As of the stress test, some details: 4:50 Towncenters can be built in archaic age but the build limit is still 1 until classical, so it doesn't really change anything in a real game. 8:45 Parallel queues are still for the TC between heroes and villagers, but the heroes themselves all share the same queue. 13:34 Eclipse had always increased favor generation of monuments but it wasn't widely known. Retold having it on the tooltip explanation godpower is what happened here. 14:15 Mummy power afflicts units in an AoE with a damage over time effect when it curses them. Love the excitement
While units refunding their costs when dying doesn't majorly exist in AoE2 now it was in the game at the release of the Forgotten expansion, where the Saracens' Castle Age Unique Tech was Madrasah, which refunded part of the costs of Monks when they died. It ended up being quite un-popular due to how important Monks are, meaning you'd want to keep them alive as much as possible which this tech didn't do anything to help, so it was removed in Dynasties of India. Additionally, the Burgundians were originally going to have a bonus were their Knights would refund part of their Gold cost when they died. It ended up being removed when Lords of the West came out, though the effect still appears if you lose the heroes John the Fearless or Philip the Good in the Grand Dukes campaign.
I understand your passion for AoE2, and I'm not trying to sway you, but you might find that many of the features you enjoy in AoM are present in AoE3 as well. It's worth considering AoE3, especially since AoM serves as an ideal bridge between the two, incorporating elements from both games. It's a natural progression, given that AoM was released between AoE2 and AoE3.
You are far from the first to tell me that! I'm definitely going to explore the game further, give it more of a shot, because mechanically speaking I do respect a lot about it, but I do personally feel that the engine is clunkier and doesn't have the snappy responsiveness of AOE2. Additionally, I'm not nearly as interested in the era, which is of course much more subjective but was always kind of the nail in the coffin for me getting into it when I was younger, meaning I also don't have any nostalgia going for me with it. I do think it's an incredible game though. And someday I promise you I will do more with it on my channel!
@@robbylava it's really sad this era it's not soo know or aboard by media, as child i do love ancient and medieval times, as a teenager world wars but know the more i know about early modern era the more i do think its really more interesting than other times periods, althou this is subjective know how really this era was i assure it Will not dissapoint any fanboy of history
This game is definitely going to be the best game of this century for how much has already been considered for AOM retold. That is even before you get to the idea of adding another 5 new civilisations or so over several expansions for future content and campaigns. While that the idea of unit approach and angles is also something I am greatly excited about for the much further increase of strategy fluency in the game. I am also looking forward to see if anyone else catches on about some very nice severely overlooked combinations of market and caravan with certain civilisations. Especially for late gameplay. Nonetheless, There is no shame in picking what is often preferred the most as well for how awesome everyone of the civilisations are thus far in AOM Retold for their unique regards.
And I'll say it 38 more times! Hehehe Next time I'll try to put a counter or something on the screen if I notice myself saying it a lot so that I can at least be self-aware about it. But I genuinely didn't realize I was doing so while editing
@@robbylava it was very funny. Something I genuinely didn't notice until I had almost finished the video. I can't express how over the top excited I am for this game to come out and to see what you can do with new Civs for it. It's gonna be so epic!!!!!
Yeah, generally speaking, I feel like the changes are good- making individual units more dynamic and lifting the scale of the game higher are especially things I like. A lot of the changes to the gods feel like, well, like a remaster, taking the lessons of game design learned since the original release and improving the cohesiveness of how each choice impacts your faction's playstyle. It's great.
I love the evolution of the sarissa technology. Giving range to hoplites makes 100% sense. As much as I love the change for the cyclops and their area attack (like logistica for cataphracts) I am afraid that it won't affect a lot of units. For me things like all the giants, the colossos, the minotaur... must deal blast damages. Watching a colossos with a human size sword touching only one unit is ridiculous.
Regarding both the berserk being the core of the Norse army and the presence of Macedonians in the Greek faction (and frankly, even to a lesser extent possibly the Atlanteans being a kind of "earlier but different Greeks") it's important to remember that this game is *not* trying to be authentic history. Not even authentic history + the actual mythologies. It's not directly comparable to AoE2 or AoE4 in that way. This game is about _today's_ culture and our _modern_ perceptions of these cultures. That's also why we have horned helmets on the Norse and mummies associated with curses. It kind of _has_ to be about our modern perceptions, by definition; because myths are living, ever-changing things, not objective facts about the world. Even if they tried to make it realistic, the thousands of years over which these myths were genuinely believed within their cultures saw significant shifts and changes that would have necessitated some cherry picking anyway. (Ok, I'll admit, I actually pretty strongly disagree with the idea that Macedonians shouldn't have been included in a Greek culture _anyway_ from a cultural/historical standpoint but my point here is that I don't think those arguments matter.)
I get your points, I respect your points, but it is completely counter to my own personal philosophy of how to design games. I didn't include it in this video, but when I do other AOE2 / AOM builds I always put a little bit at the beginning going over my own personal approach and philosophy. A big part of that philosophy is being as faithful to history and mythology as I possibly can be within the confines of the game. I don't think that a game being accurate innately makes it less fun, memorable, or desirable for players. And I think that too many developers use a screen of semi self-aware pop culture accessibility as an excuse to avoid doing research. But again, that is my personal philosophy and approach. Though it is one that I will passionately argue for!
