Thread 11940804

I don't understand the love for this game, it's a boring Sim City ass RTS that has the most basic rock paper scissors combat. Games can go on forever while you spend minutes doing nothing but watching a bunch of villagers gather stuff. There's so many better games I don't know why this one is held up as one of the best.

>im a retard who sucks at this game

Ok. Thread closed

>>11940804 (OP)
WOLOLO

>>11940804 (OP)
How do you turn this on?

>>11940804 (OP)
Combat is better than in games like Rise of Nations for example, and resource management is deeper than in something like Starcraft or Command & Conquer. I do think that games go on forever sometimes though, because you rely on your opponent wanting to resign instead of hiding villagers in a random corner for hours.

>>11940837
That's an aoe1 thing.

>>11940804 (OP)
>ill be honest
You don’t understand the AoE play style. It’s all about slow combat and managing your economy more than fast-paced fighting. A big conceit of the franchise is that it’s often more valuable to advance to another age and/or build a monument than to exterminate enemies. If you want to get closer to the blizzard style of rts, play age of mythology, which has a faster pace.

>>11940804 (OP)
>There's so many better games
What was a better RTS in 1999?

>>11940860
If you are a man, that should turn you on.

>>11940950
>play age of mythology, which has a faster pace.
NTA but I always thought Age of Mythology got a raw deal. Sure maybe on objective metrics of game design it wasn't as good as AOE II, but I always liked how the new progression system opened up the gameplay. Having more of a fantasy setting while maintaining the pseudo-historical theme of the main series was also a smart move and gave the game a distinctive look and feel. In an alternate reality where Rick Goodman had worked on AOM rather than Empire Earth I'd like to think it would have turned out to be a viable series. Oh, well. At least Empire Earth was pretty good in its own right, even if that wasn't very successful either.

>>11940995
Age Of Mythology has great ideas, but I absolutely hate the unit counters in the game. Time to kill across the board takes forever. It’s especially bad for the Egyptians who only have counter-units at the beginning. Siege was also really underpowered for some reason. I still like the game though. 8/10

>>11940804 (OP)
>I dont understand how people can enjoy this masterpiece
brown
>>11940810
/thread

>>11940872
That's my point it's am RTS that focused too much on resources with little combat that I personally find boring. Rise of Nations is a game I find even worse in this regard but I enjoyed it more than Empire Earth, which felt like an unfinished game.
I never tried AoM but I do enjoy AoE3 far more than 2, granted most of that comes from the time period the game is set in over everything else. I will give mythology a shot since I believe I already own it.
>>11940973
TA, CnC, Starcraft, Warcraft 2, Cossacks came out later but still similar in style.

>>11940995
>>11941039
I need to replay AoM. It was a popular game for about four years in the 2000s and a pretty clear response to what blizzard was doing, insofar as it was the logical 3d upgrade to the AoE franchise and the lotr-influenced environment back then. Unfortunately, though I consider it a great game, it was never as engrossing as blizzard’s rts games. It is kind of weird though that the Blizz style sort of burned itself out in successive waves of interest, while AoE (mostly 2) had been chugging along with a dedicated fan base for like 10 years before we got the HD stuff.

>>11941252
>brown
Current best player in the world who grinds the game every day, Hera, is literally a Muslim Palestinian-Canadian living in Argentina. I don't think being white or brown has to do with anything here.

>>11941386
It seems like there's basically two camps in the RTS space: Those who like Age of Empires, and those who like Starcraft. I have a buddy who says that quite a few people still love the old Warcraft games, but the lore has been soured by World of Warcraft since then. In any case, there's a general sentiment that AOE II nailed the formula so hard that it was simply too tough of an act to follow, and honestly I kind of agree with them. Empire Earth was a valiant attempt to expand on the formula but it suffered from too many issues and being able to progress from the stone age to the distant future didn't work as well as they had hoped.

Really, unless you're a big fan of 4X games, where do you go after AOE? Have there been any decent RTS releases recently? I know someone name-dropped Rise of Nations/Legends earlier but that's only a few years newer. And I WON'T play those crappy f2p city building games that try to mimic AOE's art style in order to trick people into thinking it's a strategy game.

>>11941512
Company of Heroes is the other major branch. I like the arcade-y mix of easy unit controls but also having directional vehicles, turret rotation, and things like that. Sure you have other tactics games that get more in depth with damage modeling and unit inventory, but CoH strikes a good balance from what I've seen.

