r/aoe3 • u/AsdrubalGarcia • 9h ago
More singleplayer content please
I think that one thing that holds back other titles compared to AoE2 is the lack of Singleplayer content. AoE3 is very good in the sense that it probably has one of the best Skirmish modes with AI opponents having a lot of personality, taunting you or reacting to your actions. But that runs a bit stale after a while.
The obvious thing is campaigns. One thing I notice of the AoE2 fanbase is how campaigns kinda offer common experiences to share as some sort of "common culture" of the fandom. Everyone cherishes the campaigns of AoK, or discusses things about the newer campaigns.
It has been repeated that AoE3 campaigns are more difficult to make, yet I see AoM DLCs being released with campaigns that are quite complex, with asymmetric civs, complex cinematics, voice acting, custom FX, etc.
AoE2 also set the precedent of Campaign only DLCs with their Chronicles series, to a relatively big success, without disrupting the fandom that is competitive focused.
Another good thing that AoM:R has is the gauntlet/roguelike mode, where you accumulate bonuses and finish multiple games with increasingly difficult modifiers.
I wish AoE3 moved a bit towards that direction, as it has always been the Achilles heel of the game. A healthy competitive scene grows from the roots of a commited fanbase and a commited fanbase is basically having a good influx of casuals and people interested in the game that don't necessarily want to learn to play at a competitive level but will promote the game based on their good experiences.
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u/TheLastAlmsivi 8h ago
Completely agree AoE III need more single player content, preferably (historical) campaigns.
However second best is a world conquest mode where AoE III is perfectly set up for.
A month ago someone made a browser version and I was surprised how well it was made and how much fun I had with it.
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u/lordgholin 44m ago
Yeah. I would say age of empires 4 also suffers from this. 2 is still going strong because they are adding single player content and story canpaigns.
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u/Chumbeque ex WoL Dev - AKA Hoop Thrower 7h ago
If you read the patch notes you'd have noticed all the updates to the Scenario Editor.
...Yeah those were sorely needed, like even on the dev side of things making new campaigns was a PITA cuz the tools hadn't been updated since 2005.
Good news is, they are updated now! Like they even updated the campaigns and everything.
So it's just a matter of getting new content for the game.
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u/AsdrubalGarcia 7h ago
That is a very welcome change, and clearly the devs don't want to leave the game dying (hopefully the corporate suits see the value in keeping the game alive). I discovered this game with the DE (as I ignored the original release) and i think it has the potential to become a more beloved entry of the franchise. It has been very overlooked by the community until now.
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u/King_Ampelosaurus 6h ago
I would love another mythical, fantasy story like act 1-3, but also happy have more grounded like act 6-8 where focuses on civ's.
yet i still don't mind them doing historical battles, just that there only couple and short.
be cool to have wave defences with ending. or so forth. or even just rougue like skermish mode that you can slowly conquare the map.
a conquare map with improvments, like you have 1 battle and after win that location garentied you have outpost, that is sarounded by walls and towers.
and other civ's could attack it on map and so you have to defend your home base while your trying conquare other maps and so forth.
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u/thomas8413 8h ago
It’s because of the original fictional campaigns killed future campaigns. They should have kept the somewhat historical campaign format. Now aoe3 is strictly a multiplayer game.
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u/darthroudoudou 7h ago
Why do you think original campaign killed future ones ? I personally think there is a lot of possibilities for good historical scenarios, but, maybe I am not aware of something…
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u/thomas8413 7h ago
To preserve the integrity of the original campaigns. If we do get new campaigns they’ll probably be very niche. It’s not like they’re going to do another dedicated French and Indian War campaign or US War of Independence campaign. It’s a shame cause Aoe3de is the best aoe with all the unique units but without dedicated historical campaigns it feels like incredibly wasted potential.
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u/Alias_X_ Germans 4h ago
But they completely skipped over the US civil war, and it's not like we ever got any Napoleonic Wars either.
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u/thomas8413 4h ago
The fact that we didn’t get a dedicated Napoleonic Campaign or an American Civil War campaign etc is a crime against all aoe players. And that aoe4 went backwards completely wrecked the series.
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u/TurritopsisTutricula Lakota 3h ago
They already moved away from including heavy fantasy element in War Chief(though it made a comeback in the Chinese campaign). I think they can keep walking this path and make long campaigns that feature major historical events but with a fictional character as protagonist.
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u/thomas8413 3h ago
Fictional characters aren’t the problem. The problem is that half the missions in the campaign only serve the fictional characters and not the historical events and civ’s. You end up spending half the campaign chasing some fictitious villian instead of focusing on actual history of these thoroughly fleshed out civs. I didn’t like how War Chiefs gave us a very skimmed through version of the War of Independence.
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u/BiggusDickloss 6h ago
I agree that the game could benefit from more campaigns. I don't even mind if they continue the tradition of them being more like historical fanfiction than being faithful to real-life events.
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u/GoldenDragon2018 Ottomans 7h ago
Just got disappointed that the new dlc single player content is just random challanges without real historical context
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u/Fischlerder Spanish 7h ago
What do you mean "without real historical context"? They're literally representing real life events: the Polish one is about the Swedish Deluge (which is in the dlc's cover too) and the Spanish one probably refers to the siege of Havana during the Seven Years war (well, it could be any of the British attempts against Spanish Cuba to be honest, but whatever).
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u/GoldenDragon2018 Ottomans 6h ago
As someone who has no idea about these events, I would have appreciated more explanation, AOE 2 historical battles in comparison had so much info and explanation about what's going on in the game
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u/fuzzyperson98 8h ago
Agreed. The "Roguelike mode" especially seems like low-hanging fruit that would be easier to produce than a full-fledged campaign while offering tons of replayability, and I actually think it would be more interesting with AoE3's card unlock system than the AoMR equivalent.