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Forums - Gaming - What went wrong with Age Of Empires?

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thetonestarr on 01 September 2012
richardhutnik said:
thetonestarr said:
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.

Also didn't Age of Mythology give players 3 different gods for each of the 3 nations, in order to cause it so there would be like 9 different civs based on which god the players picked with each of the 3 base nations.  Ok, this might of gone up to 12 civs with the expansion.

You got to pick one of three different "major" gods, yes, and then as you progressed, you would select from two different "minor" gods, four times. So you effectively had (*does the math*) I think 36 different potential combos per civilization. So it had 108 possibilities total pre-expansion, and 144 with it.



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Scoobes on 01 September 2012
DanneSandin said:
Scoobes said:
DanneSandin said:
I just looked up AoEO - 3 (THREE) playable civs! Unless you buy the premium package, then you get an additional 2 civs... Dafuq? really? I wanna be able to choose from a variety of civs!!

It's because each civ is completely customisable and you have to build them up yourself. Essentially, you control how your civ develops. One player playing as the Greeks could have a very different civ in terms of bonuses, techs and units then somone else playing as Greek. Plus, because you have to build up a single civ, it takes ages to get them up to lvl 40, so you'll have a tough time playing all of them to a competitive level.

well, that does seem pretty sweet! It's kinda like a RPG RTS?? but do you have to compete online? I'm not good at that stuff. I once tried to play starcraft online and was killed after like 5 minutes of play... I suck at multiplayer online.

No, you can play single player (although you have to be online... kinda like Diablo 3). Once you get up to the higher levels (35+), then that's when multiplayer becomes almost neccesary. I prefer single player as well so I stopped playing after reaching the higher levels.

As for Starcraft, it's a lot faster RTS so 5 minutes isn't that unusual if your opponents decent and its your first game. If you get defeated in 5 minutes in Age of Empires, then you've got problem




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DanneSandin on 01 September 2012
Scoobes said:
DanneSandin said:
Scoobes said:
DanneSandin said:
I just looked up AoEO - 3 (THREE) playable civs! Unless you buy the premium package, then you get an additional 2 civs... Dafuq? really? I wanna be able to choose from a variety of civs!!

It's because each civ is completely customisable and you have to build them up yourself. Essentially, you control how your civ develops. One player playing as the Greeks could have a very different civ in terms of bonuses, techs and units then somone else playing as Greek. Plus, because you have to build up a single civ, it takes ages to get them up to lvl 40, so you'll have a tough time playing all of them to a competitive level.

well, that does seem pretty sweet! It's kinda like a RPG RTS?? but do you have to compete online? I'm not good at that stuff. I once tried to play starcraft online and was killed after like 5 minutes of play... I suck at multiplayer online.

No, you can play single player (although you have to be online... kinda like Diablo 3). Once you get up to the higher levels (35+), then that's when multiplayer becomes almost neccesary. I prefer single player as well so I stopped playing after reaching the higher levels.

As for Starcraft, it's a lot faster RTS so 5 minutes isn't that unusual if your opponents decent and its your first game. If you get defeated in 5 minutes in Age of Empires, then you've got problem

Haha I'll probably hold out for 10 minutes! :D But I'll give it a try. Sometime :P I like the art style - everything don't have to be too realistic! :D



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richardhutnik on 01 September 2012
thetonestarr said:
richardhutnik said:
thetonestarr said:
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.

Also didn't Age of Mythology give players 3 different gods for each of the 3 nations, in order to cause it so there would be like 9 different civs based on which god the players picked with each of the 3 base nations.  Ok, this might of gone up to 12 civs with the expansion.

You got to pick one of three different "major" gods, yes, and then as you progressed, you would select from two different "minor" gods, four times. So you effectively had (*does the math*) I think 36 different potential combos per civilization. So it had 108 possibilities total pre-expansion, and 144 with it.

So, I am perplexed and people complaining about why Age of Mythology only gave players 3 civs, when each civ was that customizable during play.  It sounded more varied than Age of Empires 1 and 2.



Slimebeast on 01 September 2012
richardhutnik said:
thetonestarr said:
richardhutnik said:
thetonestarr said:
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.

Also didn't Age of Mythology give players 3 different gods for each of the 3 nations, in order to cause it so there would be like 9 different civs based on which god the players picked with each of the 3 base nations.  Ok, this might of gone up to 12 civs with the expansion.

You got to pick one of three different "major" gods, yes, and then as you progressed, you would select from two different "minor" gods, four times. So you effectively had (*does the math*) I think 36 different potential combos per civilization. So it had 108 possibilities total pre-expansion, and 144 with it.

So, I am perplexed and people complaining about why Age of Mythology only gave players 3 civs, when each civ was that customizable during play.  It sounded more varied than Age of Empires 1 and 2.

It was! AoM was much more complex and deeper than AoE 1&2, including the civs for the reasons you describe.

