Are we getting any other improvements to the existing game engine outside of civs, variants and balance changes?
I’ve only heard about water rendering getting a tweak, but it looks almost the same to me in released screenshots/videos. Ships still don’t cast reflections and water still looks mostly opaque with just a canned sky reflection map.
The terrain per-pixel rendering was a great improvement. I really hope that wasn’t all.
Do the new biomes make better use of sun reflections/sun angle? Any changes to zoom ranges or viewing angle tweaking? I still think the camera angle is too steep. Any additional assets in buildings getting animated? (we got moving clothes but nothing else). Variations to fauna? Birds? Per-pixel rendering for building textures?
Well, if we consider past seasons with new civs (which only happened once, which has only been 2 years since the game came out), well, we could review what happened in season 3 vs season 6:
Season 3 - New Content
2 New civs
8 New Maps
Waypoint markers
Tricks Enabled
Taunts Enabled
One New Event
2 new Challenges (Mali and Ottoman challenges)
Many Bugs Fixed
Balance issues
REMAKE of the Naval combat system and naval units.
New Unique Naval Technologies for many civs.
Season 6 - DLC Content
2 new civ
4 new civ variants
10 maps
2 new biomes
1 new campaign
At first glance, it seems that season 6 has less content considering that it is paid, but that is because we are only considering the DLC content. Season 6 is for everyone, including those who haven’t bought it yet. I only assume that when the DLC comes out there will also be changes to the base game, as is normal in all seasons.
I mean, in Age II, even with the new mountain DLC of Armenians, Georgia and Persia, the classic civs also continue to receive changes, modifications to unique technologies, etc.
At least at the balance level, I suppose there will be one or another change for all civs, considering that many of the Variant Civs have more unique units than the classic civs, or that several units are being included that seem to turn subterfuge into a new mechanic, like the Yuan Raider, The Dessert Raider or the Ninja (I almost forgot it existed).
Of course, those was my hype vibe, but with what happened with the last teaser on Tuesday:
Just like the Order of the Dragon, apparently lacking any representation of the supposed countries it should represent (Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Bohemia, Wallachia, etc.), season 6 easily comes and a message appears that says THERE WILL BE NOTHING MORE BEYOND THE DLC.
IF that happens, I think that we will have many reasons to be upset, or stop playing Age IV until season 7, when the devs promise to add new sets of animals for the different Biomes, or varied death animations for when a bombardment kills an infantry unit (Like in Age III), or if a unit is burned by Greek fire, let it burn to death (Like in Starcraft)… or until they promise more unique units for the HRE, hehe.
Here are some links for comparison with the previous year:
I don’t think we’ll see a more close visual like AOE3de because textures, models, Buildings have low details. So It could be a developers choice to avoid other claims from players like "look a that weapon, they seem pencils!! This unit seem plastic! Etcetera.
This Is the reason why i always asked for Graphic DLC with new or improved textures (the same improvements seen with mountains and terrains).
I love play with zoom in when there are big battles: these are details that i like to see in RTS".
I know it’s a different genre but XBOX will give us a beautiful RTS in 2024 coming on Gamepass PC and later on console
This Is one of the most awaited game on Steam. Unreal Engine Is incredibile.
Good question. I would like some graphic improvements to be honest. But the content we are getting is significant so maybe they will leave this for a future patch.
They could start by adding a Photo Mode that behaves like AoE3. Free camera and boosted graphics. While playing in single player you could stop whenever you like and take pretty nice screenshots.
