Age of Empires III

[A Rainy Knight]

Hey, I was wondering if anyone else played this game, which by the way is for the PC. It's pretty much my favorite video game (RTS has always been my genre). If you do, then what is your favorite empire? I have a really high level Ottoman city.

I don't know anyone other than me who plays this game... :smallfrown:

But maybe I'll meet someone new! :smallsmile:

[Timarvay]

Ottoman/German for me.

I like things that go boom.

[Malic]

I play the dutch. What can I say I like teh moneys. lol

[Lord Herman]

I usually play British, but I also like the Russians. I've tried playing Aztecs, but they just don't have enough explodey things for my tastes.

Asian Dynasties looks nifty, but I'll probably go back to playing a European civilization after trying the three asian civs.

[A Rainy Knight]

That's pretty much what I thought about the new expansion. It would be fun to try out the asian empires, but Europeans are still my favorites. Oh, and I also have a pretty good Dutch city. I like the moneys too. :smallbiggrin:

[Morty]

Even though I loved AoE 2 I didn't enjoy AoE 3 much. Guess I'm more medieval person thatn post-medieval person.
And why, why, why did they make heroes immortal?:smallannoyed:

[Black Lines]

I normally play as the Spanish, the rolderoes always end up killing everything.

[A Rainy Knight]

Well, the campaign heroes are immortal because there would be some serious storyline issues if they got killed in the very first chapter. But yeah, I do see your point. I don't know why the Explorer is immortal in the skirmish games.

At first, I didn't like the post-medieval setting as much either, but I warmed up to it when I discovered the wonderful world of artillery. :smalltongue:

Plus, I just prefer the graphics and gameplay of AoE III.

[Timarvay]

Eh, explorers are bad enough that being immortal doesn't matter much. Now the Warchiefs, I think they should act like Pharoahs did in Age of Mythology, rather than just like an explorer.

[Morty]

Well, the campaign heroes are immortal because there would be some serious storyline issues if they got killed in the very first chapter. But yeah, I do see your point. I don't know why the Explorer is immortal in the skirmish games.

Then they should have given every campaign mission "x must survive" objective. There. Problem solved, in the same way as in whole lot of RTS games. It's better than hero lying on the ground "unconscious" and surviving everything that hits him/her.

[Gaelbert]

I prefer AoE 2, but I do enjoy 3. I haven't played in a while, but I think I play as the Dutch or the Portugeuse.

[A Rainy Knight]

Then they should have given every campaign mission "x must survive" objective. There. Problem solved, in the same way as in whole lot of RTS games. It's better than hero lying on the ground "unconscious" and surviving everything that hits him/her.

Hmmm... :smallconfused:

That's a very good idea. I'm not quite sure why the game isn't actually made that way.

[Morty]

Hmmm... :smallconfused:

That's a very good idea. I'm not quite sure why the game isn't actually made that way.

I don't know that either. Older RTS games, like Starcraft or Age of Empires II were indeed made that way and it worked. You had to take care of the heroes, but they're heroes after all, not front-line redshirts. And since heroes tend to be stronger than average units, they didn't die in every fight anyway.

[Arbitrarity]

They did that in AOE2. It sucked, because everyone then left their heroes out of combat. The risk of losing the hero seriously outweighed the benefit of having one extra combatant, except in emergencies. To make the heroes useful in combat, they put on the "immortal" bit.

If I hear a "Only unskilled players can't micro their heroes enough", I won't be impressed. :smalltongue:

There's probably a better way to deal with this than continuity breaking, or immortality. It's not insanely tough heroes, nor ressurectable heroes, though an option would be to make the heroes useful enough that their prescence outweighs the risk of their death (a la "leadership bonus" type abilities)

[A Rainy Knight]

That's my main reason for justifying it. It encourages players to make a ton of use out of their heroes. However, it does do so at the cost of realism.

*sigh* :smallsigh:

I guess it's just hard to find a perfect solution, isn't it?

[Arang]

The heroes were incredibly useful. I held that giant cannon with only the Scottish guy for about two minutes against staggering odds, then killed off every single enemy with a desperate Oberhau strike with 4 hitpoints to spare and just in time for reinforcements.

I like Field Guns. I just can't help building them every game.

[Morty]

They did that in AOE2. It sucked, because everyone then left their heroes out of combat. The risk of losing the hero seriously outweighed the benefit of having one extra combatant, except in emergencies. To make the heroes useful in combat, they put on the "immortal" bit.

If I hear a "Only unskilled players can't micro their heroes enough", I won't be impressed. :smalltongue:

There's probably a better way to deal with this than continuity breaking, or immortality. It's not insanely tough heroes, nor ressurectable heroes, though an option would be to make the heroes useful enough that their prescence outweighs the risk of their death (a la "leadership bonus" type abilities)

And why should heroes be useful in fight? You have plenty of other units so that you don't have to push your valuable hero forward. Why do you think leaders didn't usually engage combat themselves?
It's a question of realism or making use of heroes. But in game that's supposed to be historical to at least some degree, I belive realism is more important.

[Arbitrarity]

And why should heroes be useful in fight? You have plenty of other units so that you don't have to push your valuable hero forward. Why do you think leaders didn't usually engage combat themselves?

