Great video! Good points about how much ai the units really should have before they negatively influence gameplay aspects. Note on that: In Stronghold ranged units prioritise other ranged units making screening your own ranged guys with tougher melees impossible when sieging.
I think they could make the autoscout a separate technology that you can research through the Outpost or watch tower. Those who rely on autoscout will lose a lot of momentum early game if they research it in dark age. Although 20 light cavs autoscouting the map might be a bit unbalanced. However, from what I've seen in megarandom, 4 horse/camel autoscouts have a tendency of moving in herds.
I agree generally although I am inexperienced with the specifics of competitive AoE2. I might have just found a new video to explain my perspective on UI and unit AI design. Allowing the player to efficiently implement their decisions without making the UI take those decisions from them is a subtle concept that is tricky to think through. One thing though, what is so bad about units taking the health of their potential targets into account when auto-targeting after their old target dies? As long as units only take enemies in range into account they would not be deciding between fighting where they are or moving to a weaker target. Low health could be a tie-break for units that are otherwise prioritised equally. Would all the combat micro disappear if units were a bit smarter at selecting targets?
To me that would just reduce the scope of what a meticulous player has the ability to do if they choose to dedicate their limited attention to microing a particular battle instead of other things. It wouldn't completely trivialize micro in AoE2, but given how production oriented of a game it is, I don't think I'd decide to spend my attention on micro anywhere near as often if the AI did some of it for me anyway, and I think the game would be all the poorer for it . That sort of mechanic might work in a totally different game with a different focus, but it probably wouldn't be one that would appeal to me.
Great video as always! But I can't help nitpicking... you said it would probably be cumbersome if villagers stopped gathering wood every time a tree was exhausted, or stopped mining every time the gold/stone patch they were working on disappeared. What makes auto-seeding farms so different? "Continue to gather food" isn't a strategic decision the same way "continue to gather wood" isn't, and having to press the idle vil button and right-clicking isn't really a meaningful strategic decision compared to juggling wood income, placing the farms and mills properly, etc. and auto-reseed doesn't do anything to fix those. I... might just be agreeing with you? I'm not sure, lol.
@@HarvestBuildDestroy oh no, 60 wood. What a nightmare. Give me a break. The auto-reseed is harmless. Your complaints about auto-scout and auto-queues are straight up petty. This entire video sounds like you want everyone who has better execution than you to go down to your level, but don't want anyone who's below you to rise up. "Oh no, now that I can't win over UI execution advantage I'm now gonna have to think about tactics and stuff!" No wonder you were dissing SupCom.
I agree with everything excluding your argument against auto que. I don't see how it will reduce the strategic decisions you have to make all it does is remove some of the mechanical demand so players attention can be used elsewhere. It is far from perfect and a bad player and wreck his economy if he isn't paying attention. Also I would be interested on your thoughts on Zero-k , a RTS game that automates a lot of the game elements. It's free on steam.
I don't mean to imply that AQ completely removes macro skill or anything, you obviously still need to balance your economy and pick the right unit composition and so on. I just don't have much/any interest in playing a game that automates macro on that level (I find that sort of thing boring). If they were to go that route with AoE4 for instance, I imagine they'd lose the lion's share of the AoE2 multiplayer crowd (seemingly their biggest multiplayer demographic). I'd still play it, but I have a hard time imagining myself staying interested in a game like that for more than a month or two. As for Zero K, I've looked into it a bit, but it doesn't seem like my kind of RTS (seems like a TA/Supcom style game). It's the same sort of thing as above, I'm just not interested in streamlined/automated macro mechanics in a macro oriented game. Rise of Nations doesn't appeal to me much either for similar reasons. I like worker units, and want dealing with them to be messy. If economy is going to be streamlined or simplified, I'd prefer the zoomed in approach with more of a micro focus like Starcraft or even Company of Heroes, rather than grand strategy.
@@HarvestBuildDestroy I also don't like Zero-k either XD.I brought it up as I thought it was an example of a game that goes too far in automisation. Thanks for the fast reply , I rewatched your video and did some research on the issues people had with auto que in AoM. Your tile says it's about AI in AoE2:DE and RTS games. When discussing AoE2:DE and Brood war remastered it makes sense why you wouldn't add auto que as it would alter the game play too much from the originals. However when talking about RTS games I don't think you've done a good enough job in defining what you should and shouldn't automize with convincing reasons. When it comes auto que in other RTS games the decision is still in the players hands and is still just as compelling. The only arguments that makes sense to me is that it elevates too much of the macro. But why does the macro have to be queuing a villager every 10 seconds compared to being somewhere else. Basically I would like a more detailed exploration of automisation in RTS games and not just AoE2:DE , however this maybe outside of the scope of your channel.
