Say that 2 melee groups are attacking each other. How come archers only hurt the enemy? It’s not hard to turn friendly fire on. Didn’t you guys watch Braveheart?
archers can be chalked to balance and some really good accuracy but units like Organ guns spraying 1000s of bullets across the field but friendly units not getting hit looks silly af
Sod balance. We shouldn’t be teaching our kids that you can just spray arrows and only hit the enemy.
Game was made in 1999. With this change, archers will tend to be generally terrible. There would have to be wild balance changes to address friendly fire.
They made a choice back in 1999. Anyone can turn on friendly fire in the editor.
Another thing that annoys me is that archers can shoot through/over forests. How? They can’t walk through them. So many inconsistencies.
Because they realized cannonball friendly fire was enough since it’s a video game played for fun
Are you purposely pitching ideas better suited for AoE3 here just because they stopped developing for AoE3 and now AoE2 has become your landing spot for such feedback? I can’t help but feel that way as your suggestions are fairly obtuse for AoE2, but would be perfect for AoE3 
If genuinely not trying to upend AoE2, I do just fall back on “it’s a video game… meant to be played for fun.” Friendly cannonball and mangonel fire is frustrating enough. I can’t imagine trying to have your units dodge arrows, too
Since a fun and common strategy in AoE2 (a video game) is to have a bunch of cavalry and/or barracks units on the front line attacking units or buildings, with archers in the back providing arrow support, having to be careful to do one or the other – simply to avoid archers with poor aim – sounds boring and painful.
At least with cannonball and mangonel fire those are siege units, typically built in lower quantities, providing a different, more limited purpose, with friendly fire that’s fairly easy to avoid.
I’d actually like all friendly fire removed from AoE2 altogether, personally. If enough people also say here they don’t like friendly fire, I will start a new thread asking for that… but I’m pretty sure some (or many?) people like the micro involved with avoiding friendly fire and appreciate the exciting, unexpected randomness it can bring in competitions when a player accidentally kills their own units.
If that is your rationale, why don’t sword swings from barracks units hurt fellow units? Or battering rams injure friendly units when they roll into them. Or cavalry trampling over friendly units. Or scorpions hitting friendlies sometimes. Or trebs doing friendly hits. Or ships damaging friendly ships when bumping into them. Or monks accidentally healing enemy units. Or, fill in the blank for most anything in AoE. This is partly why I’m not sure if I should take your suggestion seriously or not; there are so many similar situations that you didn’t call out
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I picked AoE2 because I overall like it more than AoE3. Games should be fun without looking wrong. It should be clear to anyone that arrows are going to hit their army as well. Swords are less clear. Some of the things that were listed should be changed, but not all. I was trying to be concise dude.
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I can appreciate that. I know I’m biased since I have liked AoE1/2 for so long and have accepted most of what they offer because I’ve enjoyed them as games.
For parts that aren’t “realistic”, I’ve accepted them mainly because I’ve had no reason to judge against them because I’ve enjoyed the games so much “as they are.” I don’t see the unrealistic things as faults or anything that needs correcting or fixing, but that’s just me.
Now, the existing battle alarm/battle horn sound, on the other hand, truly must go. How many battles have you seen in battle or war movies where there’s an annoying bell alarm/horn sound getting repeated every second or two for an hour?
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Yep, the horn is really bad.
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I even tried to mod the horn completely out, replacing it with my own concise, quieter, and more pleasant toned sound, but the game won’t let you. My horn only happens 10%-20% of the time, if that. Every other one is the multi-second loud, annoying default blast we know and love
Maybe there’s more copies of the sound to replace?
I wish it were that easy. I followed all the audio mod guidelines, and replaced multiple file occurrences (all that I could find, all that were seemingly available to me)… no luck. Already reported in other threads long ago with never a solution, so I just roll my eyes, cringe, and lower the volume every match I play when the horn starts doing its thing
PS: I wonder why AoE Marketing doesn’t do the horn blasts twice-per-second in AoE DLC trailers when they show battles, since it’s such a cool sound?
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Units don’t do friendly fire in AoE 3.
Never heard of it. And I don’t remember such option either.
I can’t remember exactly where to turn Friendly Fire on/off but it exists. You can also change the multiplier for damage received by FF:
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No, but like I said, it is better-suited for that game, imo. And taken in tandem with their suggestion the other day to put limits on building placement in AoE2, my AoE2 troll senses perked up a little. Turns out it is probably not the case, but I did start to wonder
Gameplay reason.
Bactrian Camel Riders throwing scimitars, Javelin Throwers countering archers with perfect accuracy, and Bombard Tower cannonballs dealing 1 damage to Rams etc. all for the same reason.
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No, I don’t think it would fit as unlike 2, FF was never part of 4.
Build limits generally exist to keep a civ in balance. They also partly exist in AoE 2 as well. Think of the Feitoria that takes 20pop, so technically you can only build 10 max
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Taking AoE2 FF to the Nth degree by adding friendly archer fire makes no sense, and is in-line with some of the non sequitur mechanics in AoE3. Even if AoE3 doesn’t currently have any FF, archer FF is an Nth degree FF mechanic that AoE3 would probably gladly accommodate if they were still developing for it and many (most?) AoE3 players might be completely on-board for.
You don’t think the idea would be an easier sell and more likely a candidate in FF-less AoE3 land than AoE2? If not, we can disagree, it’s all good