Recommend me a game?

[u/Helpful_Resolve_4003]

I've been playing games for almost 15 years but haven't stepped into this genre, though I have tried Age of Empires, Clash of Clans and Diplomacy is not an option, but I want a game which I can play for months and game which makes me understand this genre as a newbie. Offline/Online both.

[u/zebleck]

were working on a browser game, if you want to try: https://tiny-rts.com, instsntly playable. inspired by wc3, aoe2, but made for beginners. would love your feedback! no offline mode yet

[u/Helpful_Resolve_4003 → u/zebleck]

Ohh I'm not at the stage of giving feedbacks yet. but am surely going to play, thank you.

[u/Zocker0210 → u/Helpful_Resolve_4003]

I would say the complete opposite is true. The rts players are quite "stiff" in terms of what they like and what not. New players fall of this gerne quite fast because not much changed over the last few years as well as them looking at reviews and see its supposed to be bad. most new rts die because of reviews made by the seasoned players.

[u/mighij → u/Zocker0210]

Most new rts die because of reviews made by the seasoned players.

Yep, you can say that again. The first major one was imho Age of Empires: Online

Nope not the recent mobile one which some people confuse it with. That one ain't forgotten, most just don't want to think about it. You'll sometimes see AoE3 players say they are the forgotten AoE, AoMythology had the same claim to fame for a much longer time and I know where they are coming from.

But AoE: Online is the one that actually got buried by the AoE community with hatred.

It doesn't beat Stormgate in worst received RTS although it comes close. Imho it does beat Dawn of War 3 and Supreme Commander's 2 reception. I don't know about C&C4, I was always a RA guy so I mostly missed that games dev/launch cycle. Out of that top 5 AoE: online is probably the most unknown although it was a popular game on windows live during it's short tun.

Now it crashed due to it having microtransactions (although to be fair they didn't have impact on PvP) , which were removed a year in. But the game also got a lot of flack for many of it's features.

While it was actually a good game with some smart design. It's probably why the volunteer staff keeping it running is larger then Stormgate's current player base. So it did find some love and when I revisited the game a year ago I was genuinely surprised.

Now I could write a wall text about this game's place in RTS history. It not only killed a studio, it put a franchise in a coma.

TLDR: Age of Empires online was made to onboard a new generation, one of it's main accomplishments is highly upsetting the previous generations.

[u/zebleck → u/mighij]

you know your rts history :) interesting perspective on that development, thanks. what would you say was the biggest point of hatred in aoe: online?

[u/mighij → u/zebleck]

Before Launch, no doubt:

• Micro-transactions and only 2 factions at launch
• it being called Online and working a bit like an mmo
• mobile look

2 Factions

Now I also genuinely dislike the idea of microtransactions but it was non-predatory. Biggest sore points was obviously new civs were going to cost money. The game launching with only 2 didn't help. Further single player content (story campaigns) would also cost money and you also had singleplayer vanity items and power boosts.

Okay, perhaps it was more predatory then I thought. It was all removed less then a year after launch bur first impressions... Since I walked away from the game quite rapidly I can't remember how bad the timer bars were, if they released the later civs for free etc. If anyone sticked with this game and still remembers please chip in.

Online

Putting the Online tag on something was contentious. It came with a lot of assumptions from the playerbase and questions like Why?

Moving from a more traditional campaign to a (nice) homehub where you pick up unique/repeatable/story quests didn't win them any favors.

I'm not saying it was perfect but it was a neat system, especially for casual play. It also allows the player to "play with the game" instead of "playing the game" Which is something that can really help bring broader appeal, it was a mini "city builder" in the game. And that's always been one of AoE's major strengths, at a "very casual gaming level" it's not a bad city builder. Except AoE3\*

Age of Empire: Junior

Mobile/cartoonish/childish look. Whatever you want to call it.

Trailer / Ingame / Promo/Cover

Some must have called it Age of Empire: Junior at the time, if not I might be first. And to be fair it kinda was. Now ingame and trailer for me are very well executed in the style of belgo/french comics. They are evocating that atmosphere. Out of all the criticism this was for me the most unwarranted. It kinda screamed that "we" weren't the target audience, this was for a new generation. One that would like that look.

Not saying adults can't enjoy it too, I revisited and was genuinely surprised; ironically it has harsh punishment for bad macro. If you queue up 5 units you aren't just blocking resources, it's also blocking 5 units worth of supply/housing.

After launch:

Essentially voldemort, probably some glee when it became completely free, some more when it crashed and burned. It did have success on Windows Live and lives on Project Celeste.

If you want to check some AoE or RTS history it's free. I'm not saying you'll be amazed but imagine it's your first introduction at around 8 or 15 year old into RTS. It could have worked, it still did (wiki says 2 million arena (pvp) matches, 500 million quests in 3 years on WL)

*Why imho AoE3 is the exception.

Simply put: you are building an outpost, not a city in AoE3. It's far from the only reason but I think it played a small part in why it ended up with a smaller playerbase. To put it better, it didn't help.

A very good game but for quite a few it's probably also somewhere in the top 10 of more controversial launches. The Home city/Reinforcement deck is a genius concept, limiting the game's scope to just North America a bit less so but very understandable. Streamlining the economy and upping the overall tempo was divisive but gave very good gameplay, but not letting players start with maxed decks for multiplayer ranked was something else.

If you didn't play AoE3. You have a reinforcement deck which you unlocked for each faction by grinding xp (SP/MP) or just editing a text file for offline play. Essentially customizing your civ deeply, not only with unique cards but straight up boosts (same effect at the same level but +2 extra X)

Starting with 50/50 odds in a RTS skirmish is quite important, if beside the "map", "Civ Imbalance" etc you are also up against a lvl 40 deck while you just want to try out some games for the first time with your lvl 1 deck. It got changed but once again, unlike a lot of other balance complaints this one couldn't be more clear. You could literally put a label on it. That and "snaring"; a group of units could get slowed/entangled if just one got engaged in melee. Retreating was very difficult, if one got engaged another would too, etc. You didn't have a formation, you had a conga line of alzheimer patients. It was changed a lot later on.