He’s also a staff member on our Warcraft III team…
Here is one answer to the question: why? I just reached the first Egyptian mission. Its like emerging from the underworld into the scorpian king. Cool.
The AOM campaign is very good, if not Geryk quality. I’d rank it up there with the WC3 campaign.
LOL… but now that you mention it, that is a bit odd. Hey Xemu, why don’t the villagers autho-hunt the next walrus when they’re done with last one? :)
Glad to see that Mr Fixit Online covers Age of Mythology, by the way. You guys made some excellent reference material for Age of Kings, and I see you’ve already been hard at work and made some new spreadsheets for AOM. Thanks!
I’m about 5 or 6 missions into the first campaign (not the tutorial!)… its kind of boring.
I’m really sick of the same rts single player campaigns. Developers have to take notice of WBC2 to make some sort of strategic shell outside of the same old rts battle by adding some sort of continuity for the player. Even Earth 2150 sorta had this. I’m just sick of plain jane campaigns in rts games… there could be so much more. Actually it looks like only games like Warrior Kings Celtic Kings or somesuch kings are games that try to add more to the usual rts campaign…
WBC2 is still the best in terms of campaigns… its just the openended stuff I love.
etc
Thanks, Christoph :).
There’s a simple answer to why the villagers won’t auto-hunt the walrus, and it was a design choice and not a bug. If you assign a villager to hunt anything that fights back, like a walrus, it won’t start attacking the next one automatically because you might end up losing villagers. For example, if you attacked the first walrus with 6 villagers, one would be near death, unless you micromanaged it and ran it away from the walrus after firing the first shot. If you are unlucky, the same villager would get targeted by the next walrus and you are down a villager; this is practically game over in close matches. Worse would be if you had re-tasked some of the hunters to wood or gold, leaving only a couple on walrus. If they attacked the walrus automatically, they would probably both die, which would be a disaster :D.
If you are unlucky, the same villager would get targeted by the next walrus and you are down a villager; this is practically game over in close matches.
And this is my biggest complaint with the game. Losing one villager shouldn’t cost me the match. Ever.
Resource collection in RTS games is bothersome to me. I’m not against resources because that adds a needed strategic element to these games, but why do we need all the fuss with peons and multiple resource types? Why are we required to micromanage resource collection? In a fast-paced game with dozens of units, shouldn’t the amount of required micromanagement be kept to an absolute minimum? I want to focus on building and managing my army and defenses.
I know I’ve said this before, but I think TA Kingdoms had the best model. You had a finite number of mana nodes, so there was a great advantage in controlling them, but to collect resources all you did was build a structure on them and then leave them alone. It was clean and simple and required virtually no additional management, yet none of the strategic depth of acquiring and protecting resources was stripped from the game.
Well, murph, this is exactly the same situation as you have in any head-to-head game, and not something unique to AoM. If you are playing someone of equal skill and you take a significant hit through bad luck, chances are that you will lose the game. If you lose a villager early on in AoM, say when you have only ten villagers, that’s a tenth of everything you have gone. If you are careful, you should never lose a villager at this stage of the game. Later on the villagers are more at risk, but the expense of losing one of them is not so great that it will cost you the game. In every competitive game you can play there will be elements of luck which can cost you the game, that have absolutely nothing to do with your abilities. I know that Ensemble have put a lot of effort into reducing that luck element to a negligible level, and from playing AoM all the way through the beta at a pretty high level of competition, I can say that is one area where they have succeeded in their aims.
And this is my biggest complaint with the game. Losing one villager shouldn’t cost me the match. Ever.
I think Tim has made more of it than it is. You’re unlikely to lose a game of Age of Mythology by having one villager die. However, his explanation of walrus hunting is dead on. You don’t want them to auto-hunt the next one because there is a chance that you’d task just a couple to hunt them and they’d both be dead after trying to do so.
That said, it’s very easy to hunt multiple walrus. Build a granary nearby (or have an Ox Cart with your vills when you lasso them) and then shift click on each walrus in succession. The villagers will kill the first walrus, get all the food from it, then kill the second walrus, get all its food, etc. I did this last night with walrus and boars and it works perfectly. Just don’t forget to send an Ox Cart along if you’re playing Norse.
Resource collection in RTS games is bothersome to me. I’m not against resources because that adds a needed strategic element to these games, but why do we need all the fuss with peons and multiple resource types? Why are we required to micromanage resource collection? In a fast-paced game with dozens of units, shouldn’t the amount of required micromanagement be kept to an absolute minimum? I want to focus on building and managing my army and defenses.
Which if you played Age of Mythology before you started questioning all of this, you’d know that’s mostly the case. The game does not reward the creation of 50 or more villagers like Age of Kings did. Lee and I beat two comparable players last night in a 2v2 team game. The stats told the tale when it was done. We both were only in the Heroic Age when it ended while our opponent was in Mythic. We both had less vills than the other two players. Finally, I lost more units than everyone except the stronger of the two opponents we played against. However, I was the one that cracked the egg and knocked out one of our opponent’s town halls, twice, while Lee put a ton of pressure on the aqua player.
