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RTS Age of Empires IV - Medieval Again

Young_Hollow

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Nov 1, 2017
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It just looks overwhelmingly shit, but I am grateful to them for one thing. Making it a medieval setting again means there's absolutely no reason to abide by its shittiness as AoE 2 already exists. It can be safely ignored.

I bet they'll abandon it within a year of release and just keep making expansions for AOE 2 DE.
Hopefully they leave AoE2 in peace instead of releasing new civs and fucking up the balance every 6 months. I think they've done everything possible within the limitations of the AoE2 framework and releasing more civs would require them to use either more retarded bonuses or something lame they did with the Huns(ie lacking houses).
 

Preben

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It just looks overwhelmingly shit, but I am grateful to them for one thing. Making it a medieval setting again means there's absolutely no reason to abide by its shittiness as AoE 2 already exists. It can be safely ignored.

I bet they'll abandon it within a year of release and just keep making expansions for AOE 2 DE.

Or they will shut down support for AoE2 in order to force people to move onto AoE4 where they can be milked properly with cosmetics DLCs.

I agree that AoE4 sounds like crap. Departure from the source in order to make something more Warcraft 3-esque. I suppose there will be just a handful of civilization, each with its own unique mechanics. Somehow they failed to see that Warcraft 3 is dead (regardless of the Reforged fiasco) while people still played AoE2 even without the Definitive Edition.
 

AwesomeButton

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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
So, apparenty they are giving it the Company of Heroes treatment, but indeed why the childish graphics?

Compare this video

to the PR video they did for Relic studio. (and weep)
A good game made solely by white men? Impossible!
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth


https://www.pcgamesn.com/age-of-empires-4/leaks-screenshots

Age of Empires 4 leaks reveal new screens and details for the RTS game
age-of-empires-4-release-date-2021-580x334.jpg



It looks like we’ve got some new Age of Empires 4 screenshots and game details to drool over ahead of the RTS game’s launch following some leaks that have appeared online. A couple of Redditors have spotted what appears to be a Steam page for the upcoming strategy game that seemingly went live and has now been taken down again, with screenshots revealing a bunch of – not confirmed – but seemingly new info about the title.

Redditor EgoTonic has posted a link to a Steam page for the game which, er, isn’t now there, but does seem to confirm its short-lived appearance. The preview in the post shows a new montage image for the game that we’ve not seen before, but very much in the AoE art style fans know and love. Elsewhere, AoE fan MrBritchesTheBold has captured screenshots of the Steam page which give us a good peek at what’s to come.

The Steam page rundown mentions of some of AoE4’s eight launch civilizations – the English, Chinese, and Delhi Sultanate, which are already known, alongside the Mongols – as well as “four distinct campaigns with 35 missions that span across 500 years of history from the Dark Ages up to the Renaissance”. The page also references playing as figures like Joan of Arc and Genghis Khan in the screens.

Additionally, there are some details about bonus content headed to the AoE4 Digital Deluxe edition, which includes the game’s official soundtrack, a unit counters chart, digital painting by artist Craig Mullens, and some in-game goodies such as a coat of arms, player profile, and monument.

As for the game’s modding scene, the page appears to confirm that this is on the way early next year: “Customise your game with mods – available in early 2022, play how you want with user-generated content tools for custom games”. Additionally, the page notes that you’ll be able to “jump online to compete, cooperate, or spectate with up to seven of your friends in PvP and PvE multiplayer modes”. Lovely stuff.

As for the new screens, we can see a variety of settlement and sea battle scenes, which you can check out via the Reddit embed above. It’s worth noting that, according to the poster, the Steam page still had the Age of Empires 4 release date listed as fall 2021, so it looks like we’ll have to wait a while longer to get a specific launch date we can scribble down in our calendars.
 

Young_Hollow

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Camels still look bugged as fuck. They should've removed them instead of keeping them as some kind of cavalry counter like in AoE2. The battle section at 1:30 shows units walking over a hill but the hill isn't easy to see for the player. They should make elevation more obvious since its probably going to offer a damage bonus / weakness. In Pre-HD(2013) times, players would often set the graphics quality to the lowest setting since that would allow elevations to show more clearly. Seems to have a momentum system for charging cavalry, though that seems to be the only good addition.

