Age of Empires IV

Age of Empires II: African Kingdoms expansion also had the Berbers, who were also Muslims. And Age of Empires III had the Ottomans, who were also Muslims. And Age of Empires II also had the Saracens, who were also Muslim.

I think there is a simple solution to this, @tomchick needs to play more EU 4 and CK 2/3.

Not in Age IV they’re not. This Delhi Sultanate eats pork.

All of whom were allowed to hunt boars, right? Good thing Age IV finally came along!

-Tom

Actually AoE4’s Delhi Sultanate also can’t hunt boars (and has the same bonus foraging from bushes). For AoE3, they dodged the issue by not having any porcines.

Speaking of that, have you tried the new AoE3 DLCs? From the DE release to present they’ve added 5 civs (Swedish, Inca, US, Ethiopians, Hausa), and have at least a couple more in the pipeline (probably Brazilians and Moroccans). The new team is getting bolder and bolder at designing new civs.

Well, they do have that one really extreme mod to compete with for AoE 3. The name escapes me, but it basically threw everything in it, but the kitchen sink.

Ah, I stand corrected. I actually haven’t played them, but that’s cool that Relic was consistent.

Wait, is that true? Were there really no pigs or boars in Age III? Now that you mention it, that does sound right.

I have not, but that’s partly on purpose. I’ve sort of mentally classified them as mods, even though I know that’s not fair. You’ve tried them? Do any of them stand out?

And more on topic, which of the Age IV factions stand out for you guys? Do any of them feel connected to the previous games? For instance, how can you play as France without your couer-de-bois? Where are my free villagers for every English house? Why are Russia’s strelets suddenly so bad-ass when they used to be the equivalent of zerglings? As an Age III player, these factions just seem…so arbitrary.

There’s still a lot I want to sample in Age IV, even though my enthusiasm is cooled. I haven’t tried any of the naval stuff yet (naval presence was a huge element of Age III for how well it interacted with the land stuff). It’s nice to see walls given a prominent place again. I guess I like the idea of collecting artifacts as a more consistent excuse for exploring the map than hunting down pools of resources and free units arranged in cute vignettes.

-Tom

I totally appreciate your enthusiasm for this topic. However, I believe the average player doesn’t really care. And given all the historical quirks, caricatures and implausible mechanics in the game, it personally evades me how historically correct pronunciation could be prioritized over these. It seems like a poor cover at best.

What do you mean by poor cover?

Ah, sorry, if this isn’t clear. What I meant is the inconsistency that arises from 100% correct nuances to ancient dialects and AT THEM SAME TIME grossly inaccurate and implausible mechanics (like e.g. elephants destroying a cathedral made of stone - well at least they can’t destroy a wall equally made of stone).

Russia feel similar to their Age 3 counterparts in subtle ways. Russia has “wood power!” and they used to have shooting barracks which were kind of the same idea. Germans have a bit more armor and two-handed infantry with more defensive buildings, so they’re kind of closer to Age 2 than the Bohemian themed Age 3.

I like that the HRE / Germans have early priests that buff the economy. The Germans “garrison the relic” second age building is a very dramatic income source, close to double the gold in a long game. Russia’s wooden walls are fun. I admit France and Britain are a bit boring but i haven’t stared at them long enough to grok them.

Age 4 is very much about streamlining, let’s call them, annoying bottlenecks for lesser skilled players, where Age 2 is effectively unplayable at even medium skill levels without a ton of micro overhead. The problem about streamlining is (imo) the maps are probably the worst of the series, they’re small and one-dimensional and not near as interesting as they might be, though i guess there is some variety there as well.

Compared to Age 3 i think Age 4 is a “better balanced” game. The problem Age 3 had was that many of its maps were not particularly rigorously balanced… otoh there’s something wacky going on in water maps, and i think water maps are a bit broken in Age 4 as far as food goes.

Maybe the English with their longbows, and the French being focused on cavalry? Those are both similar to their AoE2 counterparts. The Mongols have Mangudai in AoE4, but they are a pretty unique civ with how the civ works in AoE4.

The Mongols are basically Terrans in Starcraft with mobile buildings. But the maps are so small you’re unlikely to need to move significant buildings all that often since there’s nowhere to go. OTOH, moving lumber camps / gathering points is going to be one of their main faction features.

Re: the card system in AoE3. In hindsight I don’t think it was really warranted, but people seemed to think the card system being gated by progression put them at a disadvantage to someone who was further along. To the point that they even created a special map mod so people could max the progression by just joining a game with someone on that map.

It would’ve been interesting to see a card system by itself with perhaps progression like they are doing now in AoE4 with the masteries, and the daily goals.

I also like how they switch up the skirmish presets they offer people as different things to try out.
You could set any of them up yourself in custom game creation, but interesting to see the ideas they
come up with.

I haven’t played every civ yet, but I’ve enjoyed the differences in the ones I have played: English, French, Abbasid Dynasty, Rus, and Holy Roman Empire.

@tomchick , do you think there is any studio out there that would’ve done a better job with AoE4? The choices seemed like they were so limited with basically Blizzard, Petroglyph, and Relic being the only studios out there. While I agree it is a bit underwhelming since they seemed to play it very safe, I am glad they went with Relic over Petroglyph. It will be interesting to see if World’s Edge is actually able to produce a solid entry for the franchise with whatever they end up doing.

I figure this is about the best we could’ve realistically hoped for with a reboot of the franchise.

Petroglyph has such a different idea of what makes RTS games worth playing that they’d be terrible/horrible choice.

Universe at War is a fantastic example of everything wrong and right about that kind of style. I think as 80s kids they have a very “toy store” and “Saturday morning cartoon” approach to unit and game design.

If there’s anything amazing about Age 4 is how faithfully “franchise” it feels.

RTS games are perhaps unique in video games today as perhaps the most driven under the hood by the interactions of game design and rules, and when a game gets that subset of constraints right it’s almost timeless in an abstract sense, like the rules of chess or backgammon.

Have they done anything good since Star Wars: Empires at War? They keep finding work somehow, but everything they do seems unfinished or rather bland.

The other big ones I can think of besides Blizzard, Petroglyph and Relic are Creative Assembly, who have worked with Microsoft already on Halo Wars 2. It could be interesting to see an Age of Empires game from them. But my brief time with Halo Wars 2 is the only RTS I’ve played from Creative Assembly, so I don’t know much about them. (i.e. I’ve never tried the Total War games).

That’s true. I never played Halo Wars 2, but they would’ve been an option.

Robot Entertainment still has some ex-Ensemble people as far as I’m still aware. They could have been a choice.

The next great RTS will likely come from a startup of some kind IMO. Someone will re-invent this genre with just the right combination of the stuff people want from these games in a whole new wrapper of some kind someday.

I mean, there’s still a Homeworld sequel in development isn’t there?