AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

Post by RefluxSemantic »

Mitoe wrote:Surprised no one is talking about the information in the virtual village on ageofempires.com yet.
For those who haven't checked this out yet, there is some interesting information in there. Here's the link: https://fanpreview.ageofempires.com/
The British
The Chinese
The Mongols
The Delhi Sultanate
This really excites me. It confirms my suspicion that they are creating a sort of hybrid between aoe2 and aoe3. The core gameplay seems to be similar to aoe2 - and I think I actually prefer that - but they seem to have incorporated elements similar to aoe3 in terms of how unique civs are and the availability of strategic decisions. Instead of home city shipments, it seems like there are unique 'landmarks' that serve a similar role to wonders. I feel like that should give plenty of strategic depth and build order variety. Based on the Delhi Sultanate, research and research time might play a more relevant role in the game? Interested to see how this turns out, but I'm really optimistic about this. I feel like they present a solid foundation to build an interesting RTS upon.
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

Post by Jerimuno »

I feel like based on the wording there might be a sort of tech tree for research to unlock e.g. special abilities of units during a game. Stuff like scholars for the delhi sultanate makes me think that
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

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Post by RefluxSemantic »

Jerimuno wrote:I feel like based on the wording there might be a sort of tech tree for research to unlock e.g. special abilities of units during a game. Stuff like scholars for the delhi sultanate makes me think that
Yes I get a similar impression. I think I like it, it's maybe not what I'm used to but tech/skill trees are usually a very interesting in other games. Maybe this will actually be similar to home cities? Where instead of gaining experience to ship stuff from your home city, you gain research points to research technologies. It could make it so that you get technologies that primarily focus on changing or improving gameplay, rather than just using it to get more units or resources like in aoe3 (still interesting, but I feel like the system could be even more interesting).

Maybe I'm being biased and this is wishful thinking, but it actually would make a lot of sense to me. This would honestly be my dream for aoe4. Aoe2's gameplay combined with Aoe3's civ diversity and home city mechanic. I am getting more and more excited now.
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

Post by Dolan »

RefluxSemantic wrote:I don't necessarily think they want to do that, but I get the feeling that they want the map to be more than a visual decoration; because in terms of combat, that's essentially what it is in the franchise.
Not really. In classic AOE in which there isn't any three-dimensional component of combat, there is a two-dimensional one, in the sense that you have to play around map obstacles, chokes, cliffs, TPs, tree clumps. So I wouldn't say that the map is mostly decoration, using obstacles to your advantage has been a core AOE mechanic since the first installment.
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

Post by RefluxSemantic »

Dolan wrote:
RefluxSemantic wrote:I don't necessarily think they want to do that, but I get the feeling that they want the map to be more than a visual decoration; because in terms of combat, that's essentially what it is in the franchise.
Not really. In classic AOE in which there isn't any three-dimensional component of combat, there is a two-dimensional one, in the sense that you have to play around map obstacles, chokes, cliffs, TPs, tree clumps. So I wouldn't say that the map is mostly decoration, using obstacles to your advantage has been a core AOE mechanic since the first installment.
I get why you'd think that, but I think that in practice you don't actually play around map obstacles or anything. You just go somewhere and then have a fight. Especially in aoe3 the map might as well be empty. It wouldn't really make a big difference in terms of combat.
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Latvia harcha
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

Post by harcha »

No, it comes in to play. Even in AOE3 you will play around obstacles like forests or hills or TP sockets or mines or buildings, because those things affect how effectively your composition will do in the fight. All of those things affect pathing.

Recently I also started believing that the hill in Arctic Territories might have tangible effect in military exchanges too, I might just be going insane tho.
POC wrote:Also I most likely know a whole lot more than you.
POC wrote:Also as an objective third party, and near 100% accuracy of giving correct information, I would say my opinions are more reliable than yours.
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

Post by RefluxSemantic »

harcha wrote:No, it comes in to play. Even in AOE3 you will play around obstacles like forests or hills or TP sockets or mines or buildings, because those things affect how effectively your composition will do in the fight. All of those things affect pathing.

