Why isn’t there a hotkey to jump to native settlements?
Why can’t I tell what a native settlement gives me before I build a trading post?
Why does the TC hotkey use a different convention than the other building hotkeys?
Why isn’t there a hotkey for the explorers’ abilities?
Why isn’t there a hotkey for the bombard abilities for boats?
Why isn’t there a hotkey for healing?
Why are my healers running into the front line of combat to whack away with their polite 5-point hand attacks?
Why can’t I assign a control group number to a building?
Why do I have to jump to a building when I hotkey it if I just want to queue up reinforcements while still paying attention to a battle?
Why can’t I give a rally point for units trained from a galleon?
Why can’t I see on the minimap where the rally points are for my buildings?
Why can’t I use the minimap to give an attack move?
Why can’t I include formations in order queues, specifically to limber and unlimber arty?
Why aren’t there hotkeys for formations? Does Ensemble think I like tabbing and clicking little icons?
Why isn’t there an easier way to sort out wounded units?
Why can’t I see the training time for various units?
Why can’t I tell what it means when something available to all nations is supposed to be the “best unit” for a particuarly nation? What distinguished a Portuguese musketeer from a non-Portuguese musketeer?
Why isn’t there more info about formations and what they do? Am I supposed to manually check their stats to see how they change?
Why isn’t there any info available on units before they’re built, particularly units we’d rarely get to use like merc cards and natives?
Why isn’t there any info available on gather rates for different sources?
Why is something as important as gather rate strictly under the hood?
Why can’t I give settlers an attack move?
Why can’t I see and compare each side’s governors somewhere?
Why can’t I tell what the unique church techs are for each side?
Why is the arsenal such a weird little superfluous building?
Why can’t I look at my opponent’s home city (deck) during a game, but I can look at it before a game?
Why don’t you let us know whether the TC’s attack capability improves with multiple garrisoned villagers, as I’ve been told it does by people who would know?
Why don’t you tell us that docks garrisoned fishing boats can fight?
Why can’t we set different delivery points for military and economic shipments, but we can set different rally points?
Why isn’t there a hotkey for the TC’s alarm bell when you guys at Ensemble know damn well that I’m going to be frantically slapping the Z key whenever someone raids my villagers?
Why can’t I see the cost for a proposed wall layout?
Why isn’t there a hotkey for flares?
Why does the minimized UI cut off important info about a unit?
Why can’t I mix up formations among the same group of the same units? Becuase you know when I’ve got nothing but a bunch of Janissaries I’m going to want some of them in hand-to-hand mode and some firing their guns?
Why is there a limited number of pauses in a multiplayer game and why is it 14?
Why isn’t the speed variable during a game and why can’t I change it at all in the campaign games?
Why can’t I choose a map size independent of the number of players?
Why can’t I order boats to hold position?
Why isn’t there a patrol movement option?
Why does such a hardcore econ driven game keep so much data under the hood?
Why, oh why, is there still a 50-unit limit on drag selecting that’s particularly a pain in the butt when I’m Russian and struggling to control a hundred strelets?
It’s the formation thing that gets me. Auto-formation is neat and all, but this is the kind of thing that I should be deciding. Besides, if the marching army has to stop, the set up is not likely to be the one that I want.
The data on soldiers’ attack power doesn’t bug me all that much. This is yet another RPS RTS so as long as I know how things roughly stack up I should be fine. Same with training time - that’s a trial and error thing and the fact that I can add two or three more soldiers to a build queue with no extra delay in the final build makes up for it.
I think my biggest complaint is that after the burst of fresh air and joy that Age of Mythology was - radically different factions, dual RPS mechanics, cyclopes throwing elephants - AoE3 returns to the basic blandness of AoK. It’s a very good game, but I can’t help feeling it should be much more.
I don’t hate AoE 3 since i don’t have it yet. We shall see.
But i think the game ably demonstrates RTS developers’ inability to break away from the micro-heavy paradigm favored by younger players. I think it’s clear here Ensemble deliberately made the game in the mold of the previous games simply to appease the seething RTS masses. It’s also apparent they had a few too many design doc changes in midstream development, which left the game feeling more unpolished than any other Ensemble game since AoE1. I gather they set out to make a kind of Kohan-esque/Cossacks cross genre game, but decided such a game wasn’t an Age of X game any longer, scrapped it, and went back to the tired but proven formula.
The problem is that older gamers don’t seem to care much for RTS games, even those that set out especially to reduce the micro burden. RTS games, by their very nature, seem doomed to be driven by younger gamers and their adolescent competitiveness. It seems by the time you’ve stripped the game of all the meaningless micromanagement, either of the economic or military variety, and fleshed out all the interface and other constraining factors, you’ve no longer got an recognisable RTS game.
None of these issues really excuse wrapping the elaborate and innovative Home City in what seems at times such a richly dressed tatterdemalion.
