First, it's because of genuine shortcomings compared to 2. Second, because of odd changes compared to 2. Third, it's not 2 which means fanboys must hate it by default.
People hate AOE3 because it's not like AOE2. People hate AOE4 because it's too much like AOE2.
Two main reasons >The game is just not as tight as 2
Units rubberband to keep formation, there's less formations overall and less ways to micro / control unit positioning, guns can't be dodged like catapult / archer projectiles, there's a lot of gimmick units and the game was also never truly balanced (France has the best cavalry, infantry and artillery in the game, Dutch are a meme civ)
All of this results in less depth and skill in terms of base gameplay, making it less infinitely replayable than 2 >The card system was cancer in original release
It's an interesting idea but having to grind 30+ hours of online games per faction to unlock all the cards pretty much killed the online multiplayer scene when combined with overall a less mechanically skillful game than 2
AoE3 is fun, the campaigns are great, the gameplay is not even that bad if you just want to casually play it for 10-20 hours, but once you do, there's just very little left to learn and discover outside of the ridiculous card grind, vs AOE2 which to this day gets nerds discovering meaningful new mechanics & interactions based on shit that was coded 20 years ago.
>ridiculous card grind
This has been removed in DE.
>Game went way too hard on the unit counters.
Oh yeah this was 100% moronic >This cannon kills units >This cannon kills buildings >This cannon kills other cannons
>This man with gun kills this man with gun >But not this man with gun, who will kill your first man with gun >Btw there's man with small sword and shield who kills cavalry >There's also 239847 native units that all look exactly the same and have esoteric nonsensical bonuses against random things >???
Shit made no intuitive sense compared to >Spear kill horse, horse kill bow, bow kill spear, catapult kill crowd, ram kill building
[...]
native units that all look exactly the same
These were all variations of existing units, and they didn't look the same.
>People hate AOE4 because it's too much like AOE2.
No, we hate it because it's some miserable damn abortion that fails to capture the good points of 2. It's like a bad parody by people who completely missed the appeal of the original.
I don't disagree with what you say, but my point was that AOE4 lazily tried to copy AOE2 without any innovation, while barely taking anything from other AOE games.
>while barely taking anything from other AOE games.
It was a strange attempt to bridge 2 and 3 with varied age bonuses + actually varied nations (in theory resulting in much more gameplay variety despite less civs) but the presentation and overall mechanics are just not very good under the surface
It's the same as aoe3 tbh, not a bad game at its core but the new ideas just don't add anything meaningful and the stupid gimmick nature of it all ontop of shallow balance & base game mechanics makes most people not want to play it.
It has its playerbase, the same as DOW2 and even DOW3, but objectively it's just so mediocre most people will likely forget it happened in a year.
...Not dissimilarly to AOE3, actually.
>actually varied nations
And the devs learned exactly why you can't hope to make that work in a game: They can only depart so far before the game becomes unplayable (poor balance) or civs turn into a single playstyle, rather than a set of options that are augmented by the game.
Civ VI has the same design issue. Most civs are constrained to a single playstyle by the game's heavy emphasis on bonuses, with only a few exceptions in civs like Japan, Germany, Arabia, and Sweden.
>actually varied nations (in theory resulting in much more gameplay variety despite less civs)
AoE3 and AoE4 both majorly suffer in this aspect because you can't just random a civ and play. You have to memorize every single civ and all the different build orders for every single one. In AoE2, you can practice a basic fast castle and it will be reasonably effective across all civs.
AoE3 also really suffers with the unit counter system frequently not being clear what a unit actually counts as (lol coyoteman)
1 year ago
Anonymous
>AoE3 and AoE4 both majorly suffer in this aspect because you can't just random a civ and play
on the equally valid flip-side, someone might say you can pick any civ and it'll play the same
1 year ago
Anonymous
>AoE3 and AoE4 both majorly suffer in this aspect because you can't just random a civ and play. You have to memorize every single civ and all the different build orders for every single one. In AoE2, you can practice a basic fast castle and it will be reasonably effective across all civs.
Random civ is easily the worst thing to happen to the Age franchise.
It doesn't resolve the issue of balance. It just attempts to mitigate it from the view of averages while both failing to deal with it in individual matches (random Dravidians vs Hindustanis) and introducing a separate issue: It means many matches played won't bring each civ out to its maximum potential. Build orders unique to a civilization, or tech options that wouldn't be viable on most civs, will be ignored because the player can't reliably bet he'll get civ #36/42 to play with. Appreciation for individual characteristics is lost as players develop a "reliable baseline" playstyle that functions no matter which civ they roll. SEA civs suffer specially hard because they each have unique aspects most players won't be able to take full advantage of or compensate for without studying.
1 year ago
Anonymous
>each faction being unique is le bad >actual deep units le bad
just play chess then
you can even pick a random color that controls the same each game too
1 year ago
Anonymous
thanks doc
1 year ago
Anonymous
>you can pick any civilisation you want and use exactly the same strategy every time and it will work just fine. >AOE2 gays use this as an argument IN FAVOUR of their game.
The absolute fricking state…
1 year ago
Anonymous
>you can pick any civilisation you want and use exactly the same strategy every time and it will work just fine.
That's not exactly true, american & some hindu civs straight up don't have knights, then there's civs like mongols / huns / aztecs that are built to rush the enemy instead of booming, there's civs like goths / byzantines that are built to be lategame powerhouses but suck early
Just because one base strategy is viable with 80% of the roster does not make it 'work every time', it's something you can do to learn and play any random civ and still succeed, while getting a feel for their bonuses and playstyle, instead of having to alter your entire gameplay if you decide to try something else.
If you have to spend 10+ hours playing every civ to understand how it works your game will not keep many players. Case in point: AOE4.
1 year ago
Anonymous
>what? do I have to spend time to learn the game? >just gib me dat dopamine!
zoom zoom
1 year ago
Anonymous
>You have to memorize build orders
This is not how games are supposed to be played.
1 year ago
Anonymous
> you have to adapt for every civilization
This isn't a positive? I will say it's annoying that you need a deck figured out for each civilization before you go in, but building them is a lot of fun.
1 year ago
Anonymous
RTS fans think it's a positive.
The general casual consumerbase that brings billions of dollars in profits thinks it's a negative. In fact, RTS is too hard. Make ass creed 30 instead, include plenty of X to awesome moments.
Who do you think gamedev suits will listen, and cater to?
1 year ago
Anonymous
how is this a positive? i played aoe a shitton and my main detracting factor for the game is the samey civs(exceptions for american, indian, and SEA civs, but most could adapt to generic build orders), at this point its really a pathethic attempt to defend aoe2, just stop right now sinjay theres no shame in it
1 year ago
Anonymous
>while barely taking anything from other AOE games.
It was a strange attempt to bridge 2 and 3 with varied age bonuses + actually varied nations (in theory resulting in much more gameplay variety despite less civs) but the presentation and overall mechanics are just not very good under the surface
It's the same as aoe3 tbh, not a bad game at its core but the new ideas just don't add anything meaningful and the stupid gimmick nature of it all ontop of shallow balance & base game mechanics makes most people not want to play it.
It has its playerbase, the same as DOW2 and even DOW3, but objectively it's just so mediocre most people will likely forget it happened in a year.
...Not dissimilarly to AOE3, actually.
>You have to memorize every single civ and all the different build orders for every single one.
no, i'll just look up one (1) cool build order for the English and do that and still have fun.
Of course he didn’t. He just waited till release and copy pasted his complaints from all the other AOE2 homosexuals.
>making assumptions about strangers based on absolutely nothing.
Wow, very smart, I'm impressed. I'm not a AOE2 homosexual, I think AOE3 is better. I was very excited to play AOE4, but I just didn't like it. Besides better walls, AOE4 didn't bring anything new to the table. I'm allowed to have my opinion. Please tell me how I'm wrong.
>People hate AOE4 because it's too much like AOE2.
It cribs a lot of notes from AoE2 but doesn't really add much of interest. It released in a blatantly unfinished state, also, which is never good for a game's first impression on players.
>removed in DE
It's almost like first impressions matter. It was poorly implemented on launch, and common sense pre-launch should have fixed it. But of course devs think "grind" means "replayability", not "oh great, what a timewaster".
1.Its new
2.Its not 2
3.Its in 3D
4. Most americans only know about american history (poorly), and even less about 1600-1800 period outside of muh slaves.
AoE3 was a wild departure from the formula, unlike AoK which was an improved version of AoE gameplay. People did not like new gameplay and returned to older games. Nowadays this feud is pointless as AoE2 and 3 exist and receive updates separately from each other.
