I got this free awhile back and started playing. Because I’m not a young’un anymore, I’ve only played skirmishes with the speed turned WAY down.
I don’t think I ran into the grind, but the game feels/looks A LOT like COH1. I’ve found it fun to play… mainly for the explosions and German-accented cursing but don’t think it’s introduced anything worth playing extensively.
Over the last year or two, they’ve really refined the core gameplay and balance to a level roughly comparable with CoH1. There are obviously still some balance issues that I’ve been griping about here and there, but the first game has the same problems (Wehr going Terror damn near every game, for example).
The grind, though, is brutal if you’re a completionist. If you can get by without having every commander, a number of the basic ones are competitive, and registering at Relic’s website gives you a pile of points that can be used to unlock a couple of commanders to fill gaps if need be. The upcoming batch of community-designed commanders should be free (like the last ones were), and if that’s true then they’ll all be largely competitive as well.
Speaking of Empire Earth, there is a mod, drex mod 2.0, that allows higher resolutions, setting fov, and increasing max zoom.
Read a post by a Relic rep saying the CoH2 grind was there to give players a sense of accomplishment.
I’m sure that DLC commanders and unlock paywalls had nothing to do with it…
If you are inclined, the DLC’s can be purchased from steam directly, and occasionally go on sale. Still expansive, but a single commander for a 1 dollar doesn’t seem out of this world expansive. Just, regular expansive.
But then where would I get my sense of accomplishment?
The only way to get pride and accomplishment today is mobile gaming.
On a more serious note, it’s strange that Age of Empires 3 idea of grind for more tactical options - not necessarily better ones - wasn’t implemented again. Something like that was tried by C&C4 but it all looked like a greedy cashgrab.
Oh god, C&C 4.
It was like Age of Empires Online, but released as a full priced commercial product.
C&C is the only video game series I can think of that got consistently worse with every sequel.
For years I’ve booted Rise of Nations from time to time. I mostly played against AI on Moderate and Tough 2v2. Often campaigns. Felt like a right way to play.
Now I’ve switched to 1v1 Tougher. And it means like it’s really how the game is supposed to be played. Previously AI could rush me but if I survive it’s a relatively straightforward go from there. But not it plays like a proper strategy game. Loss of a city doesn’t mean loss of a game, conquest of the enemy city doesn’t mean that the tide has turned and there’s no stopping me now. AI often throws superior units at me and forces me to utilize faction abilities or resource bonuses to survive. I feel obligated to actually use aviation and forts. Previously I didn’t have to. Civilization series has similar problem: I never felt any need to use later age new units, even on highest difficulty you either lose by the midgame or mop up the remaining opposition with basic units.
It’s good.
Yes it has a permanent place on my hard drive.
For me it gets quite challenging once planes are available though, juggling fighters & bombers & AA units along with the ground troops.
But then I’m a very average player.
When it comes to RTS games, I really like how Age of Empires does it with shared units, but individual perks. It makes learning the game a bit easier (spearmen are good against scouts/knights/elephants) while still giving you a lot of factions with different strengths and play styles. And it’s probably easier to create, since you don’t need unique art for ever faction.
Company of Heroes 2 does that a bit. 5 baseline factions, but with a ton of variation on top of it. I like the little twist. I don’t like how each doctrine is it’s own DLC though, and an expansive one at that.
I like that approach too. Today Starcraft leaks everywhere including 4X games and this asynchronous design often feels like each faction is one-trick pony. Like in Endless Legens/Space most factions seem to be made with a specific victory condition and playstyle in mind.
Rise of Nations has great nation design. Basic strategies work well for everyone and some specific things work better for specific factions. But your game is not defined by who you play is, it’s defined by rare resources you find, your government, wonders you decide to build. So there are no “hard” limits to what you can do, there’s basic framework for every faction you play with only rare features being faction-specific. It may mean that your enemy may look all the same. Not like in Age of Empires 2 where you can think something like “they don’t have horse archers so I have to exploit this weakness”. But RoN is complex enough game so that it doesn’t feel like a simplification.
If you were to buy one version of Company of Heroes 2, which would it be? Ardenne Assault? It looks like that includes 4 factions, sort of like Tales of Valor was the one that came with all the CoH1 factions. Then you have to buy the British separately as DLC?
Ardennes Assault is a single player campaign only (though supposedly a pretty good one). If you want skirmish you’ll need the base game, Western Front Armies or British Forces.
What happens when Relic yanks the plug on the servers? You lose all unlocked commanders , doctrines, and other progress?
T90Official’s Hidden Cup 2 Age of Empires 2 tournament is going on right now. Definitely worth watching if you like AoE2. The work the captureage people have done with their tool is awesome. The forgotten e.pire folks have their work cut out for them between userpatch, voobly, and the captureage guys.
I love how the tournament is set up. Each player choices 2 favorite map and 5 nations, and each player bans one nation. So you see a fair amount of different nations.
It will be interesting to finally see what Chris Taylor has been working on:
Can’t wait for Demigod 2!
Rise of Nations. Just lost a random duel VS Tougher AI.
I was Russians, he was Americans. We had a big “river” between us. I tried to be smart and forward settled on their continent. Because Russians have big borders and are good at attrition. This city had a keep and some soldiers. AI tried to attach it but failed.
Then AI said screw your forward settling. They got a big fleet and secured the channel. They landed a big army on my continent and started to siege my second city. They had their Patriot unit acting as a supply wagon. I didn’t have any army on that side of a channel. I’ve built some and managed to destroy their patriot so that attrition kicked in but they captured my city. It happened Renessaince era and more or less secured their victory. That city also had a Colossus they’ve destroyed.
It felt great. I know computer has a lot of economic help but it didn’t feel like I was overwhelmed by brute force. It felt like AI making right decisions. I suspect it never checked that I’m Russian and therefore it’s better to fight me in sea first but it sure looked like he chose a right strategy against me.
I know that Age of Empires 2 has a lot of potential for similar interesting stories but it looks like HD version is deliberately kept unplayable. That limit on number of selected units, group selection selects peasants too, there’s no sorting in selection window so you’ll never know how many peasants or bowmen have you selected, no proper queue, archaic hotkeys, needlesly complex checkpoint movement… Rise of Nations is just a couple years later yet its UI doesn’t feel archaic at all, I can’t point at anything and say that it was done better later. Even Age of Empires 3 is harder to play today.