Age of Mythology Retrospective
Вставка
- Опубліковано 8 чер 2019
- Hey folks! Today's video is the first in a four-part series of retrospectives I'll be doing on the Age of Empires series. I'll be covering Age of Empires I, Age of Empires II, Age of Mythology, and Age of Empires III. If you're interested in this kind of content, I'd modestly recommend you subscribe to me here on UA-cam to get notified when I upload each video in the series.
In terms of my background, I've been playing the Age series for more than 20 years, stretching back to Age of Empires I. I started playing online in Age of Empires II, started playing competitively in Age of Mythology, and was one of the top-ranked players in the world in Age of Titans. I’m probably best known for my competitive performance in Age of Empires III, where I was a finalist in the World Cyber Games.
Production Notes:
- My apologies to Ms. Swanson (the UI designer on Age of Mythology) for getting her first name wrong - it's Karen, not Julie. Sorry.
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References
- www.gamasutra.com/view/featur... (Gamasutra Interview with Bruce Shelley) - Ігри
My favourite RTS, I was never a hardcore player but I got lost in the beautiful world and story. Made my childhood
This game inspired me to learn about mythology and definitely laid my foundation to the nerd I am today.
@@dr.calibrations7984 Honestly, same. I took a course in university on European ancient mythology because of my love of this game.
Exact same for me, I'm in college working on ancient european language. Without aom, I would not have picked Latin in midschool and would not have discovered how much I like ancient languages and I would not be here.
Saying this game changed my life is and understatement. It made it.
Same this game was my inspiration on many stuff
Same dude. I wasn't the best at it (cause I wa like 7) but I loved playing it and enjoyed it.
To me, the smaller scale makes it feel more epic, if that makes sense. It allows one unit to have a substantial effect on battles, unlike in other games where you absolutely must build huge armies. A group of seven horsemen sounds laughable in the context of, say, Age of Empires II, but in Age of Mythology, it can turn the tide of battle. The importance of the individual soldiers over a massive army really makes it feel like this is something out of legend. It's a different feel than something with more sprawling battles, and while that's all well and good, the smaller scale fits very well here thematically.
Some comments
Love the video. Some comments
- The video felt incredibly short and concise when compared to your other work. I was amazed to see that half an hour had passed while watching this video. There was much more that could have been said but you covered the basics pretty well.
-The comparison between Byzantines vs Norse is fundamentally flawed. Yes, AoE had bigger techs with more units and unit counters. However, some Civs had access to more units AND more upgrades for those units. Other had big chunks of their tech trees unavailable. For example, only a third of the civs had access to the last upgrade of the knight line, which is very important if you aim at mass producing knights.
A better comparison of AoM vs AoE would be greeks vs Goths/franks/brits (depending on which major greek god). In essence, while AoE 2 civs tend to have more unit variety open to them, they tend to still specialize heavily on a few couple of units. Civs like Byzantine are the exception rather than the norm as they and the saracens sport the highest number of available techs and units. AoM civs, on the other hand, don't have irrelevant units which are evolutionary dead ends for your civ (compare with Spanish archers/Turks Pike & skirmishers).
-The sound design of the game is, as you said, amazing.
-It's unfortunate that you only mentioned the campaign. It deserves a lot of credit for creating a good story with interesting and varied levels, something that the vast majority of RTS's fail to do right to this day. Not only that but The Titans added 11 missions that were very much distinct from one another and, when played on the highest difficult, were extremely hard but doable.
fake news
This game made my childhood. The campaign was phenomenal, the sound design was literally godly, and the cheat codes were cheeky. I adore this game like none other.
This. You basically said what I was about to say. I love this game's campaign so much. I've played it probably a hundred times by now.
It's kinda sad that the AoM fanbase has dwindled so much over the years and now only some thousands of players remain. I hope it never just completely dies and there are always some people to talk about AoM and keep it alive!
It won't completely die, because I will ensure it survives within me!
@@dragonroot2616 me too brother!
Friend it had an HD remaster and a stream release.. Have you heard about empire earth's remaster? No? Then stop thinking a game is dead...