Meh, then it's an option. Must be that game designers like to have people use special units with special abilities, who participated in combats. Why even BOTHER giving me a special unit with extra abilities if it's in my best interest to leave him/her at the back?

Actually, making a mod or other way for that to be an option wouldn't be a bad idea. Replace the regular heroes with slowly regenerating units with beefed up abilities, and stick "X must not die" on all missions with them. I wouldn't prefer it, but some might. The only issue is missions where you have to use heroes on their own, wherein this could make the amount of waiting for regeneration and ability recharge utterly insane.

[A Rainy Knight]

Perhaps it should vary according to the difficulty you pick?

On easy, you would have the immortals.

On medium, "X mustn't die," but have the heroes regenerate quickly.

On hard, "X mustn't die," and have slower regeneration.

I never thought it was that big of a deal anyways. Immortal or not, I've never done anything too grandiose with heroes.

To Arang: Field guns are indeed awesome.

[Arbitrarity]

That might work, as far as hardwiring goes. Or, it could be an included option in the menu for "tweaking" difficulty.

Hmmm.... tweaking difficulty sounds like an interesting option. No longer "Easy, medium, hard", but "Easy AI, medium AI, hard AI" + "-50% resource rate, standard, +50% resource rate" + etc.

[Morty]

Meh, then it's an option. Must be that game designers like to have people use special units with special abilities, who participated in combats. Why even BOTHER giving me a special unit with extra abilities if it's in my best interest to leave him/her at the back?


Because s/he is the central character in the campaign? Historical campaign in this case, which makes him/her even more important.

[Arbitrarity]

But surely they would simply stay off the battlefield, i.e. where the combat is taking place, because it's dangerous to them. Not providing any bonus by being there, if they have to stay away from fights.

Minor sarcasm. It was intended to be a display of potential intent by the game designers.

How about we agree on "Player customizability is surely a good thing", as it cleans the discussion up considerably.

[Arang]

If total historic accuracy was the goal, you wouldn't have commander units in any case, nor would you have building to train your troops from. At the very least they wouldn't just pop out of thin air outside the barracks.

Dawn of War did this very elegantly. All your units got shipped/drop podded in and then spent a few seconds getting armed/assembled. Of course, they'd then disappear between missions, but I always assumed somebody else needed them offworld and they got shipped back out.

[Arbitrarity]

No disecting basic mechanics for a display of unreality. We do it for D&D, no need to do it in AOE :smallbiggrin:

[A Rainy Knight]

I do love Dawn of War almost as much as I love Age of Empires, if not more than, but I must point out that the reinforcement system isn't exactly the most plausible thing in the world. It does make for a pretty fun game, though.

I just finished playing a game as France. I might even consider making them my new favorite empire.

[Arang]

I do love Dawn of War almost as much as I love Age of Empires, if not more than, but I must point out that the reinforcement system isn't exactly the most plausible thing in the world. It does make for a pretty fun game, though.


It does seem kind of silly to go to all that effort to make it plausible for the units to appear and then just have reinforcements show up in a flash of blue light.

[Fishies]

AoEIII? Ugh, I played the demo once, and I didn't like it; too confusing.

IMO, AoK is superior. If only I could find my copy... it must be around here somewhere. I loved that game...

[WarBrute]

Dutch and German for me

[Malic]

Blarg I was playing a treaty game and by 20 minutes I already had a wonderful eco. It was gonna be the easiest win ever and the game crashed :smallmad:

[Oeep Snaec]

Shoulda saved man, shoulda saved...

[Timarvay]

You can save in multiplayer?

How?

[Volug]

it saves automatically for me....

oh yeah, i never play online anymore.
if you DO see me on, im playing on my same username

[A Rainy Knight]

That reminds me of something strange about my game. Whenever I try to load a saved game, it says, "Game Paused," on the loaded game's screen, yet I can't find a way to unpause it. Anyone else have this problem?

[Volug]

That reminds me of something strange about my game. Whenever I try to load a saved game, it says, "Game Paused," on the loaded game's screen, yet I can't find a way to unpause it. Anyone else have this problem?

try hitting the un-pause button in the menu...

if you cant find it, hit the Pause/Break button on your keyboard

[A Rainy Knight]

I'll try it and let you know if it works.

[Malic]

Meh it seemed to work itself out somehow. I played another game with a not-so-good team member who just made cannons and only gave me back up once. I lost but I lasted 25 minutes with two guys bombarding me with heavy infantry and feild cannons.

I usually hit age up at 2 minutes for age one then go for my pop. cap in age two before anything else.

EDIT:I Speel oky. :smalltongue:

[Meeeeebit]

Would you say AOE 3 is worth buying ?
Umm just curious im not critisizing.:smallsmile:

[A Rainy Knight]

Personally? Yes.

If I didn't think it was worth buying, would I have bought it? :smallbiggrin:

@v Oh, yes. I bought that game too. Such a letdown... :smallannoyed:

[Meeeeebit]

Personally? Yes.

If I didn't think it was worth buying, would I have bought it? :smallbiggrin:

Who knows, you might have been scammed...
I know whats its like too be scammed, I bought Warhammer:Mark of Chaos
after that im not too trusting of which games I buy now.