that’s the point, the era just is more varied and colourful, at least to me, and more mysterious.
AoE2 is a great game and all, but it’s also AoE IV’s problem, since most of AoE2 balance comes from making civilizations basically the same in most cases, safe for the bonuses, and you must adhere to that formula in AoE IV, which can be okay, but goes a bit against variety and imagination.
AoE1 was a bit more “naive” and “innocent” and hence unbalanced, but it had a strong personality to each civ. The era is probably the most interesting one 'cos it represents the very start of current civilizations and culture.
@Autumn5904 as for AOM, yes, I heard AOM 2 is on the works? Age of Mythology can totally break the shackles from AoE2, which is great.
Actually the game has much more potential than Age of Empires because AoE kinda topped at AoE2 for the reasons I mentioned.
However, AoM allows developers for more creative freedom and it has the potential to be the best Age of game ever, because of both the era, an era of wonder and imagination where things that couldn’t be explained were translated into gods/goddesses and the ancient times are more fun, at least to me.
Middle ages is still very interesting, though not as much as the ancient times. From there, when gunpowder is eveyrwhere, imho, it goes downhill, 'cos it’s more about the weapon than the human, so to speak.
That’s one reason I didnt fancy AoE3 as much as the others, although it is another good game. They say that WW1 was the last “romantic” war, 'cos cavalry was still important. But imho, it was after gunpowder was invented that it became less interesting.
Age of Mythology though is an entirely different beast, and the gameplay mechanics allow the devs to be as imaginative as they want to while keeping the tight gameplay of this wonderful series.
