RTS Age of Empires IV - Medieval Again

[MajorMace]

What I found MUCH weirder is that there no India, Abbasid, China or HRE campaigns.
Only half the factions have a campaign.
What's up with that?

Most absurd thing to me. I played the norman/english campaign and a bit of the french one, they're far from the top of the basket when it comes to quality in rts campaigns.
When SC2 launched with only the terran campaign, I kind of understood why afterwards due to the production value of wings of liberty which just pushed everything forward (we could debate this but I believe SC2 to have the best rts campaigns on the market).
But here it's very basic stuff so far. I don't see the problem in giving us at least one muslim campaign on top of the existing ones.

It's the main element which makes the game feel rushed imo.

 

[Alienman]

I was in the mood for some classic RTS gaming and got the MS game pass for 1 euro, and man, I think I managed to play about 20 minutes before turning it off. The graphics is just off. It looks unfinished and the same time cartoonish, at least for units and weapons, and the game ran really sluggish for me. But the thing that killed it for me was the campaign, the BBC documentary style of it. I like history and all like anyone else, but this approach felt like the antithesis to gaming for me. Hearing some dull English woman drone on does not really make it very exciting to play. Boy, talk about a misstep here. Makes me wonder if Company of Heroes 3 will get the same treatment.

 

[cw8]

What I found MUCH weirder is that there are no India, Abbasid, China or HRE campaigns.
Only half the factions have a campaign.
What's up with that?

DLC 1, DLC 2, DLC 3, DLC 4, DLC 5.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Dunno, I like this campaign stlye. Nearly finished it, some missions gave good Stronghold vibes and there are some missions without any base, C&C style.
My main problems is unit graphics as many of you mentioned. Especially barracks troopers, they look same and it become a clusterfuck visually after getting a really large army of them. Even with control groups it become total chaos. At least mounted troops and siege weapon don't have this problem.

I won't play it online probably but it satisfied my RTS hunger (since its a dead genre...) but I wouldn't pay it a single dime.
Thanks to game pass I guess, yet again.

 

[Young_Hollow]

Aside from the tepid gameplay, did anyone else find the narrator long-winded and condescending? Weird choice to show me some lame history movies about events more interesting than the campaign missions.

I actually quite like the campaign style.
I'd be more immersed if the campaign was told from the perspective of the characters, but I actually enjoy the documentary style videos.
Something different for a change.

Some of them are more interesting than others, though, and indeed some choices of what was just shown vs what can be played is weird.

What I found MUCH weirder is that there are no India, Abbasid, China or HRE campaigns.
Only half the factions have a campaign.
What's up with that?

Frankly, as much as I like the game, for the current price I wouldn't recommend it.
There's too much missing, both in content and gameplay features (e.g. there is no smart select, no global queue, and other obvious oversights that are just baffling).
Wait for sale or wait for patches would be my recommendation. Or both.

If mangos don't have FF, what's the point of having scorpions?

There are no scorpions in AoE4.
There are anti-siege siege weapons, which are very much required if you want to deal with Mangonels from a distance (their range is higher, too).

I don't mind the lack of FF at all. In fact I very much welcome it.
One less thing that needs microing. Good for me, cause I suck at it!

Why indeed did they skip the history of the Islamic Cliphate, a Muslim empire in a Hindu region, a civ whose AoE2's campaign was waging a crusade and the history of a country where they give social credit for forgetting the truth? Pop history only flies with people who don't have their own idea of history and taking liberties with any of the above is risky because there are people with strong beliefs about them (whether true or not). DLC could also be an option but I don't think they'll release campaign only DLC, just like AoE2DE, which releases at leas two civs along with campaigns so even non-campaign players have to get them.

Anti-siege siege is an idea from AoE3, and I won't be surprised if there isn't a single original idea in this game's code. Less micro-heavy RTSs already exist, like AoE3 and if that's too much there are MOBAs, which were born out of the casualization of RTSs.