I wish we had gotten a proper pike-and-shot style RTS covering early muskets up to Napoleon era. Have big lines of infantry rather than individual soldiers where flanking and rotation actually plays a factor in it.

>>11941571
>I wish we had gotten a proper pike-and-shot style RTS covering early muskets up to Napoleon era.
That would be epic, and once again I find myself lamenting what may have been, because we COULD have had something like that in Age of Empires IV if things had gone differently with III. Alas, if maybes and buts were candies and nuts we'd all have a merry Christmas.

>>11940804 (OP)
>I'm a zoomer
ok

>>11941512
CoH like the other anon said is an option. But I think there's still a community for SupCom and apparently there's some SupCom clone that people like too. I think many people who played AoE2 back in the day just wanted to create pretty medieval cities and would get mad at being attacked early, those people moved on to city builders. Others wanted to simulate historical battles with huge armies, also got mad at being attacked early, and they're playing Total War or some kind of 4X game now. People who wanted a traditional style RTS instead of just playing one because they had nothing better for their tastes were probably a minority.

Personally I was always a Kohan fella

>>11940810
Fpbp

>>11940804 (OP)
Its not my favorite RTS but if people like it then good or them, I have collected all the PC versions and have a big box version of AOE a well fun fact I have the PS2 port of it which you may not know exists. How did what was what was one of Microsofts core games end up on a playsation? Fuck knows but it did.

>>11942236
Wacraft 2
Total Anihilation Kingdoms
Red Alert And Yuris revenge
Emperor Batte for Dune
Dune 2000
Utopia
Populous
Pratoreans
Warzone 2100
Lords of Midnight
Empire Earth

>>11940804 (OP)
It's very pretty and it's fun to watch your little town grow while also having decent combat unlike the usual management game. Gameplay wise I'd much rather play Starcraft or Comand and Conquer, though. Or even Age of Mythology.

The music, fog of war, perils of wolves and boar, and getting a glimpse into ancient civilization, all wrapped up in a beautiful little sim city package. And the MSN online multiplayer, gawd. AoE2 was so good, and so comfy.
Makes me want a hot chocolate just reminiscing about it.

>>11940981
Imagine riding around in this to feel extra manly lmao, I would feel like a clown, why are boomers so weird

>>11943405
It's a sexy piece of machinery. I don't think men would drive it to feel manly, they would just be stinking rich and willing to show off with eccentric taste. It's got more of an Austin Power's swinger vibe than a manly James Bond type of car.
Think of it as a smokin' hot woman belonging to another man. You can admire the eyecandy and respect it, even if your heart belongs to a Camaro or some shit.

>>11940872
>resource management is deeper
why would you want deep resource management in a RTS?

>>11943431
>respect it
Nah, the posturing is too obvious, this is way too in your face. There is no non-poser way to own a car like this. It even looks like a penis lol

>>11943531
Nigga this car is just a Dodge Vioer for boomers.

>>11941512
>Have there been any decent RTS releases recently?
None that I can recall. Unfortunately rts seems to be a mostly dead/waiting-to-be-revived genre due to mobas taking over for people with deficient attention spans. Blizz RTSs are basically dead except for the small numbers playing reforged and sc2 still, EA thoroughly tanked C&C, and AoE DEs are fine but pretty niche player bases now. At this point, it feels like a disruptive company needs to come in and redefine the genre. Otherwise we are in turn-based 4X territory. RTS and boomer shooters are pretty much the definitive retro gaming genres now.
>>11941571
>CoH
I never played the original two games. What are they like compared to other rts games? I did play 3 briefly and it felt way different than other strategy games.

>>11943463
Resource management is fun. Having to decide when to start mining stone, or if you mine stone at all, or focusing on trash units because your gold is exposed, or trying to balance how many wood gatherers you need to sustain your farms and archer production while still having enough spare wood to use on buildings, or how soon you invest into eco upgrades in detriment of your army, etc. All while paying attention to fights and things happening all over the map. But I do get the appeal of something more combat focused like CoH for example.

>>11944680
AoE resource management is so fun. I loved deciding what to focus on. That is something Blizz style rts games simplify, and for C&C it’s literally just “find tiberium.” Tradeoff is the slower aoe play style, but for a game predicated on historical events, it makes sense.

