Age Of Empires Game Ideas

I am not sure if this is coming from a place of nostalgia towards a simpler time of gaming but I do admit that I admire it the appeal of pixelated focused games, or game are made to appear pixelated instead of overly complex and detailed and hyper-realistic.

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Lots of indie games have this pixel-focused type of art - Stardew Valley, Shovel Knight, Always Legacy and Evoland (some of it anyway); and others blend with the advanced technology of today to give the sprites a more HD look while also making the graphics appear pixelated (like 2.5D type of technology) like King of Fighters 13, Chrono Trigger, or even recent entries like Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition or Factorio.

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I still enjoy playing games like Caesar 3 or even the old Doom games.

I sometimes think that the jump to 3D does not always work with some games like Pokemon (they do not look bad but I miss the old pixelated graphics), but I feel that pixelated graphics hold a certain candle that is difficult to describe.

I see this a lot when I play Doom with mods - it is hyper-detailed but in its own way appear if I play it from the point of view of a more advanced and complex graphics engine, the flair would feel the same

I’ve been a console gamer for most of my life, and constantly have heard about PC is superior. I recently downloaded Windows Bootcamp on my(almost) fully upgraded MacBook bro, and was pretty impressed to see games run smoothly on it. Granted these were fairly simplistic games in terms of visuals (Age of Empires 2 and Civ 6). But now I’m wondering, is it worth it to transition to fully gaming on my Mac running windows? I’m not really a tech guy at all, so I have no idea. Do fully upgraded macs have better specs for gaming than consoles?

This question stems from my own desire to only pick up games in future that have a high chance that I'd enjoy them very much.

I must now talk about TLOU2. The leaks made me think the game's pretty shite. More importantly, the metacritic user score tells any casual gamer who's not familiar with the controversy that the game is actually shite. This will probably make them miss out on a fantastic game. Because TLOU2 actually is a very good game. even though I didn't like some of the story elements in it, it doesn't make the game objectively bad. It has great story elements, much better gameplay -- i like it very much.

On the other hand, consider RDR2. It's a great game. A solid journey. I picked it up seeing that both the critic scores and user scores were both outstanding. But I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. Because I found the gameplay and shooting pretty clunky (but the story was great).

Next case -- Metal Gear Solid: Phantom Pain

I saw raving reviews and picked it up. Didn't enjoy it. The prologue dragged on too long and I just didn't find the characters very interesting.

Another completely different genre. An old game -- Age of Empires 3. Most people say it's the weakest of all AOE games. The reviews are also ok. But I actually enjoyed it the most.

I'm constantly running into this issue where I sometimes pick up games I think I will enjoy, but don't. And I'm afraid I'm missing out on great games ( my style of games) just because they don't have great review scores.

So, do you have a strategy for knowing whether you'd enjoy a particular game? whether it's actually your kind of game?

It is difficult for me to find any other genre that was so popular at its height (when I was growing up Age of Empires and Warcraft were among the most popular games in the gaming community in my country) and then, a couple decades afterwards, has almost completely dissapeared (Maybe graphic adventures, but even at this day there are games still coming out, even if at a way lower pace).

I don't really know what happened, it is not like there was some kind of big flop that convinced the industry that these games were no longer popular. The last big title that I can remember for the genre was Starcraft II, and I know that the more competitive part of the community had some problems with it, but from what I can tell it sold reasonably well.

After that however, there has not really been any big games coming out in the genre (you have some stuff such as grey goo, but it is just too different from the "classical" stuff such as Warcraft III or AoE 2, way more futuristic and less based on controlling a smaller number of units with abilities and similar stuff). Now we either have remasters with varying quality (looking at you Warcraft III reforged), or games that just go for another type of strategy (either ditching base building a la Total war or going for the turn based 4x experience like the civilization games).

Do you agree? Why do you think that this happened?

This post doesn't really have a focus point of discussion. I just felt like putting it out there.

I'm a 27 year old male. Some of my very pleasant childhood memories are me playing video games with my older brother. We had this console that would play 8 bit games as they were sometimes called. It wasn't an original Nintendo, but a chinese mock up. But we loved it all the same. It didn't take disks, but it took Cassettes that were a single chip to be inserted into the console. The Cassettes were often sold with game bundles like "49 in 1" or "9 in 1" etc.

Oh yeahh, and how can I forget Age of Empires 2 and Age of Mythology played on Windows 7 PC? those are still one my most favorite games of all time.

With time, as we grew up, time became a scarce & precious commodity. My brother and I moved to different countries for education and work. But I still remember the fun we had vividly.

Fast forward a few years, in my early twenties, I lost all interest in gaming. I stopped following gaming news. Wasn't upto date on what games are being released and all. I tried to play a few PC games but didn't feel hooked and dropped them without finishing.

A few months back, I bought a PS4 Pro and it was like I discovered fire. I knew from the get go that multiplayer wasn't for me. I neither have the time nor the inclination to spend hours and hours on casual gaming.

I purchased the games in the title and some more. Mostly PS4 exclusives. Tried a few others too and regretted instantly. They just weren't for me.

To make a long story short and anticlimactic, I'm now basically a sucker for AAA games that are extremely polished and are SINGLE PLAYER STORY DRIVEN.

Games like these are extremely rare considering the sheer number of games that are released. I just hope that Sony and other companies never lose focus on single player.

I recently saw the road to PS5 presentation by Mark Cerny, He mentioned there that the time to triangle time i.e. the time it takes for the developer to become productive with the PS5 is less than a month.

Which would probably mean shorter and easier development cycles. I get giddy already thinking about the next gen story driven games and even IPs that haven't even been announced yet.

