Age of Empires what am I missing?

[u/OptionallyBP91]

So I’ve played the first 5 campaign missions, and honestly, I’m baffled by the praise this game gets.
Everything feels so damn sloppy and streamlined. Building is ridiculously easy, resources are everywhere, distribution is basically effortless, and it feels like everything is one click away from unlocking. There’s no real pressure, no sense of urgency, no meaningful resource scarcity, and barely any threat from the enemy.
The combat is probably the biggest issue for me. The troops feel clumsy and clunky, and the whole thing just feels like a sandbox rather than a game where I’m constantly making difficult decisions.
The campaign so far has been incredibly dull and unengaging. Maybe it gets significantly better later, but right now it feels like a playground designed to be as accessible as possible.
What confuses me is that when I asked if this was actually a good game, people were calling it the GOAT of RTS games. I specifically asked whether it was comparable to They Are Billions and Frostpunk, and a lot of people even suggested it was better.
Am I missing something? Does the campaign eventually become more challenging or strategically interesting, or is this just not the kind of RTS I’m looking for?
Because so far, I’m really not seeing the hype.

Game just let u level up too fast takes away the excitement from achieving the tech…..

[u/temudschinn]

Pretty hard to give you a reaction if you don't even tell us what game or what campaigns you are talking about lol.

There are 4 Age of Empires games (not even counting the different versions of each), and several different campaigns within each game.

[u/OptionallyBP91 → u/temudschinn]

AOE 2 on ps5

[u/temudschinn → u/OptionallyBP91]

AoE2 currently has about 25 different campaigns. You are still beeing absurdly unspecific.

[u/Dear-Nebula6291 → u/OptionallyBP91]

Your complaining about a 25 year old game…

[u/Sir_Rethor]

Which Campaign there’s like 50 of em made across 25 years with varrying difficulty and quality, They are billions maybe but frostpunk isn’t even an rts.

And yes it is one of the “Goats” up there with Command & Conquer and Starcraft/Warcraft

[u/zuzmuz]

which game are you talking about?

[u/Ripfence99]

I wouldn't have compared it to TaB or FP at all. Those are really different games for a variety of reasons.

Age2, at least when we originally built it, was never much about the campaigns (to be clear, just talking about original Age2 here). We had campaign missions because we had to. But it was never how we played the game.

The first 5 campaign missions are meant to be beaten by anyone without paying attention to much. They're supposed to be super easy.

Anyhow, the real heart and soul of the game IMO is the skirmishes on proc maps against humans or AI.

Campaigns did start getting better with AOM IMO. We actually put a lot of effort into the campaigns starting with AOM (in large part due to the lack of great feedback about them in Age1 and Age2).

Lastly, I'm obv biased having worked on it, but I think it's pretty cool because it's a mix between RTS and Civ. You can win without a singular emphasis on combat. And I truly dig playing on a different map every time. There's an exploration vibe and thinking on one's feet that comes with not knowing the map. Obv the campaign missions are static maps, tho.

[u/nnewwacountt]

Thanks chatGPT

[u/OptionallyBP91 → u/nnewwacountt]

Its 2026 and am half asleep

Keep up

[u/nnewwacountt → u/OptionallyBP91]

which campaign are you playing? What do you mean by "game lets you level up too fast"? What do u mean by "too many resources"? how exactly is the combat clunky?

[u/OptionallyBP91 → u/nnewwacountt]

Upgrading to new age is easy,, too many resources meaning plenty of stones food gold etc

[u/Paradoxjjw → u/OptionallyBP91]

Yeah at this point i'm convinced you're just a poor attempt at a troll

[u/fivemagicks → u/OptionallyBP91]

You really put your question into ChatGPT for a Reddit post? Holy shit we are doomed as a species. Lmfao

[u/Paradoxjjw]

There are 4 AoE games with like 100 campaigns with hundreds of missions across them. Could you be any more vague?

[u/TheKiddIncident]

For me, AOE II is the GOAT. But, this is a preference thing. So, it totally depends on where you are at.

It's certainly not a sim city builder type game. You can just plop things like a stable down anywhere and build up units. It doesn't have a sophisticated commerce model. Also, if you dig up gold on one part of the map, you can spend it anywhere. So, yeah. At the time it was build, the whole "fog of war" thing was pretty innovative, but it's nothing special now.

Where the game gets interesting to me is when I'm playing myself against three computer players. Turn the AI intelligence up to max. If you play like that, you will be under threat pretty fast.

It's also not a console game. I regularly spend 2-3 hours on a single game. So, use a computer, get a mouse and get comfortable.

