You should check out a similar video by my friend Fophuxake, who goes into into a lot more of the QoL changes. It's also her first video, so please give her a like & sub! ruclips.net/video/uty22NUTk74/видео.html
You can summarize many changes by saying that Favour as a resource is now far more important. It no longer feels like a 'bonus' resource as it did before. If you ignore gathering it, you will be crushed by the enemy's myth units and god powers
I feel it very hard in the beta, IF you dont invest in getting favor, you will get steamrolled very early in the game. Also, the greeks myth units is strong as hell !
@@TheBrunov2 This is a much needed change if they want to make the game an Esport spectacle. For many years the META has been about massive human armies but very few myths. They needed to put the Myth back in Mythology.
Favour has always been important. Not investing in favour at all meant you could get steamrolled by myth units without counters. The cost of reusing the god powers is very expensive though, so I don't see it as a game changer. I could be wrong though.
@@benrobinson375 I am not expert in AoM by any means. But I was able to beat the AI on the second highest difficult in about 3 minutes or so and won a couple maps of many vs me. (Just couldn't deal on the hardest difficult due to that 100% handcap bonus) talking about the original AoM obviously. Anyways... The META was always human armies... Myths were... Not worthy enough. In fact, was one of the reasons I liked Loki, because I would get them for free, either by the hero's random attacks, or by fightning and getting favours... Spending production resources and time to collect it, never seemed worth a while. At least Norse could get for free, and egypthian as a passive as well. Greeks however... Why bother?
As always, modders will easily bring it back. IMO they should have just made it a togglable option and it's a damn shame that we have to resort to using mods to return it.
@@aw7614 i noticed the norse ai tends to move in your base the take your starter gold, damn dwarves of course they would lol in a 3v3 on hard mode i thought they good on their own but need your help from time to time depending on who the third enemy attacks. sometimes they push back to the point of winning the game for me before i reach the 5th age
Me too. I'd love if the developers would add interesting PvE and Co-op gamemodes and scenarios for us to play. They often focus too hard on PvP, but I'm convinced most of their players enjoy singleplay just fine.
Been player of AoM for 20 years and I'm hoping that Retold will bring together all platforms and a lot of new players will join. Because that will mean that we will have long and ruitfull support from devs with constant new stuff. Cant wait to see what will "Freyr pack" bring... and I wish you that with Retold you will get a lot of new subscribers as you deserve :)
i was really hoping to come back as it had an amazing campaign, but I feel the keybindings are vastly outdated, same goes for the engine, the victory conditions need some rework, and I am sad they didn't expand the campaign a bit in the form of putting easter eggs, or some extra side mission in campaign itself for lore or fun things. Due to that where I wanted to buy it immediately when I saw it, after seeing footage, I have mixed feelings, I want it as the matches look so cool, but due to above I am not sure I would enjoy it as much as I want and perhaps it is better to keep the good memories
Hoping for the same, we've been waiting so long for something like this. New gods, new civilizations, new campaigns. Give us everything! I'll be here to make vids and stream :D
@@Egomotion1 Theres a whole new expansion coming out later, so with that we can get new campaign and a lot more. Also this is still in beta we don't know what will be in the full release and I'm pretty sure they will update the game a lot.
Don't see the voobly crowd moving over any time soon. I play the EE edition myself and probably will pass. EE was pushing it for me with the expansion, thankfully chinese are rare in 1v1 quick match. Retold seems like too big a departure from the original. Not what I personally look for. Nostalgia for me is an important factor. I love the game itself but the nostalgia elevates it so much in addition.
@@Wimpiethe3 I think this will be wrong because retold will offer new opportunities for tournaments, prizepools and balance shifting which means the meta and godpower pickrate/winrate will shuffle every once in a while; which is what exactly moved the voobly crowd out of AoC towards de2(WK even prepared the people for de2 to get a good landing with the dlc content from aoe2hd). Same goes for De3 and ESOC Tad, once de3 came out every tournament and event migrated to de3 and ESOC ladder was left catching dust.
Honestly I think it was a great choice to tie the reusing of god powers WITH the Faith resource, it makes choosing minor gods ALOT more important, AND it massively brings more focus on Faith instead of it just being a second hand resource to occasionally buy myth units or certain upgrades. It's going to make the Atlanteans interesting since they use their Faith in a more diverse way, in addition to using Faith to buy Myth units, they also use Faith to upgrade their human units into Hero units! so they already had a bit of a balancing act when it came to Faith resource management!