EDIT: system requirements according to the steam page:

  • MINIMUM:
    • OS: Windows 10 64bit
    • Processor: Intel Core i5-6300U
    • Memory: 8 GB RAM
    • Graphics: Intel HD 520
    • DirectX: Version 12
    • Storage: 50 GB available space
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
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5,146
Where Poland????

Lol, not a single successful campaign in the history of Poland. Conquered by Russians, Mongols, Lithuanians, Teutons, Napoleon, and now Codex Bans.



Back to the game, I suppose it's too much to ask for mounted soldiers being able to dismount and fight on foot as needed, or being able to combine walls and structures in complex ways? 20 years after Stronghold 2. Is this gonna be just an AoE2 graphics upgrade?
 
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Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In
Releasing AoE4 side by side with AoE2, which is in a golden age with constant new content - surely they must be intending aoew2 for the grognards, aoe4 for the casuals. So there's now a logical strategic reason for aoe4 to be SHIT, because normies are coprophiliac.
 

Young_Hollow

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Nov 1, 2017
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Looks worse than Aoe2 and 3, looks cartooney and too much yelling. Voice acting is not the same as yelling.

Gameplay wise it shows that you get fishing boats and naval boats but doesn't show any evidence that they made naval combat any more meaningful than the Rock / Rock / Paper / Scissors system of AoE2. So far a 0/10 shamefur dispray.
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
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I love great 2D art in vidya games (e.g. AoE2, Baldur's Gate, etc), but 3D isometric can also be great if done well. Pillars of Eternity, for example, shit game, but the look was great. I believe they used 3D models for creatures and buildings, but 2D terrain.
 

Young_Hollow

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Nov 1, 2017
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1,104
Some Beta footage. Probably gonna be taken down soon.



Takeaways:
-The tutorial woman does say ''we need'' but says ''the town would need''. The Scottish guy did it better.
-All buildings are built faster.
-Mill description doesn't say its needed to make farms, but only that farms work 15% faster around it. In Aoe2 mills were pre-requisite buildings for farms. Mills also cost 50W instead of 100W.
-Tech called ''Farm Enclosures'' makes farms generate gold in Imp age. Interesting, so that would mean infinite gold without relics.
-Scout cavalry can be made from TCs. Female military units, for the English, nice.
-That house and farm placement is casul.
-Advancing is done with a building (for Brits at least). Similar to the Asian Dynasties from AoE3. Age up time is faster.
-Barracks doesn't seem to be available in the 1st age unlike AoE2. This means no dark age / age-1 military strategies like in Aoe2 (good IMO) but also means the first age is complete economy buildup (except scouts).
-Buildings don't display the stats of units in the building interface, instead shows strengths and weaknesses like ''strong vs cav'' and ''weak vs armored units''. Units stats can be seen after you've made them though.
-Retarded torch throwing to bring down buildings. Taken partly from Aoe3 and more seemingly from Total War
-Units have no mass / presence, can move through eachother as can be seen scouts riding through the spearmen. This is a step back from Aoe2 and 3, both of which had unit presence / blocking. Hopefully this is not the case with all units, otherwise putting spearmen in front of your archers or archers in front of siege becomes useless.
-In addition to Scouts from the TC, you can make ''Horsemen'' from the Age 2 stables. Costs 110F 10W
-Advancement buildings seem to be limited in this version. Aoe3 had multiple advancement buildings to choose from and that will most likely be the case outside the tutorial

And that's all I got from it. If you found anything else interesting, please post it.
 