Aoe2 is one of the few multiplayer games that still has an active community, and also you are allowed to play for free the 99 version on Voobly.

I remember me and my brothers used to play multiplayer on this all the time usually turtling to the imperial age and then I read a few strategy guides and learned to feudal rush and they all refused to play with me anymore : (

>>11944994
>play game for fun
>read strats
>game is no longer fun
Many such cases. RTS games are at their best when you are playing with natural strategy formed by your own brain, using guides online leads to the same bullshit every game. It doesn't matter if your strats suck if they are fun.

>>11945009
A fair point. It's also like how becoming too intelligent makes you feel disconnected from retards, and in turn, lonelier.
Finding an intellectual equal is a hard thing.

>>11945009
I always thought the feudal age had the coolest aesthetic and that Imperial age looked sorta gay too
I always wished there were more campaigns like William Wallace where you were locked to the feudal/dark ages and had to make do with what you had

Wish there were more asymetric battles where you were fighting against enemies at higher ages than you and you needed the element of surprise or some special tactic to beat them

>>11944976
Calling it the 99 version made me think there was an AOE battle royale

>>11945056

the funny thing is that in the DE version, there was for a time a battle royale mode where the map would shrink overtime and destroy all the buildings/units in the borders.

>>11945034
True, I always liked playing games where you could only age up to feudal, it changes the game a whole lot when you can't just mindlessly out tech people and takes away so much focus on resources since you're pretty much set by the time you hit feudal.
>>11945018
Real, if I am just playing for fun I tend to handicap myself for the sake of everyone else. Thankfully alcohol is a pretty good handicap for most games. But it is nice when something is built into the game.
One of my best memories was playing a 4v2 in RA2 with some friends it was a good challenge for everyone while not getting too sweaty.

>>11945056
They should make an AoE2 infinite where the world is hueg and on a server like Minecraft, and you just build your civilization and expand and conquer.
Idk how to tackle the inevitability of a civilization getting too big and attacked on all sides of their border, perhaps that would just be an accepted end-state or vassals could join your empire dependibg on how many rival civs you wiped out.

>>11945089
Fuck, I definitely would've gotten into that

>>11945202
https://liquipedia.net/ageofempires/Hera

>>11945018
>becoming too intelligent makes you feel disconnected from retards
That's not a problem with intelligence. That's an issue with a lack of empathy.

>>11945487
Partially, but it's also because retards bring you down to their level unnecessarily and counterproductively

>>11945487
You can empathize with someone who doesn't really know how to empathize with what's going on in your head. That's where the divide of minds comes in, and you feel more alone.

>>11941512
I miss when AoE was more niche, this esports thing has always been fucking dumb, people play like spastics now thanks to gookcraft. Koreans ruined RTS forever.

It came free with a lot of mass-market prebuilt PCs in the '90s. That's how I got it (w/ a Gateway 2000) and why I have so much nostalgia for it. Before high-speed internet and phones something you could sink many hours into was nice. It helps that it was also good.
I much prefer slower, relaxing 1-player gameplay to minmax "follow the same procedure every time" competitive RTS.

>>11945487
i interpreted his comment differently. it's one thing to be able to empathize with others, to see one in a completely different situation from your own and attempt to understand it. i didn't grow up in an inner city black neighborhood but i understand the historical and modern contexts around them which explains why they are the way they are. i find empathy is often a learned tool; it comes from the "nurture" side of things. if you're not taught those skills in your formative years, chances are you'll never be able to engage in it.

then there's his comment
>becoming too intelligent makes you feel disconnected from retards
which i think he means more from a peer/colleague/comradery perspective. if you're an intellectually curious person, you want to be around others like that. you don't want to be around the 90 IQ dullard that barely finished high school, works retail, and the most difficult question they've ever asked themselves is "who's going to win this season of Big Brother?"

>>11940804 (OP)
>don't understand the love for this game

Are you retarded or something?

>>11941245
It's a piece of shit against aoe1 even, it has a 640x480 screen resolution which was the norm for warcraft2 but a disgrace for a game from 98. Also the idiotic selection limit of 12 units. Basically this game didn't evolve the genre but made it stomp around, they replaced wc2 graphics and added a third faction.

>>11946654
shut up retard. it released 3 asymmetrical factions at a time when the genre was still stuck in 2 identical factions with different coats of paint. not to mention it's one of the most well-balanced games of all time