I have just started playing AoE2 again. I have some complaints.
The units are so stupid and frustrating. They will casually walk into the range of enemy castles and towers. They will chase units across the map if you don't put them into defensive mode. If you do put them into defensive mode, they can easily be take out by archers without fighting back. They will open gates and let hordes of enemies into your town. They will stand there and continue cutting wood while an enemy army approaches them and kills their coworkers. The monks won't attack units unless you specifically order them to. Etc, etc. It makes parts of the game very tedious and unenjoyable.
The campaigns are similarly tedious. At first it's really fun and challenging, if you have the difficulty right. It's a challenge to figure out how to repel the big attacks and build up very quickly.
But after building up, it's no longer a challenge. And to win, you just need to spend an hour clicking through the enemies base destroying their structures. Even though you basically won an hour ago.
The multiplayer is terrifying. I tried it once and within like 10 minutes my opponent had surrounded my base with cannon towers and trebuchets. I haven't played it since.
The AI scripting is really cool. It's super simple to learn, very easy to modify other people's scripts, and very powerful. You can do a lot with just a few lines of their domain specific language. And you don't need any programming knowledge at all. And it's very extensive. There are tons of variables and functions available that let you do all kinds of things, and it's well documented.
But it's also extremely restricted. You can't do basic things like store variables, compare numbers, etc. There are arbitrary limits on how many conditions you can have in a conditional, how many lines you can have total, etc. They are workable, but I have no idea why they are even there. The only people modifying AI scripts in the first place are probably willing to accept if the game runs a bit slower because of all the extra code they put in it.
There's also no way to speed up the game. You only get "slow", "normal", or "fast". You need to use Cheat Engine to make the game run a hundred times faster. This is necessary for testing those AI scripts, or getting through those tedious offensive parts I mentioned above. They should have just let it be an option in the game.
Same with other variables like population limit, that's restricted to 200 for no reason. If I want a higher limit, I'll accept that the game runs slower. Just let it be an option, even in a hidden menu with a big warning or something. TBF, the new HD edition does let you go up to 500 IIRC.
> The multiplayer is terrifying. I tried it once and within like 10 minutes my opponent had surrounded my base with cannon towers and trebuchets. I haven't played it since.
I think the issue is that new players start with a ladder score of 1600, which is WAY too high. As a newcomer (me), it is frustrating because I'll probably lose dozens of games until I finally meet low-ranked newbies that haven't internalised the whole Fast Castle choreography down to the last shortcut.
And for players who deserve their score of 1600, it must be equally frustrating to have me on their team and then drag their score down :(
I've also picked up AOE2:HD again and agree with all the frustrating parts you mentioned. Age of Mythology (and AoE III) seems to have much better unit AI, saner move command chaining (shift+click), nicer chaining of research and training, less micro management of villagers (e.g. farms are infinite), visible UI for idle villagers and control groups, yet most of my friends have only played AoE2 in their teens, so that's what we go with the rare times we get together to play.
Going from single player to multiplayer is like going from the pond into the ocean. The real action happens in the ocean, but it is not for the timid. I look at single player as just a tutorial for multiplayer.
Possibly. I don't really want to play against people who have been playing competitively for 16 years. And I like messing around in single player, building cool bases or trying different strategies. Not trying to be as efficient as possible and micromanaging every single unit. Competitive multiplayer games in general have never really been that enjoyable to me.
Ok I went back and tried another game just to see if my first impressions were entirely wrong. This time there were a lot of noob maps and some less skilled players to play against.
I joined a 4v4 map, and while I still didn't do great, I had other players to back me up. I also didn't feel like I was the worst player in the game.
However just as the game was getting interesting (and I was probably about to get crushed), everyone paused the game and kicked me. Possibly because they blamed more for their lag, possibly because I wasn't that good of a player. They didn't say. It was very discouraging.
But it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be, and I might try playing again some time.
Battle for Middle Earth did that quite well. You could play on a ladder system that paired you up against people with a similar win/loss ratio. A friend and I used to play 2v2 quite a lot. We got to the point where we could comfortably beat 6 AIs and we were OK against people with a little online experience. Occasionally we played against serious people from the forums and got thoroughly destroyed.