Recently I also started believing that the hill in Arctic Territories might have tangible effect in military exchanges too, I might just be going insane tho.
If it does play a role, it's very very rare. Most battles are just straightforward. There are a few maps with some built in obstacles, but usually people don't really bother that much with it and it definitely doesn't offer any depth.
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

Post by harcha »

It plays a role nearly every time I go into matchmaking and get to age 3. Since it's random unlike SC2 maps, it doesn't add as much depth, but it's still there. Stuff like this can and does decide games.
POC wrote:Also I most likely know a whole lot more than you.
POC wrote:Also as an objective third party, and near 100% accuracy of giving correct information, I would say my opinions are more reliable than yours.
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Nauru Dolan
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

Post by Dolan »

There was that EP map with some lakes in the middle. From what I could see in tourneys and on streams, lots of fights were basically the result of one opponent baiting the other to go through that middle choke or occupying that spot to control where the opponent's troops could path. Some even made warships there and with the range advantage they could extend the area from which they could do damage without taking damage. Then the opponent had to go around it to raid or attack, or attack that middle stronghold.
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

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harcha wrote:It plays a role nearly every time I go into matchmaking and get to age 3. Since it's random unlike SC2 maps, it doesn't add as much depth, but it's still there. Stuff like this can and does decide games.
If you have any serious games where this plays a huge factor, show them to me.
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

Post by Dolan »

@RefluxSemantic
Just think of all New England games, it's all about playing around the chokes, the lakes and the TP line.
Same for Saguenay, that EP map with two huge cliffs in the middle (the one similar to PD), Andes, even GP with its ponds and tree clumps.
Nats villages have been a major source of cringe when units got stuck in them, so you had to play around them to make sure you don't get 15 naginatas stuck in a nat TP.
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

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RefluxSemantic wrote:
harcha wrote:It plays a role nearly every time I go into matchmaking and get to age 3. Since it's random unlike SC2 maps, it doesn't add as much depth, but it's still there. Stuff like this can and does decide games.
If you have any serious games where this plays a huge factor, show them to me.
have you never seen a big cav mass lose to FP/yumi simply because of not being able to get on top of them? i thought you watch aoe streams
POC wrote:Also I most likely know a whole lot more than you.
POC wrote:Also as an objective third party, and near 100% accuracy of giving correct information, I would say my opinions are more reliable than yours.
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

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harcha wrote:
RefluxSemantic wrote:
harcha wrote:It plays a role nearly every time I go into matchmaking and get to age 3. Since it's random unlike SC2 maps, it doesn't add as much depth, but it's still there. Stuff like this can and does decide games.
If you have any serious games where this plays a huge factor, show them to me.
have you never seen a big cav mass lose to FP/yumi simply because of not being able to get on top of them? i thought you watch aoe streams
If it happens so frequently you should easily be able to show this. And not the building placement being the factor, but actual map geometry.
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

Post by harcha »

every cliff map limits the angles from which you can attack. this makes cornering enemy harder but walling easier and more effective. it also makes skirmisher/cannon compositions better highlighting the importance of range advantage, as melee units are harder to make use of since cliff/obstacle reduces surface area of nearby units. not sure why you need this typed out, it's quite simple to see for yourself.

the difference of open vs cliff map changes what composition you chose as unit usefulness changes
POC wrote:Also I most likely know a whole lot more than you.
POC wrote:Also as an objective third party, and near 100% accuracy of giving correct information, I would say my opinions are more reliable than yours.
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

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Post by Goodspeed »

I think Jerom is just being a little hyperbolic and this is ultimately a disagreement about the amount of impact map layout has on games. Of course it has impact in AoE3, but much less than in other RTS and, notably, probably much less than in AoE4.
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

Post by howlingwolfpaw »

Exciting to see units like fire lancers.... what other surprises will there be.
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

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harcha wrote:every cliff map limits the angles from which you can attack. this makes cornering enemy harder but walling easier and more effective. it also makes skirmisher/cannon compositions better highlighting the importance of range advantage, as melee units are harder to make use of since cliff/obstacle reduces surface area of nearby units. not sure why you need this typed out, it's quite simple to see for yourself.

the difference of open vs cliff map changes what composition you chose as unit usefulness changes
So I watched this entire game, and I don't see how terrain made a relevant impact here. I see two players effectively ignoring the terrain entirely, simply taking fights as if the terrain is not there, and in the rare few scenarios where the pathing is such that some trees make it slightly more difficult, it just looks like a tiny inconvenience if anything. Doesn't this prove my point? I just looked at 26 minutes of people walking armies through 'forests' as if these didn't even exist and had to really try to find maybe 2-3 engagements where some trees made a tiny difference in army pathing.

