RTS Age of Empires IV - Medieval Again

[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 While the gameplay is so basic, featureless and production values hopelessly outdated.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.

 

[Oreshnik Missile]

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.

 

[Alienman]

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.

Man, my realism autism haven't suffered this much since skins were introduced as standard in war games. Doesn't even have to be outrage stuff like pink tanks. Like in Hell Let Loose they added paratrooper skins, so now you have people running around in full fallschirmjäger gear mixed together with all other random kind of troopers. In the next upcoming patch they will add the FG42, but from I know it won't be restricted to paratroopers. A super rare weapon available for everyone - oh boy. Also they will add pacific camo for the Americans fighting in Normandie. RIP controlled realism autism.

 

[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.

Man, my realism autism haven't suffered this much since skins were introduced as standard in war games. Doesn't even have to be outrage stuff like pink tanks. Like in Hell Let Loose they added paratrooper skins, so now you have people running around in full fallschirmjäger gear mixed together with all other random kind of troopers. In the next upcoming patch they will add the FG42, but from I know it won't be restricted to paratroopers. A super rare weapon available for everyone - oh boy. Also they will add pacific camo for the Americans fighting in Normandie. RIP controlled realism autism.

There are probably hundreds of WW2 RTSs currently, especially if you count the mods. While Company of Xeroes will probably be decline, why even bother about it? Like most other types of RTS, isn't the best already behind us, woke or not?

 

[Alienman]

There are probably hundreds of WW2 RTSs currently, especially if you count the mods. While Company of Xeroes will probably be decline, why even bother about it? Like most other types of RTS, isn't the best already behind us, woke or not?

Yeah, I won't bother with it probably, but it would be nice to get something nice & new once in a while.

But multiplayer shooters is another issue altogether since they just have couple of years in lifespan, usually at least. Last time I think we got a authentic popular "realistic" shooter was Red Orchestra so I play whatever I can get
Well, maybe except Post Scriptum but that game is pretty dead already unfortunately.

 

[Hace El Oso]

Yeah, I won't bother with it probably, but it would be nice to get something nice & new once in a while.

Gates of Hell: Ostfront is a lot of fun, as far as realistic WW2 RTS are concerned. And it has, like almost any game with a large Russian user base, a strong modding scene. Though as a clear continuation of Men of War I don’t know if you would consider it “nice & new”.

 

[cw8]

 

[Galdred]

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).

I don't know. There are not enough games that lets you put troops on walls(but it probably works better in slower games, like MTW2 or Lords of the Realms 2), so I may get it once its price becomes reasonable.

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.

They only need to make it better than CoH2 to register as incline, though, so it should be doable.

 

[Young_Hollow]

I don't know. There are not enough games that lets you put troops on walls(but it probably works better in slower games, like MTW2 or Lords of the Realms 2), so I may get it once its price becomes reasonable.

They only need to make it better than CoH2 to register as incline, though, so it should be doable.

In my experience with the R2 and S2 TW, putting troops on walls has only gone backward in the totalwar games. I haven't played the older ones though, which most people say are better mechanics-wise.

On one hand CoH is their flagship franchise and most of their experience lies with squad based RTSs. On the other hand they've messed up DoW3 from what I've heard and AoE4 not breaking new ground doesn't bode well.

In terms of having mechanics for the sake of variety (like units on walls), AoE4 still pales in comparison to all other age games because their diversity is far greater than AoE4's fairly cookie-cutter Hollywood pop-history civs. AoE3 has much greater variety both in civs and how to play them due to unit cards and AoE2 has more than thrice the number in AoE4. AoM has much wider unit variety and AoE1 at least has more civs, though they're quite similar besides the bonuses. The devs for the Forgotten Empires expansion for AoE2, which started as a mod even considered adding medieval Tibetans and the game currently has South-East Asian and African civs, which are unique in any RTSs, AFAIK.

cw8 That's actually quite normal for the age series. Transport ships in AoE2 could hold 10 archers or 10 elephants and watch towers could hold 10 archers or 10 Teutonic Knights.

 

[Tacgnol]

Units on walls are the bane of CA's engines. Hilarity (and lag) would always ensue in Rome and Medieval 2 if you ordered units to do anything on walls.

 

[Young_Hollow]

Units on walls are the bane of CA's engines. Hilarity (and lag) would always ensue in Rome and Medieval 2 if you ordered units to do anything on walls.

Its worse on the newer engine. They don't even follow orders half the time and and when they do, they're so late / glitchy in doing it they might as well shouldn't have. The only thing that somewhat works is archers but anything melee is a gamble. Shogun 2 is a bit better since the forts are more open but in Rome 2 (and probably beyond), its best to just make a square around the city's center than fighting on a walled city's walls.

 

[thesheeep]

Units on walls are the bane of CA's engines. Hilarity (and lag) would always ensue in Rome and Medieval 2 if you ordered units to do anything on walls.

Which is REALLY weird, because they must have created that weird-ass on-wall behavior IN ADDITION to the normal movement logic.
Had they just applied normal movement logic to walls (maybe with some "stand still" logic on top) things would have been MUCH better.

Either way, I'm not sure what to think about the on-wall units yet. They do seem strong against AI and in campaigns, but will they actually amount to much against human opponents?