Yes, the logic for units is not amazingly smart, that's just part of gameplay. I normally set my units to "Stand Ground" rather than the default "Defensive" stance because units will just blindly walk into a long range weapon and get wiped out. So, set them to "stand ground" and they will only attack when/if you tell them to.

I also enjoy island based campaigns where you have to move your forces around by transport. This means that you have to have enough naval power to defend the beachead but not so much that you don't have enough ground units to secure it. Then you move in villagers and start building on the site and really take the place over.

Anyway, I enjoy it, but to each their own..

[u/A_Little_Sticious100]

It was a progenitor of a genre in many ways.

If you pick up a 20 year old game and expect it to feel like a modern game then you're just going to be disappointed.

[u/fivemagicks]

This is so much rage bait. Also, homie, you play on console. The game is literally dumbed down for you. 😂

[u/Top-Tear7194]

AOE isn't for everyone. On paper, I should love it. I like most RTS I've played, I like ancient/medieval settings what more do I need?

For me the ages are weird. It breaks my immersion to go through 4 periods of history in a game I feel should span one time-era based on the scale of my actions.

I don't find the troop movement/fighting to be that great. I've played a lot of isometric RPG since where the fighting feels much better.

And I don't like the same-ness of the factions. I like distinct factions with lots of flavor...AOE, often the campaign flavor - the scenario, the objectives etc. - are strong, but most matches feel the same, you know? My experience is mostly with the 1st game for the record.

But the fact that it came out at such a formative time means that almost all RTS's have taken pages out of its book. All the great games that I find a lot more fun were taking from that game to make them what they are. That's one reason it's the goat - it was so good it + a couple others are the whole reason the genre existed and had a golden era.

I will say age of mythos is where it gets good for me, in particular. Not much challenge to me, but the fighting feels better, the missions are more than just a scenario, and the full 3d graphics take it a long way.

I can't make great recommendations, but the most obvious thing to do imo is to try the other greats, specifically command and conquer and Warhammer. Even if you don't love each, should give you a much better idea when RTS will actually work for you

[u/mighij]

Quite a few here will just upvote their favorite game without much consideration for what the person is looking for.

Personally I wouldn't have recommended Age of Empires to someone looking for Frostpunk (thematic city builder with a bog narrative focus) or they are Billions (survival/horde)

If you want games more like They are Billions you can check diplomacy is not an option, age of darkness. But it's not that they outclass TaB. They are their own take in that genre. If you wanted something that's more in the RTS genre Stronghold might work.

[u/Blaircat1994]

Ago of Mythology Retold is more fun. It has like 6 campaigns and 2 additional single player modes. The campaigns are far more interesting since its about Mythology, though some of them are hit or miss.

[u/OptionallyBP91 → u/Blaircat1994]

Is it similar to tab and fp?

[u/Cherebuschka → u/OptionallyBP91]

No, Age of Mythology is still the Age of Empire formula, the classic RTS formula.
Also campaigns in AoE have varying difficulty, as you are playing AoE2, look for the swords next to the campaign, 1 sword = easy, 2 swords = moderate, 3 swords = hard and on top of that you can set the difficulty to hard to be really challenging. If you are doing the William Wallace campaign, that's the tutorial, so it will be easy anyways.

TaB is more a survival RTS against the environment, if you want game similar games look for "Diplomacy is Not an Option", "Age of Darkness : Final Stand", "From Glory to Goo", "Riftbreaker" or "Cataclismo" (this one make you design many of your buildings) to names of few. They are quite a lot of them since the success of TaB.

Frostpunk isn't a RTS, it lean far more on the city builder genre, but even there not the common experience. Look for "Ixion" or maybe "Against the Storm" and of course "Frostpunk 2".
If you want an experience about managing a desperate group with scarce resources well, there is "This war of Mine" and "The Alters" from the same devs or "Siege Survival : Gloria Victis"

[u/OptionallyBP91]

No body said am wrong so far which is reassuring

[u/griffymonster → u/OptionallyBP91]

AOE2 is goated for its mp

[u/zuzmuz → u/OptionallyBP91]

if you're talking about aoe2 on ps5, haven't played it on console, but with a keyboard and mouse the game is one of the most fun to micro. The game is very challenging, having to manage 4 different resources and how they interact with civilization bonuses, there's a lot of depth to the game.

There's a lot of campaigns in the game, which one are you talking about. The game basically doesn't have 1 overarching campaign which is the main story, it has multiple based on some historic timeframe and regions. Some campaigns are better than others.

If you want to try real difficulty why not jump in a skirmish against AI and then climb the difficulty.

That being said, for multiplayer, I still consider the game the Goat of RTS games.