RTS Age of Empires IV - Medieval Again

[Tacgnol]

I must admit, Relic did commission some decent bonus content for the campaigns.

Most of the documentary clips are by prestigious people like Tobias Capwell (pretty much the expert on medieval armour).

I've also found the French and Russian campaigns to be better than the English/Norman campaign. The missions tend to have a little more variety to them.

Still not a patch on AOE 2, but we aren't exactly overflowing in classic style RTS.

 

[whocares]

Know what's amazing about this one? Been playing it a bit, and so far, not a single kang in sight. Didn't think such a thing was possible in the year of our Lord current.

 

[Tacgnol]

Know what's amazing about this one? Been playing it a bit, and so far, not a single kang in sight. Didn't think such a thing was possible in the year of our Lord current.

Other than female khans and scouts, there doesn't seem to be a lot of wokeness in this one.

There is the usual circlejerking over Joan of Arc, but she only appears in 2 missions and AOE 2 did much the same thing over 20 years ago.

 

[thesheeep]

There is the usual circlejerking over Joan of Arc, but she only appears in 2 missions and AOE 2 did much the same thing over 20 years ago.

I had the distinct impression they didn't just want to repeat the AoE2 campaign so they only brushed over Joan a bit and covered more other stuff, instead.

 

[Tacgnol]

There is the usual circlejerking over Joan of Arc, but she only appears in 2 missions and AOE 2 did much the same thing over 20 years ago.

I had the distinct impression they didn't just want to repeat the AoE2 campaign so they only brushed over Joan a bit and covered more other stuff, instead.

Yeah it was 2 missions rather than the whole campaign. Joan of Arc really gets overhyped considering the entire interesting history of the Hundred Years war.

I guess that's sort of the point of figureheads and mascots.

 

[baud]

This game gives me a (positive) bfme feel. Sounds and visuals. Shame that no other game really tried the bmfe formula in RTS training small groups of units, I think it would fit the overall more arcade gameplay of this game very well.

Wasn't that how Dawn of War work too?

 

[thesheeep]

Played Chinese for the first time today, 2-3 skirmishes.

... Is it just me or is their aging up confusing?

I read somewhere that you should be able to select somehow which dynasty you level up with, but for me, they are all locked and once I actually advance in age, the dynasty seems to be set in stone.
If any nation would've required a campaign to get you started, it would've been them.

I dig the number of unique units on them, though.
And tax collectors automatically walking around, making me some profit without a need to micro? Hell, yeah.

 

[thesheeep]

Some news about future patches after the last patch was not received all that well:

 

[Alex]

(...snip)But what can you do, (snip...)

You can stick to better games like AoE 2.

 

[JarlFrank]

(...snip)But what can you do, (snip...)

You can stick to better games like AoE 2.

And the Definitive Edition (which is as faithful as a remake can be) still receives regular patches and even DLCs with new campaigns and playable civs, ensuring that AoE2 will stay alive and well for at least another 20 years.

 

[thesheeep]

Playing HRE to see if I resonate with it (and I do! Gimme dem sweet prelates and chunky walls!), it took me a while to notice they are actually talking German. Or, well, an old version of Western Germanic, I assume, as it has both English and German influences.
It's pretty nice, caught myself sending units around just to see if I can understand what they are saying.

I read that the lines even change as you go through the ages. Damn. Usually a bit too busy at that point to listen closely, though.
They really didn't have to go that extra mile for a game like AoE, but they did.
I wonder how they went about recording that - for AoE3 they basically just had people speaking modern German, which was alright, but of course not accurate.

 

[Tacgnol]

Playing HRE to see if I resonate with it (and I do! Gimme dem sweet prelates and chunky walls!), it took me a while to notice they are actually talking German. Or, well, an old version of Western Germanic, I assume, as it has both English and German influences.
It's pretty nice, caught myself sending units around just to see if I can understand what they are saying.

I read that the lines even change as you go through the ages. Damn. Usually a bit too busy at that point to listen closely, though.
They really didn't have to go that extra mile for a game like AoE, but they did.
I wonder how they went about recording that - for AoE3 they basically just had people speaking modern German, which was alright, but of course not accurate.

It's the same with the English. The speech changes massively between each age.

Pretty neat little thing.

 

[Infinitron]

It's official: Age of Empires IV wins a victory with the critics. Make history your story! Available now on Xbox Game Pass for PC, Steam, and Windows.

After tens of thousands of hours creating, balancing, and countless multiplayer matches at all hours across the globe, Age of Empires IV was forged. Thanks to your feedback on Age I, II, III, and their Definitive Editions, we've modernized a memorable gameplay experience that keeps the mood and magic that made this series the timeless classics they are.

 

[Young_Hollow]

We've modernized a memorable gameplay experience that keeps the mood and magic that made this series the timeless classics they are.

A resounding twitter clap emoji for these brave beautiful devs for coming up with such a creative expression for

Spoiler

reinventing the wheel.

Once the AoE2 pro streamers make their money and return to AoE2 and Relic makes CoH3 first priority, AoE4 can join the pile of failed RTS pseudo-renaissance games like Grey Goo and Act of Aggression; if M$ doesn't want to make a mobile port of it that is.

 

[Raghar]

I looked at twitch stream, and found some Starcraft II players are trying it to play in MP, and getting mental trauma.

I heard one of them calling it "relict of a game".