@@NakamuraRTS I always found it kinda boring when my Mythic-Age Units got oneshot. I love the brawl. And on the other side I didnt like that One-shot units aside from oneshotting where kinda weak :/
@@ardaarsen As you can manually use the ability, you could ask the Cyclops to not do it. They're quite strong on their own, not needing the Elder upgrade to do real crush damage Combined with the new and improved Pestilence i.e. Fortifications don't fire arrows, Cyclops rushing is looking like a viable strat (instead of a meme one, that it used to be)
Well done, great summary highlighting the important stuff! You already hint at some of the changes in game design, I love that! #1 0:20 *Attack Move* works correctly (alt-righclick btw) = less RNG army clashing, so army composition + micro are more relevant #2 1:10 *All 3 warships* available in the Classical Age (though not balanced yet) = accelerated and diverse water strategies #3 1:50 *Repeatable god powers* = stronger timings #4 2:24 *Wonder Age* that buffs myth units and god powers immensely (more engaging than the old win countdown) = accelerant to conclude a stalemate game #5 2:52 *Rework of Norse* (anti-cavalry unit, ranged hero, third military building) = ??? = profit #6 4:05 Egyptian major gods have *unique Monument bonuses* = more distinct build orders and playstyles between the 3 #7 4:58 *Increased population cap* (from 160 to 235, you got the numbers wrong) = win condition of competing for TCs comes at a later stage of the game, building/walls less dominant, easier to snowball a lead #8 5:40 *Myth units are stronger* (get buffed per age) = as hinted in #3, you have to incorporate favor gathering in your game play or get overwhelmed by the opponent #9 6:26 *Fair map generation* (same scripts as Voobly) = the game fulfills one of the prerequisites for a competitive scene #10 7:03 *Autoqueue exists* for economy units, lobby host decides the situation for military units (but not in ranked) = a *good compromise* for both camps (#11) 7:32 More bonus damages = as hinted in #8, *combat becomes more snowbally* and the game more action-packed ~70% of techs, game mechanics, god bonuses, stats like bonus damage, etc. have been altered heavily. It kind of feels like AoM2 and shouldn't be compared in a straight manner with the original game, imo. Personally I would summarize #3 and #8 in "use a lot of favor or lose" and add: - Build orders and eco flow have changed significantly. For example gather rates of food sources are closer to each other, so less incentive to hunt on the open map early. - Projectiles work like in AoE2, so we now have archer micro! - Pathfinding has to be improved until release. On the one hand unit blocking and box formation have been removed, on the other hand villagers are more vulnerable in the Classical Age. Lastly, what is your first impression of the game's design? > Even stronger timings and more snowbally than before ... but if everything is somewhat op, nothing is. > Removal of 2 early win conditions (rushing enemy hunt for food lead; denying 3rd TC for pop lead) give less of a framework what to do and when to do it ... I guess gold starve all the way now?
#5 - Removing Norse asymmetry = ??? #10 - instead makes those who want the full autoqueue stay on not-ranked and simply feel no incentive to compete in playing a worse version of the ruleset. Projectile micro just moves the game towards aoe2, why? We are planning to make an aoe2 playerbase or an aom playerbase? Because that sure didn't work out for aoe4 lol.
I don't have access to the beta, but I read that Titans can now travel through water! Definitely had a few AOM games where I unleash a Titan, only to realize he can't crush my enemies because he's too afraid to get wet!
I completely missed the Wonder age while playing, i was just messing around with some titan AIs and my ally built a wonder, i was so confused when i could not find the timer anywhere lol.
Considering how AoE4 turned out, I don't have high hopes for an AoM2 designed to be a fully independent entry to the series. Now renaming Retold to AoM2 would work fine, though.
I would love a sequel, but for now I'm just more than happy that this game got all the needed changes they need from the original. Seriously, the myth units feels like how I imagined they were back in the original game. Impactful and dangerous.
You didn't mention Village Centers. It took me a few games and some reading before I realized I could place TCs anywhere and not just on settlements! Village Centers provide no population but train vills and most other TC units, and I think the training time is slower. Not sure how much they will impact most games, but it's an interesting design choice.
I didn't include it on purpose in my top 10 because it's too niche due to drawbacks. You pay full price, but lose on training speed, building hp, arrow fire damage, range, garrison capacity, as well as the ability to trade with a TC. They're ok for a turtle+boom kind of strategy, but I'd be worried someone looks the wrong way at this building, making it collapse, lol.
Wonder Age is an odd one. I feel like it's *so* expensive (both in its resource cost, and the time cost of all those villagers building it rather than gathering res) that it'll almost _never_ see actual use in play. Did you see any cases where it happened in a game where both players were being competitive? I'm also curious about how positive the reception to Goti has been. Isn't it basically a reskinned Bogsveigir? And I thought _that_ unit was _badly_ received. What makes Goti different?
