Wishlist

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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I am one who has thought the game has always been quite fun even since the closed beta, despite the issues.

The game has always had a solid foundation, even if some of the walls were crooked and the roof had a few leaks.

I think the game is in a great spot at this point, every patch has made it better and better. Here are some recent/upcoming changes that are really nice:

  • The new healthbars are nice.

  • The new civs overall are great. They feel unique and fun to play.

  • The game loading screen finally has the teams logically sorted into two columns! Also, it says which map is being played (it would be nice to also show the map thumbnail).

  • The water rework feels way, way better.

  • Units can finally exit buildings from any side.

  • Itā€™s nice to have taunts (although some of them do not sound great).

  • The fixes to shift queuing were much needed.

  • The new waypoints are great.

However, I am greedy enough to still have a wishlist of features I would like to see. I am not talking about balance, that is an ongoing effort as civs get tweaked and added.

My wishlist:

  • SMART SELECT STILL DOES NOT WORK. See AoE2 for the ideal way to implement it (being able to hold a modifier key when box selecting in order to choose only vills, only military, or everything.

  • The ability to resize UI elements. I really just care about making the minimap much larger, but would also love to shrink the victory conditions. This is a small thing that would go a long way.

  • The ability to connect walls to teammateā€™s walls. This would make team games better. Also, the ability to connnect palisades to stone walls would be good.

  • Some UI elements need a lot of work. The after game stats screen is frankly quite terrible. Parts are cut off and you have to scroll sideways to see them. The tech tree is bad as well. See pretty much every other AoE game for better examples of tech trees. The AoE2 one for example shows way more information at one time while also looking nicer. Also, none of the unit stats are on the tech tree.

  • Continued improvements to the content editor. It is quite powerful, but is still missing some functionality. Also, making it more user friendly would open it up to a lot more people.

  • The ability to rearrange the grid UI. We can finally reassign almost every hotkey, however being able to change things and actually have that display on the grid would be ideal. Even more amazing would be the ability to rearrange the windows and only use as many or as few as we have populated with keys. This one may be a bigger ask than some.

  • Continued improvements to the AI. I know it has gotten slightly better from patch to patch with certain things. It is still just so easy to beat though even on the hardest setting.

  • The ability in custom games to have 2 players be the same color and share control. See how AoE2 does it or see ā€œArchon modeā€ in SC2. Alternatives could work such as just a setting for shared unit control or something (some games like Warcraft 3 have this).

Anyone else have a wishlist of reasonable feature requests? (for example asking them to completely change the art/graphics style of the entire game is definitely not reasonable)

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i fully agree, think you made some great points both on the positives and the wishlist

I loved the game when it first came out, for what it could be, but i was turned off pretty quickly after release, but since season 2 i really like where the game is, and it gives a good indication of where it will be with time. I feel like the devs are making the right decisions in the right direction, and if anything there are minor things like your wishlist that could be done to make the game even better.

the new civs also raised my optimism even higher, as it shows that the devs are happy to create civs that break the mould on the standard units across all civs (which was my initial gripe with the game) so im excited to see what our future civs will look like

i have a dream list, as in how the game could be in a couple years if not more (considering how much aoe2/3 changed over the years)

unit targetting , more akin to aoe2 or sc, where ranged units spread out their fire better, maybe im mistaken, but it seems aoe4 is so much more prone to overkill, making it harder to fully leverage ranged units at mid elos or lower, that being said, it seems like melee targetting is so much better than aoe2, especially cavalry, even if it can (and probably will) get better over time

and im hoping we might eventually get things like player banners in game, or more customization of player colours or even skins (considering Coh2 skins for reference) or DOW banners/player customisation

it might never happen, but its something i would love to see at some point

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I am pretty sure this is almost exactly the same in AoE2. They just target the closest unit to them.

It would be cool to use the player banners somewhere other than the loading screen and player profile. At least put them on the TC or something.

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I want them to fix buildings/siege tooltips to actually show their stats while units are garrisoned in them. And the ability to ungarrison only some of the units instead of the entire group. - specifically leaving injured units within the garrison, which would require displaying unit healthbars in the command window so I can deselect those units before ungarrisoning.

Also for the production boxes to not overlap each other if I have multiple buildings selected.

Either show just one building at a time or expand the grid to display all production/tech options as more buildings are selected.

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Agreed, this is also very important when taking scholars out mosques, currently you have to eject all of them instead of only 1

Itā€™s also odd, when you tell scholars to leave a building, you need to reselect the scholars once they have exited.

