Ok, so I finally managed to read all of the comments and take notes. This will be my second recommendation post. Also, I hope you let us know when we can stop making suggestions…
I think the most important thing to remember is that AoM is not AoE. Whatever it is that the devs produce, whether a remake or a DE, must be AoM and not AoE. My general preference is a DE, but I won’t assume that’s the goal. In my opinion, there are several things that separate AoM from other ES titles, particularly AoE2:
First is wildly different civs. Civs must play and feel different, while not being inherently inferior or superior to each other. As to what civs to include, obviously the AoM1 civs will be there based off of the teaser. As I previously mentioned, I’m agnostic about the Atlanteans as they are really just the Greeks with a new skin (if they are being kept, maybe replace them with Romans, who are a civ that actually existed and also hijacked Greek mythology??). I hate the Chinse and welcome never seeing them again in AoM unless they are fixed. In my opinion, if you remove a unit from a civ (elephants from Eggys) to give to another civ (Persian/Indian civ?) and make the game a little more realistic, I don’t think the community will deeply care. If you add seven new civs that are all variations of the Greeks or whatever, then we are now playing Age of Empires, Mythology Edition instead of AoM, and many people will care. Quality over quantity, and take your time.
Second is the major/minor god system. This has to stay in a meaningful way. I welcome adding new major/minor gods if you want, but they need to be balanced so that they are all generally viable as much as possible.
Third is that compared to AoE2 in particular, AoM plays differently, and often much faster (in my experience, at least). Three things create (or at least greatly facilitate) this unique play style: settlements being fixed, units taking more than one pop space, and limited numbers of houses/pop. These three factors, I think, create AoM’s play style. They force you to make terrain decisions that you don’t have to in other Age games, and you have to be very selective of what units you build. Greeks can’t just spam a ton of colossi and go to town because they take so much pop space. I therefore think that these elements need to stay, or at minimum should be the default settings. I’m probably in the minority on the pop cap question, but I think the limited house number and pop cap is integral to the game. Maybe increase max pop cap a little, but don’t under any circumstances make all units take one pop space or double the standard pop cap.
Last is 3D graphics. Units can’t stack on each other in the way they can in AoE2.
I think everything else is gravy. I know you’re going to improve on the graphics and will redo the score. If this is a DE, I think being able to toggle between new and old music score is good. If you do keep the Atlanteans with their many multi-use god powers, I think that certain GPs in other civs should also be multi-use.
Here are a few other points that I saw in other peoples’ posts that I wanted to comment on:
Titans: I like Titans and would like to see them in the game, but keep titans an optional setting. Pathing for them can be really frustrating, and they can’t go through water. These should be addressed. They should be able to walk over darn near everything and dish out trample damage. At least one person also mentioned adding more skins, even one per major god. I don’t know if that many are needed, but maybe two skins per civ, and which one pops up is random?
Home menu updates: I hate the stupid default Tales of the Dragon start menu. Make the start menu more like the original games. Also, adding Art of War missions (for each civ??) is a good idea.
If DE, please get rid of new EE units (I’m looking at you, Norse Archer guy).
A few people mentioned favor cap or GP adjustments, such as using favor (and maybe gold) to be able to reuse a GP. The 100 favor limit does seem a little restrictive, and I’m personally ok with reusing GPs as long as it’s balanced well and only applicable to specific ones (Meteor Shower probably should be a one-time thing). Either way, I think you have to keep favor since it’s a mythology game, so don’t add stone.
One comment brought up limiting how many trade caravans can go to a single TC. This seems like it could be interesting, as it would increase trade risk and I think could make the game more interesting. Maybe it’s worth looking into.
Please leave auto-production/ auto-queueing. Maybe have it as an option that can be turned on/off.
Campaigns: If DE, remaster/reshoot the campaigns. If not, I think that the AoM1 campaign that covers a single over-arching story and jumps thru the civs is the right approach. Either way, if you release more civs, then create more campaigns that also switch around between the civs. Short campaigns that stick to a single civ are fine, but main campaigns should not stick to a single civ, IMO.
Can we make the relics look different, with each one looking different or a few different skins based on what they impact (military, economy, myth units, techs)? This was supposed to happen when the game originally released, but ended up not for some reason.
I’ve seen a lot of comments on the scenario editor. Create something that allows people to showcase their own creativity please!
Lastly, once again, best of luck with balancing and all of the other things that go into making something like this successful. Thank you!
