RTS Age of Empires IV - Medieval Again

[Young_Hollow]

The trailers and promos were stress enough; no thx.

 

[Tigranes]

What the fuck is that UI?

In the beta, the UI was fugly in your typical "futuristic spreadsheets" style: nondescript boxes floating around in the middle of nowhere. Functionally, it wasn't too horrible.

 

[LESS T_T]

The technical test has started.



It grants access as soon as you request.

 

[fantadomat]

gameplay

 

[Cunt Dickula!?]

Played a few games and it is pretty underwhelming.
Feels more like AoE 3 gameplay in AoE 2 setting.

The whole base building is off compared to AoE 2.
The gaps between the buildings ruin everything as it was pretty fun in AoE 2 to wall with your buildings imo.

 

[Wulfric Pinewood]

I won't judge but this game looks like shit.

 

[Lacrymas]

I appreciate the fact they aren't trying to compete with AoE2 (they are going to fail), but it honestly looks like modern Stronghold (i.e. not good). I have to play it myself to judge, though, I've already begun downloading the stress test. I'm not particularly convinced of the time period either.

 

[Morgoth]

Played the Tutorial and one skirmish against AI.

It's AoE 2021 alright.

A user friendlier and safe version of AoE II, basically. Not a bad game, but nothing that should make you believe that the king has returned, either. I like that they chose readability over fidelity for the graphics style, and the sound scape is very solid too. If it has a great campaign, I'd consider buying it for 15-20€.

 

[vota DC]

Played a few games and it is pretty underwhelming.
Feels more like AoE 3 gameplay in AoE 2 setting.

The whole base building is off compared to AoE 2.
The gaps between the buildings ruin everything as it was pretty fun in AoE 2 to wall with your buildings imo.

Yes you advance like Indian/China/Japan in AOE 3 building
They launch torches against buildings
Infinite food from farms

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Why on earth did they think AoEIII was more popular than AoEII.
I didn't think you could make the UI worse than AoEIII but here we are.
Was it so hard to just copy AoEII's UI?

 

[thesheeep]

Yes you advance like Indian/China/Japan in AOE 3 building
They launch torches against buildings

Apparently... but I don't see what's wrong with any of that.

Infinite food from farms

Might actually be going to play this one, then.

The main reason for me to prefer AoE3 over 2 were always the city cards, as they allowed you to customize your nation, give it some kind of player agenda and make it really yours.
Naturally, this best part they didn't apply in 4, which is a shame.

But at least they seem to be doing some micro reductions in the economy part.
Everything that reduces the need for BS micro is good in my book.

 

[Lacrymas]

How do you play a skirmish against the AI? Single player is greyed out for me. I tried the tutorial - it's got some problems. First of all, the graphics. It honestly looks like an indie game and AoE3:DE has better graphics. I know we shouldn't be looking at graphics, but since this is trying to be a mainstream game, I'd be remiss not to mention it looks like play-doh. Second of all, the setting. There is literally 0 reason for this to be medieval when AoE2 exists and is better in every way possible. Third of all, It's very hard to select a single unit in a battlefield because the UI groups them up and doesn't show them as individuals. I had the hardest time getting a spearman out of a fight. The sounds aren't bad, though, they are going for the Total War thing of having your units scream at you when you tell them to attack. All in all, I'm not particularly convinced this is going to get much attention, but I have to play a skirmish or something to know more. As for farms being unlimited - this isn't a very good thing because it removes a resource sink. You already don't micromanage it in AoE2 due to the auto-reseed button and it's only there for it to eat wood.

 

[Lacrymas]

I figured it out - you create a multiplayer game with only AI in it. After giving up on one skirmish because I suck at RTSes, I'd say it's not like AoE2. It's kind of hard for me to express the differences because I was never a big AoE player and have only ever played the campaigns, but there's definitely something up with this that isn't like AoE2. The biggest difference I can immediately recognize is the cost of units, they require huge amounts of food, a single camel rider wants 180 food, ditto for camel archers. This makes it decently hard to mass these. Also, I was playing with the Abbasid Empire and the English countered me hard early game, not only do they get longbowmen, but they also get early man-at-arms which are not susceptible to archers at all. There's nothing I could really do to counter longbows + man-at-arms in Feudal Age, or maybe there is but I couldn't see it. Yeah, if someone is interested and has more experience with AoE than me, go test it and do a write-up with the major differences. It's totally not worth 60 bucks though.