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my wishlist:

  • i want to see every unit stat when i click to unit like in age of empires 3

  • i want better tech tree that shows everthing about unit(yes i know this site Explorer ā€“ AoE4 World)

  • i want black colour to added

  • i want map choose and other options to be at sameplace when im starting a game i must see them all at once

  • i want to map ui size to be changeable at options

  • i want better garrison information i cant see the damage and health of tower for example i want to see them too

well thats all for now if i remember more i will write it

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I agree with almost everything youā€™ve asked with and your general sentiment with the game! I love where we are 1 year after release. I wish we could have been here at release but it is what it is. Here are some additional points from my Wishlist for continued improvement (in addition to much of what was already posted)

  • Pause function
  • Display the flag of each playerā€™s civilization next to their name
  • Improved sorting of mods (for example by number of downloads instead of star rating)
  • Waypoints should appear on minimap
  • Game start countdown timer (even something like 3s)
  • Add a ā€˜Guardā€™ stance (and better use for formations in general)
  • Add a separate ā€˜Historyā€™ Section on main menu that has all the unlocked videos, mastery rewards, and history texts
  • Move popular mods, maps, and game settings into quick play or officially supported game modes (Treaty, Nomad, Holy Island, etc.)
  • More unique language options such as Hindi for Delhi Sultanate villagers or Dutch/Czech for HRE
  • Replace some really bad technology names and images (Blessing Duration? Agriculture? Improved Blessing? Really? Couldnā€™t think of something more creative than that?)
  • In a similar vein as the above point, there are lots of important medieval technologies that they could use for technology names that arenā€™t in the game yet. I.e. Heavy Plow, Printing Press, Treadmill Crane, Astrolabe etc.
  • Abbasid and Mali traders should be camels
  • Day/Night cycle option for custom games
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Ah you definitely hit a few Iā€™ve wanted but forgot when making this list.

Stances especially would be really nice. Would also fix the silly way that stand ground currently works. Iā€™ve posted about this before.

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  • Treaty mode.

I dont understand how most of players prefer rushed matches (10-30 minutes) instead of treaty mode matches with fixed treaty timeā€¦ (20/40/60 minutes). And please dont start with the ā€œuse the mod thingā€ cause I want it for random matching, not custom where everyone is a pro.

(Since we are just dreaming here, i thought it may be a good addition to the list)

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Ah treaty mode. AoE3 vet?

Iā€™m guessing this will never be an official mode here. I wonder if many people even play it in AoE4 customs. Not sure how popular it is. AoE games can be kind of long even without a treaty time.

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-AoE3 unit stances

-tracking for civiladtion mastery goal in the game

-ability to rotate buildings

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Because not everyone has the time to sit around waiting, or enjoys playing like that. Having a faster game may be more enjoyable for others, and it certainly takes less time, which not everyone has.

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yes, but they should have the option AVAILABLE for players who do have time, do you get it??

players who do not have time will still play rushed matches. itā€™s all about the options to lure more players into the game. My group of friends is still playing aoe3 because aoe4 never got treaty mode added.

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You can play treaty mode in custom games with your friends (or anyone who joins your lobby).

I doubt a matchmaking mode is created for it though because I donā€™t think itā€™s actually very popular.

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Didnt you read my post where I exactly said " and dont come with the " you can play treaty in custom mode" "?? hahaha I said it explicitly because ppl in custom mode are all pros, my elo sank down because of matching system and im not a pro. So I need it to be available in RANDOM MATCHES too

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Iā€™m just saying itā€™s probably never going to happen outside of customs. Thatā€™s a very, very niche mode. AoE2 doesnā€™t even have it. If there arenā€™t enough people then the matchmaking wonā€™t be any better than getting randoms in lobbies anyway.

When youā€™ve done it in customs have you used the actual mod that enforces the treaty? Or just trusted everyone to wait?

If youā€™re the one hosting you can also choose who to allow or kick. So that you donā€™t have to play with the ā€œprosā€.

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i remembered something here :

  • Rotatable buildings

  • Classic ā€œhow do you turn this onā€ cheat

  • different animals like lions,crocodiles they can replace the wolf acording to biome

  • Treaty mode

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Different hunt and wolf variants for different biomes would be cool.

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My reason is because you get to play twice as many games if you end them quickly. In a treaty or turtle game, itā€™s always going to be the same game every time. The same build order for 30 minutes. Not fun.

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the real fun starts after the treaty time is over, so everyone has built something big

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