Yes of course it still has some impact and there are some specific maps that specifically designed some choke points (which hasn't really been good gameplay tbh), but I feel like the general point I'm making is that in general gameplay the map layout just doesn't really matter and it could as well be empty. I feel like this video confirms that, with two players pretending like the map is actually empty and just running in or through trees or specifically not bothering to put their units in tree for cover. It has an impact, sure, but that impact seems really small at best and it seems really clear that at least in this example the players didn't really play around the trees a whole lot.

anyways, it's just semantics at this point. I feel completely justified in saying that in the overwhelming majority of fights you take the map geometry is mostly ignored, and I feel even more justified in saying that in the overwhelming majority of army movement players really don't care if they're walking through a bunch of trees or anything. I'd argue that for the most part the game would play the same if all the trees and cliffs were just removed from the maps.
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

Post by RefluxSemantic »

I keep looking at the animations in the game and I keep being a worried a bit. I think the actual graphics are beautiful and all the screenshots look amazing, but when I see units move around and some of the attack animations (not all though) I feel a slight sense of dread. The archers in particular all look terrible to me.
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

Post by howlingwolfpaw »

I agree some things look a bit off and static. (such as the spear man on the war elephant)
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Actually I'm weirdly conflicted. I think some animations look really good, and some look appaling. For example in the gameplay trailer, I think that British scout cavalry looks just.. bad, the horse seems to be sliding around and that arrow animation is downright comical. But then you look at the swordsmen and the way those fight is particularly realistic and looks really nice imo.

Tbh the more I look in detail, the more I realize that the few bad animations stand out while you don't notice the good ones. For example did anyone notice how amazing the farming animations look? They're cutting down the individual bits of wheat on the farm with a nice animation and carrying that wheat back to a mill in a way that looks good to me. And then in the next scene the way the spears wobble in the moving animation looks really realistic. Then in the next fight, you see the spearmen and swordsmen which look great, but the cavalry seems to be sliding around again and the arrows don't look good to me (they're a bit too large maybe, but the place from which the arrows spawn looks particularly bad). In some later big fights I think the animations are really nice and crisp, especially that large fight between the imperial chinese and mongols looks stunning to me. And then you have the elephants and them attacking the buildings is terrible, but then when going through those bits in 0.25x speed, I notice that there seems to be an animation of the guy on the elephant attacking a spearman to the side of the elephant with his own spear and it honestly looks really nice again.

I feel like the arrow trajectory and size is something that could be tweaked. The arrows spawn below the bows for some reason, and they are comically large (though maybe this plays more nicely, I feel like it's overkill though). But maybe that's actually an easy fix. The other bit is that some of the cavalry units seem to have janky movement, but some of the cavalry movement looks pretty nice so that should not be too hard to fix I suppose. Some other animations are actually stunning and I'm realizing that I'm noticing the few weird ones more, maybe partially because most of the stuff actually looks good.
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

Post by howlingwolfpaw »

All that detail, and no crew for siege weapons... its a let down for me and a step backwards, the Chinese nest of bees look so funny not having crew. Yet in the packing of siege weapons there are little tid bits of animations in orange. Seems odd to have that detail, but no crew operating them.

The arrows are too big.
I know they want to keep things for easy reference so some of the weapons are pretty big, but I think bows just being a little over sized with correct arrows would be enough to satisfy all wants.
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

Post by RefluxSemantic »

howlingwolfpaw wrote:All that detail, and no crew for siege weapons... its a let down for me and a step backwards, the Chinese nest of bees look so funny not having crew. Yet in the packing of siege weapons there are little tid bits of animations in orange. Seems odd to have that detail, but no crew operating them.