@@robbylava What you describe could potentially be a good approach. I just think when discussing the game it's better to very clearly distinguish between criticism of the game's _goals_ and its_execution,_ but in this video you were clearly doing the latter but presenting it implicitly as though it were the former. But actually my main point was that in the context of a mythological game it doesn't really even _make sense_ to try for a purely historically accurate representation. Even just looking at the human units, do you lock in to a specific time period, and thus end up probably with bronze age Egyptians going up against mediaeval Norse and trying to pretend it's a fair fight? Or should you build units that are historically accurate or ones that are accurate to the humans that would have been imagined in their myths? Similar questions have to be asked about the _purely_ mythological aspects. Should the version of Ra be based in the form Khufu would have worshiped him? Ramses II? Cleopatra VII? How they were understood in the north or the south? By the common folk or the high priests? By Egyptians themselves or by the many outsiders who interacted with Egypt by war or trade? Because gods aren't actually real, and the perception and understanding of them changes immensely depending on all those factors. Mythology is a living, changing thing. They could try to freeze it at one specific time and place, and that could be really cool for a game to do. But that was never the goal of Age of Mythology, and I don't think a game like AoM could ever achieve what it did with its scale and variety while taking that approach. Players would be confused about the lack of things that they want to see that didn't feature as prominently in the mythology of the context chosen. Instead, they made quite a sensible decision to use our modern day amalgamated version of mythology as their reference point. There's plenty to criticise with their execution even within that frame, but the frame itself is the most practical one to go for, for a variety of reasons.
@JimCullen so at the start of the video I said that I was going to be going into the changes from my perspective as a theorycrafter, talking about implications for modding, mythological and historical accuracy, etc. Because of this framing, I think I am completely justified in my analysis. For people who want a more dry and measured take, there are like a billion other channels talking about the same changes, all of whom make fantastic content. I want to stick to my lane. As for your second point, I think that there is a middle ground that would not be hard to tread. I actually don't dislike the idea of Age of mythology having an extremely broad time frame, nor do I like the idea of cherry picking specific interpretations of gods and myths to make them more accessible and better fit the framework of a game. However, horned helmets on Vikings serve no practical purpose. Nor does giving the Egyptians a Leviathan myth unit. Nor do a whole host of other silly things that, as shown in this video, could be easily ameliorated by a simple change of name and aesthetic even without altering their mechanics! And so of course we will all have our own cutoff points, what is sufficiently authentic to you is obviously going to be very different from what is sufficiently authentic to me. But I think that, without a question, the game could be dramatically more authentic than it is now without harming its feel, accessibility, or timelessness. And frankly, I think there is a major niche for other games within the genre to try to take an even more authentic crack at this same source material.
@@robbylava I think we might actually be more in agreement than not here. Horned helmets and leviathans would probably fit under that category I described earlier as criticism "with their execution even within that frame"
@JimCullen Oh pardon me, in your original comment it seemed like you endorsed those particular examples. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we were more in agreement than disagreement. Everyone has their own cutoff line when it comes to authenticity, and even though I lean much more towards the authentic side of things there are still plenty of elements that others might hate which I personally don't mind at all (such as the very broad time frame that AOM cultures represent).
Hey Robby, what do you think about enabling caravans in feudal age, now that market is already able in retold, i feel like with proper nerfs or puffs could add a flavor on early eco scaling, this strategy was implemented in aoe4 with some civs, and its was pretty good, taking the risk to control the map for a big reward, i wonder how this could work for aom?; Good video btw.
Thanks, glad you liked the video! I think it's a really cool idea, and definitely could have merit. I doubt it would be used often though, since caravans are so much more expensive than villagers and give much worse returns. I might be wrong though! If AOE4 pulled it off, there's no reason AOM shouldn't be allowed to try.
Thanks for saying so bud! Yeah, the more I learn about AoE3, the more impressed I am about it. If only I were more interested in the era of history it's talking about I'm pretty sure it would be my favorite Age game, or at least top two!
Hey Robby, thanks for the revision of the changes. I don't think us more casual and campaign players would pay attention much to it had you not covered most of it. For as long as I can remember, AOM managed to achieve great strides even when they can't compete with AOE2 in terms of sales number. They managed to make unit combat worked well, especially infantry whereas AOE2 makes infantry redundant compared to the archer cavalry spam. AOE2 axed the slingers, replace it with the skirmishers and audaciously lump archers and crossbows into the same progression, role. It's been nearly 2 decades, with AOE2DE we get better graphics, more civs from west to east but none the equally resolved unit combat-counters and historically accuracy in unit appearance as well as allocation. I suspect that the pro players also have a hand in rejecting any optimal change to the combat system through labelling it imbalanced while sticking purely to stats listing. The former also managed to achieved much more in the grounds of mythic lore/historical accuracy for the units. Usually, you will see Eastern, Asian and African countries having knights. The units themselves did not have their national coat of arms, heralds and emblems. Regional skins, historical skins has been a prolonged concern despite other pressing matters. Of course there are things in the base games that needs to address in Retold. The attack button in the vanilla game functions exactly like the AOE3, often failing to attack enemy unit in sight and to a degree, auto attack wall sections even when I didn't order it to. AOE4 managed to fix this, making attacking gates and towers easier so I hope they would fix it like so. The Fall of the Trident campaign are 32 missions long. However, with the gods combination, I don't think it's enough to offer the player suggestions or guides to diversify their strategy each mission. I wish it was longer. I sure hope the devs do not make the same mistake with Total War and AOE franchise, reducing the game experience to purely stats and numbers spreadsheeting. I highly encourage the devs to experiment with the various features they planned and go far with the imbalance as much as possible. After all, Starcraft Broodwar was fun because of the lack of balance updates.
