Empire's Apart Discussion

[Garja]

Been watching TheViper stream and game seems reasonably smooth. Is it p2p?
Also some game mechanics, while a bit artificial, are pretty cool (e.g. Aztecs prisoners to sacrifice for upgrades).
One thing I don't like is the day/night cycle. Also it seems there are shadows of clouds on terrain and I'm not sure on that one too.

System requirements seems unbearably high for a game with low polygon number. Seems a bit odd they can't make that graphic choice a strenght point.

[giveuanxiety]

ya I think the day night cycle is too drastic on the eyes too. They have some balance incorporated into the cycle, aztec explorer goes stealth at night. So I highly doubt they would remove it or make option, but perhaps they can adjust the brightness so it isnt so drastic on the eyes.

[gamevideo113]

Been watching TheViper stream and game seems reasonably smooth. Is it p2p?
Also some game mechanics, while a bit artificial, are pretty cool (e.g. Aztecs prisoners to sacrifice for upgrades).
One thing I don't like is the day/night cycle. Also it seems there are shadows of clouds on terrain and I'm not sure on that one too.

System requirements seems unbearably high for a game with low polygon number. Seems a bit odd they can't make that graphic choice a strenght point.

It's not p2p, it's some sort of hybrid type of MP handling.
I agree, there are a lot of mechanics that make the game more interesting and flavorful in comparison to aoe2 or aoe1. Every civ has different monks, slightly different fighting mechanics, slightly different economic setups and some civ unique option here and there (e.g. every civ can do an archer rush, but arabs can add grenadiers as well).
I believe shadows on the ground can be deactivated in the graphical settings.
Not a fan of the day/night cycle either. On low graphic settings nights are really dark, it gets really hard to see stuff. Hopefully it will be tweaked.
I also really hope that some big optimization will be done, but the game still runs on UE4 which is quite heavy as far as i understand so it probably will never get as light as AoE2 or some older games.

[kami_ryu]

-- deleted post --

[gamevideo113]

aoc had it done the best iirc

Roofl, made me laugh
There will always be people complaining about pathfinding in every RTS. It just can't be perfect. With this said, in empires apart pathing is reasonably decent. It could use some improvement, especially when you are spamming commands it's not super responsive, but it's not a big issue.

[Aykin Haraka]

I am not sure but I think LOS's building is decreasing when the night comes
I would be nice if they add score and remake minimap

[EAGLEMUT]

aoc had it done the best iirc

Not sure if part of the April Fools prank

[kami_ryu]

-- deleted post --

[gamevideo113]

Pathfinding in aoe2 is mostly trash

[momuuu]

I recall trying to raid in aoe2, manually clicking on a low hp villager. Then my scout failed to determine any way to get there and started attacking some random villager. This happened multiple times in a row haha. Not sure if that's "good pathing".

Aoe3's pathing, and sc2's pathing likewise, is pretty good. I feel like modern games have enough computing power to feature decent pathing for the most part. Sometimes you just order the units to do something that is mostly not possible and then they'll show weird behaviour. But when you do that, it's usually your own fault isn't it.

[Garja]

Aoe3 pathing is not even bad except for some bugs. The problem of AOE3 is unit formations that make the pathing weird (e.g pull trick).

[kami_ryu]

-- deleted post --

[giveuanxiety]

score is not in EA deliberately, viper agrees with it and says score shouldn't be in competitive games. It is interesting, at first I wanted score ofc but I can see the point of not having score.

[edeholland]

So what is the point of not having score?

[Garja]

No score works well in games like sc2 where there is lot of room for outplaying in midgame and where game is ultimately decided by the winning condition of destroying all opponent's structures. Not having score displayed is both functional to outplaying and also has less meaning when outplaying is largely possible.
In games like AOE it's about supremacy so score makes sense and also is more reliable in predicting who's winning because any temporary advantage in aoe can be carried over forever with infinite resource mechanics.

[gamevideo113]

Score is not in EA because you are meant to scout and gather info from the battlefield, rather than having artificial indicators like score or notifications about the enemy age ups. I don't mind either approach tbh.

[edeholland]

The thing about the game's completeness really depends on what you expect of it.

Well, I think it's not complete because there the game is very poorly optimized, you can't record a game, the AI is really bad, the units are very hard to distinguish (and are not really unique anyway) and the pathfinding really needs improvement. For a game that is early access, this is fine. For a released game, I'm really disappointed. It's a popular trend, releasing unfinished games, but not one we should endorse.

[momuuu]

So what is the point of not having score?

The idea would be that in hectic games and in general developing a feeling for how things stand becomes a serious skill. In aoe3 a good player can often, based on relatively little information, determine quite well how the economic situation is, which reduces the need for deeper game knowledge.

I find score can be helpful in giving new players some guidance most of all. I'd argue that it's also nice that there is some generic information about how the opponent is doing that is easily available, as it reduces the random counterbuilds quite a bit (in aoe3 it's hard to find examples, but imagine someone doing 5 bank stuff as Dutch but hiding bank 3,4 and 5. You'll scout the opponent and be confused as to whats going on, but at some point you'll realize he must've hid them as the score matches that. I guess shit like that can be really cheesy and ends up being an unfun game mechanic. Or imagine someone doing a fast industrial, but the notifications of aging up are turned off. At first it seems fun, but hard to scout stuff that ends up being shitty if it is scouted at all and lame if you fail to catch it in time is not the greatest game mechanic).

So there's two sides to the coin, as always.