It was alright. Nowhere near the glory of Age of Empires 2, but still a solid 7/10. Had fun with the campaign playthrough (including the expansions).

Well, I enjoyed it as well. Didn’t actually play the Asian empires expansion, and the other campaigns were ok.
Really? Blimey, I would far rather have a PS4 over an Xbox any day. I didn’t mind the first Xbox to be honest, but really wouldn’t go for M$ in any product anymore, they spend billions each year making all their products worse. The “new” Xbox is streaming only, Games for Consoles Dead anyone?

AoE is a saga that didn't knew how to survive the passing of the years. A huge combo of bad decissions makes this ip a complete failure. First, AoEIII.

Age of Empires III is a goodlooking game but is FAR from being a good rts. It's simple, has serious balance issues and the introduction of the Homecities messed up the multiplayer community, creating something like hidden tiers, in a multiplayer match the level handicap of the Homecities is more important than any strategy or tactic you can play.

And then, the dead of the classics. Instead of going with a Enhanced and open source version of the classic AoEI and AoEII, the greedy monsters of MS went Remake, selling only in Steam or MsStore. The definitive editions are a SERIOUS mistake for the franchise. The mass, the ones with toasters of 4gb ram and intelHD, cant afford the membershish official clients like the DE demands.

For me AoE is sadly a destroyed franchise. And in this aoeiv they seem to repeat the mark of their doom: aoe3. All good but is a huge and firm NO for me. The last good age of empires was AoEIIHD.

I bought a physical copy many years ago, and it doesn't seem to have DRM. I've had it installed all this time (have yet to play the second expansion), and coincidentally I started it up a few days ago and it worked without needing the disc or anything. Turns out I've kinda forgotten how to play it though.

Nah, it's fine. Given that I don't do multiplayer, I don't much care about "balance issues".

The graphics look awful, everything looks really smoothed out and lacks the realistic sharpness of AoE2 and it's remake.

necro-bomb...

Coming to AoE 3 from Rise of Nations made me quickly abandon it. Too bad Big Huge Games are now a mobile developer of sorts and haven't taken the series a step further.

The necromancers tricked me! To be fair, there has been some buzz around the game lately yet again, so I thought it was just that...

AoE2 survived the 22 years since 1999 with constantly active tournaments, active custom scenario makers and active patching of base game. The 2013 HD edition was acknowledgement of the fact that AoE2 was thriving and while AoM and AoE1 DEs failed to take off due to being inferior to the base games, they still remain alive in their userpatched versions. I don't know if the AoE1 tournament scene is alive but MP still is. AoM MP seems to have died out though, probably with the failure of the remaster and expansion.

AoE3 had a less active but still alive tournament scene and enough players to play in it. The introduction of Home Cities was not a step forward or backward but simply a different way of changing the game. It was different from AoM and AoE2 and that was what was needed at the time since AoE1, 2 and AoM showed that people don't progress from one to the other but rather choose an Age game that matches their tastes.

Being so radically different gave it the chance to stand out and gain its own following, rather than cannibalizing players from the other Age games. And it worked, because it sustained its own playerbase from its launch which has now mostly migrated to the DE. AoE2 had more balance issues in its unpatched state than AoE3 and 3 implemented fanmade balance patches much earlier than 2, which was stuck in an age of Hun domination at the highest level for more than 15 years.

AoE4, unlike all other age games doesn't try to do anything fundamentally different from a previous one; being a sidegrade to AoE2. And when new players find out AoE2 is a better medieval RTS with 30+ civs instead of the 8 cookie cutter civs in AoE4, they will likely switch to it, IMO.

No AoE game tried to be a better version of a previous one but became successful by being different. AoE4 not being that different, I don't think will gain much traction long-term beyond people for whom it is their first RTS.

Don't discuss with haters! They already have opinion. Also, while I'm die hard fan of AoE 2, I believe you are wrong about AoE 2 and AoE 4 civs. So far, each AoE 4 civ looks unique in units and gameplay style, compared to AoE 2 which has 30+ civilizations which are very similar to each other, with small technological differences which require quite a lot experience to fully understand.

aoe4 will be the best aoe gameee eveer

I'm aware of the higher degree of difference between the civs but I don't think it will be successful if the target audience is the existing AoE playerbase. It doesn't have a cards and shipments system of AoE3 or anything like it so I don't think they can get that audience. They shouldn't expect too many players from AoM and AoE1 because remastered or not, those games run well on paotaoe PCs while AoE4 minimally requires 8GB RAM, 50GB HDD space and DX12 capable GPU. That in addition to being different from both in terms of their gameplay styles and time periods.

Finally, you get the AoE2 playerbase which probably has PCs powerful enough to run it (because AoE2 DE is also a resource hog) but being the most obsessed with balance because of having an active MP and tournament scene. Even disregarding the Fortnite graphics, I don't think anyone who's used to the level of micro required in AoE2 and its balance would like AoE4. From the looks of the simplified and floaty unit controls visible in the trailer, a lot of ''streamlining'' seems to have taken place.

It may have a singleplayer audience for a time but I don't expect it will advance through the ages like the others did. MP will also depend on balance, having shorter matches than AoE2 and AoE3 and a working recorded games feature.

I'm not talking about the minimum system requirements alone; that may be quite accessible (or may have been before the pandemic). I'm talking about the benchmark that the game runs before it deems your PC fit to play MP. You can buy and run the game in SP with whatever level of success but it won't let you play multiplayer unless you get above a certain number of points in its baked-in benchmark. The requirements for that are quite high (couldn't qualify with my old FX6300+RX550).

Oh, it's been 2 years and it's still not out yet?

thats good , hate when potatoers wants to play multi and everybody just have to wait for them to load the map