It was fun, but beyond casual battles it became too much like exploitation of the engine - e.g. having to destroy farms yourself because you didn't want to give the enemy units experience.
--unit AI does not automatically make optimal decisions to win game for you, you actually have to control your units on a minute-to-minute level and think and pay attention to win.
--"campaigns are boring"
--winning is tedious and takes no effort after you spend an hour building up to the final stages of the game
--people on multiplayer actually know how to play the game beyond the level of someone who has been playing for a day and a half, they beat me, i never played again.
Yeah, if all you're doing is playing single player against AI on low difficult, DUH it's tedious. RTS games were not made to play against the computer. Learn to play properly and get into multiplayer, where the glory and awesomeness never ends.
It's not that the unit AI doesn't "win the game for me", it's that it does very stupid things. It's not that it requires player input, it's that it requires lots of player input. It's tedious.
I didn't say the campaigns were boring. Many of the missions are very slow paced though. The end game is what is boring. A game can go on for hours even after I've basically won.
I have been playing a lot more then a day and a half. I played a ton of it when I was growing up. As well as all the other games in the series. And I have 113 hours on the new steam version. Anyway all I said is that the multiplayer was intimidating to get into, which is true.
>RTS games were not made to play against the computer.
Um yes they were. These games come from an era when not everyone even had internet, let alone fast internet. There was extensive work put into the single player AI, as I mentioned above.
Anyway, I'm not saying the game is bad. Just some specific problems I had with it. Especially coming back to it after many years, it's not really as fun as I remember it being. I prefer Age of Mythology.
Regarding the AI scripting, do you have good resources that provide a gentle introduction to get started with tweaking it? Also, are there any popular modifications that people make to the AI?
There is also an active community of AI scripters. They hold AI competitions and stuff. There is a forum at http://forums.aiscripters.com/ and an IRC channel at #federationofkings on irc.gamesurge.net . I'm sure they'd be happy to help if you have questions.
The units are so stupid and frustrating. They will casually walk into the range of enemy castles and towers. They will chase units across the map if you don't put them into defensive mode. If you do put them into defensive mode, they can easily be take out by archers without fighting back. They will open gates and let hordes of enemies into your town. They will stand there and continue cutting wood while an enemy army approaches them and kills their coworkers. The monks won't attack units unless you specifically order them to. Etc, etc. It makes parts of the game very tedious and unenjoyable.
The campaigns are similarly tedious. At first it's really fun and challenging, if you have the difficulty right. It's a challenge to figure out how to repel the big attacks and build up very quickly.
But after building up, it's no longer a challenge. And to win, you just need to spend an hour clicking through the enemies base destroying their structures. Even though you basically won an hour ago.
The multiplayer is terrifying. I tried it once and within like 10 minutes my opponent had surrounded my base with cannon towers and trebuchets. I haven't played it since.
The AI scripting is really cool. It's super simple to learn, very easy to modify other people's scripts, and very powerful. You can do a lot with just a few lines of their domain specific language. And you don't need any programming knowledge at all. And it's very extensive. There are tons of variables and functions available that let you do all kinds of things, and it's well documented.
But it's also extremely restricted. You can't do basic things like store variables, compare numbers, etc. There are arbitrary limits on how many conditions you can have in a conditional, how many lines you can have total, etc. They are workable, but I have no idea why they are even there. The only people modifying AI scripts in the first place are probably willing to accept if the game runs a bit slower because of all the extra code they put in it.
There's also no way to speed up the game. You only get "slow", "normal", or "fast". You need to use Cheat Engine to make the game run a hundred times faster. This is necessary for testing those AI scripts, or getting through those tedious offensive parts I mentioned above. They should have just let it be an option in the game.
Same with other variables like population limit, that's restricted to 200 for no reason. If I want a higher limit, I'll accept that the game runs slower. Just let it be an option, even in a hidden menu with a big warning or something. TBF, the new HD edition does let you go up to 500 IIRC.