Gaming Is Age of Empires underrated?

[bumjeans]

People always recommend Advance Wars for strategy games. No one seems to mention AoE. I have just read a few reviews and watched a Youtube clip and it looks pretty cool!

I know now people are gonna be recommending Civ Rev.

 

[thedicemaster]

i feel it's more an attempt to quickly put an age of empires game on a portable device, rather than making a good strategy game.
the first portable nintendo device that can physically support a proper RTS game, and they decide to make a turn based strategy based on their RTS.

 

[Ruri]

It gets a fair amount of attention, really. The issue is more that it doesn't have a famous handheld name like Advance Wars in front of its title than anything to do with the game or gameplay; there are probably fewer fans of the Age of Empires series here than there are fans of AW, so it tends to attract less attention because less people ever tried it.

 

[Gharakh]

I really like the game, I actually bought it to have something to play while waiting for my Acekard 2 to arrive. I am not a fan of the AoE franchise really, always have preferred Warcraft II and Starcraft, but I think it works really well as a turn-based game. I love being able to build up towns and castles etc.. The game has a nice feel to it, the only minor complaint is that it gets a little bit difficult to see what you have in your towns when they are loaded with different buildings and units on every building, but it's not too hard to find the unit you want.

I definitely recommend this to any strategy fan, would love to see more RTS on the DS though

 

[ojsinnerz.]

I like it, but it is indeed underrated.

No one really sees it for what it is. Most of people just think of it as shovelware, because of how the cover looks, etc.

 

[resres]

It's addicting, but it can get old fast if you play too much in one game session.

 

[Panzer Tacticer]

It's a great game. Also under rated.

So is Panzer Tactics and Steel Horizon.

But every genre has it's fans, and every genre has it's detractors.

I couldn't care less for Age of Empires PC as I don't do RTS games. Too much about madly chasing after everything with the mouse like a mad idiot. No thinking involved. Just Zerg rush style tactics.

Only bought Age of Empires: Age of Kings on DS because it used turns and thus I knew it would require thinking.

Advance Wars are also great.

If you are a solid practiced wargamer, the games can get old potentially after playing them to death. That's why you play it against humans as much as possible.

 

[Gharakh]

no thinking involved in RTS games? lol.. quick thinking /= not thinking. Even zerg requires a lot of strategic thinking if you're going to beat a decent player

 

[Panzer Tacticer]

no thinking involved in RTS games? lol.. quick thinking /= not thinking. Even zerg requires a lot of strategic thinking if you're going to beat a decent player

Precisely the comment I expected.

Baseball is a sport, and a physical skill. You are either good or not, and no amount of study likely will change that.
Chess is a skill too, but it's not a physical skill and it's all about studying the game.

RTS games are a form of physical skill. And just because you want to claim it as otherwise, will never alter that fact. You can study an RTS game's basic nuances till hell freezes over BEFORE the game starts, but during the game, it's all about how fast your reaction is physically, not mentally.

And some people just don't care for the physical nature of the games that use the RTS style.
And if you want to convert that to my saying there is something about RTS games that makes them "suck" you would be wrong.
I don't think they suck.

In a game of Panzer Tactics, if you refuse to study the game in advance, and if you refuse to judge every move carefully, each and every move, I'm going to chew you up and trash you each and every game.
It's why I suck at Chess. I just never bother to get too deep into studying the game. And against an average motivated player, I get beaten regularly.

Age of Empires: Age of Kings likely only sold poorly, because the demographic for slow paced turn using games is not a large user base.
Each time a company makes a turn using type game, they fail to consider that truth at the peril of their product's sales.

 

[thedicemaster]

turn based strategy requires more thinking than real time strategy.
but that absolutely doesn't mean you don't need to think with real time strategy.

sure, in easy mode with real time strategy game you can just build an army of 800 soldiers and pound the AI into oblivion.
but in harder modes you really need to think about the order in which you send in your units, and how you build your base.

 

[dib]

It wasn't nearly as broken as some games like Settlers and Sim City, I'll give it that.

 

[Gharakh]

panzer you can't say RTS games are just a physical skill. They require just as much mental focus and strategic thinking as any turn-based game (or at least a lot of strategic thinking, i'm exaggerating a bit), with the additional task of having to be quick. You're making Starcraft sound like Quake 3 and that's just absurd

 

[Hadrian]

i feel it's more an attempt to quickly put an age of empires game on a portable device, rather than making a good strategy game.
the first portable nintendo device that can physically support a proper RTS game, and they decide to make a turn based strategy based on their RTS.

AoE was done very well on the PDA, the DS version was more of an attempt to go along with what the publishers felt suited the DS more. Sadly the sequel will also be similar but it does look like it will have more depth.

 

[Raestloz]

Yeah, RTS requires even more thinking than TBS, the difference is in TBS you can think as long as you can (provided you're playing single-player), while RTS won't give you any mercy.

RTS needs mental strength in order to keep calm in critical situation, you'd feel stupid whn you want to click a barracks and actually clicked a worker when a horde of enemies are trampling you.

Still, yeah AoE is underrated. It's a decent game, not many strategy game lets you to upgrade your units and civilization, and I mean battle strategy game, not sims-like Anno 1701, which is civilization--oriented-ans it adds the fun