The Da Vinci tank battles the Gatling camel, an experience that can’t be enjoyed in “Civilization”.
Due to the lack of major updates for several months, Age of Empires 4 has been quite bleak recently, at least on the Steam platform, and it is not at all like an orthodox sequel to a classic game.
At the same time, tens of thousands of players are still clinging to the most emotional “Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition”.
However, the most embarrassing may be the “Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition” which is angry at both ends – the daily peak online number of this work is only a quarter of the series of Empire 2; the online number of the new Empire 4 is also Much more than Empire 3.
Data sourced from the Steamdb website
“Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition” is currently also the lowest rated “Age of Empires”, and its performance at the first launch can be described as “disaster”.
On the one hand, Empire 3 is based on the era of colonization and discovery from the 15th to the 19th century, while the definitive edition drastically revised the representation of colonial history, even cutting out some battle plots.
Original: “Colonial Age”
Definitive Edition: “Commerce Age”
On the other hand, the performance of the game itself is not satisfactory. Although the game screen has been significantly improved, the optimization is a mess, and the phenomenon of freezing and crashing occurs frequently. The single-player campaign is full of problems, with bugs such as dialogue errors and loss of archives. The simplified Chinese translation is also full of loopholes, and Chinese players who can’t bear it have begun to make an improved version of the translation module.
These problems have caused the initial positive rating of Empire 3 Definitive Edition on the Steam platform to be in the early 50s, and now it is only 79%, failing to exceed the 80% “extremely positive” score line.
However, the positive rate of catching up means that the production team did not rot because of the poor performance of the final version of Emperor 3.
most alternative
Right now, right now. The Definitive Edition of Empires 3 is unpopular, just like what happened to the original Age of Empires 3.
The third generation is the most alternative work in the series. From the alternative to the original production team, they have begged Microsoft to turn it into a rumor or a derivative work – many players who have played the second generation can easily get started with the fourth generation, but they may not be able to. Embrace and harness 3 generations of innovation.
Guns dominate the army
“Age of Empires 3” was released in 2005, followed by two expansions “Chiefs” and “Asian Dynasties”. At that time, the real-time strategy games on the market were moving towards e-sports and fast food. Empire 3 also wanted to follow the trend of the times and pursue a faster game rhythm.
Empire 3 optimizes the economy and resource collection mechanism. Stones have been removed, and most civilizations only need to collect three resources: food, wood, and gold. Collecting resources also saves one step of transportation. Logging does not require a logging farm, nor does collecting gold mines require a mine. Villagers can unconditionally collect resources and send them to the resource pool available to players in an instant.
Definitive Edition will calculate the real-time growth rate of resources
This puts forward higher requirements on the player’s map control ability. The hero system that collects additional resources in the early stage through the jungle, the trading station system that occupies specific points to obtain resources and indigenous mercenaries, and the prey and gold mines scattered all over the map, all tell players that it is sometimes not advisable to adopt the “shrinking” tactic.
Trade routes that provide resources on a regular basis
What’s more special is that Empire 3’s arms restraint is more straightforward. The multiplier is directly calculated for the attack power of restrained arms, such as spearmen and musketeers equipped with bayonets, the melee attack power of cavalry is as high as 2 to 4 times the usual. It is unrealistic to rely on the number of single advantageous arms of civilization to win, and players must always consider restraint relationships and arm combinations.
Before each upgrade era, players have to choose one of several leaders in order to obtain different resources or unit rewards, which is also speeding up the pace in disguise.
Italian upgrade era Hitti Da Vinci tank
Finally, there are the biggest features and core mechanics of Empire 3: shipping and cards. In terms of setting, the player will play the role of a colony/town governor who is under the orders of the suzerain country, and will receive shipping support from his hometown from time to time. These supports are embodied in countless cards.
Cards are also an ideal stage for the production team to play with historical stalks
Just like a card game, players have to select a portion of the civilization’s card library to make a deck. Cards correspond to different eras and can provide resources, units, or unique technology unique to civilization. Players’ active operations, such as collecting resources, occupying trade routes, killing hostile units, etc., can obtain experience points. After accumulating a certain amount of experience points, they can get shipping points and play cards.