Because there just weren't that many people who were interested in AoE but weren't already playing 2 and 2 players didn't feel the need to switch after playing the game for years. Also genre purists didn't like the shipment system.
Two main reasons >The game is just not as tight as 2
Units rubberband to keep formation, there's less formations overall and less ways to micro / control unit positioning, guns can't be dodged like catapult / archer projectiles, there's a lot of gimmick units and the game was also never truly balanced (France has the best cavalry, infantry and artillery in the game, Dutch are a meme civ)
All of this results in less depth and skill in terms of base gameplay, making it less infinitely replayable than 2 >The card system was cancer in original release
It's an interesting idea but having to grind 30+ hours of online games per faction to unlock all the cards pretty much killed the online multiplayer scene when combined with overall a less mechanically skillful game than 2
AoE3 is fun, the campaigns are great, the gameplay is not even that bad if you just want to casually play it for 10-20 hours, but once you do, there's just very little left to learn and discover outside of the ridiculous card grind, vs AOE2 which to this day gets nerds discovering meaningful new mechanics & interactions based on shit that was coded 20 years ago.
> OP France
Has never played Germany. > Meme Dutch
Has never bank-maxed. > discovering meaningful new mechanics in a 20 year old game
This doesn't happen. > less skill required
if you mean less asiatic clicking than sure
>Game went way too hard on the unit counters.
Oh yeah this was 100% moronic >This cannon kills units >This cannon kills buildings >This cannon kills other cannons
>This man with gun kills this man with gun >But not this man with gun, who will kill your first man with gun >Btw there's man with small sword and shield who kills cavalry >There's also 239847 native units that all look exactly the same and have esoteric nonsensical bonuses against random things >???
Shit made no intuitive sense compared to >Spear kill horse, horse kill bow, bow kill spear, catapult kill crowd, ram kill building
True, a bullet is deadly by the joule that it have. I don't understand why they add this stupid arcade mechanic even in the 2nd. I can understand spear vs horse to have a bonus, but an arc or a rifle that is better against cavalry or some unit it's a moronic mechanics same with artillery.
musketeers have smoothbore guns that can't hit shit unless they fire in volleys. To do that, they have to fight in line formations, which also make them good in melee thanks to the numbers. Skirmishers, on the other hand, have rifled barrels that can shoot accurately. As such, they don't have to fight in tight formations like musketeers, but this in turn makes them shit in melee since they're dispersed into smaller groups. The game accurately reflects that by making musketeers good in melee against cavalry, but shit in ranged combat against skirmishers who can spread out and take cover like modern infantry.
True, a bullet is deadly by the joule that it have. I don't understand why they add this stupid arcade mechanic even in the 2nd. I can understand spear vs horse to have a bonus, but an arc or a rifle that is better against cavalry or some unit it's a moronic mechanics same with artillery.
It makes sense when you realize that "rifleman/skirmisher" has rifled gun, meant to kill any infantry, but the musketman counts as heavy infantry that is more vulnerable to his attacks, but also his musket just deals ranged damage with no counter statistics (making him a generalist unit)
But I agree that tags should be more visible, since it leads to some really demented moments, when a rhino is one of best tanks since it has no tags (so no counters) and huge health pool.
>It makes sense when you realize that "rifleman/skirmisher" has rifled gun
I mean fair enough? But also I don't think anyone but huge history nerds would care.
As someone who recently replayed the game for the campaign I genuinely could not give enough of a crap to learn which man with gun counts as 'rifleman' and which one counts as 'musketman' because in the heat of combat it all sort of blends together
And although your example makes sense, you really cant excuse how one cannon destroys rows of infantry while another takes several shots to kill a musketeer because its not an 'infantry killing cannon'. I get game balance but from spectacle / common sense point of view it doesn't truly help people stick around and get invested into learning all the counters, as an answer to why the game isn't as popular as AOE2.
>you really cant excuse how one cannon destroys rows of infantry while another takes several shots to kill a musketeer because its not an 'infantry killing cannon
like trebs/catapults/scorps/bombard cannons?
shut up man
AoE2 is more obtuse cause much data is simply hidden, you wouldn't know the bonus damages unless you googled it. Guess the counters are hard for simcity players that turtle until they hit the pop cap with paladins, that are somewhat of a superunit.
TBQH 3 also hid some shit.
Like priests not counting as "infantry" but as a "healer", leading to now nerfed priest spam that outtanked musket lines, while inquisitors burned down Town Centers in seconds.
>but also his musket just deals ranged damage with no counter statistics
He's also "Armed with a bayonet to beat cavalry"
Disclaimer: The musketeer model and derivates never use a bayonet and just swing the musket like a club
The counter system for the base european units is not that bad and light infantry countering heavy sort of makes sense because
[...]
It makes sense when you realize that "rifleman/skirmisher" has rifled gun, meant to kill any infantry, but the musketman counts as heavy infantry that is more vulnerable to his attacks, but also his musket just deals ranged damage with no counter statistics (making him a generalist unit)
But I agree that tags should be more visible, since it leads to some really demented moments, when a rhino is one of best tanks since it has no tags (so no counters) and huge health pool.
but some of it is sort of arbitrary like dragoons are good against other can and artillery for some reason. Including natives, mercenaries, all the expansion civs having different rosters and all the other possible nonstandard units makes it a mess though. Just teh fact they had to invent "shock infantry" for aztecs bloats the damage modifier list even though it's not relevant most of the time. Another easily overlooked thing is that units can have melee or ranged armour on top of it. Shooting at a 40% ranged resistance unit is kinda different even if you are supposed to have a damage bonus against them. Also some units change stats depending on stances.
AoE2 units are a load of frick tho. You just got used to their bullshit. >pointed stick guy bad against everything that isn't a horse, even a villager, pretty bad against horse anyway >catapult bad against castle >ballista bad against siege >infantry bad against bow unless bird >spear chucker gud against bow, because shut up >some bearded guy gud against cav and mango >camel is ship
>camel is ship
is fortunately no longer true in the remakes. People say it was because of technical limitations on the number of armour classes and they thought that it wouldn't be a problem but the absolute morons forgot that building arrows deal additional damage to ships so camels were a joke units for ages. I'm not sure what the point even was though because I don't think any land units in original game actually interact with camels specifically, they could have just had cav tag. So maybe it was on purpose.
Why in AoE logic javelin throwers counter archers I will never get, that was always moronic.
Coming from SC or cnc or even RoN I hated how >Units prioritize formation over attacking
The edge of a line of archers could be in fricking distance of a unit and not fricking initiate a shot or conversion because >Janky ass formations
Also >Two forms of attack move
's also 239847 native units that all look exactly the same and have esoteric nonsensical bonuses against random things
the Aztec unit that's just a guy who can hit buildings as hard as a falconet always threw me for a loop
You're confusing things. Cav boxes was a bug that was eventually fixed with an update in DE but the formations and stances were already merged before DE.
Formations in Cossacks actually model units gaining experience/morale, you can make them rout and disintegrate. It's different from how AOE models formations.
>small maps >small unit counts >very little feeling of a base building and expanding to control the entire map >most buildings are useless >limit on how many buildings you can build >cannons are ridiculous >stupid cards and decks mechanics that are mostly useless with a few ones that are neccessary or you lose automatically >terrible top down view >bases are small >forests are small >units all look the same and don't feel unique >visually garbage background that clutters the view >bases look like a collection of same sized same looking structures with no distinction between them.
AOEII has a few distinct differences that makes the game way more enjoyable
>background isn't cluttered >buildings, units and even civilizations are distinct from another >Actual economy building where a large part of the game is building up a distinct base >units and buildings are visually pleasing whether they're singular or in a collective.
Also mostly wrong like >units all look the same and don't feel unique
Is really pulled out of ass, when every faction has its own theme of buildings (even euros have variants) and the game has no stupid bullshit like Aztec zweihanders
You make several good points, but not everything. >small unit counts >most buildings are useless >units all look the same and don't feel unique
Like what the hell? This is just not true. >cannons are ridiculous
They're strong, slow and vulnerable. There's nothing wrong with them. >civilizations are distinct from another
Bullshit. This is how I know you're a butthurt moron. This is something aoe3 does better than aoe2.
I prefer AOE3, AOM and even AOE4 so much more than AOE2 to be honest. I love how all of those games have civilisations which are actually distinct from each other. AOE2 is just like “yeah you get a 5% farm bonus and your archers do +1 damage to elephants, enjoy your new unique civilisation bro.”
