Why is Age of Empires 1 so stagnant?

Age of Empires: DE I - Discussion
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The Slinger is actually not that bad. I added a Technology to turn the Stone cost into Wood cost making it viable in lategame.
Comparison Slinger vs Composite Bowman:
Attack 2+3 vs 5+1
Hit Points 25 vs 45
Range 4+2 vs 7+3
Armour 0 vs 0+6
Pierce Armour 2+3 vs 0
The Slinger is a good anti Archer unit, especially because they have +2 attack against archers and +4 against cavalry archers. They just have 1 less damage than Composite Bow but 5 more piercing armour. They will easily win a 1 v 1 against one.

The Camel Lancer is designed as an Iron Age upgrade to the Camel Rider. A fast cavalry to hunt down enemy cavalry and Cavalry Archers.

There is purposely no Bronze Age Upgrade for the Axeman because the Short Sword is only a little bit stronger, making it useless if there is an better Axeman. That’s why I moved that to Iron.
I also made two distinct Ram units. One light, fast but not armoured Ram that is available in the Barracks in Tool Age and one slow Ram with good piercing armour in Bronze Age. Maybe give the Elephant more siege damage and make the Ram not available to civilisations with it. Or make the Elephant benefit from the Ram upgrades in the Storage Pit.

I would make the Caravan available at the market in Bronze or Iron Age and performance wise between Trade Boat and Merchant Ship. Sea trade should be better than land trade because it fits better into the period.

My general idea for the balance is:

Anti Infantry

Archer the Bowman and the Improved Bowman as well as Cavalry and Elephant Archer
Swordman they are good against other Infantry (might need a small bonus damage, the Shortsword already has it)
Ballista good against groups of Infantry

Anti Archer

Light Cavalry The good speed makes them hunt them down
Camel Lancer same as Light Cavalry, especially against Cavalry Archers.
Slinger as I explained earlier
Skirmisher like in AoE2 but less of a hard counter.
Siege units Catapults and Ballista eat them for breakfast.

Anti Cavalry

Spearman like in AoE2 but less of a hard counter
Phalanx cavalry can only run away against them
Camel Lancer Hunts down Cavalry

Others

Catapract is good against Infantry without spears and relatively good against Archers. They are good all round especially with their new AoE upgrade.
Elephant they are a mix between siege and anti Infantry, Archers can easily keep their distance.
Axeman they are a decent base unit that can take on Infantry and Cavalry with the new Iron Age upgrade but they are very weak against archers.

Every civilisation should have one good unit from the 3 categories above.

Spearman should have an Eastern design because Mediteranian Civilisations normally have good Phalanx or Camels.
Battle Axe should look like a Germanic or Celic warrior.
Auxiliary Bowman should look Middle Eastern as it is available for those civilisations and was often recruited from there for other like Rome (if they need it).
Light Cavalry Should look like from Central Asia
Camel Lancer Obviously Middle Eastern.
Royal Chariot Either Hittite or Egyptian style.
Recurved Bowman can look Mediterranean. Easy to make look neutral.
Skirmisher like Greek Peltast. They look Anatolian.

The new sprites that I mentioned should also fit the Civilisations that have boni fro them.
Legion should look good for Romans, Choson and also the Mesopotamians but they should have less of a Roman looking shield as the Centurion.
Phalanx should look more Greek. The shield should look like the Hopilite but Iron instead of Bronze and the body like Centurion. A Lambda could be cool but that might look to much like Sparta.
Catapract should look Asian as it’s the strong unit of Shang.
Heavy Cavalry Archer should fit for Yamato (Japanese) and the Sykthes (new Civilisation)

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108

Proof the AoE I community is stagnant:

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We are below AoM in topic count and that game has never had a big community nor did it ever receive updates.