@@HarvestBuildDestroy I'm not sure if I quite get your argument that auto-queue automates macro. The way I understand it, macro is the ability to plan, strategize, budget resources/distribute gathers, etc, while micro is the ability to actually turn those plans and strategies into button presses and execute them quickly and efficiently. By this distinction, auto-queue falls almost entirely in automating micro. I have not played AoM or AoE2 multiplayer, only AoE3 (many years ago), so I could definitely be misunderstanding something, but the auto-queue feature seems very similar to the auto-seed feature. Both automate a bit of micro (select idle villager, click farm vs select idle building, press unit hotkey), both consume resources at unpredictable times (potentially messing up your resource budget), and they both have the potential to mess up your economy if you're not careful (auto-queue even more than auto-reseed). So I'm not really sure why you consider auto-reseed to be a nice bit of QoL for newer players that removes a bit of micro, but doesn't really impact high level decision making since it's better to do it manually until late in the game, whereas auto-queue immediately and unquestionably crosses the line and is one of the main things that makes AoM unenjoyable to you. Could you clarify where the difference lies?
@@HarvestBuildDestroy You touched on this in the video, but the step before figuring out whether an interface improvement is good is to figure out what the game is about and what sort of skill it is testing. Zero-K is much more of a zoomed-in micromanagement game than a grand strategy macro game ala TA or SupCom. The focus is on quickly gobbling up territory and continually fighting a lot of battles rather than on managing a ponderous economy that cares relatively little for how much of the map you control. The complexity of the economy is tailored to this and the automation comes in to clear away what would otherwise be decisionless busywork. But yes, it isn't for you if you're looking for worker management and a lot of decision making around your balance of incomes. I really appreciate (from afar) that AoE2 gets a lot of mileage out of all the corollaries of making villagers physical units that exist on the map. There seems to be a lot of the good kind of complexity here - the kind that generates decisions that would be removed if the villagers were further automated (although I lack the experience to comment on the autofarm thing). I'd say SupCom is the worst of both worlds here, with complexity that from what I can tell gets in the way of decisions as much as it generates them.
@Eternity 6 The one sentence version: Ideally, I want every instance of spending a resource to involve a manual button press (in a production oriented game like AoE anyway). Farm queue gets a bit of a pass because there are so many disadvantages to using it early on. I would've been fine with it not existing entirely, though. I only use it later on in the game, when I have enough wood floating that having the wood disappear periodically is basically a non-issue. @silentvenom7 Generally, when people say micro they mean the way you control your army to win a fight, like focus firing enemy units, moving your own hurt units away, etc. In AoE2 specifically, a lot of it involves dodging projectiles. Macro usually refers to the way you manage your base, like building buildings, queuing up units and so on. It's pretty common for people to use the word macro as a verb to refer to queuing up units, especially in Starcraft. I guess this is purely a matter of opinion, but I don't just want the skill ceiling to be high, I also want the skill floor to be low. What I want out of RTS (which only AoE2 and SC1 fully provide in the realm of traditional style RTS games), is the sense that there are so many tasks to perform that you couldn't possibly do all of them, so you have to decide which are worth your time and do the best you can. I prefer the way that AoE2 accomplishes this, where it isn't so much a matter of restricting your ability to select things and issue orders. I like what @FroogleGog said, it depends on what skill(s) the game in question ought to be testing. Since Age games are so focused on production and the minutiae of (manually) managing a rather complex economy, autoqueue raises the skill floor to what I consider to be an unacceptable degree. Even lower level players will have much closer to perfect worker production (aside from getting housed or not having enough food income, which aren't hard to avoid), which drastically narrows the degree to which a stronger player with solid multitasking can out-produce a weaker player. That would seem to me to round down the edges of the skill set an Age game ought to be testing. Again, that's not to say that all skill in the game is gone at that point, but it shifts the focus more to unit composition, and nearly always giving your full attention to micro. If I wanted that sort of dynamic, I'd play Starcraft 2 (even though it doesn't have AQ, it's still more of a unit composition based game with a fairly streamlined economy). I play AoE for its eco messiness, and being forced to decide which out of an overwhelming number of priorities to spend my limited attention on. AQ reduces the number of competing priorities by simplifying what I consider to be the most important one (maintaining efficient production under pressure) and shifts the focus toward the ones I'm less interested in. @FroogleGog also, I watched a couple of your Zero K interface videos. There seem to be some pretty unique mechanics there, perhaps I might have to check it out after all...