I've not seen Wonders in a real game, no. It will be very rare in 1v1. More likely in large team games, like think 3v3 and up. Godi are imo better received because they're heroes, and not very good against human units at all.
Godi have low base damage and take 3 pop, exact opposite of the Bogs. You could spam Bogs like Egyptian do Chariot Archers. Godi, you have to make them with consideration, and micro them for best results
I've played lots of skirmishes this past weekend, at least one for every major god, and I found the wonder age really entertaining for late game (almost all my games were me vs 7 additional AIs). In a Ra game I ended up having an army that included 3 titans and 14 sons of osiris, i proceded to use it to completely crush a ra titan AI that had been a nuisance almost all game. That was only possible because of the wonder, that once built i had to protect so i could train the army
As someone who doesn’t care about human competition in these games, I am SUPER excited about the Wonder Age. It’s just inherently cool to build these massive monuments, but in the original they either did basically nothing or they caused the game to suddenly end. Wonder victories were a flavorful option that just weren’t satisfying to play towards or against. Adding in that Wonders now basically unlock a victory lap where you can live the fantasy of spamming foolish mortals with lightning bolts (without resorting to cheats, instead as a result of perseverance and resource management) is a HUGE boon for solo players like me. From a narrative perspective, the design problem with Wonder victories was that you built towards a non-combat climax and then the story suddenly ends. Wonder Age adds in “falling action” to the narrative, allowing you to enjoy everything you built and really play with all the toys. I’m glad to hear that it’s tuned so as to not really effect competitive play while providing big fun spectacle for solo players, really clever and nimble design.
@@pantslesswrock can still affect competitive play but rarely however the effect is a good one, if a player manages to build it, it does deserve the benefit.s
im still hoping they add new myth units Draugr NEED to be added to norse! maybe they ressurect on a cooldown or something, spread a disease DOT, or have some evil eye damage ability. add Draugr to Hel maybe? and instead of hel just giving you giants that other gods already give you.
hey they are actually in the game now if you buy that new Norse dlc god, you get access to them if you pick new classic era minor god. They are archers and can multishot. So overall pretty good, considering Norse tend to somewhat lack ranged units.
Amazing video naka (just added this line in edit, I thought it should be obvious tho how much I enjoy your coverage of this game, but it never hurts to be nice and positive to folks). I wish I had followed the game more in the past to actually know what was a meaningful change from the EE version (which I never played, I only played the original version when it first came out and I don't remember it much at all, I never even played the Atlanteans for example). I'm incredibly excited to see your beta review tho I can definitely already tell some of the things you won't be so happy about lol. But I'm a lot more optimistic about the future of AOM after getting to play the beta, even with said rough edges. Game is incredibly fun, and I think it could be a big hit for MS this year, after some rather rough RTS launches by other companies earlier in the year.
Thanks very much. I'd say that you missed out on the original, but hey, we can't all play all the games. I missed out on more than I care to admit! I do think this beta was extremely fun. Retold will be great, there is no doubt about that. I will have some harsh words about some severe issues though. The beta was undercooked, this needs more time in the oven. And Microsoft has no business rushing things - they can afford making good products and doing right by the fans. All that said, I'm excited for the launch, and look forward to covering this a lot more. Even with the issues, it blows the other recent RTS releases out of the water.
My wishlist for Retold consists of 3 main things: 1) I want them to make interactable corpses for every unit. So that we can make Ressurection a thing. Either through God Powers, hero/priest abilities, or other mechanics (like for example - sacrifices). It really is high time for a fantasy mythological world to be able to have ressurection in it. 2) AoE 3 style *Community Plaza Ceremonies* for the future Aztec / Mayan / Mesoamerican civilization. I just love that mechanic. 3) Great tools and support for modding the game. This way, the community can just go ham, and create impressive mods, adding special characters (heroes, gods, titans, units from other games that sort of fit the game - like the Lich King for example, or maybe vampires/werewolves ?) and even whole new civilisations. This would CONSIDERABLY improve the game's longevity.
At what rate would you say they gain favor now? I wanted to play Atlanteans and mess around with reusable powers, but they weren’t in the beta so no spamming Tart Gates for me lol
@@KarmaSpaz12 Yeah but the oracles gaining favor are pretty much the same idea, just in different way - rewarding via expansion as well, just not via TC building but for scouting which is a key to an expansion. At least that's I would interpret it :D .
i was 5 years old when this game first came out, and i used to watch my dad playing and later on play it myself. i consider my memories of this game as core memories. it's basically the pinnacle of my gaming passion. thanks for the informative video! we will be getting it :)
@@hhattonaom9729 yeah for sure, I can't get used to the new layout. Floating resources because they aren't where I'm used to it. Weird hotkeys due to 4 rows of buttons. Will talk a lot about this in my review.