 

[jaydee2k]

Game is better than expected. Castle building/sieging in skirmish games can be fun. Sound is incredibly good. Mechanics are ok.
Thats about it. Lacks to much polish to be a hit.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Thats about it. Lacks to much polish to be a hit.

Yeah, that's really about it. Shocking how much little things this game really lacks.
And main menu is really a mess.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Those videos probably cost a lot of potato to make. Same with marketing and doing stuff like paying every semi-recognizable aoe youtuber to post "t... this is really fun, guys" videos and whatnot. While the gameplay is so basic, featureless and production values hopelessly outdated. Budget allocation in modern gaming, eh?

 

[BING XI LAO]

doing stuff like paying every semi-recognizable aoe youtuber to post "t... this is really fun, guys" videos

Kek. Some aoe2 streamer video titles I've seen include "Micro is possible in aoe4!"

 

[Tacgnol]

I was in the mood for some classic RTS gaming and got the MS game pass for 1 euro, and man, I think I managed to play about 20 minutes before turning it off. The graphics is just off. It looks unfinished and the same time cartoonish, at least for units and weapons, and the game ran really sluggish for me. But the thing that killed it for me was the campaign, the BBC documentary style of it. I like history and all like anyone else, but this approach felt like the antithesis to gaming for me. Hearing some dull English woman drone on does not really make it very exciting to play. Boy, talk about a misstep here. Makes me wonder if Company of Heroes 3 will get the same treatment.

Yeah it really lacks the "character" or "soul" of AOE 2 campaigns. I really can't think of any rational way to put it.

All of the AOE 2 campaigns have distinctive voice acting and a real sense of "character" (at least the ensemble ones, the FK stuff is a bit of a mixed bag). The missions are often quite open with a lot of rewards for exploration and thinking outside the box.

The AOE 4 campaign missions all feel massively scripted and constrained with some BBC documentary narrator ranting at you every 5 minutes.

Another thing that really frustrates me is how boring/generic the soundtrack is. The AOE series from the first one to three (including Age of Mythology) have all had great soundtracks.

 

[Young_Hollow]

When is CoH3 due again? M$'s concerns aside, Rebellion won't make anything that could compete with their ''home'' franchise of Company of Heroes, so even if they were capable / competent, I doubt they made AoE4 at their A-game. If there's a lot of voice acting, I'd assume the devs were constrained in how expansive they could make the campaigns because priority and budget probably went to the theatrics. I'm only playing this if I get the subscription thing but otherwise, I don't see a reason to play this over AoE2 (or any age game for that matter).

 

[Cyberarmy]

Yeah it really lacks the "character" or "soul" of AOE 2 campaigns.

Or the charm of Age of Mythology campaign

 

[Tacgnol]

Yeah it really lacks the "character" or "soul" of AOE 2 campaigns.

Or the charm of Age of Mythology campaign

It's obvious overall that no one from the original team had anything to do with this. It's not necessarily a bad RTS game, but it isn't an AOE game.

 

[cw8]

Those videos probably cost a lot of potato to make. Same with marketing and doing stuff like paying every semi-recognizable aoe youtuber to post "t... this is really fun, guys" videos and whatnot. While the gameplay is so basic, featureless and production values hopelessly outdated. Budget allocation in modern gaming, eh?

While pretty nice to watch, I'd rather do away with the videos and actually have more campaigns. I don't see them filming videos in China or the Middile East for a Chinese/Abbasid/Crusade campaign.

 

[pickmeister]

It was obvious this is gonna have no soul or character. Just look at what MS did with DE. They changed way too much for the worse for no reason.

Still can't get over the butchered voice acting.

Spoiler

The Egyptian in first Saladin mission sounds like he has down syndrome compared to the original.

 

[AdamReith]

It was obvious this is gonna have no soul or character. Just look at what MS did with DE. They changed way too much for the worse for no reason.

Still can't get over the butchered voice acting.

Spoiler

The Egyptian in first Saladin mission sounds like he has down syndrome compared to the original.