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I really forgot to mention the updates to the Camel Rider, the archer chariot, composite bowman. Your ideas for them are great even for their upgrades. about axeman I also found his argument for an upgrade only available in the iron age interesting (this already happens with the transport boat in age 1). I don’t understand why the slinger’s do not receive melee armor (even if it is an anti-unit unit with a piercing attack in my opinion they should receive melee armor). I was researching a possible upgrade to a sling weapon and found the: Fustibalo - “A weapon derived from the sling more extensive than a human arm, using a wooden rod and maintaining a sling at the tip. Created around 500 B.C.” I would give this upgrade to bronze age to the slinger or an upgrade called Elite Slinger (unit with + 10 HP, +1 attack + one range and + piercing armor).

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110

We could add Singers to the list of units that get an Iron Age upgrade (you mentioned 500 BC that’s Iron Age).
The Slinger gets more damage through the Stone Mining and Alchemy while Archers only get more damage through Alchemy.
Slingers dominate Tool Age so making them stronger in Bronze makes the transition to easy and make them even more Meta.
Removing the stone cost would make them a lot more viable in lategame.
Making them benefit from Infantry Armour upgrades might be a good idea but that would make them even stronger in Tool Age because they can get +2 armour.
Maybe the Iron Age update just gives them Hitpoints or else they would be better than Archers.

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Hi mates, new here!

I bought AoE2 before a couple of months and I was socked when I realized how great this game was (and regret for not giving it a chance for 20 years). I was kinda obsessed with this game until a disastrous update (26/1/2021) made the game unplayable for me and many other users (All games crash before 10 minutes).
Searching for alternative, I saw AoE on sales only
5 Euros so I gave it a chance. I didn’t expect much from a 5E game but once I started playing I was like ‘‘Ohh GOD! This game is CRIMINALY UNDERATED’’’. This game has so much potential to reach a really wide fan base. If they put on AoE just the 10% of the effort they put on AoE2, we will speak about a true masterpiece in a couple of months (I am only afraid to see an update like the one of AoE2 on 26/1).

Something else now
Since the most users are active in social media and they are interacting there does anyone know any FB page related to AoE? A page where we can post stories, memes, ideas or whatever related to AoE. I tried a lot to find one but all I found was about AoE2 and 3. If such page doesn’t exist how about making one? Maybe that way we will reach more fans of the game.

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112

They should port AoE1 to the AoE2 Engine and make it a DLC for AoE2.
AoE2 will likely get a Demo version that let’s you play a small rotating selection of civilisations each week like in the HD edition.
And AoE1 DLC would work perfectly. Who ever bought AoE1 just get’s the DLC and the Demo version of AoE2. AoE2 players can get this DLC to be able to play the ancient civilisations.

They will not be able to be played in the same matches (only in private lobbies) because of the completely different balancing.

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https://aoe.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/aoecgi/display.cgi?action=ct&f=4,6577,,10

From this project came some of my suggestions for new units and upgrades.

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I believe that a technology that reduces the amount of stones to train slingers is sufficient. Like cutting the cost of stone in half or to 3 stone. What I admire the most in the slinger is precisely being the only unit with a stone cost to train (of the whole AGE franchise), which makes sense precisely because your weapon uses it as a prejudice. I would not like this to be removed, it could even be reduced but not completely removed. About an update for the slinger I liked the idea for her to receive in the Iron Age. But such an update should not be mediocre. it must be something worth evolving (elite slinger or fustibalo). With better attack than its predecessor, more range and more HP at minimum.

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115

The Stone cost makes them very not viable in Lategame.
The issue is that ammunition for slinger is super cheap irl, you can literately find it everywhere and when you are fancy you can make led balls super easily at a camp fire which is still a lot cheaper than making an arrow.
Later slingers often used metal balls. So an Iron Age Technology called “Metal Balls” (that sound kinda awesome) could be nice. Maybe change the cost from Stone to Gold and add +1 Attack (and maybe range and some HP) could make them really nice in lategame independent of if you give them a new name.
They fulfil a similar role to the Skirmisher I want to add so they should be mutually exclusive, you can only train either of them not both.