This has always been a problem for me with RTS. Back when I was a child, I played AoE2 REALLY horribly... RTS are always hard for an outsider, and the more things he needs to look for, the least they'll learn probably. I think stuff like auto-scout allows them to focus on other stuff so they can learn it better, before moving on to scouting. In fact, the auto-stuff features should be implemented in a way that they are intentionally less efficient than doing it manually, while still being useful, so that newbies know where they can improve. That being said, It would be interesting to have a game where you are just a military leader, and while all the economic stuff is happening in the map, you have little say on it, and you have to lead your troops to protect the friendly settlements producing resources for your side, while attacking the enemy's. Of course, that would take away the harvest and potentially the build, leaving only the Destroy.
Something like SC2's Archon Mode for AoE2 would be interesting if you drew a hard line between economic and military. In case you're unaware, it's a mode that lets two people control one player's base and units. I know I'd love a game where I get to focus 100% of my attention on managing and growing an economy, reacting quickly and cleverly to the needs of the military player.
Supreme Commander often comes quite close to that, albeit the Build part is still intact. Could maybe try that game to see how it feels for you. If you'd like to see what it's like to do only the Destroy part, just load up a Custom Battle in a Total War game.
@@corpsious You're in luck, you can actually do that on AoE2 DE! If you select the same color as your teammate, you get to both control the same in game player, so you can allocate different roles if you want. Like one can take eco, the other one can take military, etc. This is not even limited to one teammate. You could have everyone in the lobby playing as the same color if that's your thing😂 I always loved this feature, it's very fun and can even be useful for teaching new players
Every quality of life improvement in AoE2DE is a slight nerf to siege onagers and demolition ships. For the SC2 crowd: Its a bit like banelings running into your marines in a moment you looked away. :D
![[AoE2:DE] The Persians' Team Bonus](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tAC6VfCYJ4M/mqdefault.jpg)
![[AoE2:DE] The Persians' Team Bonus](/img/tr.png)
Great video! Good points about how much ai the units really should have before they negatively influence gameplay aspects.
Note on that: In Stronghold ranged units prioritise other ranged units making screening your own ranged guys with tougher melees impossible when sieging.
I think they could make the autoscout a separate technology that you can research through the Outpost or watch tower. Those who rely on autoscout will lose a lot of momentum early game if they research it in dark age. Although 20 light cavs autoscouting the map might be a bit unbalanced. However, from what I've seen in megarandom, 4 horse/camel autoscouts have a tendency of moving in herds.
Superb thoughts! I hope the DE guys see this.
I agree generally although I am inexperienced with the specifics of competitive AoE2. I might have just found a new video to explain my perspective on UI and unit AI design. Allowing the player to efficiently implement their decisions without making the UI take those decisions from them is a subtle concept that is tricky to think through.
One thing though, what is so bad about units taking the health of their potential targets into account when auto-targeting after their old target dies? As long as units only take enemies in range into account they would not be deciding between fighting where they are or moving to a weaker target. Low health could be a tie-break for units that are otherwise prioritised equally. Would all the combat micro disappear if units were a bit smarter at selecting targets?
To me that would just reduce the scope of what a meticulous player has the ability to do if they choose to dedicate their limited attention to microing a particular battle instead of other things. It wouldn't completely trivialize micro in AoE2, but given how production oriented of a game it is, I don't think I'd decide to spend my attention on micro anywhere near as often if the AI did some of it for me anyway, and I think the game would be all the poorer for it . That sort of mechanic might work in a totally different game with a different focus, but it probably wouldn't be one that would appeal to me.
Great video. That's very thoughtful what you said about never being able to play a perfect game of Age 2. What is your take on Age 1 (DE) ?
Thanks! I'm planning to make an AoE1 video in the somewhat near future.
Great video as always! But I can't help nitpicking... you said it would probably be cumbersome if villagers stopped gathering wood every time a tree was exhausted, or stopped mining every time the gold/stone patch they were working on disappeared. What makes auto-seeding farms so different? "Continue to gather food" isn't a strategic decision the same way "continue to gather wood" isn't, and having to press the idle vil button and right-clicking isn't really a meaningful strategic decision compared to juggling wood income, placing the farms and mills properly, etc. and auto-reseed doesn't do anything to fix those.
I... might just be agreeing with you? I'm not sure, lol.