You’ve hit the nail on the head - at least for me. I love RTS games right back to the original C&C but invariable I always play these games single player on the medium or easiest difficulty level. My few online RTS forays have been exercises in frustration as my opponent will often be the min/max type that doesn’t allow me time to build up my cities and technology.
I just cannot cope with the massive amount of micromanagement required to be competitive online in an RTS. I wonder how these guys do it. And yet I have no problem hitting the top of the leaderboard in a modern FPS.
Actually, the arsenal concept certainly dates back to Warcraft, where you have a blacksmith that researches tech to improve units’ attack and defense values.
The problem I have with Age III’s arsenal is that it only has these esoteric techs that seem useless in all but the most rarified situations. They do things like give certain light rifle units a 10% damage bonus against heavy infantry, or they allow artillery to do 25% extra damage to ships.
There’s an advanced arsenal card you can get that lets you build an arsenal in the Colonial Age (age 2) and adds useful techs with a more general application. But without this card, I can’t really see bothering with the arsenal very much.
Most of your complaints are about interface issues, either input or display. Ensemble should be able to fix that in a patch. Sounds like AoE3 should be an excellent buy once the expansion is out…
My game is in the mail now, and as for all the hotkeys and stuff and someone mentioned making a custom interface for the game, this isn’t an ideal option for the likes of me(50 bucks for the keyboard and 20 bucks for the interface keyboards), but i ran across this and right now they are doing a deal where if you buy their keyboard you can get the AOE 3 key interface for free. First link is the offer for the free interface and the second link is the main site.
Oh that is nice, Ill see you a game for 49.95, but Ill sell you a playable version for another 39.95 in 5 months…
There is no excuse for a gimp AI especially with a seasoned company. RoN certainly doesn’t have these issues, and even Generals with its minimal UI do not have these issues either.
Personally I hate micro-manged units, I want to be more of a general then a squad commander. Medics should never run to the front line, and armies should maintain some semblance of order when moving.
All this is ‘old school’ and has been done many times, so there is zero excuse for a modern RTS to not do this unless your intent is to actually make extreem micro part of gameplay. This only works with small armies (read WC3), not where you have 50 or 100 units to micro.
Frankly, the AoE games never impressed me that much. I certainly liked the orginal AoE game, but with each new one I like them less and less because they are just more of the same and never bring anything new to the table.
Really, what was the difference between AoE 2 and AoE 1? Better graphics? Differant spread-sheet values for units?
Whats the difference between AoE 3 and AoE 2? A home city, and ‘cards’. Ok its not just another graphic update, but how much does all this really change gameplay? I can’t say since I only played the demo which left me with a ‘meh’ feeling.
Really, what was the difference between AoE 2 and AoE 1? Better graphics? Differant spread-sheet values for units?
Lots of little tweaks… improved defense (which was unfortunately gameable in the “offensive town-center” strategies)… civ-specific Unique Units… smarter peon AI in The Conquerors… recordable games… higher population limit… extremely powerful Castle buildings that allowed you to control certain portions of the map… extremely powerful (yet extremely slow and vulnerable) siege weapons in the Trebuchets… “better graphics” is not the sin some make it out to be yet I actually think AoE1 looked better in some ways.
Basically AoE2 was a highly polished extension of AoE1’s gameplay and IMO was a very good game circa 1999, though I’m sure many still preferred TA and Starcraft. Whether AoE3 is equally good for the year 2005 is another matter. I’m enjoying it but it does feel a lot like slipping back into the neural grooves I created for AoE2.
The only thing about the zboard keyboard is that it is relatively useless as a “real” keyboard, at least for touch typists. I keep going back and forth between getting that keyboard (and living with two keyboards) or waiting for the Logitech Gaming keyboard, which let’s you attach keyboard combo’s to special keys.
But i think the game ably demonstrates RTS developers’ inability to break away from the micro-heavy paradigm favored by younger players. I think it’s clear here Ensemble deliberately made the game in the mold of the previous games simply to appease the seething RTS masses. It’s also apparent they had a few too many design doc changes in midstream development, which left the game feeling more unpolished than any other Ensemble game since AoE1. I gather they set out to make a kind of Kohan-esque/Cossacks cross genre game, but decided such a game wasn’t an Age of X game any longer, scrapped it, and went back to the tired but proven formula.
Gene, you’re right, but remember that most of the young, snot-nosed microers had a ***-fit when AoM came out, which was all made worse by the introduction of The Titans x-pac with its Titans, Atlanteans and auto-queueing. You should have heard the tantrums and cries out outrage. They basically screamed, “This sucks, bring back AoK!” and then stomped off to whatever micro-heavy RTS they could find.
It just seems that Ensemble has listened to these twits and gone retro with AoE3. I hope it pleases them.