Beautifully said. I'm a big fan of balance updates, but I HATE when they are used to enable lazy or predatory development practices. An extended campaign, or even better multiple campaigns, would be a fantastic addition
I'm not a big fan of the berserkers can be female thing, would be cooler if they added a shield maiden unit or something. This isn't even a "it doesn't make sense" thing tbh, I just like uniformity, I want all my berserkers to look the same.
I have no idea what the competitive balance is like, but yeah it does seem really strong. I feel like occupying your Pharaoh to take advantage of it is a pretty substantial downside though, so MAYBE it'll work out? If nothing else I'm just glad to see them taking a risk on a mechanic like this, even if they have to nerf it down in future.
@@robbylava i do think it's better to have something fun to Discover how it performs balancewise and then have to nerf it than not taking chances. But... We are talking about making unit production faster and giving You a free unit alongside? Idk it feels like it's huge value, i don't see pharohs being needed anywhere else when they can pop out free elephants. Not like they have priests to do anything else pharoh related.
I would be careful about expecting to see a easy implementation of what is in Retold in to Age of Empires II. The reason is that they're running on very different engines. Retold is running off what is basically the modern version of the Age of Empires III engine. And a lot of the changes in Retold is stuff you can do in Age of Empires III. That is not to say it can not be done, but that one can not expect the stuff to be transferable. Also, it is elements like this that may have arrow ballistics work differently. Which is why there might be a need to do some changes. Why changing engines is always something debatable when making remasters/remakes. Since it often changes how the game is played. Retold from what I have played do stay pretty close to the original and have the right feel even with it changes.
Oh of course. I don't EXPECT to see all of this by any means. BUT, I do think that seeing people's responses to a lot of these changes will be a great way to test the waters for games like AOE2 to see whether they can also push the envelope, even to a much lesser degree.
@@robbylava I would not mind seeing more exploration of mechanics. It sort of what AoE 2 has to do. Most of the low-hanging fruits in the design space have been pick. And since no civ has a bonus that identical with any other, they need to get creative if they want to add more. Which I like as someone that is to design like yourself. ;)
I see you do not like the 'random' aspect of things like having certain percentages of something happening. Are you familiar with the term Pseudo-random distribution? It has been implemented on games like Warcraft 3 and DOTA 2. I would like to know how do you think about it
I know a bit about it, but funnily enough I actually had no idea it was used in EITHER of those games! And I played a shit ton of WC3 back in the day, so shows what I know lol Pseudo random distribution is, in my opinion, a great way to implement probability If you absolutely need it. I still am of the opinion that it is inferior to having games WITHOUT arbitrated probability, but it's a huge step in the right direction. What are your thoughts on it?
kinda curious what they palnned to do with the chinese civilisation ... given its removed on launch .... i guess full rework as a DLC given how borged they were
edit: i found the actual page select the link within the following text in the actual page's link provided in the video's description "Changes Main article: Changelog (Retold)"
@@robbylava In terms of, Cost of Unit vs Unit Effective HP per-gold-spent vs Total Resources spent vs Unit Role Fulfillment, they really are just great. It can make up a frontline vs most enemy unit types at most points in the game. It can get a late game upgrade that nearly triples their damage vs Buildings (literally melting castles and town centers). If you ever get Gaias Book of Knowledge in a match they get +300% damage vs Titans which is a viable strat to conserve your own titans HP long term. Their HP pool and average DPS still makes them competent vs cavalry and some myth units at most stages in the game. it really is a fantastic example of how to make a hard-counter unit, that still has versatility throughout a match and gives options to its Faction without actually being OP, brilliant unit design 10/10
See, I unironically think that an American cryptid faction might just be better, assuming you get around the obvious obstacle of blatantly conflicting aesthetics and technology. If nothing else it would be a hundred times better grounded! I think the only reason I wouldn't immediately say yes is because a lot of players would really hate the tech gap between that faction and all the others. But by any other metric I think they would be preferable, no joke!
I had another commenter saying they were having trouble with the link, so it could just be me being incompetent. Try googling "list of all changes in Age of Mythology retold"and clicking on whatever Fandom link comes up first
Charon: The chaddest champion of the Underworld, who charitably undertakes the challenge of chaperoning souls over Styx whilst chastly chanting hymns of eternal charm. Charon: The cantankerous caretaker of ferrying, who (for capital) can carry cadavers over Styx in his capacious caravel. Okay, I'm done now...
I know that Charon is pronounced Charon, and not Charon - but Robby pronounced it Charon instead of Charon in the video, so I thought I'd point out that it is, indeed, pronounced Charon. It might not have been very clear, though. Perchance a chap can be charitable enough to excuse the capriciousness of my careless chatter?
@@bjarkekiaer I knew you knew. Well, I knew you knew after I knocked down my initial impulse and reread your post. By then, I was too amused by my own wordplay that not mention it.
@@Jallorn And I knew that you knew that I knew (or at least strongly suspected it). After all, there can't be that many Charons in a sentence without there being a point ferried across.