I was wary at first, but after playing for like basically the whole weekend I'm happy to announce that I got actually fond of the new UI. I found out that information was easy to find when needed. The only thing that confused me and still does is that I couldn't find the tech tree in-game
Agree! Classical was more authentic, more atmospheric. That's why I'm not going to buy the game at launch, or pre-order it, though I did think about it.
I’ve been playing age of mythology and age of empires since the beginning. This game looks amazing and so fun! I really hope they take the time to work on custom games bc that really was so fun in old AOM. Also can’t wait to see what they did with Atlanteans the argus hekka giant and automaton myth units gonna be sick!
I quite like the reusable godpowers, adds another dynamic and layer of strategy rather than rushing to the powerhouse GP's and winning with a timing attack! Major downside I struggled with is the hotkeys. I still use legacy hotkeys and AOE2 DE has the ability to switch to legacy hotkeys in options. I really hope this is added to the final version or I'll have two choices: A) Forced to relearn hotkeys from scratch and change my entire aoe2 DE hotkeys over to the new style (as I am still active there). B) Remap all the hotkeys to old-style where possible and choose/learn new ones for the additions such as the great hall The hotkey issue is the main reason I didn't play much beta sadly, it was too much work for 3 days worth of games!
> Major downside I struggled with is the hotkeys. I still use legacy hotkeys and AOE2 DE has the ability to switch to legacy hotkeys in options. I use the Grid ones in 2 DE but yeah, in my first games in Retold I built a lot of storehouses by accident as I was used that the house hotkey was e :D
Totally understandable that you'd want legacy hkeys. I much prefer to learn more efficient hotkeys as it's a new game anyway, but this really cannot be ignored - you won't be the only one.
@@NakamuraRTS Not put in a good word for your old flatmate? 😀 Weasel's only live for 1-2 years man! But yeah, the less serious players wouldn't invest the time to learn them. I probably could over time but it's hard to undo 25 years worth of muscle memory.
I noticed in another video that the ulfsark is now called the berserk? Why would they rename units? It's kind of like they're removing a lot of the nostalgia for long time players. Also the voicelines are all different from what I know. Did the devs give responses to these changes?
@@Joek9100 It's not just the name, Berserk means warrior wearing bearskin so they changed the appearance as well. Ulfsark means warrior wearing wolf skin. There are far fewer references to Ulfsarks, historically so they might have felt it was needlessly obscure. Berserks were mentioned a lot in Viking texts, but much less was known about the Ulfsark. I think it's a sensible change. If they didn't change it, new players to AoM would have probably wondered why Norse civs didn't have Berserks since they were so prominent in the history
@EhurtAfy did original players wonder that? I didn't. Nobody is going to think that. If anything they'll just assume they are like berserkers. Just odd and a change I don't think was needed.
@@EhurtAfy And the non-aom players instead of learning what an ulfsark is would just figure it behave the same as the aoe2 berserk. And obviously a bunch of aoe2 modders have lot of inspiration to look in aoe2 and retrofit them in a new version of aom :)
@@zonetropper I can see what you mean, but there are plenty of shared units between the two game series and behavior is not 1:1. Additional problem is Ulfsarks should actually be called Ulfheðnar and they are described as "wolf-skin berserkers" in the ancient literature. Ulfsarks are berserkers wearing wolf-skins. The important thing to understand is that, "berserk" is not just a noun describing the "bear shirt" or "bare of shirt" warrior, it's also an adjective for "entering a state of wild fury". There were many types of shamanistic warriors, bears, wolves, boars, and they were all went berserk and animalistic in combat
Great summary, thank you! I hope the release won't be another disaster, there are still same rough edges in the beta. After a very very long time, this might be the first game i am tempted to buy before or on release.
I think release will go well lookin at how it's doing in the advance access stage, reviews are positive too. I think the "disaster" might occur after 6 months when the honeymoon period is over and the PvE people ditch and look to other games.
Hey Nakamura! Great video, but I notice what you said about the population boost with more Houses + 3 Fortified TCs is actually slightly better than you said! Fortified TC provides +10 more pop for each TC, for 25 pop total now, instead of +5 for 20 total! I know that doesn't bump the population boost you gave by very much, but still, a nice extra little boost for the Fortified TC upgrade for the same price!
