This game is incredibly depressing

Need to vent again.

I've around 350h in this game without having played any of the previous iterations or any other rts, with most of that time spent on the RM 1v1 ladder. And man, makes this game me tilt.

I love the game, but I have not in my entire life experienced a game that was as inaccessible as Aoe2. On the one hand it is amazing to have a game this old and rich be played online, however, for new players, this shows dramatically. The shere amounts of civs, build orders and other information and so on, something one can arguably describe as purely being knowledge and not skill, is so overwhelming that for my part I don't see myself improving. If I'm not improving, I don't have fun.

I argue this is incredibly off-putting. Additionally, I feel especially bad and stupid when going against someone that has been playing this game for the longest time. I imagine the majority of the active player base, also on my noob level (1300-1400) are people who have been this game for a long time and have advantages purely through their years of experience.

This is why I am hyped for Aoe4, where everyone starts on a fresh slate with just 8 civs, without having to endure potentially hundreds of frustrating playing against information assymmetry against someone that spent his or her life playing this for the longest time.