It even got am expansion pack years later...
The best game campaign I've ever played in my life, by FAR ! Nice vid ;)
"Turtling Hades plaers" yeah, thats me 100%.
Great review. My favorite RTS game.
You should have talked about the campaign more. It was amazing!
I would always play Major gods that allowed for healing in some shape or form so no Poseidon and Hydra.
*Puts both versions of Twilight of the Thunder God in a playlist and blasts it in the background while holding back Nidhogg and reforging Mjölnir*
I loved the custom maps and gamemodes in AoM. Wish we still had similar things
Is that what you believe, Atlantean?
Kids these days will never appreciate a masterpiece and timeless classic like this
so true
It's a game I love, but come on bud. People growing up today can't be expected to love a popular book, movie, or show that's a staple from the previous generation. Things move on, new ideas become marketed and popular. A middle schooler nowadays has no reason to know about or care about this game, even if it is a beautiful, wonderful game. Especially in the videogames industry, things move fast. You'll probably never appreciate Minecraft the same way a gen z kid does, and there's no reason for you to.
AoM is a great single-player experience. It’s cozy, the smaller unit variety is easier to wrap your head around, and the in-game encyclopedia is a wonderful way to lose hours. I dunno about the competitive scene, but it was a great PC experience, days and days of fun to be had.
Sure, AoE 2 eventually got way more content, but AoM’s base game was nothing to sneeze at, and I’d take the fun and spectacle of having myth units any day over more varied human armies.
My favourite RTS of all time. I recognise AoE is more balanced and a more distilled RTS experience, but AoM is waaaay more fun.
The mythological creatures and the ancient units just completely absorbed me and I loved learning about them.
Somehow AOM > AOE to me, even today. More alive, hard to explain. Feels like a real game. AOEs feel like game engines, they feel stale and cold.
Aom feels more "high quality"
Same for me. AoM > AoE2
Absolutely perfectly said,i could not describe it better in the ''feel'' sense.
Because Love was the secret ingredient..
6:07, though the fire galley and the demolition raft where introduced by AoEIIHD, AoK and AoC only had the galley in feudal
The thing that hooked me to strategy ( RTS in general ) is the campaign, the characters, and the dialogues. I bet that we all remember those the most. Given that Ensemble and Forgotten Empires added more cultures and campaign expansions much like AOE II, who could say ? But there's an issue where both games concern me. You can't automatically attack walls, whether it's a section or the gates. I mean at least have the infantry or the rams to auto target walls please. Yeesh !
Another thing, I appreciate differences in cultures. They make for the bulk of diversity and ingenuity.
Great video thanks for the upload. Looking forward to future ones!
I think you hit the nail on the head with the 'AoM feels "smaller" than AoE' - to me that was the biggest issue with the game. AoM is a great and fun time. But just not in the same way AoE does.
I really hope this reviews got the attention they deserve
I'm very late to this video. I played AoM as a kid, and I loved it, and have come back to enjoy this game just as much as I did then.
I think there would be an apt comparison to compare AoM to Starcraft in terms of diverse races as well as fast and aggressive gameplay. I hope that if we ever do get an Age of Mythology 2, they will lean back into the aggressive gameplay that makes AoM the game it is compared to AoE2.
Great retrospective
Excellent content! Keep going!
Great video! Liked and subbed!
Hey man, great video.
Do you have any thoughts on the very late Chinese Pantheon expansion?
Personally I much prefer the reduction in micromanagement. And this is particularly in the case of UI decisions like infinite/autoseeding farms, autoqueue, etc. across the series, not necessarily game design. Which I'll get to here in a moment.
Yes, demanding a higher level of micromanagement allows for a much higher skill ceiling in top level play mechanically speaking, but it also skyrockets the skill floor in that regard and makes the game much harder to approach for newer players of almost any skill level and makes making strategic decisions for average and even above average players unnecessarily tedious because so much of their available APM is eaten up by menial tasks. Even in pro level play this helps to limit the available options a player has strategically at any given moment because much more time is dedicated to menial tasks rather than making decisions about what to do. Which slows your ability to respond and prevents you from leveraging your available options in an efficient manner. It's not mindless clicking as it does factor into your decision making, but it is robbing you of other strategic options and represents little more than filler between you and executing your plan.