>people hated it when it was new because of legit reasons (performance, graphics etc) >now people hate on it mainly because they hear is bad and people hate it
it's not historically accurate and no Historical campaign until Asian Dynasty and then there's only 2 semi accurate campaigns in that expansion. Also AOE 2 and AoM can already do all of what AOE 3 and 4 can do but better. The definitive edition doesn't help that much too
Why list the units? You can tell what's heavy infantry and light infantry by the way they hold their gun. All melee infantry is heavy infantry, even the fast ones. All archers and crossbows are light infantry.
Several exceptions but listing every unit will just confuse people trying to learn.
>That’s something I always hated about AOE2 as well. The best strategy is almost always to just spam your most OP unit and that’s it
ah yes the...single unit meta of aoe2
>If you can't imagine other people having different experiences
Anon, this isn't "different experience". This is you being a schizophrenic. anyone who plays online regularly knows this game isn't a damn UU simulator.
I'm not that person, I disagree with him, but your comment was so incredibly short sighted that I had to respond. Also he didn't say he plays online or not. Even online at low elo, the game can definitely be won just by spamming one unit, mostly knights.
1 year ago
Anonymous
"Can work" and "is the best strategy" are two very different things.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Well, that anon is probably not very experienced with AOE2, so it should be no surprise that he has an unnuanced opinion.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Every team game is the same thing. Everyone walls until late game then spams their most OP unit. Usually knights or some kind of cav. Sorry I’m not 2000 elo I really couldn’t give a shit how the game is played at that level.
It came hot on the tail of a game that managed to nearly perfect the genre, and it discarded every lesson learned from the previous game to "Shake things up" and test out many other new ideas that didn't really belong in the same game. I'm sure you could make a few RTS games that could really use these, but AoE's format doesn't play nicely with things like "700 wood" shipment cards.
AoE2 was very popular and much beloved by people. AoE3 feels like a completely different game. They changed things so much from how AoE2 worked that it barely feels like an Age of Empires game.
It’s a good game. Weirdly overrated. I get that some of the changes like the home cities didn’t work that well and all cards should have been unlocked from the start, but it was still great fun to play and the colonial setting worked really well. It also still has the best graphics in the series and even beats 4 in that regard lmao. Very pretty game.
I've played 6 hours of AoE4 (Art of War and half the English campaign)
it's not a BAD game, and I appreciate how they tried to mix things up with a "history channel" thing. I do like the visuals of those golden ghosts on the land as it is today. I think people are just disappointed that it's not an AMAZING game.
I'll never forget school was cancelled during a Hurricane shortly after this was released. I played all throughout the storm and the internet/power never went out. It was glorious.
>virgin online players explaining variety of stratages >chad with 10000 hours vs easiest AI wondering why you'd ever make anything other than longbowmen
i'd say >HP bloat and plenty of modifiers that cram up the unit information panel (explorer does 6 melee damage, x3 to treasure guardians but 1/4 vs villagers, 12 ranged with same stats, and 15 siege damage -- each of which are separately stretched across the UI) >not understanding the hard counters or why different guns/cannon do different things instead of being different machines with different firing types >rubberbanding in formations (if you try to flank and one of your cav get shot, all of them will move at half speed unless you seperate that one from the group) >maps feel too small and the three terrain levels doesn't make them feel too distinct outside of natives and the terrain tile set. Conversely, units do tend to move quite slow >naval feels quite limited because there's only a handful of maps with limited transmissible rivers, most them having shallows for foot units to cross, which keeps your ships relegated to one quarter of the map >slow production unit times (encouraging you to build up your queue) means that you can either have a barracks make 1-5 muskeeters in 30 seconds or 1 musketeer every 6 seconds >no dropoff points, instead focusing on gather rate over/time >farms and estates hold 10 villagers instead of 1, and most buildings are pretty moderately sized, creating a lot smaller bases in comparison to how you could theoretically wall off your base in Age2 with houses as you're working towards pop cap
i like doing 1v1v1 compstomps against the hardest AI for the events and farming all of that yummy XP into new people walking around my city and new colored pennants
I like how factions have different builds centered around cards that can change new functionalities/add new units, and how each civ type has their own different kind of shtick that they can play around with. A shame that limits how many civs they could add because of unique models and whatnot, I'd be okay with more natives/revolutions
make 1-5 muskeeters in 30 seconds in contrast to 1 musketeer every 6 seconds*
this is immediately most frustrating when you're under attack and need just a few units to hold a stopgap, but realize there's no way for you to respond before its too late
Odd. Another anon said this favors the defender because the small batches of units pop up instantly and the units add up quickly without requiring you to build many barracks, as opposed to a useless trickle of easily overwhelmed singular units.
Anyway, when the enemy's rush is still a decent distance away, a pro move is to time your units well. First, you send a shipment of units, then queue up some units at the barracks, and finally call in the militia. If timed right, all these units will join the action at the same time, creating a small army.
>a useless trickle of easily overwhelmed singular units
in AoE2 you could garrison newly produced units in their own building by defining it as the rally point
on topic, i used to shit on AoE3 for being not-2, but now I value it's variety, visuals and gameplay, it's actually quite well made in spite of the flaws other anons pointed out
3 genuinely tried to do something different to the point that you wouldn't think it's from the same series as 2.
It's a good game but I can see why it upset people. Especially considering a lot of people at the time straight up couldn't play it because of the system requirements.
Yeah im conflicted.
On the one hand they were trying to fix the aoe2 damage bonuses thing that were straight up not displayed anywhere and you were sort of supposed to figure it out by online communities (like how am i supposed to know what skirms to +2 agaisnt spears??) And for the sake of clarity i like it but its just way too much visual clutter.
Maybe if the dmg multipliers were an expandable menu, its not like you need that info at all times anyway. Or something that appears when you hover over your dmg number
Eh, you can get used to this (the font could have been larger and the colors more varied, tho). The thing that's even more busy is the descriptions of the effects of shipments that apply to various buildings, units, stances, etc.
I only play skirmish, but definitely Germans and going full merc. It’s a shame that the expansions introduced the tavern and made mercs more common. I love having a swagger army.
AOE4 proved that all people wanted is another AOE2, which they archived by making AOE2 HD and DE
OG AOE3 was a great RTS, the graphics still holds up very well to this day, but it's just not AOE2
2 and 3 are both worth getting, but I prefer 2. Definitive edition is the way to go for 2. I have nostalgia for the nonDE version of 3, but I don’t keep up with that one as much so I’m sure DE is fine for that as well.
One of the things 2 does much better is the feeling of building up a town/city, which is kind of missing in 3 since it feels much more “gamey”
No, it's literally the same game with new names for the Iriquois, the Sioux, and Plantations, and a revised Sioux campaign. The rest of the game is the same, but updated with dozens of new features, units, maps, and upgrades.
>revised Sioux campaign
you mean censored, they apparently changed the whole campaign to make the native americans dindus and the outlaws into villains...
Can you explain to a historylet who hasn't played the campaigns what exactly was changed and why it is significant?
1 year ago
Anonymous
Because it's MY history and if we give those revisionist an inch they'll take a mile and turn Custer into swastika wearing, ambiguously brown, wheelchair bound, non-binary subhuman. This is what happens when you let bad guys won 2020.
1 year ago
Anonymous
what exactly was changed?
1 year ago
Anonymous
i havent played the remaster but from what ive heard in the warchiefs expansion there were these very good levels where you played with these outlaws and you were tasked by this corrupt marshal to make war on the indians and there were these levels where indians were fighting indians. well in the remaster they changed the levels where you now play with the indians and you need to take out the outlaws. basically indians dindu nothin and the white man is at fault.
1 year ago
Anonymous
>you played with these outlaws and you were tasked by this corrupt marshal to make war on the indians >you now play with the indians and you need to take out the outlaws
Looks like the outlaws were the bad guys and the Natives were the victims even in the original. How exactly is this revisionism? You play the same story with a different faction.
1 year ago
Anonymous
that was the whole point dumbass. you playing with the bad guy outlaws waging a war on the indians. that was the whole appeal of those missions.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Shifting goal posts now? That's not the point you were arguing.
1 year ago
Anonymous
besides this they also basically removed most references about colonialism which is the whole theme for the game. removing local dialects like Pistolero with Pistol Bandit and similar soulless generic names.
1 year ago
Anonymous
>removing local dialects like Pistolero with Pistol Bandit >A beaner unit is literally called "soldier" while another one is "highwayman" but in spanish
I don't get you, Microsoft...