Thanks! Replanting a farm means spending 60 wood, while chopping the next tree or mining the next gold patch doesn't involve spending anything.
@@HarvestBuildDestroy oh no, 60 wood. What a nightmare. Give me a break. The auto-reseed is harmless. Your complaints about auto-scout and auto-queues are straight up petty. This entire video sounds like you want everyone who has better execution than you to go down to your level, but don't want anyone who's below you to rise up. "Oh no, now that I can't win over UI execution advantage I'm now gonna have to think about tactics and stuff!" No wonder you were dissing SupCom.
I agree with everything excluding your argument against auto que.
I don't see how it will reduce the strategic decisions you have to make all it does is remove some of the mechanical demand so players attention can be used elsewhere. It is far from perfect and a bad player and wreck his economy if he isn't paying attention.
Also I would be interested on your thoughts on Zero-k , a RTS game that automates a lot of the game elements. It's free on steam.
I don't mean to imply that AQ completely removes macro skill or anything, you obviously still need to balance your economy and pick the right unit composition and so on. I just don't have much/any interest in playing a game that automates macro on that level (I find that sort of thing boring). If they were to go that route with AoE4 for instance, I imagine they'd lose the lion's share of the AoE2 multiplayer crowd (seemingly their biggest multiplayer demographic). I'd still play it, but I have a hard time imagining myself staying interested in a game like that for more than a month or two.
As for Zero K, I've looked into it a bit, but it doesn't seem like my kind of RTS (seems like a TA/Supcom style game). It's the same sort of thing as above, I'm just not interested in streamlined/automated macro mechanics in a macro oriented game. Rise of Nations doesn't appeal to me much either for similar reasons. I like worker units, and want dealing with them to be messy. If economy is going to be streamlined or simplified, I'd prefer the zoomed in approach with more of a micro focus like Starcraft or even Company of Heroes, rather than grand strategy.
@@HarvestBuildDestroy
I also don't like Zero-k either XD.I brought it up as I thought it was an example of a game that goes too far in automisation.
Thanks for the fast reply , I rewatched your video and did some research on the issues people had with auto que in AoM.
Your tile says it's about AI in AoE2:DE and RTS games. When discussing AoE2:DE and Brood war remastered it makes sense why you wouldn't add auto que as it would alter the game play too much from the originals. However when talking about RTS games I don't think you've done a good enough job in defining what you should and shouldn't automize with convincing reasons. When it comes auto que in other RTS games the decision is still in the players hands and is still just as compelling. The only arguments that makes sense to me is that it elevates too much of the macro. But why does the macro have to be queuing a villager every 10 seconds compared to being somewhere else.
Basically I would like a more detailed exploration of automisation in RTS games and not just AoE2:DE , however this maybe outside of the scope of your channel.
@@HarvestBuildDestroy I'm not sure if I quite get your argument that auto-queue automates macro. The way I understand it, macro is the ability to plan, strategize, budget resources/distribute gathers, etc, while micro is the ability to actually turn those plans and strategies into button presses and execute them quickly and efficiently. By this distinction, auto-queue falls almost entirely in automating micro. I have not played AoM or AoE2 multiplayer, only AoE3 (many years ago), so I could definitely be misunderstanding something, but the auto-queue feature seems very similar to the auto-seed feature. Both automate a bit of micro (select idle villager, click farm vs select idle building, press unit hotkey), both consume resources at unpredictable times (potentially messing up your resource budget), and they both have the potential to mess up your economy if you're not careful (auto-queue even more than auto-reseed).
So I'm not really sure why you consider auto-reseed to be a nice bit of QoL for newer players that removes a bit of micro, but doesn't really impact high level decision making since it's better to do it manually until late in the game, whereas auto-queue immediately and unquestionably crosses the line and is one of the main things that makes AoM unenjoyable to you. Could you clarify where the difference lies?
@@HarvestBuildDestroy You touched on this in the video, but the step before figuring out whether an interface improvement is good is to figure out what the game is about and what sort of skill it is testing. Zero-K is much more of a zoomed-in micromanagement game than a grand strategy macro game ala TA or SupCom. The focus is on quickly gobbling up territory and continually fighting a lot of battles rather than on managing a ponderous economy that cares relatively little for how much of the map you control. The complexity of the economy is tailored to this and the automation comes in to clear away what would otherwise be decisionless busywork.