I also have the strong feeling that AoE4 will have units that cost stone.
The developers said in interviews that all civilisations will have the same 4 resources but there are differences in how the gather them and how they use them.
Seeing that civilisations like the Mongols will likely not build strong defences (I assume that there won’t be a castle building that every civilisation has to be able to build.) there for need another use for the resource. I have the strong feeling that some siege units will cost stone. That makes sense balancing wise because if the enemy invest a lot of stone in defence you want to have a lot of siege. And if he gets more stone than you you have problems besieging his defences.

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116

The stone cost makes Slingers unique. Stone is such an underused resource compared to food, gold and wood. Age of Mythology and AOE3 already removed it completely from the game. It’s sad. The stone cost is alright. You shouldn"t use all units in the late game. You don’t have to use Axeman, Scout, Bowman. This is the fate of these units. It’s not AOE2.

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117

Stone works very well in AoE2 because there are Castles, Gates and Town Centres require Stone too.
AoM should have Stone too. AoE3 replaced it with building limits which isn’t the best game design in my opinion but I guess in a colonial themed game a focus on defence buildings wouldn’t make too much sense.

The reason why I want Iron Age upgrades for Tool Age units is because the Chariot is at the moment the only viable trash unit and only some civilisations have it. Getting more optional Trash unit would make other civilisations more viable in trash wars.
I don’t want those upgrades to be available to most civilisations. The Axeman upgrade would be for civilisations like the Germanic one or the Scout upgrade for the Skythes.

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This technology could change the stone cost to train the slinger then to 2 or 1 stone. It would bring an evonomy of stone, but it would not completely remove its cost. And as I repeat, such cost of the slinger is a unique grace for him throughout the franchise.

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It’s pretty worthless to talk about changing game mechanics in the forum since the devs never implement changes like that unless they themselves want to.

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Correct the community here should try to get a dlc with new content and bugs fixed rather than go for these hypothetical changes which will never come.

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Another thing I would like to have imported from Age 2 to Age 1 would be the possibility of buying and selling resources. They could add buying and selling on the market. Or create a new exclusive building to carry out this trade. Such a building could be available from the Bronze Age onwards for all civilizations! Currently, it is only possible to sell resources by trade boat. Or they could change the trading boat (trading units) to make it possible to switch between buying and selling resources (wood / stone / food). About the land trade unit it could be available on the market from the age of the tools (as well as the trade boat this one). At that age, the first trade unit would be a unit with a camel and a man at his side (As in the Age of Empires 1: Beyond the indus project. But I would give them another name (I don’t know, maybe a trader) and an update of this iron age unit (as available for the commercial boat). This update from the land trader could be like a man riding a camel or horse pulling a cart. Benefits of the update - carrying more resources and being faster and having more hit points.

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I believe that the ideas launched here can indeed “bear fruit”. This is an official forum. it may even be that not all ideas are not taken advantage of by the official developers, but they can contribute to the development of new mods, at least, just like the Age of Empires 1 beyond the indus. That’s how it happened with the age of empires 2: forgotten empires itself (first it was a mod before it became a new game). I believe that every new idea for the game is important for the enrichment of the game. The only thing that makes me sad are comments from other participants who are opposed to change (new expansions: units, technologies, civilizations, 
). Of course, everyone has an idea of ​​new expansions, but I do not agree with the progress, I do not agree. I see this happening a lot in the age 2 forums. Really a shame.

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I think that as a community we should try to push the devs to publish a “minimal” DLC with new content. Minimal here refers to the time and money the devs would have to spend on it. Since it is clear that they don’t have much interest in AoE 1, if we ask for a lot we will just get nothing. It’s sad, but that’s just how it is.

Imo a possible DLC should just add a couple of new civs (which ones doesn’t matter) with existing building presets and a few important upgrades/techs to the existing units (slinger upgrade, camel upgrade etc.). Having fancier stuff like gates and land trade would be nice, but that’s probably too time consuming for a small budget project. New campaigns are also not necessary (though I would like to have them of course).

Hopefully, if such a DLC is released and sells well, we will see more content coming.

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Yes, add a few new civs, and a few new unit upgrades (Heavy Axeman, Elite Slinger, Elite Camel Rider).

Nothing too fancy, and everything easy to add in.

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:sweat_smile:

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