Add stone resource from AOE2/4. Seriously, the lategame is a nightmare of wall spam that needs to be cut down.

With AOM Retold coming (I hope soon) the community has been talking a lot about changes, eg. more pop, new civs, gods, unities etc. I think all this is fair and reasanoble, since it 's a new game (even though it's a DE with plus, from what I understand). But for some peoples the game should be the exactly same game from 20 years ago, just with new graphs (and even that some people are arguing about). I know a lot of you love this game, me too, it was the first game I ever played, but we should be happy if the game brings new things, because It will makes the game fresh and new, extend It life. Some chenges will be bad, unfortanelly, but EE will always be there to play If you dont like then.

This is a response "Remove Atlanteans from AoMR they are a fictional civilization", "ES should have included x, y, z" and etcetera.

1. Ensemble were only given time and resources to make one expansion for AoM, concepts were suggested to have Lakota, Aztecs, Romans, Babylonians, Inca, etc for the xpack. Due to this one expansion limit, Ensemble decided to combine the popular ideas (Romans, Aztecs, Inca, and Babylonians) also...

2. The Atlantean civilization expands upon their initial inclusion in Fall of the Trident (where they are basically Greeks with special walls) Ensemble expanded upon their existence by having them tie into explaining the three vanilla civs, the Atlanteans have the Egyptians architectural style (with Mesoamerican influence) the Norse skin and hair colour palette (white skin, blonde/red hair) and Greeco-Roman army/gladiators. Theocrat (Krios in the Titans)

3. In 1999 during the late pre-Alpha, one of the concepts ES toyed with before settling on Age of Mythology was an RTS game cantered around the Atlanteans, their inclusion in The Titans was the realization of that concept.

4. The Atlanteans having concepts such as villagers without dropsites, as well as the inclusion of North American flora (Marsh Trees, Tundra Trees) were a demo of things to come for Age of Empires III, likely to gauge player feedback.

5. This is a mythology-fantasy game based around using History, Legends and Mythology as a colour palette for game design, Ensemble weren't interested in making a documentary game, they've always stated they wanted to make fun games, if a historical concept was too boring or dark, it'd be removed.

6. Ensemble weren't as obsessive with Age of Empires as many would like to believe, they were tiring of making similar games, especially using history as a backdrop for an RTS, Age of Mythology was so different from previous games because much of the same formula was becoming stale, and they wanted to start making games that weren't history or RTS-related. The Atlanteans and by extension AoE3's design choices were done to further push the game away from that "basic AoE formula" If you were working on essentially the same series of game with barely any change for 6-7 years you'd want to at least mix stuff up a lot too.

This has been my TED Talk.

There will be a African Culture and Mythos as seen in many 'Age of' Games which get a HD or DE versions, from:
AoE 2 HD's African Kingdom (2015)
AoE 3 DE African Royals(2021)
AoE 4 Malians

Am I going to against this? TARTARUS NO!

Age of Mythology is literally the thing that makes me interested in Myths of the Greeks, Egypt, and Norse to the point that during family meeting I'm basically the Kid who do story telling from Greek Myths.

If they're going to make a African culture, make it as long as you makes it interesting and make people interested in the culture and mythos in the African continent.

Or Maybe the Romans(the Early Republic, not the Imperials), Gauls, Mesoamericans, etc would be nice.

The Timeline of AoM is already pretty scattered since:
-The Greeks are in the Archaic Era, but their Campaign is in the Bronze Age with the Mycenaean Greeks with the units of the Archaic Era(Hoplite, Peltast, Hippikon and Toxotes) and Hellenic Era(Hypaspist and Prodomos)
-The Egyptians are clearly Bronze Age.
-The Norse are Medieval Dark Age due to their Infantry having the Kite Shields.
-The Atlanteans is a mix of Romans(Murmillo, Turmae, Destroyer, Contarius and Chieroballista) with some fantasy like elements with the Katapeltes and Arcus, while all of them live in Aztec-like Buildings.

Lots of ideas and great discussion regarding RTS design in this thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Stormgate/comments/vj3gqr/frost_giant_ama_all_questions_and_answers/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

This is a great public resource for design ideas for people who may be building/revamping an RTS game..🤔 🤔. Some of this discussion is definitely relevant to AOMR.