I'm a little bit worried with the increasing scope of everything, it might lead to individual things having less significance. Example: favour gets unlimited, pop caps also get increased, we're gonna see larger armies and more myth units yet Greeks still have only 4 heroes? Bit skeptical about that one
@@totallylegitenergy2559 Sure, but will it be enough? With these changes myth unit spamming will be easier than ever and they're still limited to 4 heroes by the Mythic Age
@@ZS-rw4qq honestly I'm not sure, but what I've seen with people playing Greek they haven't been struggling to deal with myth units, but we have to wait and see i guess.
I'm not surprised at all. The more I learn about that game the more it seems to have successfully done things that a lot of the other Age games would benefit from!
@@juanignaciogennaro8478 Gastraphetes is not a Mycenaean unit and neither are hoplites though. Or cavalry in general. In fact most of the mortal units from the Greek roster are from the Archaic or Classical age.
No, they weren't greeks. Greeks called them barbarians, who looked like greeks. In linguistic ancient macedonian tongue and greeks dialects are different languages. After Alexander campaign macedonians were assimilated with greeks, but it's another story.
@@Miklosh.Prostoi They were 100% Greek. Besides Demosthenes, who was a politician seeking to curb the expansion of Macedon, there are no Greek writers who called them "barbarians". Contemporary historians like Herodotus and Thucydides considered them Greek, and so did geographers like Strabo. Moreover, the opinion of the Greek masses has nothing to do with the ethnicity of the Macedonians. Language does, and we know that they spoke a unique dialect of North-West Greek thanks to findings such as the Pella Curse Tablet. You are categorically wrong in your assertion that linguists consider Macedonian to be a different language. They don't. I mean seriously now, ALL evidence we have (be it topographic names, personal names, religious, numismatic, epigraphic, mythical geneaology or contemporary accounts) points to them being Greek. There is NO evidence whatsoever of them being anything else. Nothing illustrates this more than the simple fact that the term "Macedonia" actually means something in Greek. How come the Macedonians didn't have a name for themselves if they were not Greek? Where is this "non-Greek" Macedonian language to be found, pray tell?
Thank you for the video, I'm going to read that article stat! But please reduce the mentions of "atlanteans should not be in the game". People might not have seen your rather excellent upload on the matter but in this video just remark on it once and I think the average viewer should remember it, at least for the rest of the video. It becomes increasingly grating and annoying each and every time it is uttered.
Now I'm legitimately curious how many times I said it, because when I was editing it didn't sound like much. I'm sure it can get irritating, but as a UA-camr I've increasingly found it necessary to couch my language to ensure that it is not taken out of context. The number of times I think I've explained myself thoroughly and still get questions about stuff I say in a video that could have been answered by watching 10 seconds later is kind of staggering. Next time I'll try to put a counter or something on screen to at least be self aware about it.
AoM is not AoEII, and it was never supposed to be. They will ruin it by catering to AoEII sweats. It was basically an attempt to combine AoE with Warcraft and StarCraft, because Blizzard was completely dominating RTS. AoM is the best Age game as a result. Removing Auto-Queue for Ranked is a terrible decision and a bad sign. The fact that anybody whines about TCs is also a bad sign. Again - This is not AoEII. The impact of the other decisions remains to be seen. The change to Wonders is a huge change to a staple of all Age games. It could work, though.
10:30 Chthonic Rites isn't a renamed tech. It's a new tech. Adds health regen to Hydra and Scylla. That wasn't a thing before. 🙂
Oh lol, oopsie.
all the competitive Age players are all going to converge into AOM. It will reign!
As of the stress test, some details:
4:50 Towncenters can be built in archaic age but the build limit is still 1 until classical, so it doesn't really change anything in a real game. 8:45 Parallel queues are still for the TC between heroes and villagers, but the heroes themselves all share the same queue. 13:34 Eclipse had always increased favor generation of monuments but it wasn't widely known. Retold having it on the tooltip explanation godpower is what happened here. 14:15 Mummy power afflicts units in an AoE with a damage over time effect when it curses them.
Love the excitement
Awesome clarifications, thank you so much for sharing this.
Keep these age of mythology videos coming! More exposure for this fantastic game!
Hell yeah man! Thank you for saying so
While units refunding their costs when dying doesn't majorly exist in AoE2 now it was in the game at the release of the Forgotten expansion, where the Saracens' Castle Age Unique Tech was Madrasah, which refunded part of the costs of Monks when they died. It ended up being quite un-popular due to how important Monks are, meaning you'd want to keep them alive as much as possible which this tech didn't do anything to help, so it was removed in Dynasties of India.
Additionally, the Burgundians were originally going to have a bonus were their Knights would refund part of their Gold cost when they died. It ended up being removed when Lords of the West came out, though the effect still appears if you lose the heroes John the Fearless or Philip the Good in the Grand Dukes campaign.
It's a mechanic I wish our game explored more!
I understand your passion for AoE2, and I'm not trying to sway you, but you might find that many of the features you enjoy in AoM are present in AoE3 as well. It's worth considering AoE3, especially since AoM serves as an ideal bridge between the two, incorporating elements from both games. It's a natural progression, given that AoM was released between AoE2 and AoE3.
