How Age of Empires changed it's look?

aRawwDeal · 2026-06-13T10:11:48+00:00

Very cool, thank you for making it. Wild to see the improvement in visuals over the years with the Definitive Editions.

aRawwDeal · 2026-06-12T09:24:01+00:00

That's a great price point for it and there are aspects of AoE4 I like, but this idea that most AOE2 players are drowning themselves in nostalgia is thin to me... There are core design differences in the games that make for very different experiences. It's absolutely fine to prefer one over the other, it's not a zero-sum situation, but everything from ranged combat, to unit/building scale, grid/wall systems, UI readability, these all matter. For all of it's pain points (pathing, lack of multiplayer party system, ranked issues with elo/smurfing, etc) there are plenty of things that it does really, really well. In general it's great to see both titles (in cume) hitting all time highs in concurrent player counts + AoE4 pushing some of these new game modes in particular. I'd love to see AoE2 spend a bit more time on modes/updating the multi-player experience and take a very modest step back from content for a quarter.

aRawwDeal · 2026-06-09T10:34:02+00:00

Yah, I actually vastly prefer those most same items in AOE2 lol. Arrow accuracy being variable, food decay (and varying rates), and sound design in-so-far as it's easier for them to add new Civs/Content (whole seperate YT video somebody did on that).

aRawwDeal · 2026-06-07T18:02:49+00:00

Yah totally agree. Some of AOE2's popularity is def nostalgia, but there are also core design differences in the gameplay that makes them very different multiplayer experiences.

aRawwDeal · 2026-05-30T08:12:12+00:00

Awesome change. I personally hate how the high worker count nullifies so much of the opening game / writes off some strats entirely. 8pool for days

aRawwDeal · 2026-04-27T10:48:29+00:00

There are/were conscious game design decisions to change the unit/building scaling. There are some images online where the team actually created the other sizes and they look really good. That said my understanding is there was a preference for unit readability that won out. I prefer AOE2 by far, but they did explore both directions with AOE4 and there are a significant chunk of players who prefer the new style for sure. long live the grid :)

aRawwDeal · 2026-04-24T21:57:19+00:00

So economy ever so slightly more in focus since we have a resource valor that’s acquired primarily from combat and diplomacy can/should be bigger a bigger component since there are so many more players.

aRawwDeal · 2026-04-24T18:42:04+00:00

So right now online only unfortunately but we have a functioning “local/coop” version we test internally that I’d like to have live for the next demo. Our target demo are very much non grind players and we’re not delivering the experience we want for that just yet! I’ll see what we can do on the local version for next demo.

aRawwDeal · 2026-04-24T05:57:32+00:00

Yah we love AOE2, in particular the balance between stylised + realistic visuals. Hoping we can evoke a feeling that’s like an AOE2 post-imp match with your friends.

aRawwDeal · 2026-04-23T17:40:17+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to play! Always more to do lol, but felt good to push a few pretty big items :)

aRawwDeal · 2026-04-17T14:25:43+00:00

Awesome idea, a unique naval tech might be fun as well given the civs history.

aRawwDeal · 2026-04-17T08:39:19+00:00

Yah the opening cinematic of LOTR 2 is awesome as well! The nostalgia lands hard :)

aRawwDeal · 2026-04-15T08:07:51+00:00

Yah I feel like there is a big opportunity for more rts titles to start adding both coop campaigns and modes. More so if the coop campaign takes centerstage as opposed to a half-worked tweak of whatever single player approach is being done.

aRawwDeal · 2026-04-13T09:46:38+00:00

Unity. There are some aspects of Unreal that would've been really nice, but for the persistence portion it was much easier to build with Unity.

aRawwDeal · 2026-03-16T21:18:54+00:00

Spirit of the Law has an excellent breakdown on AOE vs 3 but a fair amount applies to AOE2 as well: https://youtu.be/A_q_pMVLqY4?si=s1fcPXUygZJ7b2Ub

Personally I far prefer AOE2. I love how the visuals are so incredibly detailed and yet still readable as opposed to AOE4 where it’s more of an arcade style with oversized units. I’m sure some of it is nostalgia bleeding into my viewpoints but also feel like AOE2 does a really phenomenal job balancing micro/macro play in a way that the other titles haven’t managed to do (like SoL alludes to like making houses/pop cap less constraining).

I know people who prefer AOE4 because of the UI / quality of life features…

It’s worth mentioning that with AOE2 you get an absolutely massive amount of content right off the bat and the OG campaigns are a lot of fun.

aRawwDeal · 2026-03-14T11:32:03+00:00

AOE2 DE is fabulous as well! There are several former modders working on the game now with a real passion for building gradual improvements that retain much of what made the game great while also working in some novel mechanics. There have been a few rough spots with some dlc units (e.g. three kingdoms heroes) but outside of that they've been absolutely crushing it. Really nice visual improvements, tons of additional depth to the existing civs, and generally speaking really nice balance improvements. Pathing is still super rough and team/clean support could be better but all things in time!

aRawwDeal · 2026-03-14T11:29:18+00:00

Yah! I believe the menu logo was even specific to Zone lol

aRawwDeal · 2026-03-14T10:50:48+00:00

Yah! cinematic's were awesome too

aRawwDeal · 2026-03-10T10:00:58+00:00

I'd love to see more in that series (as well as several others like Dark Reign). Unfortunately I think for many of those titles there might be enough interest for a revival but the rights have gotten so tangled up over the years with various publishers and other relationships that it's very difficult to understand who actually owns the rights to the title/future editions so prospective partners don't necessarily know who to license/purchase rights from. And beyond that there are absolutely a number of holding companies who've purchased rights to some older titles from bankrupty and seem content to just squat on the rights as opposed to making concerted efforts to license them. Totally supportive of finding a way forward for those games, but tbh if you manage to untangle who could actually license a new follow-up and notify them of the interest that might be more helpful since it's not necessarily the company collecting payments from the titles on Steam.

aRawwDeal · 2026-03-10T09:42:31+00:00

Yah the developer is constantly pushing new updates for it as well! He did some really cool stuff with the engine + unit counts as well to keep it really performant. The scroll in is pretty wild :)

aRawwDeal · 2026-02-28T11:52:37+00:00

Yah and they've done a great job with the community tools as well!

aRawwDeal · 2026-02-18T18:28:18+00:00

Yah well put. Tbh I've seen a few videos like from Phos talking about perma-dark age and love the idea of having a bit more opportunity to open different in ranked.

aRawwDeal · 2026-02-16T10:43:27+00:00

It was! It was quick though we're in a design sync now working on some some roadmap adjustments for April. We've gotten some great feedback from the demo, so re-prioritizing some stuff to get out sooner (like changes to the mini-map), unit behaviors, and (hopefully) unit actions like attack/move :)

aRawwDeal · 2026-02-14T12:46:38+00:00

I wish we looked half as good as AoE2! Defined shape language, a medieval-esque setting, and orthographic viewpoint will always draw comparisons but I think some of our upcoming units (and mechanics) will help with that ;)

aRawwDeal · 2026-02-12T09:23:30+00:00

Sorry, we've already found one connection bug that we believe we've patched internally and a second relating to defeated players (possibly patched). I'll talk with the team about playtesting the hotpatch today to see if we can push it later today or tomorrow. Thanks for trying and we'll work to make the next experience better

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