But Ensemble/MS were unable to explain that to AoE 2 players. From a tactical perspective the 16 AoE 2 civs were extremely similar, but people still adored them and were unwilling to change because it felt so good to have that many to choose from. I was one of them. I bought the game but I never made the transition to AoM and neither did my online buddies.



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Scoobes on 01 September 2012
Slimebeast said:

It was! AoM was much more complex and deeper than AoE 1&2, including the civs for the reasons you describe.

But Ensemble/MS were unable to explain that to AoE 2 players. From a tactical perspective the 16 AoE 2 civs were extremely similar, but people still adored them and were unwilling to change because it felt so good to have that many to choose from. I was one of them. I bought the game but I never made the transition to AoM and neither did my online buddies.

There were other reasons why it felt wrong to AOEII players. Armies were smaller for one thing due to Myth units and cavalry taking multiple places on your population limit. The civs also had a few balance issues.

Still loved the game and it certainly had a lot of depth to it. I liked that you could only build settlements at set points rather than rushing to AgeIII just so you could build extra Town Centres for more villagers. They essentially became strategic hot-spots




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Slimebeast on 01 September 2012
Scoobes said:
Slimebeast said:

It was! AoM was much more complex and deeper than AoE 1&2, including the civs for the reasons you describe.

But Ensemble/MS were unable to explain that to AoE 2 players. From a tactical perspective the 16 AoE 2 civs were extremely similar, but people still adored them and were unwilling to change because it felt so good to have that many to choose from. I was one of them. I bought the game but I never made the transition to AoM and neither did my online buddies.

There were other reasons why it felt wrong to AOEII players. Armies were smaller for one thing due to Myth units and cavalry taking multiple places on your population limit. The civs also had a few balance issues.

Still loved the game and it certainly had a lot of depth to it. I liked that you could only build settlements at set points rather than rushing to AgeIII just so you could build extra Town Centres for more villagers. They essentially became strategic hot-spots

Yes, yes, many things felt wrong to AoE 2 players.

Not least the fantasy setting. I believe it would have fitted the Age series to go into fantasy at some point, but I feel the timing of AoM was bad. The series was still young and it felt so abrupt when it suddenly departed from real life history.

So even if AoM was the superior game in many respects, it started the decline for the Age series, due to a number of reasons.



Adinnieken on 01 September 2012
DanneSandin said:

The more I hear of this game the more I wanna play it... I might even try to lure one of my bros into play with me!! But how different can the civs become? My favorite ancient civs are the Romans - but they're not playable... Can the Greek become something similar to the Romans (which actually be pretty cool if it was possible, and kind of realistic; the Romans "borrowed" quite a few things from the Greeks).

It's free to play, go to http://www.ageofempiresonline.com and download it there.

The Greeks are similar to Romans but not the same.  The Persians actually have similar tactics as the Romans would.  Those are also switchable, because while there may be a benefit to using the more advanced tactics (i.e. a shield line formation), there are drawbacks as well (i.e. slow speed).

But those are the benefits and drawbacks of each civ.  Celts for example are heavy on infantry units, but very weak when it comes to siege units.  So you have to really use the right units for the right job.  Every civ for example has the a good anti-siege unit, and some civs have specific anti-siege units for specific needs.  For example spearmen are great for battering rams, but horrible for ballistas.

So far my favorite civ to play as have been the Egyptians.  The Elephants units you can create are some of the best units you can use to combat siege units or just infantry in general.  The challenge is, the Egyptian workers don't gather quite as fast.

Another cool feature of AOEO is the use of Advisors.  These are modifiers.  Essentially they can make workers more efficient, upgrades, cheaper, military units more effective, or give you units that you otherwise wouldn't have available to you.  When you use the right Advisors, along with the right upgrades to your units and buildings, you can significantly improve your chances of success in a quest.



Kantor on 01 September 2012
thetonestarr said:
richardhutnik said:

Also didn't Age of Mythology give players 3 different gods for each of the 3 nations, in order to cause it so there would be like 9 different civs based on which god the players picked with each of the 3 base nations.  Ok, this might of gone up to 12 civs with the expansion.

You got to pick one of three different "major" gods, yes, and then as you progressed, you would select from two different "minor" gods, four times. So you effectively had (*does the math*) I think 36 different potential combos per civilization. So it had 108 possibilities total pre-expansion, and 144 with it.

Not exactly.

There were actually only three minor gods per era, and you were given a choice of two of these based on which major God you chose.

For example, if you chose Zeus, you can choose Athena or Hermes in the Classical Age. If you chose Poseidon, you can choose Ares or Hermes, and Hades lets you choose between Athena and Ares.

So three civilizations, three major gods and two gods in each of three eras. That's 72.



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thetonestarr on 01 September 2012

Was it only three advances? I can't remember, it's been years.

Regardless, that's still a pretty major amount of depth that many tend to ignore.



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