AoE4 all the way. While I like playing AoE3 once in a while and the graphics aren’t bad I really like the art direction that AoE4 takes. My eyes get tired from playing AoE3 very quickly because the visuals are so cluttered. So far I don’t get the same feeling from AoE4.
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thats clearly not mediocre for an RTS. but thats my opinion. Age 4 looks stunning. Apart from some units, and they had some time to fix them.
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i was just watching Age 3 DE and Age 4 on steam and looking at the pictures i really thought Age 3 DE looks better
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In some aspects (e.G. building architecture) Aoe4 is better, but Aoe3 looks more natural and detailed to me. Aoe4 looks like they put different artstyles in 1 game.
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I loved aoe4 graphics more especially the landscape.
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In my opinion both AoE3 and AoE4 have great graphics.
If I remember correctly, ( I almost never change the view of the camera ) buildings in AoE3 from the 2 none visible dimensions are just flat, and there are details only the the other 2. So yes, the buildings in AoE4 for sure have more details. 
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I hope people judge Aoe4 in the future by its gameplay and not by how colorful it is.
10 years ago we had Aoe Online and for me was one of the best about ancient era. Many mismanagement and wrong decisions but the same insight about assymetric civs and uniqueness. 
Looks like history repeats itself, hope for the better. 
2 Likes
I bet to differ AOE3 features are great and loved by the players. I think it is about PC performance/ demands, Time period, skill/ knowledge level needed, deck leveling up, and nostalgia that is the difference. When you put those aside AOE3 is a remarkable step up and has a lot to offer. AOE4 does not need a deck system though it could work fine too but likely wont.
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Loved by players who are fans of AoE 3, in the general line of the Age series, the third part is the least popular (probably only AoE 1 is less popular), it neglects the roots of the series too much, again its main problem is that it is visually incomprehensible and many things just need know. For example, when you see a spearman, you understand that he defeats the rider, and the archer kills the spearman, and so on, in AoE 3 you have a bunch of different guns that are needed for different purposes, several soldiers with rifles that inflict different damage on each other and this is not obvious, and so, with a bunch of units, the usefulness of which is simply not immediately obvious, and you need to go into the characteristics, look at the numbers of damage, defense, and so on, that is, the game is not intuitive, and this is already a huge minus. Added to this is not a popular era of events, an unnecessary system of cards and we get a game that was stuffed with changes for the sake of changes, if it did not wear the number 3 on itself, but was just an offshoot of the series (Like AoM), then there would be no questions at all and claims, and in fact the game, unfortunately, is not the most popular part of the series, and a financially unsuccessful project, it was on this part that the Age series took a huge break and left the game world.
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Counter system in AOE 3 is not complex whatsoever, age two is obvious because we all grew up with it, it really is not any simpler though. In age two a guy with a buckler and a throwing spear outranges and defeats a guy with a crossbow and armor , how does that make any more sense then a guy with musket defeats another guy with a musket
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Age of Empires 4 very good!!!
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I do not think the unit counter system is too complex, if you read the stats its quite apparent and after a few games its all pretty regular. There may be a few units that trick people up like urumi on how to fight them but all the classes and multipliers are there. I like that it is complex, that gives a lot of room for variance, unique units and strats, and generally makes the game more strategic with asymmetrically deigned counters.
Take AOE2 counter system and well we do not know why a pike kills a horseman, they get these hidden multipliers and so do all other units and its actually quite confusing how many pike are needed to overcome a certain number of cav. As well as 37 unique units that also have special hidden counters its not really that apparent at all. You also act like the game is all guns and no melee, but that just not the case. And really archers seem easier to counter with cav in AOE3 whereas archers get away with a lot more kiting action killing cav in AOE2 making AOE 2 just as range dominated game.
Popularity is also not synonymous with better. Its all perspective! If it was financially unsuccessful as you say we would not have just gotten 2 DLCs after a release with added civs. AOE3 will live on and long, maybe longer than AOE2 now that AOE4 will be a replacement. but AOE3 never needs a overhaul remake. RTS is all about complexity, if I wanted a simple no thinker game would be playing Mario or somethin.
but as to the OP question AOE 3 has to win on water alone until we see the final version. Its like maybe just a blue screen place holder is all we have seen so far but its pretty crude.
5 Likes
This is due to the fact that the AoE series has always been well supported, as it is now.
AoE 3 is not a bad game, but it is too different.
When AoE 4 replaces AoE 2, of course, I agree that this will not affect AoE 3 in any way, since they are too different in style and design of the game, however, both statistics and sales indicators in general show a decline in interest on AoE 3, this is due to the same many unusual changes that were noted by all game journalists of that time, and a relatively not the most popular era, personally, of course, I am very sorry that the game did not shoot as much as I would like, but we have what we have, it was on this game that the series was interrupted for many years …
This does not negate the fact that the game has a fan base, so to speak, a non-combustible number of people who will play the game and buy new DLC, so it is quite possible that Microsoft will continue to rivet new DLCs, and this fire-proof amount of players will continue to play the game, but this amount is significant less than we would like, and than a really popular RTS should have.
Because the spear pierces the armor?
In any case, the rock-paper-scissors system that AoE 2 uses is more intuitive than what is heaped up in AoE 3 with units in which a new player can get confused, because if you do not look at the description and characteristics of the unit, you cannot understand that one guy with a gun effective against the same, but slightly different, guy with a gun.
The same goes for cannons, and that’s a problem with the game.
The medieval setting, no matter how you want, reads better because we understand intuitively each unit, here is a spearman, swordsman, horseman and archer, saying these words you already understand who is effective against whom, while if I tell you - the huntsman, musketeer, dragoon and swordsman, you will not immediately understand who wins whom, I’m not saying that the game also confuses the player by giving the swordsman (I don’t remember what he is called) a bonus to cavalry damage, which is not as usual for the standard scheme.
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the settings are why its really hard to compare the 2 games in terms of popularity because castle age is so much more appealing for a RTS for those very reasons. I would prefer AOE3 to be a castle game, but the mechanics are so much better that I prefer it. Games in this era came late to fill in niche markets after castle game market flooded.
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oh yeah the release of DE did not go well… they really butchered many things… so I stuck to playing legacy… The game has to have some redeeming qualities to have survive MS faulty launch. I would like to try again that they have fixed things but my computer really needs an upgrade.
Which is why I am worried about AOE4, looks rushed and partially finished and the community is torn apart on what graphics and game style should be adopted.
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This is only true if you have been playing these games for a long time. Spears beat swords in real life. Even large sticks beat swords in real life.
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We have a game here, not the best idea to transfer realism to games, especially in RTS.
If we’re talking about RTS and the prevailing rules of the genre, the swordsman-archer-spear-rider scheme is an intuitive classic.
Right… in this game Cav counter ranged units, but hand cannoneers basically what killed the knight. So if they do that right then hand cannoneer is anti heavy and must be countered by something like crossbows. So a double ranged light/ heavy inf unit is a lot like AOE3 balance system. But we have this terrible representation where somehow in the stats we know pikemen should counter an elephant but the elephant has almost 20x the HP. so its really hard to say how or why they would be good vs elephants (and ancient elephants could actually rip apart phalanx formations)
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Throwing spears do not pierce armor well at all, nor do they have long range
When my older brothers and me started playing aoe 3 we had no issues figuring out what units are good against each other. Reading unit descriptions is easy
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