As to questions of balance with the Isis example, that is a separate discussion entirely as factions should never be balanced around APM in the first place and making that argument ignores that Isis has a slight advantage over players of equal skill. If micro is the deciding factor of whether something is balanced or not, there's a deeper issue to be addressed here.
Now this is not to say that RTS games should be overly simplified in terms of game design. Providing the player with more options is always going to be a win as it naturally allows for more strategies in a well balanced game, adds depth to decision making, and makes for more interesting games, both to watch and play. Also providing the player with a set of limitations to work around is a good way to encourage different strategies and scenarios. AoM's population mechanics, for example. Yes, the game is of a smaller scale, but it also encourages you to focus on map control. If you can't take settlements, you can fall behind very easily, and if you can take a settlement from an enemy it can shift the course of the game as you now not only have the potential for a stronger economy with higher villager production, but you have denied the enemy the same asset.
This is also why I love different rarities of resources that are exposed out on the map. Compare AoEII to SCII. Two games with very similar combat pacing, base building mechanics, and production times for units. Yet there is so much more variety in AoE 2 off of a single faction template vs SCII's 3. I'd argue this is very dependent on map design and the more complex economies, moreso than even the larger varieties of units AoE boasts for each faction.
In SCII, you can put your enemy behind and slow him down by denying him an expansion, but until the later stages of the game it's virtually impossible to control his responses because every expansion has ready access to both resources. In AoE, if you deny your enemy gold or stone, resources which are very sparse and typically put in positions which can be difficult to defend, you can deny him certain options. No gold, no knights, no stone no castles or towers to defend your eco. It doesn't stop him from doing things, he can still transition into trash units to make up the difference, but it allows you to set the pace of a match and deny your opponent advantages through good decision making and strategies rather than it boiling down to an APM game where how much of the map you control matters more than which parts of the map you control like SCII.
These are also elements that impact all levels of play in a positive manner and allow more variety for everyone as opposed to the philosophy here of more micro = more decisions to make, which negatively effects most of the playerbase while only allowing for a small minority to truly leverage any benefit from it.
This also comes from the position that mechanical skill should never outweigh strategy. Sure, if I play faster, I'm going to have an advantage, that's always going to be the case, and it should matter to some degree, but it shouldn't be the deciding factor in a match most of the time. If it is, especially if it's consistently so, then you need to rethink your game design because it represents a huge problem.
I’ve never seen someone this good at this game
Thanks this is a fantastic and deep insight into AOM. Hopefully, they can add new mechanics /units to add more diversity for each culture to match AOEII. For example HarvestBuildDestroy came up with an interesting idea of adding weapon choices for the existing human units which is an easy way to add more content without complicating too much. Also a large scale is a must for this game. AOM2 has potential especially if its modeled more closely to AOMIV than AOM was to AOEII. I do like the differences between cultures though Warcraft III and Starcraft have unique cultures.
Good video, but I wish you would have spent more time talking about the campaign! I have many fond memories of it.
Also, your explanation of 3D projection had some inaccuracies. The map is not curved, nor isometric. The effect that you are describing (units further from the camera being smaller) is due to the use of *perspective* projection. The older 2D titles used an isometric view, which is an example of an *orthographic* projection.
Good Review.
You pointed out the changes which I couldn't find the words to describe, only feel.
Which aren't too necessary to say but, I couldn't explain why the game felt linear when there was so much uniqueness.
Your explanation of the Norse having few units to pick from in all ages with very specific, not broad unit roles emphasized the few options you had in Playing Norse and Other Factions-SubFactions. There is also few units to have at one time due to a lower population than it's predecessor AOEII thus Less Quantity.
I hope they make an Age of Mythology 2 which is as grandeous as AOEII
Just stumbled over your review and I am amazed at the depths you reviewed ths game. Hope to see some more clicks on your videos. Your really put quite some effort into them.