But yes, it isn't for you if you're looking for worker management and a lot of decision making around your balance of incomes. I really appreciate (from afar) that AoE2 gets a lot of mileage out of all the corollaries of making villagers physical units that exist on the map. There seems to be a lot of the good kind of complexity here - the kind that generates decisions that would be removed if the villagers were further automated (although I lack the experience to comment on the autofarm thing). I'd say SupCom is the worst of both worlds here, with complexity that from what I can tell gets in the way of decisions as much as it generates them.
@Eternity 6 The one sentence version: Ideally, I want every instance of spending a resource to involve a manual button press (in a production oriented game like AoE anyway).
Farm queue gets a bit of a pass because there are so many disadvantages to using it early on. I would've been fine with it not existing entirely, though. I only use it later on in the game, when I have enough wood floating that having the wood disappear periodically is basically a non-issue.
@silentvenom7 Generally, when people say micro they mean the way you control your army to win a fight, like focus firing enemy units, moving your own hurt units away, etc. In AoE2 specifically, a lot of it involves dodging projectiles. Macro usually refers to the way you manage your base, like building buildings, queuing up units and so on. It's pretty common for people to use the word macro as a verb to refer to queuing up units, especially in Starcraft.
I guess this is purely a matter of opinion, but I don't just want the skill ceiling to be high, I also want the skill floor to be low. What I want out of RTS (which only AoE2 and SC1 fully provide in the realm of traditional style RTS games), is the sense that there are so many tasks to perform that you couldn't possibly do all of them, so you have to decide which are worth your time and do the best you can. I prefer the way that AoE2 accomplishes this, where it isn't so much a matter of restricting your ability to select things and issue orders.
I like what @FroogleGog said, it depends on what skill(s) the game in question ought to be testing. Since Age games are so focused on production and the minutiae of (manually) managing a rather complex economy, autoqueue raises the skill floor to what I consider to be an unacceptable degree. Even lower level players will have much closer to perfect worker production (aside from getting housed or not having enough food income, which aren't hard to avoid), which drastically narrows the degree to which a stronger player with solid multitasking can out-produce a weaker player. That would seem to me to round down the edges of the skill set an Age game ought to be testing.
Again, that's not to say that all skill in the game is gone at that point, but it shifts the focus more to unit composition, and nearly always giving your full attention to micro. If I wanted that sort of dynamic, I'd play Starcraft 2 (even though it doesn't have AQ, it's still more of a unit composition based game with a fairly streamlined economy). I play AoE for its eco messiness, and being forced to decide which out of an overwhelming number of priorities to spend my limited attention on. AQ reduces the number of competing priorities by simplifying what I consider to be the most important one (maintaining efficient production under pressure) and shifts the focus toward the ones I'm less interested in.
@FroogleGog also, I watched a couple of your Zero K interface videos. There seem to be some pretty unique mechanics there, perhaps I might have to check it out after all...
This has always been a problem for me with RTS. Back when I was a child, I played AoE2 REALLY horribly... RTS are always hard for an outsider, and the more things he needs to look for, the least they'll learn probably. I think stuff like auto-scout allows them to focus on other stuff so they can learn it better, before moving on to scouting. In fact, the auto-stuff features should be implemented in a way that they are intentionally less efficient than doing it manually, while still being useful, so that newbies know where they can improve.
That being said, It would be interesting to have a game where you are just a military leader, and while all the economic stuff is happening in the map, you have little say on it, and you have to lead your troops to protect the friendly settlements producing resources for your side, while attacking the enemy's. Of course, that would take away the harvest and potentially the build, leaving only the Destroy.
Something like SC2's Archon Mode for AoE2 would be interesting if you drew a hard line between economic and military. In case you're unaware, it's a mode that lets two people control one player's base and units. I know I'd love a game where I get to focus 100% of my attention on managing and growing an economy, reacting quickly and cleverly to the needs of the military player.
Supreme Commander often comes quite close to that, albeit the Build part is still intact. Could maybe try that game to see how it feels for you. If you'd like to see what it's like to do only the Destroy part, just load up a Custom Battle in a Total War game.
@@corpsious You're in luck, you can actually do that on AoE2 DE! If you select the same color as your teammate, you get to both control the same in game player, so you can allocate different roles if you want. Like one can take eco, the other one can take military, etc. This is not even limited to one teammate. You could have everyone in the lobby playing as the same color if that's your thing😂 I always loved this feature, it's very fun and can even be useful for teaching new players
Every quality of life improvement in AoE2DE is a slight nerf to siege onagers and demolition ships. For the SC2 crowd: Its a bit like banelings running into your marines in a moment you looked away. :D
What about hoi4?