[taco]

I feel this is necessary

I feel this is unnecessary.

They're already so beholden to an old classic I don't trust them to not to 1) mimic aoe2 as much as they can 2) be ideologically distinct from aoe2, but not for good game design reasons
the whole "age of empires" is strangling them, just make an rts game with some aesthetic nostalgia for aoe2 but don't get fenced in with "aoe4"



would it be a world war 1 game? timeline-wise that's the next step right?

what time period would you want to see?
would you want another age of myth-like game?
would you want a civ/empire earth style tech/age progression?

[NZs no.3]

Do you remember before Ensemble Studios was canned they had a road map for future age of empires games? AOE4 was most likely gonna be mordern warfare and AOE5 futuristic to some extent.

I agree tho, all this effort to remake 2 to make a quick buck. Go the full yard and make AOE4. Then you are not shackled to peoples expectations of AOE2 can make a new good AOE game.

[taco]

Then you are not shackled to peoples expectations of AOE2 can make a new good AOE game.

I don't even (necessarily) want an AOE game. Remember how great Age of Mythology was? The game wasn't excellent but the idea was great. I'd honestly be huge on a game like AOE2 but also you could buy quite expensive (but no favour resource) myth units that were tanky and terrifying
chuck in fealty/forced treaty ideas,
Monuments and god powers that you didn't control, but were thrown your way by scores of hidden "god" variables that were extremely unlikely to be game changers (eg: there's a 1% change per game that at a randomly chosen point between minute 3 and 8 the character with the most map exploration gets a boar sent to their tc and there are a bunch of cool sparks and shit)
Maybe relics give you a higher chance of getting arbitrary miracles idk

[womblemuppet]

Back when they released this AOE3 artbook I was disappointed, but I saw it as testing the waters.

The majority of users want AOE2 gameplay. The main criticisms of AOE3 were the new home-town features and unsatisfying gameplay stemming from the change to ranged combat over melee. Swords just don't make sense once muskets are a thing, and the counter to muskets doesn't come until tanks at which point you're making C&C. AOE2 defined the series because of the mix of cavalry, archers and infantry leading to a great rock-paper-scissors element you can build a game off. And a game with that formula also including musket warfare and onwards is stretching to the point the game loses simplicity and conciseness : it's not Empire Earth.  

AOE4 should be made with the mindset that AOE2 is the series, not just 'the series should be expanded upon'. It's got a good formula with strategic choices, random maps and large civ diversity, a grounding in historic events and technology, a mix of good combat with fast moving units and macro base building. The middle ages is AOE's historical niche which also gives it the series defining gameplay.

As for what could be added, look to starcraft 2 and league of legends. Starcraft 2 for advances in the RTS engine, and league for advances in ability design.
The number of civs should be kept high. The diversity in civs should be greater and I think you could keep general familiarity by segmenting the civs by region more (like with meso civs). So place more emphasis on the uniqueness of say 'East Asia' civs by changing one or two of their base units or buildings for all of them. Then further differentiate them with unique things (which has so much more room to grow than just 2 unique techs and a few bonuses. they have the right idea with the zany shit the last expansion gave, they're just greatly limited by the engine). Once the greater regions are divided into real brackets (not just building sprites) learning all the civs becomes more manageable and you can experiment more with the civs themselves. Think C&C generals zero hour.

Do I want another age of myth? not really... potentially?

[taco]

seems like you want them to make a well designed good game whereas I want them to start with gimmicks and then somehow still make a game that is good

They definitely can do a lot more interesting things with civs, definitely like like your reference to the meso civs being notably different while being mechanistically not too different. I feel like an aoe-style game would suffer if civs were too different...

Honestly I think another age of myth would probably disappoint, if only because it's someone else apart from me specifically choosing which dumb quirks are included, yet somehow such a tantalising idea

I want an aoe game all about the bronze age/Iliad times. We've already had it before but I want to see actual scythed chariots, elephants that behave sort of like tanks do to infantry in C&C Generals. Bots with names like Agamemmnon and Ajax and Odysseus

[taco]

will try get on the beta I guess?

[NZs no.3]

AOE4 should be made with the mindset that AOE2 is the series, not just 'the series should be expanded upon'. It's got a good formula with strategic choices, random maps and large civ diversity, a grounding in historic events and technology, a mix of good combat with fast moving units and macro base building. The middle ages is AOE's historical niche which also gives it the series defining gameplay.

This whole post is pretty correct but they would rather cash in on what they know people already love with deep nostalgia in a time where remakes/remasters/reboots are really popular and make quick cash.

I'd just go all out and do an AOE4. Stick with what works, make it better, expand it in a good way. But this isn't a perfect world.

I still like ago of myth most because mythology is cool and it was AOE2 except you could build giants and get dragons and I loved the music plus I learnt a little bit of Greek/Norse/Egyptian words haha

Need to play more of both. I haven't in awhile. Haven't been on my PC much as of late!

[taco]

New civilizations: Four new civilizations are being added exclusively to Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition: the Bulgarians, Cumans, Lithuanians and Tatars, bringing the total number of civilizations in the game to 35.

[womblemuppet]

As much as I want to shit on the decision, I'm actually excited about new content.

[NZs no.3]

The last DLCs/extra vivs they did were such a cash grab and they were reskins. Hoping for better effort this time.