What went wrong with Age Of Empires?

[thetonestarr]

Slimebeast said:

JEMC said:

They also got the age setting wrong, it was more modern that the previous games, but it didn't advance enough, or any. I mean, playing as a prehistoric village that manages to become the Roman Empire is satisfying, but playing as British citizens that try to conquest North America... and that's it, isn't that exciting.

The more sensible approach would have been do a "Empire Earth" game. Starting with prehistoric men and ending with intergalactical civilizations.

This, so much this.

AoE 3 had innovative gameplay mechanics but the historical time period between the 16th century and the Industrial Age simply wasn't interesting. And I didn't want to freaking colonize America, give me something epic! And the SP campaign that depicted the history of the fictional Black family was far from epic (not that SP matters that much for an RTS).

The Ancient times and Medieval times just are so much much more interesting settings than the era between 1500-1850, from a historical and mythological perspective, at least in the context of a game.

And swords-archers-siege is much more exciting than guns and cannons.

Clearly they should have tried an Empire Earth approach or just chosen a different epoch no matter if it had ruined the chronological order.

1000% only this. Anything else is wrong.

 

 

AoM was also a genius and objectively great game, and if you didn't like it you're wrong. There were also four civilizations, with the quite cheap and easily obtained expansion. You can't have a dozen civilizations in a game about well-known mythology. It just wouldn't have worked out right, and would have been too convoluted and complicated.