What is the best AOE game?

>>4132809
My favorite was AoE3. I thought the card system was cool. I played it only with another person on LAN with bots. RTS are much more fun when you're fighting bots with friends.

>>4132818
I kinda liked naval battles, and they are not as cool in AOE3

>>4132829
I preferred building a pretty looking base and small groups of land units. I was never a fan of naval combat.

>>4132836
I see, im on the "fuck I wanna win" side of things

>>4132839
I always secured the game early on by rushing, then holding back so I could build. Essentially just toying with the AI for an hour or so. Stealing their shipments. Killing their townspeople. Building castles/towers by their resources.

>>4132843
did you played on any custom maps to recommend?

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AOE2 still has new content made for it.

In case you wanted the question about active playerbase to be answered definitively.

3 > 1 > 2

>>4132891
damn 1 over 2?
>>4132880
fuck thats crazy, where can i download it?

>>4132809
all 3 are still played, though 1 is quite a bit less than the other 2.

AOE1 was interesting for its simplicity and speed. It had some ridiculous holes in its gameplay which encouraged people to just play custom maps instead of the normal generated ones, like the fact that resources are finite and to get a significant food income you -need- to be on a map you can fish on. That said, the simplicity made the game still fun. Build a barracks next to your enemy's town center and go to town.

AOE2 was a masterstroke and fixed all of AOE1's problems while at the same time introducing lots of new mechanics. Resources are infinite and their sources all make more sense, the pop cap put the game at the scale it always needed, military units had proper counter-units to keep them in check. New mechanics like being able to walk through some buildings, new trade system which allows for infinite resources, unit formations to improve army cohesion. The game also had cool shit like big giant castles all over the map, cool terrain shit, and all the unique units were sweet. Random maps work great in AOE2 because the core mechanics are stable enough that it is more a matter of how to adapt your build order to the slight variances in every game, vs the problematic way AOE1 would more often kill your build order and render you defenseless.

AOE3 shit the bed, simplified everything, and made the game way more spammy with less strategy. Villagers no longer return resources to stockpile, the home port fixes just any problem you might be having at the moment, it didn't have proper counter units or other mechanics so battles devolved to whoever had the biggest army. Only good things about the game was that the new trade route was pretty cool and some aspects of the navy were cool (though I preferred AOE2's because it had more scale and a real trade system, it's kind of a preference thing).

I never played AOE Online.

>>4132951

It's on Steam.

I think the last expansion came out last year. Yes, it's an official expansion.

2=Mythology>1>>>>>>>>>3

>>4132809
why didn't she try to kill the priest, then?

>>4132957
>>4133003
Pretty much this. I'm surprised OP doesn't know anything about AoE2 being kept alive since then. The game has just been getting bigger and bigger.

>>4132957
>it didn't have proper counter units or other mechanics so battles devolved to whoever had the biggest army

I honestly feel the complete opposite. Counters are so hard in Age of Empires III that you absolutely cannot use a unit outside of it's intended role. Like those cannons that only damage other cannons. Or skirmishers who will only deal damage to heavy infantry, but are basically shooting spitballs at everything else.

Age 2 counters worked really well because each unit had multiple roles.

>>4132809
Have you checked out steam? There were three new, official, expansions that came out in the last couple years. The team that produced them even was able to hire on two of the original Ensemble employees. http://www.forgottenempires.net/former-ensemble-studios-lead-engineers-join-fe-team

If you haven't heard, Age of Empires I is also being remastered and should be out this year. Microsoft also teased some other thing "you're going to want to hear" at Gamescom in August. I am suspecting that it will just end up being them trying to push AoE as an Esport, but there is still that little flicker of hope that we will be seeing and Age of Empires IV.

>all that discussion that doesn't adress OP in any way
All you all retarded? He asked how many people play those games.

Yes, AOE 2 has big player base(bigger than brood war without koreans, or warcraft 3 or command and conquer). You can always find a game with people around your level of play. And play with people that have green ping. So that says something already, becouse usually any RTS fail in this regard. Aoe3 - I don't know, I doubt, it was a failure - besides no new expansions from developers, so I kinda doubt it had that much users following it.
Aoe 1- some new big expansion/remake is comming, so stay tuned. Maybe it will be a big hit, or maybe people will stick with Aoe2(probably the latter).

So concerning player amount of userbase:
(in traditional RTS, and not including 15 yr veterans)
SC2>AOE2>BroodWar>CommandAnd Conquer1>Warcraft 3>Warcraft 2>any obscure game like cossak, that some guy plays with his bro or uncle on hamachi/LAN

>>4138007
I'll also add, that you don't need expansions in Aoe 2 to play with people with the new expansions, when you buy aoe 2 HD on steam. You have access to all changes, upgrades, new units etc. It's jsut that you can't play new campaings. So I think they made it really sweet way and didn't divide userbase(I'm looking at you brood war in the 90's)

>>4138007
>SC2>AOE2>BroodWar>CommandAnd Conquer1>Warcraft 3>Warcraft 2>any obscure game like cossak, that some guy plays with his bro or uncle on hamachi/LAN

Corrected:
SC2>AOE2HD>BroodWar>>>>>>>>CommandAnd ConquerRedAlert1(open, community editions like OpenRA)=Warcraft 3>>>Warcraft 2>>>>>>>>>>>any obscure game like cossak, that some guy plays with his bro or uncle on hamachi/LAN

AOE Online.
RIP.

>>4138190
Didnt even know it existed. What for when you have AOE2? I guess they made it before they decided on releasing AOE2 HD on steam

>>4132818
I enjoyed AoE3 the most also, but it's not retro. German Mercenaries all day, every day.

I had a lot of fun with AoE2 during its heyday though, I'd usually LAN with buddies at work.

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What is this fetish called?

>>4138664
Ero guro

>>4132818
I liked the fact that every civilization had a signifiant gameplay change and not just a few perks

>>4138664
Decapitation and guro

AoE2 just had a new expansion released last year.

Does that make it not retro and means we can't talk about it?

>>4132809
huh? It seems AOE2HD is at least in the top 50 most played game on steam for a long time now.

>>4139725
No of course not, you can even talk about new content.

>>4138674
>>4139301
Time for some sadpanda

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>AOE thread
>ctrf+f voobly
>nothing found

How is it possible?

>>4132809
1 > 2 > 3
Anything else is heresy.