Official AoE 4 Thread

[Ting]

Dolan still in denial with made up arguments. AoE3 received support for much longer than AoE2 which was ended support just 1 year after first and only expansion with 1.0c patch, which I believe was only the 2nd or 3rd patch in total. It has then flourished with no official support whatsoever on various platforms. The reason for the AoE2 remake wasn't because of a former dev contacting MS with a patch suggestion, I know that discussion from AoKheaven, it was just a thought in the air. It's because of the successful Forgotten Empires mod and number of players still playing AoE2.
As to proof of which game still sells more and has better influx of new players sticking around just see steam sale stats websites and steam forums for each. I mean it's pretty darn obvious already when we play AoE3 theres barely no one new around.

[deleted_user0]

https://wccftech.com/spencer-age-of-emp ... great/amp/

Seems like theyre learning from aoe1 and aoe2, but not aom, aoe3 or aoeo.

[Dolan]

Dolan still in denial with made up arguments. AoE3 received support for much longer than AoE2 which was ended support just 1 year after first and only expansion with 1.0c patch, which I believe was only the 2nd or 3rd patch in total. It has then flourished with no official support whatsoever on various platforms. The reason for the AoE2 remake wasn't because of a former dev contacting MS with a patch suggestion, I know that discussion from AoKheaven, it was just a thought in the air. It's because of the successful Forgotten Empires mod and number of players still playing AoE2.
As to proof of which game still sells more and has better influx of new players sticking around just see steam sale stats websites and steam forums for each. I mean it's pretty darn obvious already when we play AoE3 theres barely no one new around.

It's possible. I have played AOE2 and liked it before I got into AOE3. Actually I first played AOE1 and Rise of Rome, which was distributed freely with some Windows 98SE CDs, I think. That's how I got into the Age series. Then discovered AOE2 and I thought it was neat. When AOE3 came out, at first I had the same reaction like most people who were disappointed: I thought it looked too complicated, some things took so much time to make sense of. Heck I only understood how to play AOE3 after playing for a while PvP. I was completely clueless about how to make a deck or about timings, before watching VODs. So I can understand why for so many people who bought AOE3 at first it all looked so daunting, the game was faster, you lost to AIs much faster if you played even on Normal difficulty. The game was so overwhelming at first, when I started, my only strategy was to look for ways to turtle until I could have access to cannons and shoot from behind walls. And of course, I was only playing island maps, because that was the only map layout that allowed me to boom a bit and wall up before I discovered my base was erased by a huge army of mercs.

So AOE3 didn't look so appealing at first, it was more of a liking you discover gradually, after each gotcha. It's probably the feeling of adversity that kept me going, it was full of obstacles I had to overcome. But for other people, I bet this made them quit the game. I discovered something new about AOE3 every year I played it and I still discover stuff by just looking at how the meta changed and how now everyone is routinely abusing game engine mechanics to get out of tricky situations or get an advantage over the opponent. I had no idea about this stuff like two years ago or I had only a vague idea that things worked this way. And I can say I was very familiar with the game until that moment.

So, it's possible I'm biased, simply because I played AOE3 more than 2 and 1. And as a result of that I wasn't really part of the other communities, I might be missing some information and details you can only perceive if you spent some time immersed in the other contexts.

To your arguments:
AOE2 may sell more today, because as I explained, it has acquired a cult status, thanks to being released during the golden era of RTSs. AOE3 came a bit too late to enjoy that peak era. Even AOM was too late to the party. They just had no chance, even if both were decent and unique games.

[deleted_user0]

[RefluxSemantic]

People don't just play a game for cult status. Ultimately you end up actually playing the game because you enjoy it, and it seems like more people are enjoying aoe2 than aoe3 generally.

[duckzilla]

People don't just play a game for cult status. Ultimately you end up actually playing the game because you enjoy it, and it seems like more people are enjoying aoe2 than aoe3 generally.

Remembering my own experience with AoE3 when it came out, I think that many people started their AoE3 experience by playing the campaign in order to get used to the game before playing online. Since the campaign in AoE3 vanilla is utter shit, all of these potential players were lost right away without ever playing enough of the game to understand and enjoy it.

[Snuden]

People don't just play a game for cult status. Ultimately you end up actually playing the game because you enjoy it, and it seems like more people are enjoying aoe2 than aoe3 generally.

And this puzzles me to great extent. I watched some AoE2 videos recently and came to the conclusion that it is only marginally better than AOEO.

[duckzilla]

People don't just play a game for cult status. Ultimately you end up actually playing the game because you enjoy it, and it seems like more people are enjoying aoe2 than aoe3 generally.

And this puzzles me to great extent. I watched some AoE2 videos recently and came to the conclusion that it is only marginally better than AOEO.

I recently bought aoe2:hd and think it is quite a bit inferior to aoe3. I guess that the definitive edition might become a nice game though.

[Dolan]

People who like AOE2 are typically turtlers. They like that immersive feeling of taking their time to develop their starting town until they get to the point of aging up. Which can take a long while. Age 1 in AOE2 games can take a lot of time, IIRC. If I remember right, there's no fast aging in AOE2. And there are no shipments either, so everything is so much slower. That tells you a lot.

And that's why they don't like AOE3, because age 1 is short and once you reach age 2 you can get rushed before minute 5 and not be able to gather, if you don't take lots of measures to prepare for that. It kinda spoils that immersive feeling of building, turtling, enjoying that Simcity base-building feel of AOE2.

[duckzilla]

Played aoe2 yesterday. Its common to be in age II at ~12min, age III at ~18min and age IV at ~25min.
Note that the time of 18min for age III is already called "fast castle strat".

[Goodspeed]

A typical build order will age up around 10 min game time, which is 6 min irl. AoE2 plays at x1.7 speed on voobly (Iirc x1.5 on HD but no one plays there because the user patch is just better in every way).
So in AoE2 you're aging up about 1 minute later than in AoE3, but importantly there is so much more to do. Having played both games a lot, I have found AoE3's discovery age to be quite boring in comparison and I think you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone with considerable experience in both games who doesn't think so.

Neither is AoE2 a game "for turtlers". Turtling is certainly stronger in AoE2 than it is in AoE3, but this is mostly because the style is pretty much not viable in AoE3 at all (unless you add water). So I get why, as an AoE3 player, AoE2 can seem turtly, but that just shows you are looking at the world through AoE3 tinted glasses and your opinion on the matter is worth exactly nothing.

[Horsemen]

phpBB [video]

Best AoE2 strats

[querty]

It seems like Microsoft is announcing some sort of Aoe content today:

[gamevideo113]

[querty]

Apparently, there wasn't anything prepared for this year's gamescom BUT there will be gameplay footage ready for November:

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-first-age-o ... -november/

[pecelot]

wow, I'm genuinely excited

[querty]

Yeah I mean gameplay footage is huge compared to anything we got so far.

I am not sure how they will make aoe work on an Xbox controller but time will tell...

[pecelot]

that would be a big mistake, AoE4 must come on Steam

[deleted_user]

[RefluxSemantic]

Do you think we might get info on aoe4 at tonights pc gaming show?

[fightinfrenchman]

Do you think we might get info on aoe4 at tonights pc gaming show?

Nope, and do you wanna know why?

[RefluxSemantic]

go ahead

[duckzilla]

Because lots of information on AoE3:DE including a release date are going to be shared?

[fightinfrenchman]

go ahead

Because of Winn-Dixie

[RefluxSemantic]

Sigh