Additionally I was never in the competitive play, which made it quite interesting to see how someone who grapples with competitive play sees this game. Good work!
What's the different between having 3 civ in AOM and 3 races in SC2?
isometric projection does not change the size of objects depending on the distance from camera. All edges of a cube are equal in an isometric projection irrespective of the fact that some edges are closer. For object size to depend on distance from camera, the projection must be a perspective projection. 3D engines need not use perspective projection.
That said, I am not saying that AOM uses isometric projection. If object size changes, then the projection must be perspective.
great vid!
people harping on auto queue and hating on it is very sad. makes it sound like they're feeling threatened that the only thing they're good at in their life just got made easier for everyone. even though that includes them.
About AoM size: sometimes, less is more.
Good video. I have to agree that AoM really took risks with its game design, especially going from a game with a dozen civs each based on a single tech tree to three, each with their own systems and units. Ensemble really put a godly amount of effort into making each faction unique, and it paid off, at least from my interest in the game. Another thing I like is that aging up is no longer a simple yes/no decision, instead the player has to make a choice of which god. Speaking of which, have you heard of Wayward Strategist? He's an rts commentator, who really likes opportunity costs and influenced me, to like them as well.
Something I'm wondering, is the features you mentioned as being core to the Age series, specifically gameplay over realism and siege units. Isn't it practically required to have gameplay trump realism in a historical or modern rts? Otherwise a single match would take hours to play, what with having all your riflemen go through basic training and such. I am concerned about this, because, in fantasy there has been an upswing in realism concerns, that make me want to tear my hair out, and I don't want some army of grognards picking apart every strategy game cause "hoplites fought in formations of dozens of men interlocked by their shields!" It is a video game, gameplay always trumps realism, otherwise the rts genre wouldn't exist. Sorry, I got a little carried away. Anyway, when would realism trump gameplay in a game where a fully armed hoplite can be equipped and trained in under a minute? Also, don't most games have anti building units, from Star Craft's siege tanks or guardians, to Rise of Nation's catapults? I don't see how the Age series is all that different.
Also, I've been hearing a lot of commentators yell about games with a low skill ceiling being bad, and I have to wonder; when is it allowable to lessen the skill ceiling of an rts game? Cause if it isn't we might be in for some ridiculous game where you have to go through a dozen clicks just to get villagers gathering. I'm also reminded of the game Dawn of War 2. It's a rts rtt(real time tactics) hybrid, with a heavy emphasis on unit control. Thing is, it got rid of the shift key; there is no way to queue up unit commands to my knowledge. It's a good game, but that decision seems terrible; getting rid of such a common feature simply to give the player more busywork to do. Basically, I'm asking what's the line between a competitive rts and a UI nightmare.
The variety is less in one singular game, but trying out another race felt very different to aom where samey units for another coat of paint.
Also not everybody enjoys multiplayer or winning more than just trying things out or the campaign.
Now we need Definitive Edition.
Great vid, how do I make my game look this sexy? Some mod, gamma correction...?
thank you based brownbear
Agreed that the autoqueue was what killed the game. Prior to the expansion pack, Age of Mythology was featured in major tournaments. After the expansion pack it was dropped from every tournament. It never was even featured in a single one.
Played this game at my neighbours place and fell in love with it and it was also my first game at the age of 8. Got it together with my first pc on birthday and still play it today as a 22 year old. To be fair i might have had a break for 6 or 7 years :D . Also tried getting into AoE2 as everyone kept saying its way better but to me it feels unnecessarily complicated with how many units and techs there is. At the same time its kinds boring that every civ has the same basis. AoM feels more alive and logical in that aspect. Also i got really annoyed by the 2d system. To me it looked like an awkward mess that makes managing it just way harder and not at all fun.
23:00 so units on a slope are less effective than units properly stanced?