There is no single optimal solution for a deck. A civilization has innate advantages and disadvantages, and it needs acquired decks to expand its advantages and make up for its shortcomings. Players need to combine map resource allocation, arms restraint system and benefits given in the upgrade era to play certain tactics, prepare plan cards in advance, adjust the order of cards in a timely manner, and keep an eye on the weaknesses of the opponent’s civilization and deck.
Cards that provide resources and troops quickly are very popular. For example, the Chinese faction in the “789” three-card burst of era 2-playing three cards of 7 grassland cavalry, 8 repeated crossbowmen, and 9 spearmen in a row can quickly achieve a relatively complete combination of arms. It is a common tactic widely spread among players.
Cards make the player’s troops take shape very quickly, and the pace of the game is also fast. Most regular 1v1 matches will be won before entering Age 4.
The remaining cards that provide special economic and military technology will take a period of time to get the maximum benefit. Some of them can be used with regular decks, while others are more suitable for long-lasting team battles, early-stage treaty battles that prohibit wars, or in the battle computer. time to live.
Cards for teamfights that provide bonuses to all your own players
Led by the deck system, these unprecedented changes have a huge sense of disconnection from the traditional “Age of Empires”, and also greatly increase the learning cost of players. Therefore, the alternative Empire 3 has mixed evaluations among the player groups, and is often misunderstood and disliked by radical old players.
most fancy
The various attempts to transform Empire 3 into e-sports and fast food are not successful in terms of the market, but they have also formed a game framework of their own.
One of the greatest joys of Empire 3 is to experience and study the unique decks and tactics of each civilization, or pay the learning cost itself. The diversity of the Empire 3 system highlights the characteristics of civilization and enhances the depth and breadth of tactics. Not only are there huge differences between civilizations, but a single civilization also has a variety of feasible tactics.
The production team only needs to add new civilizations, new cards, new maps, and new mechanisms to the final version based on the card system and the restraint framework of arms, and then make these new contents different from the old ones, so that the game can be changed. The playability is infinitely enlarged.
And Empire 3 Definitive Edition comes with two new civilizations, Sweden and Inca, and also launched 4 DLCs with actual game content, adding 6 civilizations. The operation system of the new civilization is very different from the original civilization, such as the United States, Mexico, and the two African civilizations of Ethiopia and Hausa, each of which has derived different ways of upgrading the era.
In the United States, the federal states were incorporated into the federation to upgrade the era, and at the same time, the special cards of each state were included in the deck.
African civilizations ally with other civilizations to upgrade the era, while unlocking a large number of new troops, including the Gatling camel
The Definitive Edition also reworked the original revolution mechanism, adding more derivative civilizations, cards and units in disguise.
After European civilization enters Age 4 “Industrial Age”, it can sacrifice the opportunity to enter Age 5 “Era of Emperors”, spend less resources and time to choose revolution, and transform into a new civilization.
After the original revolution, all the villagers of the player will be converted into a revolutionary army of equal population, giving up the economy completely in exchange for a huge advantage in combat power, and a new deck containing powerful arms such as Gatling guns and ironclads. “Drag a family and bring a wave of flow” to overwhelm the opponent.
The reworked revolution mechanism provides new options for revolution. Villagers will keep, or become a special unit that also collects some resources. Some decks also contain cards for training “citizens” to replace villagers to ensure that players can maintain after revolution. economy, while enhancing the practical significance and entertainment of the revolution.
Revolutionary Army that retains the ability to gather wood
Fully restored card
Mexican civilization is a revolutionary specialist. It can be revolutionized in Age 2, and new units and decks will be obtained after the revolution. After the revolutionary civilization has enjoyed the card bonus of the new deck, it can return to Mexico, exchange the old deck, and upgrade the era at the same time; if it enters the era 4 in this way, there is still a chance to revolutionize again. This “repeated horizontal jump” setting makes Mexico’s combat strategy quite flexible.
“Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition” is so malleable that it does not appear to be incompatible with even more fancy content, so it has also become a testing ground for the production team to introduce various new content.
The mechanics of other “Age of Empires” works can be introduced into the Definitive Edition of Empires 3, and the latter can be introduced into other works in the series to achieve feedback.
For example, the African Civilizations of Empires 3 Definitive Edition will be implemented in August 2021, and some of the mechanics are apparently paving the way for Age of Empires 4, which will be released two months later.
Empire 4 Chinese civilization’s exclusive building “Granary” can increase the food gathering rate of nearby villagers, so it is most efficient to spread fields around the granary; the exclusive unit “Court Commander” can speed up the work efficiency of the building. In Empire 3 Definitive Edition, African civilizations have granaries; Hausa civilizations also have “storytellers” similar to the fate officer.
The granary and fields of African civilization
Conversely, the Fire Spear Cavalry of the fourth generation has the charge attack feature, which was added to the Empire 3 Definitive Edition Mexico deck a month later.
It may not be worth the fuss for the internal works of the series to exchange skins for reference, but “Emperor 3 Definitive Edition” is also compatible with mechanics that have appeared in other strategy games.
The new Italian and Maltese civilizations added to the latest “Mediterranean Knights” expansion pack have a variety of heavily armored units, and they will transfer damage from friendly units to themselves. Some cavalry can switch between mount and dismount modes like the “Total War” series, and change their arms according to the battle situation. There are also some mercenaries. After killing the enemy, they will get unit promotion and certain ability bonuses.
“Unit Promoted”
Malta’s characteristic building “command post” allows combat units to be stationed, and the stationed unit can be teleported to another “command post” on the other end of the map after 7 seconds, which is comparable to the Zerg Nydus worm in “StarCraft”.
Unpretentious architectural description
Of course, the knights in history did not dig a few military tunnels in Malta. But after experiencing these unprecedented novelties of the “Age of Empires” series, it is not surprising that players give the following evaluations.
“Mediterranean Knights” also includes 8 asymmetrical confrontation maps in historical mode, corresponding to the large and small battles that have occurred in the modern history of the European continent. In the historical map, the economic mechanism is simplified, the number of villagers is limited, but there are more channels to automatically obtain resources, and there are more plots that players need to control to obtain bonuses, allowing players to focus on the operation of military units.
For example, “Thirty Years’ War” requires eight players to fight each other, similar to the battle royale, but weak players can form alliances against dominant players. The “Great Turkish War” pays homage to the Battle of Vienna in 1683. Players will divide the offensive and defensive sides. The attackers must capture the city within a limited time, otherwise they will face reinforcements from the strong Polish cavalry on the defending side.
“When that winged cavalry arrives”
For players who don’t like or are not good at fighting, “Mediterranean Knights” also launched a “tycoon mode” that focuses on farming and operating economy. In Tycoon mode, the role of military units is weakened. Players only need to play real-time strategy as “Sim City”, develop the economy to achieve steady growth of resources, and at the same time achieve some small tasks provided by the system to obtain victory points.
Challenge missions unique to Tycoon Mode
With the unremitting efforts of the production team, the current Empire 3 Definitive Edition can be said to be a hodgepodge of civilizations and units in modern history, and it is said to be the most abundant game in the “Age of Empires” series (except for not like other siblings), not too exaggerated.
These efforts don’t make it a “No Man’s Sky” miracle, because Empire 3 Definitive Edition is far from perfect – the outdated engine drags down the game’s performance, the optimization problems at launch have not been completely solved, and the original unit surface The problem of pathfinding for complex terrain also remains. In addition, the large-scale single-player campaign has not been added for a long time, and the PVE content outside the encounter is still weak.
“Emperor 3 Definitive Edition” has a number of smaller campaign levels and supports two-player cooperation
But one of the most unpopular works can be treated with such good intentions by the production team, which is particularly valuable at a time when the entire RTS game category is about to become “tears of the times”.
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