AoE4 Relic Entertainment interview now

[Dolan]

in the medieval christian world there could be only 1 empire and that was the HRE

There was also the Eastern Roman Empire (or how people today call it today, the Byzantine empire, but this label was added later by a historian, it's not the name they used back then).

[InsectPoison]

Not looking forward to AoE 4 at all. Its gonna be an AoE 2 cartoony remake. Not for me, maybe others will enjoy it

[n0el]

Not looking forward to AoE 4 at all. Its gonna be an AoE 2 cartoony remake. Not for me, maybe others will enjoy it

you've never played it, yet you are assuming the style of the game?

[Kanoo]

The aoe2 "elitists" are super loud on the forums, and in the probable scenario where it isn't as similar as they would like, my worry is if their squabbles would actually influence the nature of the game?

[dansil92]

The aoe2 "elitists" are super loud on the forums, and in the probable scenario where it isn't as similar as they would like, my worry is if their squabbles would actually influence the nature of the game?

my assumption is that the devs will listen to them exactly as well as they listen to the aoe3 community regarding the definitive edition

[InsectPoison]

Not looking forward to AoE 4 at all. Its gonna be an AoE 2 cartoony remake. Not for me, maybe others will enjoy it

you've never played it, yet you are assuming the style of the game?

My statement is based on the gameplay we have been shown so far. The graphics look sub-par, the unit models look amateur and cartoony, and the water looks worse than AoE 3 which was made in 2005. The fact that there will be resource drop off points, no home city, and no gunpowder units just makes it an AoE 2 2021 remake in my eyes.

[Pedrownage]

Not looking forward to AoE 4 at all. Its gonna be an AoE 2 cartoony remake. Not for me, maybe others will enjoy it

you've never played it, yet you are assuming the style of the game?

My statement is based on the gameplay we have been shown so far. The graphics look sub-par, the unit models look amateur and cartoony, and the water looks worse than AoE 3 which was made in 2005. The fact that there will be resource drop off points, no home city, and no gunpowder units just makes it an AoE 2 2021 remake in my eyes.

Not saying that AoE IV will not be like AoE II, but at least there are gunpowder units in AoE IV!

[helln00]

also there were also gunpowder units in aoe 2 as well

[LazarosVas]

They turned Joan of Arc from a religious fanatic to a "Feminist Icon" this woke bs is insane.. get that out of here in a game were history is important.

[harcha]

xD

[RefluxSemantic]

This thread contains some of the dumbest takes I've ever read on this forums. I feel like many people have problems with having realistic expectations for aoe4.

[Dolan]

The realistic expectation is that it's going to be AOE2 released with a new engine.
And it will have some new things like the map elevation pov.

[Astaroth]

What's funny is that aoe3 players claim it will be like aoe2, aoe2 players find it too similar to aoe3.

Realistically, from what we know so far, it will have features of both games. Having eg more unique, different civs arguably makes the game a lot less like aoe2 than some people say.

I am expecting balancing to be quite difficult tbh though, simply because of the 8 unique civs combined with a (afaik) a bit more defensive, slower game. Differences in scaling between the civs but without the comparative aggro pptential of aoe3 (even on DE) could be difficult.

[RefluxSemantic]

The realistic expectation is that it's going to be AOE2 released with a new engine.
And it will have some new things like the map elevation pov.

Have you looked at any of the trailers? If you think this is aoe2 with a new engine then you're stupid.

Obviously it'll be more heavily influenced by aoe2. That makes total sense. But I see clear elements of aoe3 too in the things they've shown so far.

[InsectPoison]

AoE 2 players dont like AoE 4 because it doesnt look like it was made in 1999

[RefluxSemantic]

I'd reckon aoe4 will be to aoe2 what sc2 was to sc:bw.

[Dolan]

Have you looked at any of the trailers? If you think this is aoe2 with a new engine then you're stupid.

Obviously it'll be more heavily influenced by aoe2. That makes total sense. But I see clear elements of aoe3 too in the things they've shown so far.

Yeah, I've seen it. Which AOE3 elements do you see in that AOE4 footage that were not present in AOE2?

[RefluxSemantic]

Have you looked at any of the trailers? If you think this is aoe2 with a new engine then you're stupid.

Obviously it'll be more heavily influenced by aoe2. That makes total sense. But I see clear elements of aoe3 too in the things they've shown so far.

Yeah, I've seen it. Which AOE3 elements do you see in that AOE4 footage that were not present in AOE2?

uniqueness of the civs, landmarks for aging up

[Dolan]

What do you mean by uniqueness of the civs, in a way that was present in AOE3 but not in AOE2? You mean unit types are less standardised in AOE4 than in AOE2? What I see in gameplay previews are the same archers and knights on horses.
Which landmarks for aging up? Can you give some example.

[RefluxSemantic]

What do you mean by uniqueness of the civs, in a way that was present in AOE3 but not in AOE2? You mean unit types are less standardised in AOE4 than in AOE2? What I see in gameplay previews are the same archers and knights on horses.
Which landmarks for aging up? Can you give some example.

Read up on any of the stuff for the civilizations on their site..