 

[Young_Hollow]

I looked at twitch stream, and found some Starcraft II players are trying it to play in MP, and getting mental trauma.

I heard one of them calling it "relict of a game".

AoE players can go to SC2 but the reverse won't be easy. AoE has unexplored, randomly generated maps, much more complex economy and economy micro and much longer build-up time. So while they'd call it it a ''relic'', I'd say a DOTA2 player playing SC2 would say the same thing, but the truth is that its beyond their depth.

 

[Sarathiour]

Most of SC2 difficulty come down to the absurd apm requirement to correctly micro and macro your base and unit. Which is why i ended up dropping the game, I'm not gonna autistically training myself everyday so that I can finally reach the strategic layer of the game two months later.

 

[Young_Hollow]

Most of SC2 difficulty come down to the absurd apm requirement to correctly micro and macro your base and unit. Which is why i ended up dropping the game, I'm not gonna autistically training myself everyday so that I can finally reach the strategic layer of the game two months later.

High level AoE2 does require quite a bit of base juggling (managing sheep+luring boar+getting a good wall off while exploring with your scout) but I always thought SC2 was different because eco management was easier but walling is much more difficult. Turtling is much more possible in the AoE series compared to SC2 but I thought everything else was much more difficult.

There are high level players with lower APM in AoE2 though (eg DauT, St4k), which from your post, seem to not exist in SC2. Maybe that's a result of economy playing a larger part in the game and lower-APM players being great at eco management?

 

[Raghar]

Well, he called AoE IV a relict of a game. AoE IV multiplayer doesn't have autogenerated maps. He also complained about selection mechanism that selects the oldest unit first... even when it's deer. And unability to zoom out, because game wouldn't be running at playable speed.

 

[Multidirectional]

Most of SC2 difficulty come down to the absurd apm requirement to correctly micro and macro your base and unit. Which is why i ended up dropping the game, I'm not gonna autistically training myself everyday so that I can finally reach the strategic layer of the game two months later.

It's what every noob thinks because they are completely innefficient with their actions and end up clicking shit 5 times more than they need. I've been playing it for 4-5 years now and I'm actually clicking on things at more relaxed pace than I was when I was starting out. Because now I actually have some sort of idea about what the fuck am I doing in the game and the order of my actions is way more efficient. Truth is you only need to be very fast if you are a tryhard who is shooting for highest leagues. If you just want to have some casual fun in leagues where majority of players reside, like Diamond and below, you can play fairly relaxed. Hell, if you're a protoss you can be in Grandmaster league with 100 APM.

AoE players can go to SC2 but the reverse won't be easy. AoE has unexplored, randomly generated maps, much more complex economy and economy micro and much longer build-up time. So while they'd call it it a ''relic'', I'd say a DOTA2 player playing SC2 would say the same thing, but the truth is that its beyond their depth.

I haven't been following that close but last time I checked there were at least couple SC2 players who were in the top ranks of AOE4. My favorite SC2 streamer BeastyQT (because of his amazing "only x units to Grandmaster league" series) switched full time to AOE4 for now and has achieved rank 1 at least couple times. AOE might have more complex macro but SC2 has way more complex unit interactions, so pretending that one game is deeper in all aspects is just retarded. I'm sure there are plenty of AOE players who wouldn't be able to handle SC2 either. There are massive differences between the games.

 

[Johannes]

Apm isn't a great correlation to how good your actual multitasking is, as a lot of commands are repetitive spam.

 

[Sarathiour]

I used apm in a loose sens, I was obviously talking about effective action per minute, not about how fast you can rape your mouse.

It's what every noob thinks because they are completely innefficient with their actions and end up clicking shit 5 times more than they need. I've been playing it for 4-5 years now and I'm actually clicking on things at more relaxed pace than I was when I was starting out. Because now I actually have some sort of idea about what the fuck am I doing in the game and the order of my actions is way more efficient. Truth is you only need to be very fast if you are a tryhard who is shooting for highest leagues. If you just want to have some casual fun in leagues where majority of players reside, like Diamond and below, you can play fairly relaxed. Hell, if you're a protoss you can be in Grandmaster league with 100 APM.

I'm not saying that I'm good at SC2 (i'm not), but you're missing my point. Back when I was playing, strategic layer was non-existent for anyone playing below master. The one who's going to win is the one who would be able to keep up with insane production tab requirement ( taking a new base every whatever minutes) while also not throwing out your army due to misplacement.
In Aoe, once you reach lategame, harassing tactics are way less effective, because you can turtle up to some point.
Walling in starcraft will only protect you the first minutes of the game at best, any other kind of defense will not result anything else than scouting, beside being extremely not cost effective.
Of course you can still have fun in lower league, but I'm not gonna pretend that a drunken bar fight got the same complexity layer as a chess tourney.

 

[Cnaiur]

As always with MP RTS games, the fun is to be had in the low/mid-tier games where the pacing is not too bad, early rushes are limited + often poorly executed, and strong army micro is rarely to be seen.

Not too shabby, have played 1v1 MP with the English for many a night already. And all of that with a €1 Game Pass renewal, that's some decent economics macro right there.

 

[Johannes]

What is fun abt playing bad players specifically, I don't get it. Tryharding too much can kill the fun, but being good at the game doesn't necessarily require that.

 

[Nahel]

The discovery phase is the most fun. Something which was killed by tryharding and streaming from "pros".

Before people actually tried to improve and make their own strategies intead of following streamers and guides like sheeps.