Why does AoE 3 have so many idiotic design decisions?

[Texas Red]

The beauty of AoE 2 is that the wide selection of difficulty options and consequently the replay value is bigger. With AoE 3 you have only 3 options of which "normal" is easy and "hard" is normal. The game is simply easy and the missions, because of no walls, much, much shorter. You'd think that to increase the longevity of the game you'd add some insane difficulty levels but no, let's do the exact opposite!

For me, there are no expansions for AoE 3 because of those retarded Indian tribes and Asian nations campaigns. The biggest market for AoE 3 is Europe and America. The logical assumption is that Europeans and Americans would like to take control of their own countries in a more exciting period. NOPE, let's instead include Indian tribes that somehow manage to have the same power of units as European ones. Indians were the people who tied obsidian to their wooden clubs and called them swords, Christ.

So, AoE 2 is strategy that lasted to this day because of its complexity. What would be the natural thing to do if want to copy this success? You guessed it, let's dumb the shit out of it.

I also noticed that I almost never upgrade to newer ages. I reason this is because the unit cap is so big, that it would make more sense to just cram out 150 units and a few cannons that, regardless of age, will obliterate towns if sufficiently covered. Gold never runs out which is a problem, too. In AoE 2 you could build only a limited number of knights because of gold shortage and it was more viable to upgrade them to the very last of everything. You couldn't just build new ones as soon as your latest batch died. But you'll say, to get mortars you need to advance to the industrial age! Wrong, just let you home city ship you 3 or 4 of them in the beginning age.

 

[Wyrmlord]

I am sorry, AoE2 was a modest real-time strategy game.

A real-time strategy game should be about speed and initiative, but in a game as bloated as AoE2, speed and initiative counts for nothing.

Moreover, it had little strategy either. There is no strategy in a rock-paper-scissors game, and not when they throw in half-assed city building feature through which you can win a game just by turtling and making a building that takes a long time to build.

The only good things about AoE2 were the atmosphere, the graphics, and the campaigns with their objective-based missions. It is fun as a little historical infotainment for an eleven year old, with some idle building smashing thrown in.

 

[JarlFrank]

AoE2 was a lot better than AoE3.
I did like the Asian expansion for AoE3 though, preferred it to the Colonial America theme of the original. AoE2 was a much better and strategic game in comparison, though.

In AoE2, securing new resources included having to build a small outpost and defending it.
In AoE3, you just send your peasants somewhere and they don't even have to carry the resources back to the base.

In AoE2, the hero units in the campaigns couldn't die or you'd lose, and the campaigns were quite historically educational.
In AoE3, the heroes are immortal and stand up after a while, and the campaigns have some retarded fantasy story that has nothing to do with real history at all.

In AoE2, assaulting a castle was difficult. Building walls and towers at strategic positions was a good idea, and you needed siege weapons if you wanted to quickly storm enemy settlements.
In AoE3, walls are fucking weak, towers aren't much better and castles can only be built with a special unit from your home city and are limited. Cannons, now the only sort of siege weapon, are incredibly effective against both units and buildings, making them quite overpowered.

In AoE2, building fortifications required stone. In AoE3, they just require wood. Stone doesn't even exist. So instead of thinking "should I send some workers to gather stone so I can build fortifications, or should I send them to gather wood/gold/food to build more units or advance tech?" you just build some towers when you have enough wood.

Really, my main complaint are the extremely weak walls and the fact that resources don't need to be carried back to base. AoE3 is a good game, but AoE2 and even Age of Mythology are vastly superior.

 

[Texas Red]

"In AoE3, the heroes are immortal and stand up after a while, and the campaigns have some retarded fantasy story that has nothing to do with real history at all."

Actually, this what I approved of. The problem with AoE 2 campaigns is that I already KNOW what will happen. You have a lot bigger motivation to complete a mission if a new story progresses. Although admittedly the story wasn't anything special but in Starcraft the setting, story and the movies was what the game pure funl for me.

"Really, my main complaint are the extremely weak walls and the fact that resources don't need to be carried back to base. AoE3 is a good game, but AoE2 and even Age of Mythology are vastly superior."

Well yeah, that's called gunpowder warfare. The period is somewhat boring for such a strategy game since basically every unit other than musketeers were obsolete. The main role of the cavalry in that age, that is flanking or storming disrupted infranrty formations is impossible in AoE. If it was up to me, I'd remove the bonus of pikemen/musketeers with bayonets if they were not in formation or on their own. The problem in AoE is that even if the pikeman is in a duel with heavy cavalry, he gets a huge bonus, which is wrong.