I really liked northgard, so I’d be curious to see what they could do with an AoE game. My guess is that it would be to different for many people, but would probably be cool
AoE4 tournament going on this morning. So far in the 1st round (Bo1) it is pretty much all French mirror matches.
I must have tuned in after the spate of French mirrors. Been seeing a greater mix of Mongols, English, and the Rus in the streams I have been watching.
Yeah, a few different matchups have popped up now. French - Rus, French - Chinese, HRE - English. Glad some others are popping up. I’ve been watching Memb’s stream so catching whichever games he has on.
Edit: @Malkael ah, they are getting past the 1st round, so now it is Bo3 matches.
Will be interesting to see how people go about their Civ choices for the Bo3 rounds. Should lead to some interesting match ups since you can’t play the same Civ twice if you win a game.
Edit: French mirror matches proving a bit less popular in the Bo3 rounds so far, despite the loser being able to repick the same Civ choice. Now we’ve got the Hundred Years War going on with a spate of France versus England happening in the first game.
I think in general the reason for the dominance of France is that you have to deal with the possibility of getting a water map and the French are very good in general but also at sea, whereas a lot of the other powers are weak at sea.
Anyone know how map selection is occurring? Looking through the aoezone thread and an EGC thread, but I’ve missed mention of it. They really should have built civ and map drafting into the game for the future.
It’s essentially using the typical AoE3 tournament format for map selection and civ choice for Bo3 and Bo5.
The first game is always on Dry Arabia with free choice of civilization for both players. Then the loser of the game gets to pick the next map from a pool of Dry Arabia, Altai, Hill and Dale, High View, and Lipany. If you win a game you can’t repeat that civ choice, while the loser can repeat their civ choice for the next game if they desire to.
It is nice that there are a bunch of folks from other communities taking part instead of just aoe2 players.
It certainly has been interesting to see the cross-pollination of players from the different AoE scenes and predominantly Starcraft 2.
And so far the French as a civ haven’t been absolutely dominating the Bo3 match-ups in terms of victories, which is refreshing.
Oh boy, that final game of the day ended up being a great note to end on. The Top 8 next weekend is going to be exciting, a good mix of RTS backgrounds involved.
Here’s one of the best games from the Round of 256 from yesterday’s Genesis Qualifier. Simtom’s Mongols push TheViper’s French to the limit in a Best of One (Bo1). Hopefully, the third and deciding game between TaToh’s French and Kasva’s Abbasids, from the Round of 16, is uploaded at some point too.
Meanwhile, Len Hafer and Ian Boudreau discussed Age of Empires IV on the latest episode of the Three Moves Ahead podcast.
Edit: Nice, someone uploaded a cast of game three from the Round of 16 between Tatoh and Kasva. This decider to see who progressed into the Top 8 was one of the games of the tournament\day for me.
The quarter-finals of the Genesis Tournament were held today, whittling the field down to the Top 4. Some great games on show, with MarineLord versus TheMista being the highlight of the quater-finals for me. Semi-finals and the grand final are being held tomorrow (Sunday). Best of Five (Bo5) format brought out a lot more Civ variety, and even when the French were deployed they didn’t have a particularly good time against the other factions.
Until today’s quarter-finals are uploaded on Youtube, you can rewatch today’s action via the EGCTV VoD. Also, there is a patch incoming on Monday.
I see that TheViper made it, but Hera didn’t.
90k+ watching AoE4 on Twitch at the moment. 50k is one channel, but still a good amount.
A post-release development roadmap was released for Age of Empires IV today. You can find the full in-depth details over here. As always, dates and such are subject to change during development. They also touch upon feedback they’ve received from fans about customisable hotkeys and such.
Relic also hosted a livestream discussion today about the roadmap, the next patch, some of the upcoming balance changes, etc. One balance change the livestream touched upon was the Dehli Sultanate’s unique tech mechanics. Which can see Delhi take a while to get going, due to the long tech times with just a few scholars built, but then massively spike in power in the late game.
The first major update for the game, the winter update, is coming next week. Been having lots of fun playing the game so eager to see what the full update contains. HRE prelets no longer bugging out if pushed around by something is going to be a god-send.
I’m still trying to get my mind around the fact that there is a new Age of Empires game and people are playing it. I really should buy it one of these days.
It’s on Game Pass if you don’t want to shell out the $60 but want to give it a spin.
After sinking over 100 hours into it, definitely a very rough diamond in need of more polishing. On the plus side, there is the solid foundation there for a great game if Microsoft and Relic can support it in timely enough fashion. Player base dropped off a bit since the release hype thanks to some of the issues but it’s still managing to pull in decent numbers on the Steam charts, plus whoever is playing via GamePass, in spite of AoE2:DE’s continual looming existence.
Speaking of which, should be a new patch deploying this month and the ranked seasons mode is going into a closed beta period ahead of launch later on this year. Here’s hoping the patch manage to keep the new bugs to a minimum and fixes many of the issues that exist. Hard to get a gauge for where some civilizations sit within the game’s balance if a large chunk of their design is bugged (i.e., Delhi Sultanate). I’ll be glad when the HRE’s spears can finally brace again, that makes a major difference to how effectively Spearmen counter Knights\Lancers in the game.
That said, still been enjoying watching the tournaments that have been organised for AoEIV so far. The grand final, a best of seven (Bo7) format, of the 3v3 Pro League tournament is being hosted today on Twitch.