 

[Lacrymas]

Winning strategy as Abbasid against the English AI on intermediate - go to castle age as fast as you can then mass horsemen (lancers if you have the resources for it, they are 2 times more expensive) and crossbowmen. Get blacksmith upgrades if you can. Then create 1-2 battering rams (which are now built by infantry on the battlefield) and go to town. The AI is very slow to advance through the ages on intermediate, so they have no true counter to this. Longbowmen can't do anything against mass horsemen and man-at-arms die very fast to crossbowmen (but not normal archers, which makes staying in Feudal Age a very bad idea as Abbasid against the English).

 

[Boleskine]

 

[d1r]

I just can't get excited about a Age of Empires 2 3D reskin. Devs were playing it way too safe, and everything in this video smelled like Age of Empires 2 and not 4.

Seriously, is our political climate really the reason why we didn't get a WW1 RTS with the base building of Age of Empires 2?

 

[vota DC]

Some "civilian" stuff like Chinese collecting taxes are funny, but on the military there are too many common units shared by everyone....seems a lot AOE3 vanilla....some ideas are very good (unique units aren't in castle and can be mass produced) but why they took from Asian Dynasties expansion the idea of advancing age with constructions but they didn't made less shared units?

As for farms being unlimited - this isn't a very good thing because it removes a resource sink. You already don't micromanage it in AoE2 due to the auto-reseed button and it's only there for it to eat wood.

Not in vanilla, only with expansion.

 

[Lacrymas]

Well, it's not Age of Empires 2 3D, it's Age of Empires 2+3. Maybe, I haven't really played AoE3, but my point is that it's not AoE2. It only superficially looks like AoE2 when you watch gameplay. Once you've understood what is going on, the AI is laughable btw. I wanted to confirm my suspicions that the English counter Abbasid hard during Feudal Age and played 2 games as the English. It's true, the Abbasid can't do anything. I played on both hard and intermediate, the AI is just retarded. Men-at-arms are so tanky to arrows that a town center with 20 garrisoned villagers can't wipe out 10ish men-at-arms until it's destroyed. I don't really have a desire to play more atm to test the hardest AI, but I suspect it's the same thing unless it cheats with extra resources to age up faster.

 

[baud]

but my point is that it's not AoE2. It only superficially looks like AoE2 when you watch gameplay.

Maybe that's the point, since it's AoE 4 and not AoE 2 remastered. Like why would you want more AoE 2 when it already exists?

 

[Lacrymas]

Maybe that's a the point thing, since it's AoE 4 and not AoE 2 remastered. Like why would you want more AoE 2 when it already exists?

I don't want it to be like AoE2 because we already have that and they can't top it no matter what they do.

I decided to try out the hardest AI, me as English vs the Abbasid and it was the same massacre. Even worse because I now know how to semi-optimize my strategy. I didn't see a difference between the 3 difficulties, but maybe that's because I rushed to get a military force out and wiped them out pretty fast. Either the Abbasid have no chance against the English whatsoever or the AI is extremely susceptible to "rushes" (I'm not even rushing, I'm just playing the game to win). Imo, it's a multiplayer game through and through unless the campaign blows my mind. My verdict - it's not as bad as I thought it would be, but it's not worth 60 bucks, I might consider buying for 20 if the campaigns are ok. I also have almost 0 interest in PvP, so that might also influence my decision. I didn't try PvP and I don't have the time to do it anymore, so whoever has more experience with that is welcome to share it. But I honestly wouldn't play the Abbasid against the English even if I did try PvP out.

Oh, another thing - units are extremely expensive, especially in terms of food. 1 man-at-arms costs 100 food. I get what they are trying to achieve, but since the market exists (which is not my favorite element of these games) it kind of doesn't matter because you can always sub gold for food.

 

[vota DC]

I think that AI Is placeholder. Easiest AI try to rush in Age 1, seems to only affect how fast they advance.

 

[thesheeep]

It's also easily imaginable that the AI is one of the last things they will finish (and keep working on post-release obviously).

 

[Lacrymas]

The AI can't into early economy and warfare at all, so you might not notice that in the campaign(s). The funny part is you have almost 0 chance as Abbasid against the English even in these circumstances. They counter you hard in Feudal and just a few longbowmen will decimate your early forces.

 

[Sarathiour]

Tested it a bit.
It's indeed aoe 2 with and aoe3 coat of paint, and some gimmick from it, like the age bonus, which has been a thing since aom. The irony is the balance being questionable despite the total absence of any risk or even thought in game design.

Who the fuck is going to buy this for 60 bucks ?

 

[Lacrymas]

The difference between AoM faction dynamics and this game's is that AoM didn't give Greeks units in the first age that could only be countered by the Egyptians in age 3.