I didn’t spend my time managing villagers. I got them doing what they needed to do, I shift clicked all of their orders into queue and I maybe spent a total of 30 seconds reassigning them as the game wore on. AoM always plays a sound and gives you a banner to click when vills are standing around doing nothing. It takes a maximum of five seconds to reassign them and you’ve got that time during a fight to do this. More than enough time in fact…
AoM definitely does not hinge on production bonuses nearly as much as the other games in the series. Yeah, if you suck at creating an economy (and my guess is that most people that complain about it suck at it), you’re going to lose. It’s part of the game and you’ve got to learn how to get some resources. But it’s part of the game dynamics. Not only do you have to fight the battles, you have to support your army. In the case of most RTS games, that means building units to replace those that die. It takes nothing away from the strategy of fighting the battles. Lee was complimented when the game ended on his mix of units and how the aqua player couldn’t crack his defenses because he did such a good job of countering. We were the first on the offensive and when we attacked, we were sure to hurt their production. But after that first battle, I was completely exposed and so was Lee. The counterattack materialized but we fought it on ground away from our towns. That’s a crucial thing to do in any RTS. You don’t want the guy in your production center and it’s up to you to keep them out.
Anyway, before you go putting down AoM because you have to create an economy, watch some replays from competent players and see how it’s done. If you can learn how to get your economy rolling early in the game, when you’re supposed to be paying attention to it, you’ll find out it means a lot less to your game as the fighting begins. Your biggest problem with economy in the later game is making sure you don’t let anyone attack your town and kill too many vills. That’s easy to prevent by being focused on winning from the start and getting on the offensive rather than trying to play a defensive game. And if you’re desperate to bulid pretty castles, then make sure you build good walls but expect to be overrun eventually if you don’t go on the offensive. The hardest lesson to learn in RTS games is to be aggressive. It’s much easier to sit back and watch because these games are fun to look at. You’ve got to attack.
A great comment on the MrFixit board noted that too much automation of villagers would turn the game into Dungeon Siege and that’s largely true. You need something to do. You’re not there to watch, you’re there to both conquer AND build. That’s what makes RTS games what they are when they fall directly into the genre. I’ve said this before on these boards…if you don’t want to build, play Myth.
–Dave
Great tip, I didn’t realise you could queue up hunting targets! In that case I agree that it’s safer to not let the unit AI auto-hunt walrus. (walruses? walrusi? walroi?)
Though I guess one could complain about Ensemble’s strange fascination with ultra-powerful game that kills spear-carrying hunters with a single swipe of the tusk… 
A great comment on the MrFixit board noted that too much automation of villagers would turn the game into Dungeon Siege and that’s largely true. You need something to do. You’re not there to watch, you’re there to both conquer AND build. That’s what makes RTS games what they are when they fall directly into the genre. I’ve said this before on these boards…if you don’t want to build, play Myth.
I agree, I’ve never understood the complaints about having to herd peons and run an economy in RTS games. How is that any different from having to herd soldiers and conduct a war? It’s just another aspect of the game, and one that I enjoy very much. Only slinging combat units against each other gets boring after a while IMO. I guess that’s why I could never work up any interest for Myth or TA.
“if you don’t want to build, play Myth.”
Building is quite different from babysitting peons. I can be fully occupied with the build-attack-defend process. Having to direct peons just isn’t interesting. It’s busy work.
Building is quite different from babysitting peons. I can be fully occupied with the build-attack-defend process. Having to direct peons just isn’t interesting. It’s busy work.
You just don’t get it…it’s not like playing with Legos. You can’t just plop down structures, something needs to do that. To get the resources to create those structures, something needs to do that. I just don’t get you, Mark. You complain about the fundamentals of just about every game or genre you play. I don’t see how it could be more clear that you just don’t enjoy games that much. If you think the villagers in AoM are busywork, you’re obviously not interested in learning how to play the game. They’re an integral part of how the game works. It’s an abstraction of real-life war…you need civilians at home to build your infrastructure to conquer your opponent. How much simpler can it get other than turning it into what you should clearly enjoy, Myth, which eliminates the need to build anything?
Maybe you should play the Earth 2150 games. They let you set a resource amount per minute or a fixed number of resources and then go fight. The problem is I found that to be really dull. It removed the importance of creating something tangible that could be converted into either guns or more butter. If you don’t like the genre, just forget about it. The villagers in AoM are not about busywork, they’re about creating an economy to support your war. Like I said in my mammoth post above, you spend so little time managing them once you’ve got your economy rolling that it’s simply not an issue. It wasn’t an issue for me in Age of Kings, it wasn’t an issue in Battlecry 1 and 2… in fact, the last game it WAS an issue in for me was Warcraft II. AI and unit queueing has come a long way since then and today it’s been no big deal.
Just for the record, are you even playing Age of Mythology? Have you played the game at all?