You are far from the first to tell me that! I'm definitely going to explore the game further, give it more of a shot, because mechanically speaking I do respect a lot about it, but I do personally feel that the engine is clunkier and doesn't have the snappy responsiveness of AOE2. Additionally, I'm not nearly as interested in the era, which is of course much more subjective but was always kind of the nail in the coffin for me getting into it when I was younger, meaning I also don't have any nostalgia going for me with it.
I do think it's an incredible game though. And someday I promise you I will do more with it on my channel!
@@robbylava it's really sad this era it's not soo know or aboard by media, as child i do love ancient and medieval times, as a teenager world wars but know the more i know about early modern era the more i do think its really more interesting than other times periods, althou this is subjective know how really this era was i assure it Will not dissapoint any fanboy of history
This game is definitely going to be the best game of this century for how much has already been considered for AOM retold.
That is even before you get to the idea of adding another 5 new civilisations or so over several expansions for future content and campaigns. While that the idea of unit approach and angles is also something I am greatly excited about for the much further increase of strategy fluency in the game.
I am also looking forward to see if anyone else catches on about some very nice severely overlooked combinations of market and caravan with certain civilisations. Especially for late gameplay.
Nonetheless, There is no shame in picking what is often preferred the most as well for how awesome everyone of the civilisations are thus far in AOM Retold for their unique regards.
Did you guys know that the Atlanteans are a made up faction and shouldn't exist? I didn't quite realize it until Robby said it for the 38th time!
And I'll say it 38 more times! Hehehe
Next time I'll try to put a counter or something on the screen if I notice myself saying it a lot so that I can at least be self-aware about it. But I genuinely didn't realize I was doing so while editing
@@robbylava it was very funny. Something I genuinely didn't notice until I had almost finished the video.
I can't express how over the top excited I am for this game to come out and to see what you can do with new Civs for it. It's gonna be so epic!!!!!
Hell yeah my friend! Can't wait to share it all with you.
Yeah, generally speaking, I feel like the changes are good- making individual units more dynamic and lifting the scale of the game higher are especially things I like. A lot of the changes to the gods feel like, well, like a remaster, taking the lessons of game design learned since the original release and improving the cohesiveness of how each choice impacts your faction's playstyle. It's great.
I'm so pumped. I saw TINY map as a default map type.
I love the evolution of the sarissa technology. Giving range to hoplites makes 100% sense. As much as I love the change for the cyclops and their area attack (like logistica for cataphracts) I am afraid that it won't affect a lot of units. For me things like all the giants, the colossos, the minotaur... must deal blast damages. Watching a colossos with a human size sword touching only one unit is ridiculous.
The sarissa change is my favorite, because it implies somebody saw there was a tech named "sarissa" and then looked up what a sarissa was.
Regarding both the berserk being the core of the Norse army and the presence of Macedonians in the Greek faction (and frankly, even to a lesser extent possibly the Atlanteans being a kind of "earlier but different Greeks") it's important to remember that this game is *not* trying to be authentic history. Not even authentic history + the actual mythologies. It's not directly comparable to AoE2 or AoE4 in that way. This game is about _today's_ culture and our _modern_ perceptions of these cultures. That's also why we have horned helmets on the Norse and mummies associated with curses.
It kind of _has_ to be about our modern perceptions, by definition; because myths are living, ever-changing things, not objective facts about the world. Even if they tried to make it realistic, the thousands of years over which these myths were genuinely believed within their cultures saw significant shifts and changes that would have necessitated some cherry picking anyway.
(Ok, I'll admit, I actually pretty strongly disagree with the idea that Macedonians shouldn't have been included in a Greek culture _anyway_ from a cultural/historical standpoint but my point here is that I don't think those arguments matter.)
I get your points, I respect your points, but it is completely counter to my own personal philosophy of how to design games.
I didn't include it in this video, but when I do other AOE2 / AOM builds I always put a little bit at the beginning going over my own personal approach and philosophy. A big part of that philosophy is being as faithful to history and mythology as I possibly can be within the confines of the game.
I don't think that a game being accurate innately makes it less fun, memorable, or desirable for players. And I think that too many developers use a screen of semi self-aware pop culture accessibility as an excuse to avoid doing research.
But again, that is my personal philosophy and approach. Though it is one that I will passionately argue for!
@@robbylava What you describe could potentially be a good approach. I just think when discussing the game it's better to very clearly distinguish between criticism of the game's _goals_ and its_execution,_ but in this video you were clearly doing the latter but presenting it implicitly as though it were the former.
But actually my main point was that in the context of a mythological game it doesn't really even _make sense_ to try for a purely historically accurate representation. Even just looking at the human units, do you lock in to a specific time period, and thus end up probably with bronze age Egyptians going up against mediaeval Norse and trying to pretend it's a fair fight? Or should you build units that are historically accurate or ones that are accurate to the humans that would have been imagined in their myths?
Similar questions have to be asked about the _purely_ mythological aspects. Should the version of Ra be based in the form Khufu would have worshiped him? Ramses II? Cleopatra VII? How they were understood in the north or the south? By the common folk or the high priests? By Egyptians themselves or by the many outsiders who interacted with Egypt by war or trade? Because gods aren't actually real, and the perception and understanding of them changes immensely depending on all those factors. Mythology is a living, changing thing.
They could try to freeze it at one specific time and place, and that could be really cool for a game to do. But that was never the goal of Age of Mythology, and I don't think a game like AoM could ever achieve what it did with its scale and variety while taking that approach. Players would be confused about the lack of things that they want to see that didn't feature as prominently in the mythology of the context chosen. Instead, they made quite a sensible decision to use our modern day amalgamated version of mythology as their reference point. There's plenty to criticise with their execution even within that frame, but the frame itself is the most practical one to go for, for a variety of reasons.
