AoE is great. I was so happy after they released the HD release. The bad part is that there is no native MacOSX version available :(
I'm playing it on MacOS using VMware Fusion. Works well.
Why Age of Empires 2 is still growing
41–50 of 111 posts
Re: Why Age of Empires 2 is still growing
#42I have just started playing AoE2 again. I have some complaints.
The units are so stupid and frustrating. They will casually walk into the range of enemy castles and towers. They will chase units across the map if you don't put them into defensive mode. If you do put them into defensive mode, they can easily be take out by archers without fighting back. They will open gates and let hordes of enemies into your town. They will stand there and continue cutting wood while an enemy army approaches them and kills their coworkers. The monks won't attack units unless you specifically order them to. Etc, etc. It makes parts of the game very tedious and unenjoyable.
The campaigns are similarly tedious. At first it's really fun and challenging, if you have the difficulty right. It's a challenge to figure out how to repel the big attacks and build up very quickly.
But after building up, it's no longer a challenge. And to win, you just need to spend an hour clicking through the enemies base destroying their structures. Even though you basically won an hour ago.
The multiplayer is terrifying. I tried it once and within like 10 minutes my opponent had surrounded my base with cannon towers and trebuchets. I haven't played it since.
The AI scripting is really cool. It's super simple to learn, very easy to modify other people's scripts, and very powerful. You can do a lot with just a few lines of their domain specific language. And you don't need any programming knowledge at all. And it's very extensive. There are tons of variables and functions available that let you do all kinds of things, and it's well documented.
But it's also extremely restricted. You can't do basic things like store variables, compare numbers, etc. There are arbitrary limits on how many conditions you can have in a conditional, how many lines you can have total, etc. They are workable, but I have no idea why they are even there. The only people modifying AI scripts in the first place are probably willing to accept if the game runs a bit slower because of all the extra code they put in it.
There's also no way to speed up the game. You only get "slow", "normal", or "fast". You need to use Cheat Engine to make the game run a hundred times faster. This is necessary for testing those AI scripts, or getting through those tedious offensive parts I mentioned above. They should have just let it be an option in the game.
Same with other variables like population limit, that's restricted to 200 for no reason. If I want a higher limit, I'll accept that the game runs slower. Just let it be an option, even in a hidden menu with a big warning or something. TBF, the new HD edition does let you go up to 500 IIRC.
Re: Why Age of Empires 2 is still growing
#43Age of Mythology is still one of my favorite games ever. What made it fun is not the real time strategy, but the custom scenario maps that people could create. This wasn't just the terrain, but the mechanics of the maps themselves. It was part "programming" as well as part design. The multiplayer servers are still online, but the certificate expired years ago. You can force AOM to connect to them with fiddler2, but y…
My wife and I played AOM obsessively, it's such a great game. There's a small time commitment, the AI had just the right levels of difficulty to help you work on your rts skills while still having a blast.
I always felt like the Atlanteans were slightly overpowered, but other than that the balance was pretty good.
The steam version is good but I kinda wish there were an update with low system requirements that fixed some of the bugs in the current version. It's the best LAN game ever.
Re: Why Age of Empires 2 is still growing
#44I have just started playing AoE2 again. I have some complaints. The units are so stupid and frustrating. They will casually walk into the range of enemy castles and towers. They will chase units across the map if you don't put them into defensive mode. If you do put them into defensive mode, they can easily be take out by archers without fighting back. They will open gates and let hordes of enemies into your town. Th…
I've also picked up AOE2:HD again and agree with all the frustrating parts you mentioned. Age of Mythology (and AoE III) seems to have much better unit AI, saner move command chaining (shift+click), nicer chaining of research and training, less micro management of villagers (e.g. farms are infinite), visible UI for idle villagers and control groups, yet most of my friends have only played AoE2 in their teens, so that's what we go with the rare times we get together to play.
Re: Why Age of Empires 2 is still growing
#45I've played a great deal of AoE2. Here are some comments: * The two new expansions are nice. The developers have done an excellent job at maintaining the balance of the game and not pushing any outlandish changes. (After all, the game thrives on a nostalgia factor.) However, it's apparent that it comes from a tiny dev studio. Releases are usually littered with bugs and playability issues. This is a great shame, becau…
Regarding your last point: I really don't like that competitiveness. I don't get the fun in repeating the exact same schedule over and over again just to finish the game as quick as possible. I would rather prefer to build a nice city first and take it slow, but with strategy games that almost never works in multiplayer, which is why I never play them. I don't really get that feeling with FPS games, they seem to be different every single time (although for games such as counter strike that may not be true).
Re: Why Age of Empires 2 is still growing
#46One of the greatest breakthroughs of my life was realizing that you only had to type "cheese steak jimmy's" once, then ctrl-c, then ctrl-v as much as you want. It was a great day.
Strangely I am responsible for the name of this cheat code. It's an accidental-turned-intentional misnomer for a place we used to eat a lot during Age2 development called Fred's Downtown Philly.
Re: Why Age of Empires 2 is still growing
#47I have just started playing AoE2 again. I have some complaints. The units are so stupid and frustrating. They will casually walk into the range of enemy castles and towers. They will chase units across the map if you don't put them into defensive mode. If you do put them into defensive mode, they can easily be take out by archers without fighting back. They will open gates and let hordes of enemies into your town. Th…
Regarding the AI scripting, do you have good resources that provide a gentle introduction to get started with tweaking it? Also, are there any popular modifications that people make to the AI?
Re: Why Age of Empires 2 is still growing
#48I'd like to remind you that there's openage, a free engine for Age of Empires 2. https://github.com/SFTtech/openage It will be the future if you wanna accomplish things the original engine is incapable of doing, especially a sane mod API. Help us make it more awesome :)
Thanks for sharing! I actually thought this was going to point to 0ad [1]...which because it deals with ancient warfare, I had just assumed it was sparked by AOE2 community. Good to know of openage.
Out of curiosity...how much do you still play AOE2? I guess that would implicitly indicate how far along openage is...but I was also interested just how much someone has to love a game to rebuild it from scratch :)
Re: Why Age of Empires 2 is still growing
#49Played a LOT of AOE2 back in the day. However, I was always more of a fan of AoE1 RoR expansion. Anyone else? Something about the brutal simplicity of it, made it much more fun for me and my friends? Would love to see that "HD'ified"!
Oh yes, the villagers beating enemies with huge bones/clubs and the famous wololo :-)
Re: Why Age of Empires 2 is still growing
#50One thing I'd like to see improved is the unit AI, which is frustratingly poor. This would probably annoy some serious multiplayers, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
The HD Edition has a new AI[0] that's much stronger than the old one. It's built by Promiskuitiv and Archon, two well-known AI scripters in the Age of Empires scene :) [0]: http://steamcommunity.com/app/221380/discussions/1/540744934...
How does the new AI differ from the original one? I don't see it in the change log.