–Dave
It seems the fine line between “busywork” and “actual gameplay” is hard to pin down, and varies somewhat from gamer to gamer…
I can tolerate extreme levels of micromanagement in some games, but in others even a slight amount is enough to make me stop playing. It’s difficult to pin down what is “acceptable” and what isn’t, but teh Age series has wound up in the bin time after time. I’m loving AoM for the campaign and some single skirmish, but playing it online? Don’t think so.
“I didn’t spend my time managing villagers. I got them doing what they needed to do, I shift clicked all of their orders into queue and I maybe spent a total of 30 seconds reassigning them as the game wore on.”
Why does the game need them in the first place? Why can’t you simply build a tree processing building next to a forest and have it automagically harvest the forest? Same with gold, oil, uranium, fairy dust or whatever resources are in the game? Is the game better because you have to create and assign tasks to peons?
TA Kingdoms is nothing like Myth, btw. It’s a very tradtional RTS that follows the harvest/build/attack formula. The harvesting is just simplified, which I see as a good thing, since the process of collecting resources in and of itself isn’t particulary interesting in these games.
Dave, I think he gets it. He just doesn’t like it.
“Maybe you should play the Earth 2150 games. They let you set a resource amount per minute or a fixed number of resources and then go fight. The problem is I found that to be really dull. It removed the importance of creating something tangible that could be converted into either guns or more butter. If you don’t like the genre, just forget about it.”
You misunderstand me. I like RTS games. I like it that RTS games often hinge on building and expanding your little toy empire. I like it that the grab for neutral resources is usually key in these games. All of this is unlike Myth (which I also liked).
I just don’t like it that creating and directing a small platoon of peons is necessary. I think it’s needless and adds nothing but busywork to these games, unless you happen to delight in watching your little toy people scurry around with bundles of wood in their arms. I can see a kind of charm in that, but I’d rather have my automagic woodmill harvesting silenty and steadily for me. I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I am a mighty warlord, and I have better things to worry about!
(Even if managing the grunts only takes me 30-60 seconds a game, in an RTS game against other players, that’s a LOT of time.)
TA Kingdoms is nothing like Myth, btw. It’s a very tradtional RTS that follows the harvest/build/attack formula. The harvesting is just simplified, which I see as a good thing, since the process of collecting resources in and of itself isn’t particulary interesting in these games.
Uh…I know exactly what TA Kingdoms is like. I have two copies of that game. Yes, it was unique in that it used single capture points for resources, but it requires almost the same amount of micromanagement as AoK…more if you consider you need different units to build different structures and you’re still micromanaging all of that. When was the last time you played TA:Kingdoms? It’s a good game, but it’s got a lot of the same stuff you’re complaining about.
Your point (if you have one) isn’t a good one. You seem to think you must move individual villagers around a map one at a time while worrying about fighting. This simply isn’t the case in Age of Mythology and you didn’t answer me either…have you played it?
As for harvesting and collecting resources, since it’s crucial to the gameplay, even in TA Kingdoms, it is absolutely interesting as a dynamic of play. Without it, you’ve got nothing to base your army on and you’re right back at Myth. You’re just not making sense. The appeal of an RTS is the combination of creating/supporting/fighting. In Age of Mythology, you create units for both support and combat. There are interesting decisions to be made on random map types as to what you use for your economic growth and when. Combine those with hard decisions on whether to upgrade economic growth or military power via bonuses to each and you’ve got a lot of very interesting decisions you’ve got to make in the course of play. The two are tied together and equally important to the game.
Even in Kohan, where I’d argue you spend even MORE time messing around with economy due to the need to hit each city regularly to change or create new resource types, you’re spending time managing your economy. But it’s all part of playing the game and tied together with the combat. Kohan actually goes the other way and makes it almost too easy to fight by having you spend a lot less time managing troops because of companies. Without economic needs and the management thereof, the RTS loses its identity and becomes like Myth which is mission based. I don’t want to play missions.
I don’t know why I bother, it’s like talking to a brick wall. Since you’re not noting anything from Age of Mythology in your posts, I have to assume you haven’t played it. So it gets harder and harder to take the discussion seriously when you clearly have no idea whether the game in question really contains a ton of micromanagement of villagers or not.
–Dave
I just don’t like it that creating and directing a small platoon of peons is necessary. I think it’s needless and adds nothing but busywork to these games, unless you happen to delight in watching your little toy people scurry around with bundles of wood in their arms. I can see a kind of charm in that, but I’d rather have my automagic woodmill harvesting silenty and steadily for me. I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I am a mighty warlord, and I have better things to worry about!
They vills are key to your economy. You must protect them from harm. They aren’t there to watch, they’re there to work. If you’re watching them, you’re dead.
I’d much rather have a mobile group of resource harvesters than some building that once it’s dead, the game is effectively over. That doesn’t work for gameplay purposes and it’s exactly the reason people hated TA:Kingdoms. Once your places of mana generation were one less than your opponents, it was game over.
–Dave