Why the hell did they replace this? The original voice actor was perfect.

Between this and the extensive cinematics in AoE4 I would expect that that there is a lot of money being funneled into the "pointless jobs for homos and women so they don't fuck anything important up" internal initiative.

 

[Alienman]

One thing I forgot, is that when you play these historic, or semi-historic games with a good campaign, with actual characters doing shit, the history comes by itself. I have many times looked up different battles, generals, places etc from games, to see if that stuff really happened or if he or she was that badass as in the story. Just having it served up like this, boy the only thing I can think off is school.

 

[BING XI LAO]

I'm just disappointed it wasn't epic fail like DOW3, would have been funnier

 

[Young_Hollow]

I'm just disappointed it wasn't epic fail like DOW3, would have been funnier

You can look forward to CoH3 for that. Lets see how a declining studio makes a WW2 RTS in the Woke Age.

 

[cw8]

I'm just disappointed it wasn't epic fail like DOW3, would have been funnier

You can look forward to CoH3 for that. Lets see how a declining studio makes a WW2 RTS in the Woke Age.

Probably half the soldiers in COH3 will be women. Your officer will be tranny. And your tanks will be pink.

 

[thesheeep]

And your tanks will be pink.

MY tanks would definitely be pink.
Nothing funnier than people raging at losing to pink dyed units - at least that's what happened in DoW2, the only one of these games I ever played in MP for a while.

 

[Sarathiour]

Anti-siege siege is an idea from AoE3

Unless you're thinking about something that I forgot, there is no anti-siege unit, but a counter-artillery unit for euro civ , which tend to serve this purpose, because no one use mortar : they are expensive, slow, and regular artillery does the job just fine. They were smart enough to at least ensure that nothing outrange mortar.
Siege is a non-existent problem in aoe3, or at least way more harsh on defensive strat : wall are less sturdy, forteress are consierably limited in number, map are smaller, everyone field artillery, trade route force you to fight outside your base and there is no wonder.

 

[Young_Hollow]

Anti-siege siege is an idea from AoE3

Unless you're thinking about something that I forgot, there is no anti-siege unit, but a counter-artillery unit for euro civ , which tend to serve this purpose, because no one use mortar : they are expensive, slow, and regular artillery does the job just fine. They were smart enough to at least ensure that nothing outrange mortar.
Siege is a non-existent problem in aoe3, or at least way more harsh on defensive strat : wall are less sturdy, forteress are consierably limited in number, map are smaller, everyone field artillery, trade route force you to fight outside your base and there is no wonder.

Yes, I'm talking about the culverin for the European civs, and the other civs have units with similar bonuses (ie Arrow Knights, Rifle Riders, Yabusame, Siege Elephants, etc). I forgot the real meaning of it but in AoE2, siege=siege weapons like mangos and scorps. I agree that ''starving out'' like in a proper siege the enemy is 99% impossible in AoE3 because of stuff like food crates and build-able mills that produce infinite food.

 

[Young_Hollow]

And your tanks will be pink.

MY tanks would definitely be pink.
Nothing funnier than people raging at losing to pink dyed units - at least that's what happened in DoW2, the only one of these games I ever played in MP for a while.

All they need to do is rebrand such games. AoE4 would've been killer if it wasn't called an AoE game. Similarly, if CoH3 was to be renamed something to better indicate its woke credentials, it could have a market of normal players + wokesters who'll play it on the easiest difficulty and leave a positive review because WW2 was so similar to their struggles.

 

[Alienman]

I'm just disappointed it wasn't epic fail like DOW3, would have been funnier

You can look forward to CoH3 for that. Lets see how a declining studio makes a WW2 RTS in the Woke Age.

Probably half the soldiers in COH3 will be women. Your officer will be tranny. And your tanks will be pink.

Women is confirmed already as Italian freedom fighters I believe. Also you will be able to switch around soldiers from different nations, because inclusion I guess. It has warning signs already.