The arrows are too big.
I know they want to keep things for easy reference so some of the weapons are pretty big, but I think bows just being a little over sized with correct arrows would be enough to satisfy all wants.
I was thinking about the manned siege. Tbh I think maybe from a gameplay perspective it's just superior. I know it looks a little strange from time to time but on the other hand I'm honestly never bothered by it in aoe2. In aoe3 they went the realism route, and it kinda makes the cannons have to be super slow to look realistic. It makes artillery much less fun to use in aoe3 compared to siege in aoe2, so I suppose I'm okay with this concession.
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

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Post by Kaiserklein »

Map layout is actually huge in aoe 3 fights lol. There are some super chokey maps where hand cav just becomes much worse. Similar stories regarding trees. Hugging a cliff or river with 2 falcs is also just huge. I can't even count how many games were lost due to a player engaging a fight in a bad spot.

Even just having "corners" (think about the top of manchuria with the cliff and border of the map) can lose you the game. It makes it much riskier to push there as you just get trapped. While i.e high plains is much more open so you never really get cornered and can usually just kite your way out.

Maybe the effects maps have on fights aren't the most "creative" or "interesting", but they totally do play a role regardless.
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

Post by howlingwolfpaw »

I went back to look at some archers and played at .25 speed. It seems the bow draw back is not aligned with the arm draw back, and the arrows fire and then a frame or 2 later the string is released. In the villagers that fired arrows, well the bow string does not even move at all.

The melee sword units look pretty good though. There are some really nice things with cavalry in that in normal riding they hold the lances up high, but then when in range of enemies drop the tips for a charge.

AOE 3 was masterful in how they did cannons in my mind. I am not sure what you mean by slower, if they want a 6 sec ROF then than gives them so many frames to do a reload animation, having things just appear works, but is not inline with the depth they are giving the game in all the atmospheric perspective (love watching those elephants come out of the mist) and other fine details (like how you can practially see the weave in the elephants top blanket design). It won't cause me to not enjoy the game, but it would have added a lot more to it in a complete holistic way. It just feels like its missing something to be a perfect masterpiece.
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Re: AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

Post by harcha »

RefluxSemantic wrote:
harcha wrote:every cliff map limits the angles from which you can attack. this makes cornering enemy harder but walling easier and more effective. it also makes skirmisher/cannon compositions better highlighting the importance of range advantage, as melee units are harder to make use of since cliff/obstacle reduces surface area of nearby units. not sure why you need this typed out, it's quite simple to see for yourself.

the difference of open vs cliff map changes what composition you chose as unit usefulness changes
So I watched this entire game, and I don't see how terrain made a relevant impact here. I see two players effectively ignoring the terrain entirely, simply taking fights as if the terrain is not there, and in the rare few scenarios where the pathing is such that some trees make it slightly more difficult, it just looks like a tiny inconvenience if anything. Doesn't this prove my point? I just looked at 26 minutes of people walking armies through 'forests' as if these didn't even exist and had to really try to find maybe 2-3 engagements where some trees made a tiny difference in army pathing.

Yes of course it still has some impact and there are some specific maps that specifically designed some choke points (which hasn't really been good gameplay tbh), but I feel like the general point I'm making is that in general gameplay the map layout just doesn't really matter and it could as well be empty. I feel like this video confirms that, with two players pretending like the map is actually empty and just running in or through trees or specifically not bothering to put their units in tree for cover. It has an impact, sure, but that impact seems really small at best and it seems really clear that at least in this example the players didn't really play around the trees a whole lot.

anyways, it's just semantics at this point. I feel completely justified in saying that in the overwhelming majority of fights you take the map geometry is mostly ignored, and I feel even more justified in saying that in the overwhelming majority of army movement players really don't care if they're walking through a bunch of trees or anything. I'd argue that for the most part the game would play the same if all the trees and cliffs were just removed from the maps.
Whatya mean didn't play around that? I was forced to take the long route to get to the other side of his base multiple times over simply because I couldn't walk there straight. Meanwhile he takes the short route meaning that I can't afford to split my army as he can be in 2 places at once.
POC wrote:Also I most likely know a whole lot more than you.
POC wrote:Also as an objective third party, and near 100% accuracy of giving correct information, I would say my opinions are more reliable than yours.

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