Tigranes

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Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
Tried the beta for a quick spin, some random thoughts:

  • Mostly feels like AOE2 Redux, where someone took a bunch of ideas in AOM/AO3 and repurposed them into it. E.g. permafarms, the scout slowly regen health like AO3 heroes, 'neutral' spots baked into the map like AO3. But not overbearing, it doesn't feel too AO3 or anything.
  • A large array of small changes, not sure what the total impact is going to be yet. Farms easier to build earlier; your units can walk through adjacent houses; combat feels slightly slower but not sure yet?; buildings are more AOM/AO3 style in faster to build and destroy, Castles are now 'Keeps' at 1000 stone, and so on.
  • You build expensive 'landmark' buildings to advance the age, and you choose between landmarks with different bonuses, akin to god/civ choices in AOM/AO3 - I think this is a good thing, one of the easiest things to lift from later games in the series. Also means you can keep building villagers in your TC, so quite significant change to early game.
  • Destroy all enemy landmarks seem to mean instant death, while enemies can quickly retake landmarks by repairing foundations.
  • Unit collision, 'feels' and battle clarity is still poor IMO - the cursor feedback when you've clicked on an enemy isn't punchy (you could feel it distinctly in early games as opposed to if you clicked the ground by mistake). And it's hard to say if units are totally ghosts, because a 20v1 fight still sees some units milling around at the back, but it's definitely not quite there. For better or for worse, 'classic' behaviours remain - e.g. when cavalry chase a scout, you get one hit in, but then you fall behind again, and it's better to micromanage your other cav to run 'beyond' the fleeing target, and so on. It seems very easy/fast for units to disengage from a melee, unlike, say, AO3 where dopplesoldners would fuck you up.

  • Graphics on medium looked pretty cartoony and washed out, almost as if this was released a few years after AOM in the same visual philosophy. Never going to look better than AOK. Also weird decisions like more 'decorative' shit - a house might get a fence around it or TC might get tilled land around it, but you can just build real buildings over them. Good for city building players, bad for strat players.
  • UI is fugly modern boxes lacking skeuomorphism, but it's functional and not too bad.
  • The famously hot mess AOE multiplayer seems to have gotten a couple of improvements, like the ability to jump in and spectate games. Let's see if the underlying net code isn't completely shit this time round.
 

Young_Hollow

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Nov 1, 2017
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Multiplayer has been fixed for a long time, via community patches even before Aoe2HD in 2013. Have you used the Mangudai / equivalent unit? Are they still satisfying to micro around?
 

Quatlo

Arcane
Joined
Nov 15, 2013
Messages
941
Multiplayer has been fixed for a long time, via community patches even before Aoe2HD in 2013. Have you used the Mangudai / equivalent unit? Are they still satisfying to micro around?
Mangudai got a slight nerf to their attack windup, still are amazing but less overpowered. Cumans get a unit called Kipchak that is cheaper, faster (and insanely fast to create) but overall weaker equivalent of Mangudai - they fire additional arrows though so they are actually better against buildings and skirmisher spam. A good change imo, since you don't want to smash your face into a keyboard when playing against someone who is good with Mangudai and constantly dodges EVERYTHING. Cavalry Archers have something like 10 frames windup, Mangudai 5 and Kipchak is the OG Mangudai 0 frames. Cavs were always at 10 mind you, so no changes here. I'm also pulling the numbers out of my ass, but it should give you some idea.
 
Last edited:

Young_Hollow

Liturgist
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
1,104
Multiplayer has been fixed for a long time, via community patches even before Aoe2HD in 2013. Have you used the Mangudai / equivalent unit? Are they still satisfying to micro around?
Mangudai got a slight nerf to their attack windup, still are amazing but less overpowered. Cumans get a unit called Kipchak that is cheaper, faster (and insanely fast to create) but overall weaker equivalent of Mangudai - they fire additional arrows though so they are actually better against buildings and skirmisher spam. A good change imo, since you don't want to smash your face into a keyboard when playing against someone who is good with Mangudai and constantly dodges EVERYTHING. Cavalry Archers have something like 10 frames windup, Mangudai 5 and Kipchak is the OG Mangudai 0 frames. Cavs were always at 10 mind you, so no changes here. I'm also pulling the numbers out of my ass, but it should give you some idea.
Thanks but I was referring to Mangudai in Aoe4, or the equivalent unit. Seeing as how it seems to be a mixture of Aoe2+3+AoM, I wanted to know if they went slow and cumbersome (like Aoe3) or fast and fun (Aoe2, especially before nerfs) with cav archers.
 

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