I hope it takes most ideas from AoM

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Many thanks for the comment! Give a few examples and make yourself heard !
I think the special attacks that are performed in a specific condition in AoM was a interesting feature.

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I just love the vast variety of techs, buildings and units.
If each civ was as unique in AoE4 it would be perfect, and it would allow for much more room for DLC add-ons.

If AoE1 was done in AoM style it would’ve been better than AoE2.

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Trade posts, ability to hire mercenaries, treasures (or the AoM route of relics giving bonuses so they can be denied).

I also liked the cards system but I suppose that probably wouldn’t fit as it stands or at least re-worked. Same with the ‘politicians age up’ mechanic.

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AoM:

  • Unique relics with unique bonuses.
  • Unique units and techs for each Age up choice.

AoE3:

  • An immortal hero unit for every civ.
  • Mercenaries.
  • Training units in blocks of up to 5.
  • Larger, more realistically sized ships that can double as fishing and transport.
  • Castles being able to train all basic units.
  • The way enabling techs, buildings, and units works so that you can mix and match custom tech trees in map making.

Both:

  • Infinite but slow resources like Mills in AoE3 or Fish in AoM. Whichever makes most sense.
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displaying unit bonuses and rate of fire

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Age up bonus choices
Batch training of units
And
Unit bonus descriptions

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I’d love if they included the home shipment system from aoe3 in some form. It’s such a great way to make factions diverse since different shipment decks can completely change how the factions play. You can have a rush deck, defensive deck, boom deck, greedy deck… so many possibilities and it makes the game much more interesting.

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@SonsyDionysus96 very good question. This is my first writing in this forum, I hope it is not too late to give feedback to AOE developers. AOE was the very first RTS game that I’ve played in the early 2001. Before that I played variety of games but I was fan of CS and FPS games. AOE captured my attention with the simplicity to begin, easy to learn but difficult to master. I loved the management of civ from stone age and on to iron age. This period is maybe more scarce of technology as a historical fact, but adds simplicity and beauty to the game. I am a huge fan of AOM for a simple reason because adds magic to AOE, it brings you to the times when people believed in mythology, I’ve learned more about mythology from AOM info than from school. I personally did not played very much AOE 2 and 3 as much as AOE and AOM, because they bring guns in the warfare, I simply do not like this period, it is closer to WW1 and WW2 and far from ancient times. I am afraid that AOE 4 is more close to present period than ancient times as well, but non the less, I’ll mention some of the features that AOM have that are good to have in AOE4 regardless of the period that it covers:

  • repeat creating unit button
  • balanced strengths and weakness between civs
  • balanced game pace as default, not fast, nor slow
  • balanced tech tree, not complicated not simple
  • historical info
  • good against info, for each unit
  • God powers with each age
  • second action that some units had that was triggered automatically upon attack, I liked the automatic part compared to War Craft for example where you need to micro manage each unit in battle.
  • Forming an army groups
  • Shortcuts, keyboard and mouse (shift + clicking when adding actions steps), also when selecting buildings and creating units
  • Map builder for the community
  • Cheats for fun
  • Easter eggs
    Bottom-line, If I was asked to contribute to AOE 4 development, the period setting would be same as AOE, the gameplay same as AOM, and the graphics and sound effects cutting edge, but also nice on lower settings. This is on surface info that I can recall after playing before my Age of day job :slight_smile: started. I would really want to contribute to future Age series.
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I would be ok with anything that supports the game play and the narrative of the game. Things that don’t should be discarded post haste.
Shipments don’t make much sense as this isn’t a colony based game like AOE3.
Training multiple units at the same time can make sense, but it shouldn’t massively decrease the time it takes to train units. 5 units in AOE3 took about the same amount of time as 1 did.
AOM felt clunky, looked like crap, and was generally not fun at all. Graphics only don’t matter if the core gameplay is good, if it’s not, they are very important to carry the game, if the gameplay and graphics both suck, it’s just a terrible game.
Every unit shouldn’t have some power, save that for very special or strategic units. We don’t need another RA3.

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I think civilization-dependent or civilization-exclusive mercenaries could be interesting, like Swiss mercenaries for the French and HRE. Also, I agree that displayed unit bonuses would be nice, even if you have to toggle for more details.

On the other hand, personally, I don’t want to see units trained in batches, but that may just be because I’m coming from AOE2. I definitely do not want to see immortal hero units for the civilizations, since that would be immersion-breaking for me. I also do not want to see the AOE3 trade posts return, since the inability to attack the trade carts themselves always felt weird. An evolution of the AOE2 trade system makes more sense to me, in which players have to defend the entire trade routes.

Also, regardless of how you feel about them, age up choices have been confirmed based on the landmarks you choose to construct, at least for the English and Chinese. Not sure about the other civilizations.

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Both AoM and Aoe3 had some great ragdoll physics. What happened to those?

One would assume that nowadays with all the tech advancement that has occurred they would even extend such physics in-combat.

Those are the little things that make fighting and combat fun and appealing but I didn’t see a single such animation. Only some fireworks that were appearing and disappearing. Come on relic…

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From AOE 3

  • Treasures

  • Hero unit/ king/ explorer/ war dogs

  • Unit abilities (charge, defensive shield wall, archer stick defense, or archer long shot (with accuracy)

  • CREW on siege

  • fewer larger ships (boarding and conversion?)

*XP as a resource to promote and reward actions (not with a deck for AOE 4 but something else like allied units from a province, think of the consulate)

  • unit buff auras for special units

  • MERCENARIES~!!! outlaws, thiefs, spies

  • self sustaining farms

  • I think they will have Gaia trade post to create own trade lines. but I Iike the AOE 3 way of doing it

  • Native post with outlaws, or tribes, or mercenaries to hire, could be like a blacksmith guild, or tavern or some other building slot to build on map to access map specific units and techs.

  • Clearer unit countering system (unit types in description)

  • town center defense unit call out.

  • train either in batches of 5, or allow barracks to train up to 5 at once. So as to make the buildings bigger with needing less.

  • units that break the mold (IE cav that kill infantry, infantry that act more like cav, etc…)

Additional:

*hand cav do not stop to attack and continue to match the speed of units running away while slicing them. (its quite silly how melee units stop to attack while units getting hit walk away as if nothing happened)

  • gun powder units must reload to shoot again.

*Commander or general units that buff an aura around troops, maybe they improve AI around them (Ex. archers would shoot units they counter rather than random ones) until they die then attack at random, or closer unit. Something like this. (like mansabar units, dymos but not able to train from them)

  • Need siege units to take down walls and castle. Fire sticks for all other buildings from units Ok
    trebs, that if no other friendly units are around get captured by enemy… can still take them out if needed but if you kill the surrounding army (big circle) it becomes yours.

What not to include

  • 100% ballistic accuracy

  • cards and deck system (much harder to create balance and for casual gamer to understand, though it does make for some exciting game play and E sports commentary)