@JimCullen so at the start of the video I said that I was going to be going into the changes from my perspective as a theorycrafter, talking about implications for modding, mythological and historical accuracy, etc. Because of this framing, I think I am completely justified in my analysis. For people who want a more dry and measured take, there are like a billion other channels talking about the same changes, all of whom make fantastic content. I want to stick to my lane.
As for your second point, I think that there is a middle ground that would not be hard to tread. I actually don't dislike the idea of Age of mythology having an extremely broad time frame, nor do I like the idea of cherry picking specific interpretations of gods and myths to make them more accessible and better fit the framework of a game.
However, horned helmets on Vikings serve no practical purpose. Nor does giving the Egyptians a Leviathan myth unit. Nor do a whole host of other silly things that, as shown in this video, could be easily ameliorated by a simple change of name and aesthetic even without altering their mechanics!
And so of course we will all have our own cutoff points, what is sufficiently authentic to you is obviously going to be very different from what is sufficiently authentic to me.
But I think that, without a question, the game could be dramatically more authentic than it is now without harming its feel, accessibility, or timelessness. And frankly, I think there is a major niche for other games within the genre to try to take an even more authentic crack at this same source material.
@@robbylava I think we might actually be more in agreement than not here. Horned helmets and leviathans would probably fit under that category I described earlier as criticism "with their execution even within that frame"
@JimCullen Oh pardon me, in your original comment it seemed like you endorsed those particular examples.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if we were more in agreement than disagreement. Everyone has their own cutoff line when it comes to authenticity, and even though I lean much more towards the authentic side of things there are still plenty of elements that others might hate which I personally don't mind at all (such as the very broad time frame that AOM cultures represent).
Village Center is a really great idea!🎉🎉🎉
Hey Robby, what do you think about enabling caravans in feudal age, now that market is already able in retold, i feel like with proper nerfs or puffs could add a flavor on early eco scaling, this strategy was implemented in aoe4 with some civs, and its was pretty good, taking the risk to control the map for a big reward, i wonder how this could work for aom?; Good video btw.
Thanks, glad you liked the video!
I think it's a really cool idea, and definitely could have merit. I doubt it would be used often though, since caravans are so much more expensive than villagers and give much worse returns. I might be wrong though! If AOE4 pulled it off, there's no reason AOM shouldn't be allowed to try.
As you said, many of the mechanics here already exist ion AOE3, like poison damage or return of resources on dead units. Good video!
Thanks for saying so bud!
Yeah, the more I learn about AoE3, the more impressed I am about it. If only I were more interested in the era of history it's talking about I'm pretty sure it would be my favorite Age game, or at least top two!
Hey Robby, thanks for the revision of the changes. I don't think us more casual and campaign players would pay attention much to it had you not covered most of it. For as long as I can remember, AOM managed to achieve great strides even when they can't compete with AOE2 in terms of sales number. They managed to make unit combat worked well, especially infantry whereas AOE2 makes infantry redundant compared to the archer cavalry spam. AOE2 axed the slingers, replace it with the skirmishers and audaciously lump archers and crossbows into the same progression, role. It's been nearly 2 decades, with AOE2DE we get better graphics, more civs from west to east but none the equally resolved unit combat-counters and historically accuracy in unit appearance as well as allocation. I suspect that the pro players also have a hand in rejecting any optimal change to the combat system through labelling it imbalanced while sticking purely to stats listing. The former also managed to achieved much more in the grounds of mythic lore/historical accuracy for the units. Usually, you will see Eastern, Asian and African countries having knights. The units themselves did not have their national coat of arms, heralds and emblems. Regional skins, historical skins has been a prolonged concern despite other pressing matters.
Of course there are things in the base games that needs to address in Retold. The attack button in the vanilla game functions exactly like the AOE3, often failing to attack enemy unit in sight and to a degree, auto attack wall sections even when I didn't order it to. AOE4 managed to fix this, making attacking gates and towers easier so I hope they would fix it like so. The Fall of the Trident campaign are 32 missions long. However, with the gods combination, I don't think it's enough to offer the player suggestions or guides to diversify their strategy each mission. I wish it was longer. I sure hope the devs do not make the same mistake with Total War and AOE franchise, reducing the game experience to purely stats and numbers spreadsheeting. I highly encourage the devs to experiment with the various features they planned and go far with the imbalance as much as possible. After all, Starcraft Broodwar was fun because of the lack of balance updates.
Beautifully said.
I'm a big fan of balance updates, but I HATE when they are used to enable lazy or predatory development practices.
An extended campaign, or even better multiple campaigns, would be a fantastic addition
I hope they give us a Mesoamerica mythology dlc.
Id love to see some insane shit
I'm not a big fan of the berserkers can be female thing, would be cooler if they added a shield maiden unit or something. This isn't even a "it doesn't make sense" thing tbh, I just like uniformity, I want all my berserkers to look the same.
My idea for making Cumans less swingy is a sort of parallel queue: Can research TC techs at the mill, no longer have a second TC in Feudal
I get the idea but that would just be a worse version of the Vikings and Byzantines bonuses
They could rename the Greek technology to "Oracle of Delphi" or "Pythia" instead of Oracle, if need be.