And with games like TLOUII selling extremely well, I think single player games are probably safe for now.

When I feel like playing Age of Empires or C&C, I start up the game, go to Multiplayer and then just sit there in front of the matchmaking screen. I think to myself: "Nah, I don't really want to play after all". Now, I know to attribute this to ladder anxiety, but it's just really weird because this never happened to me in any genre, except RTS.

Now I know the only real fix is to keep playing, but with ladder anxiety just doing that is really hard. So my question to you guys is how do you overcome this? Playing with friends seems to be a viable alternative, but if you're the only one in your group that enjoys RTS, that doesn't work out either.

Also why is ladder anxiety so prevalent in RTS games? I thought that it might have to do with the nature of 1v1 matches. You can't attribute your loss to something other than yourself. However, I then thought about fighting games, and at least for me, I did not get any ladder anxiety in those (when I was still playing), despite being even worse in them than RTS.

Another example would be racing games. They are, essentially, big 1v1s as well, in the sense that you have no teammates to pick up the game for you, but alas I have never heard of people not going into racing games due to ladder anxiety.

The 1v1 argument may not even hold up in RTS games, since I get the same anxiety for team games, but not in team games like CS:GO or other shooters.

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To sum up my post, I ask the following questions:
1. How do you deal with ladder anxiety if "just playing" isn't so easy as it sounds?

1. Why is ladder anxiety so prevalent in RTS games, if you disagree, what games do you get ladder anxiety?

2. Do you think a server browser makes a difference to competitive matchmaking?

https://gamefiles.alphacoders.com/boxart/original/front/thumb-15483-1.jpg

Age Of Empires II

Empire Earth

Rise Of Nations

Cossacks

i could go on, these games are great however, i have fond memories of SC, it was one of my very first PC games. and yet it's still a masterpiece that could not even be surpassed by it's sequels, Stronghold 2,3 or even Crusader 2 ! (god Crusader 2 was BAD)

the sheer level of detail and atmosphere in the game is astounding to this day.

you can dump BOILING OIL on enemy troops, release dogs onto them..turn your castle into a satanic barbaric no man's land or be invaded by freakin LIONS.

stuff like seeing my castle surrounded by a moat or hearing "THE KEEP IS ENCLOSED" was such a nice feeling of safety and warmth.

but even better? the game's economy. the game balanced itself between being a game like Age Of Empires but also an actual castle sim. you HAD to build businesses to attract peasants to your castle. you could not survive on an pure army alone. you NEEDED peasants to build up your defenses.

the feeling of having 500 troops rushing your castle or watching as an enemy castle is sieged and IN RUINS is an adrenaline rush. it's live or die. unlike AOE or any other game, you could see your enemy at ANY TIME. there was no fog of war. so if they were being rushed by 500 slaves, you could sit back and watch the carnage.

the game had such memorable quotes such as

"morning your Lordship"

"no taxes is good taxes, that's my motto!"

"stone needed"

"wood needed'

"you are the..5th greatest lord"

you had cool CGI cutscenes reminiscent of Civ 4 as well whenever you contacted an ally and hearing their response was always a thrill.

the game had an incredible atmosphere as well,

extremely tense, at any second you could have The Wolf or Rat send 2000 slaves to your front door. all it would take is the music to start playing and your drawbridge (provided you had one) to go up unexpectedly. and when your king died? oh that cough. i can hear it in my head along with "VARLET" "KNAVE" and ofc "PEASANT"

all the RTS games i've played and yet no game comes close except MAYBE AOE.

do you guys have fond memories playing StrongHold Crusader?

please share them below !

I recently started playing SC2 a bit again, and I've been wondering how to even find out if there are any more popular/projected to be more popular multiplayer strategy games other than by looking at twitch view counts. Are there any great sites for finding out stats like these that I am unaware of?

It seems the other contenders for RTS are Age of Empires 2 and warcraft 3 (even tho blizz botched it hard) and I am kind of amazed how there's been no progress in this gaming genre since I was a kid.

I guess if you squint really hard maybe hearthstone and other card games are what people into multiplayer strategy are playing? Some maybe went to mobas but that's (to simplify) the micro without the macro of RTS.

What Happened? And what recommendations do you have?

For example I really want to play Dark Souls Remastered again and really explore the world again, but I keep having this undying urge that won't let me move on from Age of Empires 2 until I beat all the campaigns. This isn't so bad when games are 10-20 hours, or even a 40 hour AAA title, but AoE2:DE's campaign will literally take 200 hours, and I'm not enjoying it that much tbh. I'd have more fun playing against bots/multiplayer

I'm not a completionist in the sense that I have to 100% every game, I just HAVE to at least beat the main story of everything in my library before I move on and it's a hard habit to break

I don't know where this falls on psychological pressure, or how to even break it

Games like:

Stardew Valley Age of Empires Worms Reloaded The Long Dark Skyrim

All of these games have core mechanics that stay the same, but every time you load up the game is a unique experience.

Stardew Valley: I can build my farm however I like, there are tons of different crops to plant. Or I could not focus on farming at all, I could go mine or fish.

Age of Empires: I can destroy my enemies in a number of ways, using one of many unique civilizations.

Worms Reloaded: I can attack with a variety of different weapons (for a simple-looking game, this one is actually pretty complex in strategy)

The Long Dark: Obviously this is a more stripped down/survival game, but I can choose where I want to explore or set up camp/what I want to carry.

Skyrim: The ultimate in customization, I can go on so many different sidequests and not touch the main game if I want to.

I’m looking for more games like this, I’m open to suggestions.