1 year ago
Anonymous
>most references about colonialism
You mean renaming the Colonial Age to Commerce Age and Plantations to Estates? I could try defending this by pointing out that the game departed from a strictly New World setting to a more general one, and the latest DLC even goes full circle and brings the action back to Europe where you don't really colonize anything. >removing Pistolero
He's still in the game, and Americans and Mexicans even got their own flavor of the unit.
Changing Injun stuff was definitely a gay move, tho, and it's not like their depiction was the only thing in the game that someone could find offensive. This is why fewer devs even bother touching western-themed settings. What sucks the most for me is the lame recast voicework, and the changing of the Fire Pit which had this festive look that also made it easier to estimate how many villagers were tasked to it.
1 year ago
Anonymous
They added Indians on the second expansion, you dumb Black person. Play the game before b***hing like a homosexual.
1 year ago
Anonymous
of course dumbass the expansion is literally called The Warchiefs. nobody said that all the missions were about the outlaws only that the best missions were with them. learn to read zoomer.
First of all, what other games did you play?
I never liked 2, but 3 just happens to speak to me. It's different than 1 and 2 in just about every way imaginable, while obviously taking inspiration from and sharing some similarities with Age of Mythology, and overall it's very experimental. It has a monumental amount of content to play with which is as entertaining as it is overwhelming. I wasn't even into that historical period before but the variety of weapons, uniforms and buildings make the game really nice to look at.
Campaigns are a mixed bag, skirmish I find rather fun, and multiplayer I've yet to get into (heard both good and bad opinions about it).
I first played the original a few years ago right before DE was announced. I don't think there's a reason you'd want to get it unless your hardware can't handle the DE, or for when you really want that WoL megamod.
DE changes and adds a bunch of stuff and overall seems lovingly maintained. I mean, rather than flatten the differences between civs, the new updates continue to diversify them.
>First of all, what other games did you play?
CnC series, some older TW games, some more casual wargames (Shadow Empire, SPMBT), panzer general clones and openxcom mods
2 if you want an actual tryhard RTS where you can play ranked and shit
3 if you want something goofy to play with friends, especially if your friends aren't big RTS people
They're both fun, but I play them for different things
>Why do people hate 3 so much?
Hey. Im a fan of AoE2 and AoM
I don't hate AoE3, though It hasn't age well.
3d models and maps was a mistake, I feel. The population limit and the limit to buildings was a step on the wrong direction.
In general, AoE3 was bold and went on the same concept, on a new direction (more modern age, RPG elements, different damage system, heroes, bandits camps, decks cards and levels, etc.
On that respect, I think they did a great job, and was refreshing for a while. But hasn't age as well as the other two.
And about the time period of the game, I feel that classic/feudal/medieval will always be much, MUCH more interesting than industrialization, or moder era. it has a different mistique to it.
And besides all that, on the pro scene the game has a different pacing, not so fun, I feel
Card system makes for lots of cool strats and flexibility
Balance is good enough
Civs have A LOT more identity and it is tied with history.
Musket combat is fricking cool
Cannon micro very intense
Cav is not op, has own role
Better ui, you can see who counters who and by how much
Advancing in ages different for civs with cool bonuses
Improved on 2 in most aspects. Sad it is less popular than 2.
I agree aoe3 is in essence a better game than aoe2, but aoe2 has a lot more and a lot better single player content, which is a huge plus for aoe2. >Card system makes for lots of cool strats and flexibility
In theory yes, but everyone always uses the same boring resources and units shipments.
Same. I could never get into 2 but 3 is right up my alley. I wasn't even into that time period before but the presentation really sells the unique feel of different nations.
As for AoM remake, I wonder what they'll actually end up doing. 3 is largely the same game but with so much more content and varied mechanics that it makes AoM look kind of bare, e.g. these unique minor god techs are mostly just lame 10% to gather rate or unit attack whereas shipments in 3 give all sorts of crazy things.
Will they differentiate it from 3 by giving it a streamlined competitive focus of 2 or will they redesign and expand to make it even wackier than 3?
no new campaigns in DE, but they did add a series of historical secnarios: 6 in the base game, 3 from the African Royals, then 1 for owning the US, 1 for owning Mexico, and 1 for owning both US and Mexico
I honestly haven't checked much, the Age3 mod browser isn't that good/the aren't very popularized
The Great Northern War campaign would be awesome GÅ-PÅ!!
they did make some Historical Maps for skirmish battles that have more special conditions (only the involved powers, different resource conditions, unique map spawns/objects, etc)
https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/The_Great_Northern_War
My guess would be that the storytelling is done through cinematics rather than a bit of flavor text like in AoE2, which sounds like more work when you're putting together a whole campaign with multiple characters.
Honestly I don't mind standalone scenarios as long as they're fun, and if they added more challenge missions like the Art of War ones, it would also be nice. I don't suppose they'll focus on adding more scenarios in DLCs at this point, though.
While Knights of the Mediterranean kinda felt like a sendoff to the game, what more would you add to the game? Units, empires, natives, maps, etc etera?
Hardmode: no PLC or Austria >Persia, repackaging the generic Muslim units used in various scenarios (Algiers, Battle of Three Kings, USS Philadelphia) borrowing from Indian architecture, with five consulate options of the British, Ottomans, Russians, Mughals [Indians], and Tatars [Tengri/Chinese Mongolian Army] >Brazil gets more integrated into Portugal like the French Revolution, instead of being its own empire >Eyalet Royal House in Balkans, Archipelago, Fertile Crescent, and Nile Valley >Ainu/Utari natives in Hokkaido and Manchuria [might be too limited] >Korean natives (Hangul school if we want to stick with the "religious temple" theme) in Korea, Manchuria [might also be too limited] >some SEAsian native (Zhuang/Cantonese/Vietnamese/Thai) natives in Central Plain, Indochina, Parallel Rivers, Malaysia, and a new southern Chinese map >some Austronesian native (reusing Javanese spearmen?) in Malaysia, Indonesia, Borneo, and a new Formosa/Philippines map
I'd be all for upgrading the Cherokee into a full on empire, but I don't know what would make them standout from the Iroquois besides not having tomahawks and maybe having access to Churches, Arsenal, and Artillery foundry, or some association with the other parts of the Five Civilized Tribes. If they'd need some more localized maps, add one for the Ohio River and one for Appalachia
Replace their native settlement with the Muscogee (like the Iroquois, Aztecs, Lakota were with Warchiefs), while promoting the Lenape to be more than just a Cherokee copy-paste in Carolina, New England, Plymouth, and Great Lakes
add Bhakti Temple to SEA maps and make a new variant of the Sufi Mosque because having Turkomen in Borneo is silly
I want to think they still have some support left to give the game when they are done with the Return to Rome DLC, like an Empire of Brazil standalone civ seems the most obvious next step and then Safavid Iran with Morocco. Beyond that, maybe Korea and the Tui Toga Empire in the mold of an native civ, the editor does have australian trees. Anything to make an complete world map.
>Villager count capped to 50. >Units get cheaper with each age up. >Get a new church technology called something like "crusade raiders" - for every enemy unit and building destroyed a percentage of the total resource value of the unit/building is given to Malta player as gold. >The Wignacourt Constructions card (villagers gather natural resources 10% faster, and an additional 15% faster when near a town post, commendary or outpost) now effects gather rate of all resources. >Hospitals have a cap, but have a new technology called "charity" which causes them to trickle a small amount of gold.
First, it's because of genuine shortcomings compared to 2. Second, because of odd changes compared to 2. Third, it's not 2 which means fanboys must hate it by default.
People hate AOE3 because it's not like AOE2. People hate AOE4 because it's too much like AOE2.
>ridiculous card grind
This has been removed in DE.
native units that all look exactly the same
These were all variations of existing units, and they didn't look the same.
>People hate AOE4 because it's too much like AOE2.
No, we hate it because it's some miserable damn abortion that fails to capture the good points of 2. It's like a bad parody by people who completely missed the appeal of the original.
I don't disagree with what you say, but my point was that AOE4 lazily tried to copy AOE2 without any innovation, while barely taking anything from other AOE games.
>while barely taking anything from other AOE games.
It was a strange attempt to bridge 2 and 3 with varied age bonuses + actually varied nations (in theory resulting in much more gameplay variety despite less civs) but the presentation and overall mechanics are just not very good under the surface
It's the same as aoe3 tbh, not a bad game at its core but the new ideas just don't add anything meaningful and the stupid gimmick nature of it all ontop of shallow balance & base game mechanics makes most people not want to play it.
