Adding a unique chapter to the Age of Empires series. By relying on the空白 of recorded history, it allows for limited but meaningful imaginative expansion. I imagine many historians would be quite delighted to engage in such speculation.
Another advantage: establishing a new starting point for the Age of Empires series.
The old mechanics and style of the Age of Empires franchise may no longer fully satisfy players born after 2010. A major innovation is needed.
Why not start a new series? For example, name it “Age of Primordials” or “Dawn of Civilization.”
Currently, RTS games on the market are largely mediocre. While Age of Empires was developed in the same era as Warcraft, it still far surpasses the various RTS titles available today. Therefore, if developers were to create a new series from scratch, it would likely be poorly designed—especially in terms of visual style.
Alternatively, it could be approached similarly to Age of Mythology—as an expansion of the Age of Empires universe.
In fact, I believe the reason Age of Empires II has endured for so long lies in the unique appeal of its visual style. You can compare it to any other RTS released in recent years, and you’ll feel the difference. It’s something you can sense intuitively, but can’t quite put into words.
Civs : “Human Race” vs “Mother Nature”
Ages:
I : Homo Habilis
II Homo Erectus
Iii : Neanderthals
IV: Homo Sapiens
See my point? I believe there’s some confusion about the timeline of human existence in this title.
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aoe 2 players. it happened with aoe3 and aoe 4 is som,e metric. but is more of a tribal issue because it happens with aoeo and aom
Take note of the name. Age of Empires.
Now unless you believe Malazan to be a good substitute for history, we didn’t have empires in those days. In fact, we barely have any real understanding of those elder days, it is only in the last couple of centuries that we have managed to peer into our deep past beyond the classical era. And from that, we have an idea of the past that may still be very wrong. All this is to say, we have barely started understanding history, nevermind pre-history and our primitive past.
Then there is the issue of variance. The whole point of exploring different ages is that of change, usually due to technology. And that, is very likely also extremely limited by our understanding. Archaeologists seen to think Handaxes were practiced for millions of years, for instance. Bows and Spears coming in much later. How do you differentiate one age from the next when we don’t have a meaningful grasp of that era? More importantly, how do you design riveting gameplay with such fundamental lack of information?
Empire Earth worked because it limited those primitives stages to very limited capacity, and travelled quickly through stages of technological advancement to create distinct and unique gameplay.
While Empires: Dawn of the Modern World does not venture far into our cryptic past, I found it more exciting than most AoE games due to its willingness to explore vastly different time periods. From medieval times to the modern period. It has a much more engaging tech advancement and gameplay experience than AoE’s current age ups consisting of slightly fancier buildings and pointier sticks.
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Precisely because the Stone Age isn’t fun, I don’t play AoE1 much.
A game based solely on the Stone Age for Age of Empires… well, there weren’t “Empires” back then, so as Croissantini says, it wouldn’t make much sense.
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There wouldn’t be enough material for Landmarks to differentiate civilizations in a cool way.
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There would hardly be any unique units or even unique technologies.
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There wouldn’t be any Wonders.
The first civilizations with notable characteristics of forming stable states really appeared 5,000 years ago (3000 BD), with Babylon, Egypt, Caral, and China. Before that, even 100,000 BC, is pure speculation.
Well, nothing stops any company from making games set in that era, but for an RTS… there’s not much to adapt.