Yes, starter decks are a step in the right direction. The worry is despite offering long-needed fixes, this poor performing remaster may still let AOE3’s last chance slip through, all while the clock increments toward the eventual shutdown of the original servers.
Ha, I knew one of the factions from the Native American add-on was missing! I just couldn’t remember which one. And it turns out it’s not missing at all, but given some weird name that I assumed was a small European country I would only know if I paid close attention to those tiny patchwork countries in Europa Universalis that eventually get turned into “France” or “Germany”.
Sold! Of course, I was already sold on Age III, so it’s just a matter of seeing what tweaks this “Definitive Edition” has added. I did play a bit tonight just to take a look at the interface, which I guess is fine? I was so used to the old interface that I’m not sure if it’s better and I’m just disoriented because it’s different. But plinking around in a skirmish game felt great. Plus, I leveled China up to level 3. Ding, bitches!
Now to get @Jason_McMaster on board for some head-to-head games.
-Tom
They do have the option to have the old ui. I’m not sure if it is exactly the same or not.
I spectated a game, and there was a slight hitch at the beginning about 15 seconds in where it slowed to a crawl for a few seconds, but after that the performance seemed fine. I did hit a bug though, I got an achievement for revive your fallen explorer because the pov I was observing did that.
Going to work through the Art of War series. Looking at the Historical Battles, I wonder if Algiers is the only one or if others unlock once you complete that one. Seems kind of odd to add the feature and have only 1.
Edit: Watching a video on youtube it does look like more battles show up as you complete them.
so when does it happen
(I still loved Rise of Nations series the most)
RoN for me as well. I enjoyed it and Empire Earth immensely, back in the day.
I remember doing comp stomps in Empire Earth back in 2001/2002 with my buddies. We had to resort to walling off sections of the map as we conquered them. I think one massive game we had to save and resume the next night. I played some Empire Earth 2 a year or 2 ago, and had some fun with that.
It would be nice if they did a Definitive Edition of Rise of Nations, but I imagine it is not likely.
Same! It was some crazy form of bronze age / medieval trench warfare, hah!
My recollection is that the ai was very good at rebuilding in a new location if a villager escaped, but we probably just really sucked at the game. So our solution was to wall off sections as we took them. We had a lot of fun though.
You guys just like seeing me get the shit kicked out of me in Rise of Nations
There is that of course but also RoN is a more multilevel game. AoE looks more like StarCraft to me, it’s all about the economy and resource control. All your microcontrol or even strategic decisions only give a little nudge to the balance of powers. Maybe a simpler game like AoE is better as it gives you some breathing time to appreciate macaque. But I find any RTS VODs of amateur players fascinating. Usually on YouTube any MP game you find has insane micro of people existing on some other plane way above your level of conciousness.
Digital Foundry takes a look back. Very nice.
Kind of neat that even the original AoE3 had actual physics on the cannonballs, and they could bounce off objects.
Definitive Edition (AoE3) has certainly brought some good surprises with it. A new content creator called Aussie Drongo popped up on Youtube with AoE3:DE, kind of filling that Spirit of the Law shaped hole that AoE3 content creation has had. Really gets into the nuts and bolts of some of the game’s maths and\or unexplained systems whilst still keeping the videos towards the short and concise end of the spectrum.
An update to CaptureAge
I have to give props to the AoE3:DE AI, in a skirmish game tonight it actually stole a treasure from me while I was killing the tigers guarding it. Performance felt fine, and I didn’t experience the temporary slowdown at about 30 seconds in that I’ve seen when spectating a game. I need to bump the AI difficulty up a couple levels, because outside the stealing of the treasure it didn’t do much.
Age 3 DE is fun enough, i think. I enjoy it and really aren’t as uptight about it as i thought i would be. It’s still messier and sloppier; there’s much less terrain, skirmishing is much harder, micro is much harder, battles turn into weird scrums where everything on both sides dies. There are so many deck building options it’s functionally infinite. Artillery feels much better than the weird and very game-y “seige” units in Age 2. It looks great, imo. Age 2 still is without a doubt the “definitive” RTS game though.
I will say though… the voice over unit responses and leader quotes are pretty cringe. Compared to the incredible voice overs from Relic games, it’s the thing that feels perhaps the most dated, back in the good old days when the dev would grab Eric in QA for an hour and get him to voice a couple of lines in a hackneyed foreign accent.
I’m hoping that now we will start getting a bit more info about AoE4. I really hope Relic hits it out of the park.
I’ve enjoyed the little bit I’ve played of AoE3. I guess it shows how much of an impact the card + progression system had on the original. The fact you had to level to get cards, and the system was separate for skirmish and mp really turned me off ever really giving it a fair shot I think.
I hated the progression system as well, not the least of which reasons that it seemed impossible to reach the highest tiers without a ton of grind. Frankly the original design seemed premised around the idea that you’re only going to “play” one Civ, and that by grinding out that Civ you’d make it your own. Part of the thing about the Deck Building cards though is that you can give yourself whatever economic bonuses you want, unlike in Age 2 where the eco bonuses are built in. There aren’t, as far as i can remember, any "20%+ stronger ____ " bonuses inherent in a Civ’s innate bonuses like in Age 2 here in 3. So in a sense because of that any civ can sort of be a master of any situation, with the right deck planned. I think that was the idea, anyway, of the original design.
Often that is more controlled for by what card options Civilizations have available to them within their overall deck. Some civilizations will still be innately better at a Water Boom than others due to the cards they have available to them, if you want to focus your deck\strategy down that route. So competitively there is still a clear hierarchy to, for example, “who is better at exploiting water” if you want to get all min-maxy.
It has the advantage of allowing civilizations like Portugal to be strong on water if they want to be, where applicable, without neutering them on landlocked (All Land) maps. The ability to build and select from multiple decks tailored to different situations and map types means great Naval civilizations aren’t automatically a waste on non-water maps since you are not locked into just being great at a water boom strategy. Similar for the AoE3 civilizations that thrive on maps with Trade Posts too, there is a bit more flexibility to civilization specialisations so an AoE3 civ isn’t pigeon-holed into only being viable on a certain map type.
Oddly enough, there are some people who lament everything (card-wise) being unlocked from the beginning with DE since they liked the sense of progression it brought to the game. Typically singleplayer oriented players though, I do not think I’ve seen anyone argue that it wasn’t a great change for multiplayer. So, yeah, some people really love their progression systems apparently.
@legowarrior are you watching any of the King of the Desert 3 matches? Some good games today in the semi-finals.