It has its playerbase, the same as DOW2 and even DOW3, but objectively it's just so mediocre most people will likely forget it happened in a year.
...Not dissimilarly to AOE3, actually.
>actually varied nations
And the devs learned exactly why you can't hope to make that work in a game: They can only depart so far before the game becomes unplayable (poor balance) or civs turn into a single playstyle, rather than a set of options that are augmented by the game.
Civ VI has the same design issue. Most civs are constrained to a single playstyle by the game's heavy emphasis on bonuses, with only a few exceptions in civs like Japan, Germany, Arabia, and Sweden.
>actually varied nations (in theory resulting in much more gameplay variety despite less civs)
AoE3 and AoE4 both majorly suffer in this aspect because you can't just random a civ and play. You have to memorize every single civ and all the different build orders for every single one. In AoE2, you can practice a basic fast castle and it will be reasonably effective across all civs.
AoE3 also really suffers with the unit counter system frequently not being clear what a unit actually counts as (lol coyoteman)
>AoE3 and AoE4 both majorly suffer in this aspect because you can't just random a civ and play
on the equally valid flip-side, someone might say you can pick any civ and it'll play the same
>AoE3 and AoE4 both majorly suffer in this aspect because you can't just random a civ and play. You have to memorize every single civ and all the different build orders for every single one. In AoE2, you can practice a basic fast castle and it will be reasonably effective across all civs.
Random civ is easily the worst thing to happen to the Age franchise.
It doesn't resolve the issue of balance. It just attempts to mitigate it from the view of averages while both failing to deal with it in individual matches (random Dravidians vs Hindustanis) and introducing a separate issue: It means many matches played won't bring each civ out to its maximum potential. Build orders unique to a civilization, or tech options that wouldn't be viable on most civs, will be ignored because the player can't reliably bet he'll get civ #36/42 to play with. Appreciation for individual characteristics is lost as players develop a "reliable baseline" playstyle that functions no matter which civ they roll. SEA civs suffer specially hard because they each have unique aspects most players won't be able to take full advantage of or compensate for without studying.
>each faction being unique is le bad
>actual deep units le bad
just play chess then
you can even pick a random color that controls the same each game too
thanks doc
>you can pick any civilisation you want and use exactly the same strategy every time and it will work just fine.
>AOE2 gays use this as an argument IN FAVOUR of their game.
The absolute fricking state…
>you can pick any civilisation you want and use exactly the same strategy every time and it will work just fine.
That's not exactly true, american & some hindu civs straight up don't have knights, then there's civs like mongols / huns / aztecs that are built to rush the enemy instead of booming, there's civs like goths / byzantines that are built to be lategame powerhouses but suck early
Just because one base strategy is viable with 80% of the roster does not make it 'work every time', it's something you can do to learn and play any random civ and still succeed, while getting a feel for their bonuses and playstyle, instead of having to alter your entire gameplay if you decide to try something else.
If you have to spend 10+ hours playing every civ to understand how it works your game will not keep many players. Case in point: AOE4.
>what? do I have to spend time to learn the game?
>just gib me dat dopamine!
zoom zoom
>You have to memorize build orders
This is not how games are supposed to be played.
> you have to adapt for every civilization
This isn't a positive? I will say it's annoying that you need a deck figured out for each civilization before you go in, but building them is a lot of fun.
RTS fans think it's a positive.
The general casual consumerbase that brings billions of dollars in profits thinks it's a negative. In fact, RTS is too hard. Make ass creed 30 instead, include plenty of X to awesome moments.
Who do you think gamedev suits will listen, and cater to?
how is this a positive? i played aoe a shitton and my main detracting factor for the game is the samey civs(exceptions for american, indian, and SEA civs, but most could adapt to generic build orders), at this point its really a pathethic attempt to defend aoe2, just stop right now sinjay theres no shame in it
>You have to memorize every single civ and all the different build orders for every single one.
no, i'll just look up one (1) cool build order for the English and do that and still have fun.
>my point was that AOE4 lazily tried to copy AOE2 without any innovation, while barely taking anything from other AOE games.
So you didn't play it.
Of course he didn’t. He just waited till release and copy pasted his complaints from all the other AOE2 homosexuals.
>making assumptions about strangers based on absolutely nothing.
Wow, very smart, I'm impressed. I'm not a AOE2 homosexual, I think AOE3 is better. I was very excited to play AOE4, but I just didn't like it. Besides better walls, AOE4 didn't bring anything new to the table. I'm allowed to have my opinion. Please tell me how I'm wrong.
How I’m wrong
>People hate AOE4 because it's too much like AOE2.
It cribs a lot of notes from AoE2 but doesn't really add much of interest. It released in a blatantly unfinished state, also, which is never good for a game's first impression on players.
>removed in DE
It's almost like first impressions matter. It was poorly implemented on launch, and common sense pre-launch should have fixed it. But of course devs think "grind" means "replayability", not "oh great, what a timewaster".
1.Its new
2.Its not 2
3.Its in 3D
4. Most americans only know about american history (poorly), and even less about 1600-1800 period outside of muh slaves.
2 could run in most toasters while 3 needed a decent PC, so fewer people played it, I remember the beautiful water. good times.
It was indeed a beautiful game for its time.
Also nice how every civ has their own set of units instead of the same two-handed swordsman for everyone.
It's a surprisingly good-looking game for 2005 3D models in an RTS, a lot of other games from that era did not hold up.
I actually remember buying it and then not being able to play it until I got a new laptop a year later
Same thing.I remember being so excited for it.Buy it.Couldnt ever play it.
AoE3 was a wild departure from the formula, unlike AoK which was an improved version of AoE gameplay. People did not like new gameplay and returned to older games. Nowadays this feud is pointless as AoE2 and 3 exist and receive updates separately from each other.
Because there just weren't that many people who were interested in AoE but weren't already playing 2 and 2 players didn't feel the need to switch after playing the game for years. Also genre purists didn't like the shipment system.
Two main reasons
>The game is just not as tight as 2
Units rubberband to keep formation, there's less formations overall and less ways to micro / control unit positioning, guns can't be dodged like catapult / archer projectiles, there's a lot of gimmick units and the game was also never truly balanced (France has the best cavalry, infantry and artillery in the game, Dutch are a meme civ)
All of this results in less depth and skill in terms of base gameplay, making it less infinitely replayable than 2
>The card system was cancer in original release
It's an interesting idea but having to grind 30+ hours of online games per faction to unlock all the cards pretty much killed the online multiplayer scene when combined with overall a less mechanically skillful game than 2
AoE3 is fun, the campaigns are great, the gameplay is not even that bad if you just want to casually play it for 10-20 hours, but once you do, there's just very little left to learn and discover outside of the ridiculous card grind, vs AOE2 which to this day gets nerds discovering meaningful new mechanics & interactions based on shit that was coded 20 years ago.
> OP France
Has never played Germany.
> Meme Dutch
Has never bank-maxed.
> discovering meaningful new mechanics in a 20 year old game
This doesn't happen.
> less skill required
if you mean less asiatic clicking than sure
1. Deck building was a chore.
2. Campaigns weren't historical at all.
3. Game went way too hard on the unit counters.
>Game went way too hard on the unit counters.
Oh yeah this was 100% moronic
>This cannon kills units
>This cannon kills buildings
>This cannon kills other cannons
>This man with gun kills this man with gun
>But not this man with gun, who will kill your first man with gun
>Btw there's man with small sword and shield who kills cavalry
>There's also 239847 native units that all look exactly the same and have esoteric nonsensical bonuses against random things
>???
Shit made no intuitive sense compared to
>Spear kill horse, horse kill bow, bow kill spear, catapult kill crowd, ram kill building
True, a bullet is deadly by the joule that it have. I don't understand why they add this stupid arcade mechanic even in the 2nd. I can understand spear vs horse to have a bonus, but an arc or a rifle that is better against cavalry or some unit it's a moronic mechanics same with artillery.
musketeers have smoothbore guns that can't hit shit unless they fire in volleys. To do that, they have to fight in line formations, which also make them good in melee thanks to the numbers. Skirmishers, on the other hand, have rifled barrels that can shoot accurately. As such, they don't have to fight in tight formations like musketeers, but this in turn makes them shit in melee since they're dispersed into smaller groups. The game accurately reflects that by making musketeers good in melee against cavalry, but shit in ranged combat against skirmishers who can spread out and take cover like modern infantry.