[lordraphael]

@RefluxSemantic
If they wanted to cut down on the number of civs, they would have made a game with 3 civs, if that was the most pressing issue. Euros, Asians, Natives. That's it. Something like a SC2 with a historical theme and the most minimalistic choice of civs.
Or they could have launched the game with a starting bunch of civs, without representing as much of the world as possible, then add more as DLC, which is how they usually do anyway. Do you really think they're just going to stay with a fixed number of civs and not try to sell some more civs as DLC later? I doubt it.
Duckzilla raised a valid point: is this a game about peoples or countries? Because countries changed a lot throughout history and the French had lots of smaller countries or were part of a bigger Holy Roman Empire at some point. So were those people from Alsacia who were part of the HRE not French? Are they not part of the history of French people because back then they were part of the HRE?

Game designers don't care about these academic niceties, they just want a product with lots of interesting items in it, because that's what sells. It's the commercial objective that made them group them like that and that's typical for American consumerist culture. For them "culture" is some quirky cool shit you can turn into a product and sell as "Chinese food", "European history", "Italian pizza".

"the elsass" was germanculture and speaking until the second world war and even now theres a few german speaking people left. So yea alsace wasnt french altho it belonged to french from 17th century and onwards. had to step in because it sounded to me like you were implying that it was french culture altho being part of the HRE, which would be blatantly wrong.

[InsectPoison]

@RefluxSemantic
If they wanted to cut down on the number of civs, they would have made a game with 3 civs, if that was the most pressing issue. Euros, Asians, Natives. That's it. Something like a SC2 with a historical theme and the most minimalistic choice of civs.
Or they could have launched the game with a starting bunch of civs, without representing as much of the world as possible, then add more as DLC, which is how they usually do anyway. Do you really think they're just going to stay with a fixed number of civs and not try to sell some more civs as DLC later? I doubt it.
Duckzilla raised a valid point: is this a game about peoples or countries? Because countries changed a lot throughout history and the French had lots of smaller countries or were part of a bigger Holy Roman Empire at some point. So were those people from Alsacia who were part of the HRE not French? Are they not part of the history of French people because back then they were part of the HRE?

Game designers don't care about these academic niceties, they just want a product with lots of interesting items in it, because that's what sells. It's the commercial objective that made them group them like that and that's typical for American consumerist culture. For them "culture" is some quirky cool shit you can turn into a product and sell as "Chinese food", "European history", "Italian pizza".

"the elsass" was germanculture and speaking until the second world war and even now theres a few german speaking people left. So yea alsace wasnt french altho it belonged to french from 17th century and onwards. had to step in because it sounded to me like you were implying that it was french culture altho being part of the HRE, which would be blatantly wrong.

Its quite amusing when you go on the map and look at Alsace/Lorraine and see all the small towns with German names.

[Dolan]

"the elsass" was germanculture and speaking until the second world war and even now theres a few german speaking people left. So yea alsace wasnt french altho it belonged to french from 17th century and onwards. had to step in because it sounded to me like you were implying that it was french culture altho being part of the HRE, which would be blatantly wrong.

That's the problem with history. When you write the history of Germans or the French, how do you consider those people from the Alsace region? Do you include them in the history of the French or of the Germans?
Because if you write a history of France or Germany, things are a lot clearer. But when you do that for the people, it's not clear where they should be included. Does their current status as French citizens make them French or does their German ancestry make them part of German history? Did those people become part of the history of French people when the Alsace was incorporated in France?

[lordraphael]

"the elsass" was germanculture and speaking until the second world war and even now theres a few german speaking people left. So yea alsace wasnt french altho it belonged to french from 17th century and onwards. had to step in because it sounded to me like you were implying that it was french culture altho being part of the HRE, which would be blatantly wrong.

That's the problem with history. When you write the history of Germans or the French, how do you consider those people from the Alsace region? Do you include them in the history of the French or of the Germans?
Because if you write a history of France or Germany, things are a lot clearer. But when you do that for the people, it's not clear where they should be included. Does their current status as French citizens make them French or does their German ancestry make them part of German history? Did those people become part of the history of French people when the Alsace was incorporated in France?

its not really a problem nowadays as they have clearly assimilated french culture, with some german traits. Buts its also pretty clear that they def belonged to germany prior to ww2 culturally speaking.
Same is the case for loads of places. I mean just look at an ethnicity map pre ww 2. germany got molested in that regard. I know ww 2 and shit, but it doesnt make wrong doings right just because there was a very good reason. 2 million germans died when the "evacuations" and resettlments of inhabitants from the eastern territories happened. literally no one talks about. Im a history teacher and it has been erased from german history books ( can still find it in older ones ) and it probably was never even taught in other nations. 2 millions is not a small number, especially when total number of german inhabitants in the east were estimated at around 12 millions. Thats histoy.

[badger_prince]

Prbly noone talks about it because it is dwarfed by the number of (civilian) deaths inflicted by germany in that conflict.
Afaik it is mentioned in some (semi-modern) history books, cause I did read about it. Also maybe not too many schoolbooks chose to cover the aftermath of ww2 too closely.

And of course two wrongs do not make a right - but I am rather surprised how fast germany has been "forgiven" by the other countries in europe.