🤔 🤔 🤔
I don't get why RTS players think having to keep track of everything is good. It's an _strategy_ game. Being able to concoct a plan to outplay your opponent and adapt accordingly to the situation at hand IS strategy. Stressing about managing everything down to the last detail all the time isn't. Maybe that's why the genre died down. I mean... when accessibility becomes a problem, I think it's time to reconsider. Players don't like the game for the strategy _per se_ then, but because it's a test of their stress endurance and managing skills.
I USED TO THOUGHT THIS GAME HAD ULTRA REALISTIC GRAPHICS WHEN I WAS A KID
Shtarted c: AoM is and will always be awesome.
Nice video. But I found a few strange things. 9:25 "A couple of hundred players after a few months" There's no way that it is true. The game had thousands of active players long after its release. And you said that "God powers are not integral to the gameplay" lol. Maybe the meta evolved after you left...
Also, I think you exaggerate the impact of Autoque a bit. I have played all age games back and forth, and its very easy to get use to having autoque or not having autoque. The skill level needed to keep pumping villagers/military isn't as high as most people seems to think.
It's not that the skill level to keepn producing relatively evenly is so high, it's that the skill cealing that's high, and the resulting differentiation between good and middeling macro players. Even if you are very, very good at macro, you *will* miss cycles and requeing *will* be delayed or alternatively resources bound up in the queue, and players worse than that will have those problems moreso. Over time, the better player will gain more and more of an economic advantage through that.
Who actually liked the Campaign... cuz I honestly did.
What's your name in Age of Mythology?
So basically they took an AoE game and made it more like WC3. I don't see anything wrong with this. I always have preferred quality over raw quantity. It might be a problem if this was a mainline numbered AoE game, but this is a spin off title so of course things are going to be different that's the entire point.
no aoe4 on e3 rip
I looked at your subscribers... I think more people are supposed to know you
prostagma?
Vulome !
Esto
just wanted 2 push ur content up
"Autoqueue goes beyond simplifying the user interface. Quality of life features have the potential to completely change how a game is played and make otherwise hidden problems suddenly super visible"
So.. its not that the game was unbalanced that is a problem, but the fact that people are aware of it? That's like saying to my wife "The problem isn't that I'm cheating, its that with the telephone calls, its become super visible that I've been cheating on you."
Yep.
But, having so much re-use in AoE 2 made it so dull for me. The civilisations just don't feel different from each other.
PROSTAGMA?
5 ads on a 25 minute video.... lol
I understand why people don't like Age of mythology from a multiplayer standpoint, but as a single player , AOM blows AOE1 and AOE2 out of the water.
AOM- better graphics, better cut scenes, god powers, mythological creatures, better campaign, better characters(lol), better music.
AOE-better multiplayer
I never in my life bought a game for the online aspect.
I wanted a cool single player game, and if it had multiplayer too, nice.
Nice avatar lol
Random Thought: AOE and AOM are racist bcuz Blue Yellow and green mostly friendly
RED: Enemy
That was a biased and misinformed opinion that would be acceptable if it was the year 2010. The game is not at all as you described it since the Titans expansion. I was frustrated too in the unpatched versions with the Isis Oranos matchup. But that was the case cause i wasn't that good still. I think that is what happened to you too and that is why you have a more negative opinion for the game than it deserves. If you had stuck around a bit longer and gave it a chance you would know
Your pronunciations kill me faster than you would if I ever had to play this game competitively against you,which is saying something. Got really bad at heem-dal instead of hime-dal.
i think age of empires 2 looks a lot better than age of mythology and that that is one of the reasons why i prefer age of empires 2, aom was my first age game and i like many things about it but when i think back i remember it feeling slightly off.
just a little comment to help out the algorithm with promoting the video
I think this may be the most offensive video i've ever seen. I disagree with almost every statement while agreeing with all the facts. How could this be?
I don't know, i have the same issue with this game as with AoE 3, the graphics and design looks so washed up, compare that to AoE 2 and the difference is night and day. This 3D engine looks so bad to me
Dislike for the pronunciations that made me want to rip my ears off. Oh yeah, and the autoqueue gatekeeping and snowflaking. Good video tho.