It makes sense when you realize that "rifleman/skirmisher" has rifled gun, meant to kill any infantry, but the musketman counts as heavy infantry that is more vulnerable to his attacks, but also his musket just deals ranged damage with no counter statistics (making him a generalist unit)
But I agree that tags should be more visible, since it leads to some really demented moments, when a rhino is one of best tanks since it has no tags (so no counters) and huge health pool.
>It makes sense when you realize that "rifleman/skirmisher" has rifled gun
I mean fair enough? But also I don't think anyone but huge history nerds would care.
As someone who recently replayed the game for the campaign I genuinely could not give enough of a crap to learn which man with gun counts as 'rifleman' and which one counts as 'musketman' because in the heat of combat it all sort of blends together
And although your example makes sense, you really cant excuse how one cannon destroys rows of infantry while another takes several shots to kill a musketeer because its not an 'infantry killing cannon'. I get game balance but from spectacle / common sense point of view it doesn't truly help people stick around and get invested into learning all the counters, as an answer to why the game isn't as popular as AOE2.
>you really cant excuse how one cannon destroys rows of infantry while another takes several shots to kill a musketeer because its not an 'infantry killing cannon
like trebs/catapults/scorps/bombard cannons?
shut up man
AoE2 is more obtuse cause much data is simply hidden, you wouldn't know the bonus damages unless you googled it. Guess the counters are hard for simcity players that turtle until they hit the pop cap with paladins, that are somewhat of a superunit.
TBQH 3 also hid some shit.
Like priests not counting as "infantry" but as a "healer", leading to now nerfed priest spam that outtanked musket lines, while inquisitors burned down Town Centers in seconds.
>but also his musket just deals ranged damage with no counter statistics
He's also "Armed with a bayonet to beat cavalry"
Disclaimer: The musketeer model and derivates never use a bayonet and just swing the musket like a club
The counter system for the base european units is not that bad and light infantry countering heavy sort of makes sense because
but some of it is sort of arbitrary like dragoons are good against other can and artillery for some reason. Including natives, mercenaries, all the expansion civs having different rosters and all the other possible nonstandard units makes it a mess though. Just teh fact they had to invent "shock infantry" for aztecs bloats the damage modifier list even though it's not relevant most of the time. Another easily overlooked thing is that units can have melee or ranged armour on top of it. Shooting at a 40% ranged resistance unit is kinda different even if you are supposed to have a damage bonus against them. Also some units change stats depending on stances.
AoE2 units are a load of frick tho. You just got used to their bullshit.
>pointed stick guy bad against everything that isn't a horse, even a villager, pretty bad against horse anyway
>catapult bad against castle
>ballista bad against siege
>infantry bad against bow unless bird
>spear chucker gud against bow, because shut up
>some bearded guy gud against cav and mango
>camel is ship
>camel is ship
is fortunately no longer true in the remakes. People say it was because of technical limitations on the number of armour classes and they thought that it wouldn't be a problem but the absolute morons forgot that building arrows deal additional damage to ships so camels were a joke units for ages. I'm not sure what the point even was though because I don't think any land units in original game actually interact with camels specifically, they could have just had cav tag. So maybe it was on purpose.
Why in AoE logic javelin throwers counter archers I will never get, that was always moronic.
Coming from SC or cnc or even RoN I hated how
>Units prioritize formation over attacking
The edge of a line of archers could be in fricking distance of a unit and not fricking initiate a shot or conversion because
>Janky ass formations
Also
>Two forms of attack move
's also 239847 native units that all look exactly the same and have esoteric nonsensical bonuses against random things
the Aztec unit that's just a guy who can hit buildings as hard as a falconet always threw me for a loop
American conquest was better tactically speaking
I consider Cossacks/American Conquest to be the superior gunpowder RTS, if nothing else because of the formations.
there were formations in regular age 3, in DE they merged them into the unit stances though
mainly because cav boxes literally destroyed the game
You're confusing things. Cav boxes was a bug that was eventually fixed with an update in DE but the formations and stances were already merged before DE.
Formations in Cossacks actually model units gaining experience/morale, you can make them rout and disintegrate. It's different from how AOE models formations.
>Cossacks actually model units gaining experience/morale, you can make them rout and disintegrate.
What? That's not true at all.
It's true of AC/Cossacks 2.
>small maps
>small unit counts
>very little feeling of a base building and expanding to control the entire map
>most buildings are useless
>limit on how many buildings you can build
>cannons are ridiculous
>stupid cards and decks mechanics that are mostly useless with a few ones that are neccessary or you lose automatically
>terrible top down view
>bases are small
>forests are small
>units all look the same and don't feel unique
>visually garbage background that clutters the view
>bases look like a collection of same sized same looking structures with no distinction between them.
AOEII has a few distinct differences that makes the game way more enjoyable
>background isn't cluttered
>buildings, units and even civilizations are distinct from another
>Actual economy building where a large part of the game is building up a distinct base
>units and buildings are visually pleasing whether they're singular or in a collective.
>skill issue: the post: the movie
Also mostly wrong like
>units all look the same and don't feel unique
Is really pulled out of ass, when every faction has its own theme of buildings (even euros have variants) and the game has no stupid bullshit like Aztec zweihanders
You make several good points, but not everything.
>small unit counts
>most buildings are useless
>units all look the same and don't feel unique
Like what the hell? This is just not true.
>cannons are ridiculous
They're strong, slow and vulnerable. There's nothing wrong with them.
>civilizations are distinct from another
Bullshit. This is how I know you're a butthurt moron. This is something aoe3 does better than aoe2.
I prefer AOE3, AOM and even AOE4 so much more than AOE2 to be honest. I love how all of those games have civilisations which are actually distinct from each other. AOE2 is just like “yeah you get a 5% farm bonus and your archers do +1 damage to elephants, enjoy your new unique civilisation bro.”
>civilizations are distinct from one another
>aoe2
oh no no no aoe2 sissies not like this
Tell me more about how Aztecs are like Mongols
>people hated it when it was new because of legit reasons (performance, graphics etc)
>now people hate on it mainly because they hear is bad and people hate it
it's not historically accurate and no Historical campaign until Asian Dynasty and then there's only 2 semi accurate campaigns in that expansion. Also AOE 2 and AoM can already do all of what AOE 3 and 4 can do but better. The definitive edition doesn't help that much too
>unit counters is hard 🙁
imagine getting filter by this
yep 3 is the thinking man´s game
>me spam archers
>me win
Why are rodeleros and rajputs not considered shock infantry?
Because they're bad vs ranged infantry and artillery and good vs cavalry. Shock infantry in the game is basically foot cavalry.
Why are rodeleros and rajputs not reworked to shock infantry?
Why list the units? You can tell what's heavy infantry and light infantry by the way they hold their gun. All melee infantry is heavy infantry, even the fast ones. All archers and crossbows are light infantry.
Several exceptions but listing every unit will just confuse people trying to learn.
That’s something I always hated about AOE2 as well. The best strategy is almost always to just spam your most OP unit and that’s it. It’s so boring.
>That’s something I always hated about AOE2 as well. The best strategy is almost always to just spam your most OP unit and that’s it
ah yes the...single unit meta of aoe2
>Never played the game
If you can't imagine other people having different experiences, then there is something seriously mentally wrong with you.
>If you can't imagine other people having different experiences
Anon, this isn't "different experience". This is you being a schizophrenic. anyone who plays online regularly knows this game isn't a damn UU simulator.
I'm not that person, I disagree with him, but your comment was so incredibly short sighted that I had to respond. Also he didn't say he plays online or not. Even online at low elo, the game can definitely be won just by spamming one unit, mostly knights.
"Can work" and "is the best strategy" are two very different things.
Well, that anon is probably not very experienced with AOE2, so it should be no surprise that he has an unnuanced opinion.
Every team game is the same thing. Everyone walls until late game then spams their most OP unit. Usually knights or some kind of cav. Sorry I’m not 2000 elo I really couldn’t give a shit how the game is played at that level.
It came hot on the tail of a game that managed to nearly perfect the genre, and it discarded every lesson learned from the previous game to "Shake things up" and test out many other new ideas that didn't really belong in the same game. I'm sure you could make a few RTS games that could really use these, but AoE's format doesn't play nicely with things like "700 wood" shipment cards.
Soulless asiaticclick garbage. Literally no reason to play it when II exists.
AoE2 was very popular and much beloved by people. AoE3 feels like a completely different game. They changed things so much from how AoE2 worked that it barely feels like an Age of Empires game.