^^^^^
17:50 Nah fam, that sheet is broken. Too powerful to have FREAKING ELEPHANTS for free...
It will be nerfed im sure, yes it is op...
Laughs in elephant spam
Iya-ern-eref-te
I have no idea what the competitive balance is like, but yeah it does seem really strong. I feel like occupying your Pharaoh to take advantage of it is a pretty substantial downside though, so MAYBE it'll work out?
If nothing else I'm just glad to see them taking a risk on a mechanic like this, even if they have to nerf it down in future.
@@robbylava i do think it's better to have something fun to Discover how it performs balancewise and then have to nerf it than not taking chances. But... We are talking about making unit production faster and giving You a free unit alongside? Idk it feels like it's huge value, i don't see pharohs being needed anywhere else when they can pop out free elephants. Not like they have priests to do anything else pharoh related.
16:37 I agree with this one. I think it should always spawn a Leviathan but with a timer and possibly half health or so.
its funny how much of this is taken from aoe3, and aoe2 players feels quite amazed for something we take from granted V:
Hohohohoh
I would be careful about expecting to see a easy implementation of what is in Retold in to Age of Empires II. The reason is that they're running on very different engines. Retold is running off what is basically the modern version of the Age of Empires III engine. And a lot of the changes in Retold is stuff you can do in Age of Empires III. That is not to say it can not be done, but that one can not expect the stuff to be transferable.
Also, it is elements like this that may have arrow ballistics work differently. Which is why there might be a need to do some changes. Why changing engines is always something debatable when making remasters/remakes. Since it often changes how the game is played. Retold from what I have played do stay pretty close to the original and have the right feel even with it changes.
Oh of course. I don't EXPECT to see all of this by any means. BUT, I do think that seeing people's responses to a lot of these changes will be a great way to test the waters for games like AOE2 to see whether they can also push the envelope, even to a much lesser degree.
@@robbylava I would not mind seeing more exploration of mechanics. It sort of what AoE 2 has to do. Most of the low-hanging fruits in the design space have been pick. And since no civ has a bonus that identical with any other, they need to get creative if they want to add more. Which I like as someone that is to design like yourself. ;)
Champion damage bonus from 10% to 30% that is massive
Didn't spot that one. Hot damn that seems enormous
I really want Finns to be added :)
I see you do not like the 'random' aspect of things like having certain percentages of something happening. Are you familiar with the term Pseudo-random distribution? It has been implemented on games like Warcraft 3 and DOTA 2. I would like to know how do you think about it
I know a bit about it, but funnily enough I actually had no idea it was used in EITHER of those games! And I played a shit ton of WC3 back in the day, so shows what I know lol
Pseudo random distribution is, in my opinion, a great way to implement probability If you absolutely need it. I still am of the opinion that it is inferior to having games WITHOUT arbitrated probability, but it's a huge step in the right direction.
What are your thoughts on it?
First! I'm guessing the the next vid within the next two weeks is going to be that AOM build you were doing.
Rework of the Chinese I would guess. Can't wait to see what's next
A rework indeed! Very excited to bring it to you all. It might be the single most involved video I've ever done on my channel.
Did the atlanteans change architecture or is it the same?
No idea. The few screenshots I've seen look pretty much identical to the original, but I've heard people say otherwise
kinda curious what they palnned to do with the chinese civilisation ... given its removed on launch .... i guess full rework as a DLC given how borged they were
Jsut like you, I played this game WAY more than AOE2
Im so excited for this game
Oh and you missed that All Greek heroes now have Anti flying attacks, not just Odysseus
@@jonathanperigo6853also Chiron and Hippolyta, and soon Achilles's slayer Paris of Troy
I did miss that! Sick. Reminds me of orb items in Warcraft 3.
POGGIES
they are removing favor and population cap LETSGOOOOOOOOOOO
edit: i found the actual page
select the link within the following text in the actual page's link provided in the video's description
"Changes
Main article: Changelog (Retold)"
Are you having trouble using the link? Do you need me to update it? Every time I tried to use it it's worked fine for me.
axemen getting a nerf and nothing else should tell everyone just how strong they've been for the past 22 years
I would never have guessed, AOM competitive is beyond me. What made them so good? Just countered everything?
@@robbylava In terms of, Cost of Unit vs Unit Effective HP per-gold-spent vs Total Resources spent vs Unit Role Fulfillment, they really are just great. It can make up a frontline vs most enemy unit types at most points in the game. It can get a late game upgrade that nearly triples their damage vs Buildings (literally melting castles and town centers). If you ever get Gaias Book of Knowledge in a match they get +300% damage vs Titans which is a viable strat to conserve your own titans HP long term. Their HP pool and average DPS still makes them competent vs cavalry and some myth units at most stages in the game.
it really is a fantastic example of how to make a hard-counter unit, that still has versatility throughout a match and gives options to its Faction without actually being OP, brilliant unit design 10/10
So what would be a worse Atlanians or an all on meme factions based on other more modernized myths like American Cryptids?
See, I unironically think that an American cryptid faction might just be better, assuming you get around the obvious obstacle of blatantly conflicting aesthetics and technology. If nothing else it would be a hundred times better grounded!
I think the only reason I wouldn't immediately say yes is because a lot of players would really hate the tech gap between that faction and all the others. But by any other metric I think they would be preferable, no joke!