It’s a good game. Weirdly overrated. I get that some of the changes like the home cities didn’t work that well and all cards should have been unlocked from the start, but it was still great fun to play and the colonial setting worked really well. It also still has the best graphics in the series and even beats 4 in that regard lmao. Very pretty game.
*should say overrhated
I've played 6 hours of AoE4 (Art of War and half the English campaign)
it's not a BAD game, and I appreciate how they tried to mix things up with a "history channel" thing. I do like the visuals of those golden ghosts on the land as it is today. I think people are just disappointed that it's not an AMAZING game.
I'll never forget school was cancelled during a Hurricane shortly after this was released. I played all throughout the storm and the internet/power never went out. It was glorious.
>Why do people hate 3 so much?
Because AoE2gays are pure cancer just ask any other AOEgay about aoe2gays and they will tell you the same.
They’re so fricking insufferable lol. AOE2 is the smash brothers melee of RTS games.
>virgin online players explaining variety of stratages
>chad with 10000 hours vs easiest AI wondering why you'd ever make anything other than longbowmen
>Chad is someone who watches Paint dry
I get people not liking ladder but this pve homosexualry and smugness just shows that you are the worst players
AoE series was conceived as a combination of real-time strategy with 4X, but 3 is the one that truly commits to the latter.
aoe3 will always be better than aoe2. Certain people didn't like it because it wasn't much swords and pop history medieval times.
Congratulations, you are contrarian enough to post on Ganker
>*ch chink*
>OOOO REEEEIGH
>*pew pew pew*
>*tududu dummm*
>OOOO REEEEIGH
>*ch chink*
sovlfull....
theres nothing like playing as a chinaman and sending hundreds of expendable cheap troops into the meatgrinder
i'd say
>HP bloat and plenty of modifiers that cram up the unit information panel (explorer does 6 melee damage, x3 to treasure guardians but 1/4 vs villagers, 12 ranged with same stats, and 15 siege damage -- each of which are separately stretched across the UI)
>not understanding the hard counters or why different guns/cannon do different things instead of being different machines with different firing types
>rubberbanding in formations (if you try to flank and one of your cav get shot, all of them will move at half speed unless you seperate that one from the group)
>maps feel too small and the three terrain levels doesn't make them feel too distinct outside of natives and the terrain tile set. Conversely, units do tend to move quite slow
>naval feels quite limited because there's only a handful of maps with limited transmissible rivers, most them having shallows for foot units to cross, which keeps your ships relegated to one quarter of the map
>slow production unit times (encouraging you to build up your queue) means that you can either have a barracks make 1-5 muskeeters in 30 seconds or 1 musketeer every 6 seconds
>no dropoff points, instead focusing on gather rate over/time
>farms and estates hold 10 villagers instead of 1, and most buildings are pretty moderately sized, creating a lot smaller bases in comparison to how you could theoretically wall off your base in Age2 with houses as you're working towards pop cap
i like doing 1v1v1 compstomps against the hardest AI for the events and farming all of that yummy XP into new people walking around my city and new colored pennants
I like how factions have different builds centered around cards that can change new functionalities/add new units, and how each civ type has their own different kind of shtick that they can play around with. A shame that limits how many civs they could add because of unique models and whatnot, I'd be okay with more natives/revolutions
make 1-5 muskeeters in 30 seconds in contrast to 1 musketeer every 6 seconds*
this is immediately most frustrating when you're under attack and need just a few units to hold a stopgap, but realize there's no way for you to respond before its too late
Odd. Another anon said this favors the defender because the small batches of units pop up instantly and the units add up quickly without requiring you to build many barracks, as opposed to a useless trickle of easily overwhelmed singular units.
Anyway, when the enemy's rush is still a decent distance away, a pro move is to time your units well. First, you send a shipment of units, then queue up some units at the barracks, and finally call in the militia. If timed right, all these units will join the action at the same time, creating a small army.
>a useless trickle of easily overwhelmed singular units
in AoE2 you could garrison newly produced units in their own building by defining it as the rally point
on topic, i used to shit on AoE3 for being not-2, but now I value it's variety, visuals and gameplay, it's actually quite well made in spite of the flaws other anons pointed out
I don't think anyone's ever denied that AOE3 is a well-made game, but it's just so different from 2.
Is there a reason to upgrade generic archaic units instead of ditching them entirely? It's pretty cute how pikemen get extra range tho.
stopping surprise raids since they train faster
seeing the da vinci tank made me realize that we were rob with age 4
>we will never see WW1 kino with AoE style
not a 'hardcore fan' but 3 was kind of a let down.
Made up story and characters instead of real historical figures.
gameplay wasn't really good.
Still liked it.
3 genuinely tried to do something different to the point that you wouldn't think it's from the same series as 2.
It's a good game but I can see why it upset people. Especially considering a lot of people at the time straight up couldn't play it because of the system requirements.
Oh no no no...
still whiter than 100% of the esl goblin people forever b***hing about inconsequential culture war shit
If it is inconsequential, why waste time changing it?
that's just Thomas Alexander Dumas
He was a mulatto in the French army.
everyone knows that blacks weren't invented until 1980
He reached the fricking rank of Divisional General, he wasn't some drummer boy.
test
i like age3, but the UI for attack modifiers is pretty unintuitive to read
Yeah im conflicted.
On the one hand they were trying to fix the aoe2 damage bonuses thing that were straight up not displayed anywhere and you were sort of supposed to figure it out by online communities (like how am i supposed to know what skirms to +2 agaisnt spears??) And for the sake of clarity i like it but its just way too much visual clutter.
Maybe if the dmg multipliers were an expandable menu, its not like you need that info at all times anyway. Or something that appears when you hover over your dmg number
Eh, you can get used to this (the font could have been larger and the colors more varied, tho). The thing that's even more busy is the descriptions of the effects of shipments that apply to various buildings, units, stances, etc.
Man, I love AoE3. It's really fun!
Fave civ and unit? I like Germans and organ guns.
I only play skirmish, but definitely Germans and going full merc. It’s a shame that the expansions introduced the tavern and made mercs more common. I love having a swagger army.
AOE4 proved that all people wanted is another AOE2, which they archived by making AOE2 HD and DE
OG AOE3 was a great RTS, the graphics still holds up very well to this day, but it's just not AOE2
>archived
wow i hate the new saturated colour palette they're using.
why cant modern devs into artistic direction?
> looks slightly better than a almost 20 year old game
> somehow it consumes more memory thank Doom Eternal
Never played any AoE game
Is 3rd one worth getting into? With edition should i get?
2 and 3 are both worth getting, but I prefer 2. Definitive edition is the way to go for 2. I have nostalgia for the nonDE version of 3, but I don’t keep up with that one as much so I’m sure DE is fine for that as well.
One of the things 2 does much better is the feeling of building up a town/city, which is kind of missing in 3 since it feels much more “gamey”
i hear the definitive edition for age of empires 3 has been censored quite a bit...
No, it's literally the same game with new names for the Iriquois, the Sioux, and Plantations, and a revised Sioux campaign. The rest of the game is the same, but updated with dozens of new features, units, maps, and upgrades.
>revised Sioux campaign
you mean censored, they apparently changed the whole campaign to make the native americans dindus and the outlaws into villains...
Can you explain to a historylet who hasn't played the campaigns what exactly was changed and why it is significant?
Because it's MY history and if we give those revisionist an inch they'll take a mile and turn Custer into swastika wearing, ambiguously brown, wheelchair bound, non-binary subhuman. This is what happens when you let bad guys won 2020.
what exactly was changed?
i havent played the remaster but from what ive heard in the warchiefs expansion there were these very good levels where you played with these outlaws and you were tasked by this corrupt marshal to make war on the indians and there were these levels where indians were fighting indians. well in the remaster they changed the levels where you now play with the indians and you need to take out the outlaws. basically indians dindu nothin and the white man is at fault.
>you played with these outlaws and you were tasked by this corrupt marshal to make war on the indians
>you now play with the indians and you need to take out the outlaws
Looks like the outlaws were the bad guys and the Natives were the victims even in the original. How exactly is this revisionism? You play the same story with a different faction.
that was the whole point dumbass. you playing with the bad guy outlaws waging a war on the indians. that was the whole appeal of those missions.
Shifting goal posts now? That's not the point you were arguing.
besides this they also basically removed most references about colonialism which is the whole theme for the game. removing local dialects like Pistolero with Pistol Bandit and similar soulless generic names.
>removing local dialects like Pistolero with Pistol Bandit
>A beaner unit is literally called "soldier" while another one is "highwayman" but in spanish
I don't get you, Microsoft...
>most references about colonialism
You mean renaming the Colonial Age to Commerce Age and Plantations to Estates? I could try defending this by pointing out that the game departed from a strictly New World setting to a more general one, and the latest DLC even goes full circle and brings the action back to Europe where you don't really colonize anything.
>removing Pistolero
He's still in the game, and Americans and Mexicans even got their own flavor of the unit.
Changing Injun stuff was definitely a gay move, tho, and it's not like their depiction was the only thing in the game that someone could find offensive. This is why fewer devs even bother touching western-themed settings. What sucks the most for me is the lame recast voicework, and the changing of the Fire Pit which had this festive look that also made it easier to estimate how many villagers were tasked to it.
They added Indians on the second expansion, you dumb Black person. Play the game before b***hing like a homosexual.
of course dumbass the expansion is literally called The Warchiefs. nobody said that all the missions were about the outlaws only that the best missions were with them. learn to read zoomer.
Right, I didn't get to that part yet. It reminded me how boring the Warchiefs campaigns were, tho.
Both games are good, but aoe2 has more and better campaigns. They're quite different games though, so check which one fits your tastes more.
First of all, what other games did you play?
I never liked 2, but 3 just happens to speak to me. It's different than 1 and 2 in just about every way imaginable, while obviously taking inspiration from and sharing some similarities with Age of Mythology, and overall it's very experimental. It has a monumental amount of content to play with which is as entertaining as it is overwhelming. I wasn't even into that historical period before but the variety of weapons, uniforms and buildings make the game really nice to look at.
Campaigns are a mixed bag, skirmish I find rather fun, and multiplayer I've yet to get into (heard both good and bad opinions about it).
I first played the original a few years ago right before DE was announced. I don't think there's a reason you'd want to get it unless your hardware can't handle the DE, or for when you really want that WoL megamod.
DE changes and adds a bunch of stuff and overall seems lovingly maintained. I mean, rather than flatten the differences between civs, the new updates continue to diversify them.
>First of all, what other games did you play?
CnC series, some older TW games, some more casual wargames (Shadow Empire, SPMBT), panzer general clones and openxcom mods
The Age of Mythology influence in 3 feels very jarring. Those mechanics worked in AoM, but in 3 having hero equivalents is just weird.
2 if you want an actual tryhard RTS where you can play ranked and shit
3 if you want something goofy to play with friends, especially if your friends aren't big RTS people
They're both fun, but I play them for different things
I have fond memories of the campaign and I liked the time period even if it was nonsense
>aoe2 fans
play their game
>aoe3/aoe4 fans
dont play their game, complain about aoe2
>Why do people hate 3 so much?
Hey. Im a fan of AoE2 and AoM
I don't hate AoE3, though It hasn't age well.
3d models and maps was a mistake, I feel. The population limit and the limit to buildings was a step on the wrong direction.
In general, AoE3 was bold and went on the same concept, on a new direction (more modern age, RPG elements, different damage system, heroes, bandits camps, decks cards and levels, etc.
On that respect, I think they did a great job, and was refreshing for a while. But hasn't age as well as the other two.
And about the time period of the game, I feel that classic/feudal/medieval will always be much, MUCH more interesting than industrialization, or moder era. it has a different mistique to it.
And besides all that, on the pro scene the game has a different pacing, not so fun, I feel
3 is better than 2 in definitive edition.
Card system makes for lots of cool strats and flexibility
Balance is good enough
Civs have A LOT more identity and it is tied with history.
Musket combat is fricking cool
Cannon micro very intense
Cav is not op, has own role
Better ui, you can see who counters who and by how much
Advancing in ages different for civs with cool bonuses
Improved on 2 in most aspects. Sad it is less popular than 2.
I agree aoe3 is in essence a better game than aoe2, but aoe2 has a lot more and a lot better single player content, which is a huge plus for aoe2.
>Card system makes for lots of cool strats and flexibility
In theory yes, but everyone always uses the same boring resources and units shipments.
Because people forgot AoM existed.
If you compare 2 to 3, some pretty significant changes, which could be jarring to someone who is a die hard 2 fan.
But if you compare it to AoM... then it's actually pretty great, and fixed a few of the issues AoM had.
I think it's a great game, I never liked the snail pace, or lack of QoL features that 2 lacked.
That being said, I always found Age games where not as good as Sup Com.
Same. I could never get into 2 but 3 is right up my alley. I wasn't even into that time period before but the presentation really sells the unique feel of different nations.
As for AoM remake, I wonder what they'll actually end up doing. 3 is largely the same game but with so much more content and varied mechanics that it makes AoM look kind of bare, e.g. these unique minor god techs are mostly just lame 10% to gather rate or unit attack whereas shipments in 3 give all sorts of crazy things.
Will they differentiate it from 3 by giving it a streamlined competitive focus of 2 or will they redesign and expand to make it even wackier than 3?
I just didn't like the trading posts and the zoom in view.
Im a singleplayergay so are there any new or custom campaigns for aoe3?
Pls answr
no new campaigns in DE, but they did add a series of historical secnarios: 6 in the base game, 3 from the African Royals, then 1 for owning the US, 1 for owning Mexico, and 1 for owning both US and Mexico
Hmm is it simply too hard to make custom campaigns like in aoe2?
I honestly haven't checked much, the Age3 mod browser isn't that good/the aren't very popularized
they did make some Historical Maps for skirmish battles that have more special conditions (only the involved powers, different resource conditions, unique map spawns/objects, etc)
https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/The_Great_Northern_War
My guess would be that the storytelling is done through cinematics rather than a bit of flavor text like in AoE2, which sounds like more work when you're putting together a whole campaign with multiple characters.
Honestly I don't mind standalone scenarios as long as they're fun, and if they added more challenge missions like the Art of War ones, it would also be nice. I don't suppose they'll focus on adding more scenarios in DLCs at this point, though.
The Great Northern War campaign would be awesome GÅ-PÅ!!
While Knights of the Mediterranean kinda felt like a sendoff to the game, what more would you add to the game? Units, empires, natives, maps, etc etera?
Hardmode: no PLC or Austria
>Persia, repackaging the generic Muslim units used in various scenarios (Algiers, Battle of Three Kings, USS Philadelphia) borrowing from Indian architecture, with five consulate options of the British, Ottomans, Russians, Mughals [Indians], and Tatars [Tengri/Chinese Mongolian Army]
>Brazil gets more integrated into Portugal like the French Revolution, instead of being its own empire
>Eyalet Royal House in Balkans, Archipelago, Fertile Crescent, and Nile Valley
>Ainu/Utari natives in Hokkaido and Manchuria [might be too limited]
>Korean natives (Hangul school if we want to stick with the "religious temple" theme) in Korea, Manchuria [might also be too limited]
>some SEAsian native (Zhuang/Cantonese/Vietnamese/Thai) natives in Central Plain, Indochina, Parallel Rivers, Malaysia, and a new southern Chinese map
>some Austronesian native (reusing Javanese spearmen?) in Malaysia, Indonesia, Borneo, and a new Formosa/Philippines map
Mormons.
I'd be all for upgrading the Cherokee into a full on empire, but I don't know what would make them standout from the Iroquois besides not having tomahawks and maybe having access to Churches, Arsenal, and Artillery foundry, or some association with the other parts of the Five Civilized Tribes. If they'd need some more localized maps, add one for the Ohio River and one for Appalachia
Replace their native settlement with the Muscogee (like the Iroquois, Aztecs, Lakota were with Warchiefs), while promoting the Lenape to be more than just a Cherokee copy-paste in Carolina, New England, Plymouth, and Great Lakes
add Bhakti Temple to SEA maps and make a new variant of the Sufi Mosque because having Turkomen in Borneo is silly
I want to think they still have some support left to give the game when they are done with the Return to Rome DLC, like an Empire of Brazil standalone civ seems the most obvious next step and then Safavid Iran with Morocco. Beyond that, maybe Korea and the Tui Toga Empire in the mold of an native civ, the editor does have australian trees. Anything to make an complete world map.
Rate my proposed changes to Malta.
>Villager count capped to 50.
>Units get cheaper with each age up.
>Get a new church technology called something like "crusade raiders" - for every enemy unit and building destroyed a percentage of the total resource value of the unit/building is given to Malta player as gold.
>The Wignacourt Constructions card (villagers gather natural resources 10% faster, and an additional 15% faster when near a town post, commendary or outpost) now effects gather rate of all resources.
>Hospitals have a cap, but have a new technology called "charity" which causes them to trickle a small amount of gold.