@@robbylava Welp guess its at least something fun to theoreize about even if it wouldn't happen... heh.
NEAT
Finnic pantheon (perkele👍)
@@HonnePerkele Yes! Would love it
the Original Article is empty now? all text was removed! is this all fake??
No, none of it is fake. These were all things people could play with during the playtest
I had another commenter saying they were having trouble with the link, so it could just be me being incompetent. Try googling "list of all changes in Age of Mythology retold"and clicking on whatever Fandom link comes up first
Charon: The chaddest champion of the Underworld, who charitably undertakes the challenge of chaperoning souls over Styx whilst chastly chanting hymns of eternal charm.
Charon: The cantankerous caretaker of ferrying, who (for capital) can carry cadavers over Styx in his capacious caravel.
Okay, I'm done now...
I always find alliteration to be awesome, but only one of those is correct because Charon is pronounced Charon, not Charon.
I know that Charon is pronounced Charon, and not Charon - but Robby pronounced it Charon instead of Charon in the video, so I thought I'd point out that it is, indeed, pronounced Charon. It might not have been very clear, though.
Perchance a chap can be charitable enough to excuse the capriciousness of my careless chatter?
@@bjarkekiaer I knew you knew. Well, I knew you knew after I knocked down my initial impulse and reread your post. By then, I was too amused by my own wordplay that not mention it.
@@Jallorn And I knew that you knew that I knew (or at least strongly suspected it). After all, there can't be that many Charons in a sentence without there being a point ferried across.
This is one of the many reasons why you guys are the best
I'm a little bit worried with the increasing scope of everything, it might lead to individual things having less significance.
Example: favour gets unlimited, pop caps also get increased, we're gonna see larger armies and more myth units yet Greeks still have only 4 heroes? Bit skeptical about that one
Pretty sure it was already stated greek heros would get even stronger then they do now in each age.
@@totallylegitenergy2559 Sure, but will it be enough? With these changes myth unit spamming will be easier than ever and they're still limited to 4 heroes by the Mythic Age
@@ZS-rw4qq honestly I'm not sure, but what I've seen with people playing Greek they haven't been struggling to deal with myth units, but we have to wait and see i guess.
nice!
aoe3 had for an exteme long time poison mechanic alrdy
I'm not surprised at all. The more I learn about that game the more it seems to have successfully done things that a lot of the other Age games would benefit from!
They removed skeletons 😢
Noooo
Why shouldn't the Greeks get Macedonian units? The Macedonians were Greeks.
The Greeks seem to be mycenians (especially a mythologized pop culture version of them)
@@juanignaciogennaro8478 Gastraphetes is not a Mycenaean unit and neither are hoplites though. Or cavalry in general. In fact most of the mortal units from the Greek roster are from the Archaic or Classical age.
No, they weren't greeks. Greeks called them barbarians, who looked like greeks.
In linguistic ancient macedonian tongue and greeks dialects are different languages.
After Alexander campaign macedonians were assimilated with greeks, but it's another story.
@@johanlassen6448yeah, it's true
@@Miklosh.Prostoi They were 100% Greek. Besides Demosthenes, who was a politician seeking to curb the expansion of Macedon, there are no Greek writers who called them "barbarians". Contemporary historians like Herodotus and Thucydides considered them Greek, and so did geographers like Strabo. Moreover, the opinion of the Greek masses has nothing to do with the ethnicity of the Macedonians. Language does, and we know that they spoke a unique dialect of North-West Greek thanks to findings such as the Pella Curse Tablet. You are categorically wrong in your assertion that linguists consider Macedonian to be a different language. They don't.
I mean seriously now, ALL evidence we have (be it topographic names, personal names, religious, numismatic, epigraphic, mythical geneaology or contemporary accounts) points to them being Greek. There is NO evidence whatsoever of them being anything else.
Nothing illustrates this more than the simple fact that the term "Macedonia" actually means something in Greek. How come the Macedonians didn't have a name for themselves if they were not Greek? Where is this "non-Greek" Macedonian language to be found, pray tell?
5:18 No thank you. Revert immediately.
Thank you for the video, I'm going to read that article stat! But please reduce the mentions of "atlanteans should not be in the game". People might not have seen your rather excellent upload on the matter but in this video just remark on it once and I think the average viewer should remember it, at least for the rest of the video. It becomes increasingly grating and annoying each and every time it is uttered.
Ooo, dang. Coming in with the takes.
Now I'm legitimately curious how many times I said it, because when I was editing it didn't sound like much.
I'm sure it can get irritating, but as a UA-camr I've increasingly found it necessary to couch my language to ensure that it is not taken out of context. The number of times I think I've explained myself thoroughly and still get questions about stuff I say in a video that could have been answered by watching 10 seconds later is kind of staggering.
Next time I'll try to put a counter or something on screen to at least be self aware about it.
AoM is not AoEII, and it was never supposed to be. They will ruin it by catering to AoEII sweats. It was basically an attempt to combine AoE with Warcraft and StarCraft, because Blizzard was completely dominating RTS. AoM is the best Age game as a result. Removing Auto-Queue for Ranked is a terrible decision and a bad sign. The fact that anybody whines about TCs is also a bad sign. Again - This is not AoEII. The impact of the other decisions remains to be seen. The change to Wonders is a huge change to a staple of all Age games. It could work, though.