Is a change I realize when I start playing the beta ... Is the fact when I start a game now is slower .. I have only 50 gold when start and the temple cost is 150 In the extended edition you start with 100 gold and the temple cost 100 gold so u only task in the early game was gather some food and go to the next age I like the new 50 gold and make you be more creative with the start of the game Nice video btw🎉🎉
I LOVE that now we can use God Powers multiple times, and that Favor Is Way more useful now. Not just for the occasional myth unit, but now to reuse INCREDIBLY op powers :D. Gods I hate that the Beta lasted only for such short a time. It feels like August 27th is so far awayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
I've also noticed the Norse titan is has a lot more health than the Greek titan. I'll have to see the other titans, but I assume it's because of favour being harder to get as Norse, where realistically, Greek can put all their peasants on temple and churn out favour points then recast titan again and again.
The titans all have the same stats. What you likely saw was the wonder age boost. Once you build a wonder, all myth units, including the titan get buffed a ton. Also your god powers get cheaper and recharge faster.
Hi and thanks for the video, as far as i can remember the Jarl still had x2 vs myth units. Also a big change is that throwing axeman have a better multiplier vs any infantry unit. As well as fishing boat gatherer rates are now 0.5 food per secons that felt like it was nerfed. Eco techs are different, age 3 kind of hunting dogs, not sure about that. So Thor has no pig sticker and hunting dogs, in general the way the game develops is different.
@@NakamuraRTS Ok i hope this will be changed, but you also have the ranged hero. Usually the point of Jarls was when Thor/Odin plays vs heavy mythic units / infantry counter civ like Loki / Zeus and having something else then Hersir. Yea but we will see how it plays out with the ranged hero. I can't remember the exact stats of RC / Jarls. Where is the point of going Jarls if you dont have Ringgiver? Are the stats very different? Because in the OG Jarls only had slithly better stats in HP i remember
Hey, are these newly recorded tracks? Can you confirm that the game contains versions of the original soundtrack’s iconic melodies? That, character barks, and a robust in-game encyclopedia are the most important things to me. Oh, and are WUV WOO and TINES OF POWER still a thing?
All the OST appears to be re-recorded, lyrics sounded different too. Encyclopedia and tech tree and cheats all exist. Others uploaded stuff about these, worth a YT search if you wanna look into it.
Rough around the edges??? Noooooo. But I thoroughly appreciate your honesty with this great review. Too many people overhyping and going memberberry nuts over this game, glad to hear someone practically breaking this game down 👌
Good video. Do you think its still worth playing the original game just to get better at the retold version? I could imagine that beyond the very basics you can not translate the knowledge when it comes to build orders and units.
Actually learning the units is something that does carry over. They are different in retold, but to know them all is going to put you a step ahead of the general population. Same goes for understanding the economic rules of thumb. Though builds won't carry over directly.
Hey Naka, i honestly think that the A-click is a huge feature, but still need improvements... for example, I noticed that a unit that has an enemy on the left does not attack another enemy on the right by clicking on the right halfway, it attacks the one on the left instead of walking to the right until it reaches the target. Hope that will be addressed, the game looks really cool!
probably a unpopular thought, but I will miss the wonder Victory, I don't see why they couldn't make a Wonder Victory require a short research to start a timer (like how in Age of Empires III you can start a Countdown at Trading Posts for a Trade Monopoly Victory), I do like the new bonus, but Not at the expense of the old thing, I kind of wanted to be able to take it in a different direction each time
If it isn't added people will make custom maps, which are just the regular maps with the condition added in. It's be easy as hell to set up a trigger for it.
They could add a slider for custom games that says "Legacy Wonders" with their traditional cost, but I think they should hold off on that to start with, so people can give the new wonders a legitimate try, as it's much more fun to play around with compared to their classic functionality.
My guess is to prevent turtling-style win conditions. This tracks with the increase in pop limits and the reusable God powers, they want finishes to be more offensive based and action packed, rather than them being defensive. Which is a bit of a shame really.
My view is good to offer legacy options while pushing these changes so those who don't want them can atleast play the legacy/vanilla experience and have the option to try out the new changes. Sure that means it will split the scene and whatnot but you are eliminating a potential problem with those people alienated by the changes or that have difficulties accepting them, it's a game that has been played in that state for 20 years and conceptions and views are very hardened to expectations and previous experience.\ Personally, I welcome the wonder change because out of all the aoe games except aoe3, it makes wonders worth to build(in aoe3 the wonders are age up buildings like aoe4's landmarks), and instead of getting a timer for victory. As another comment pointed out, it's a very rewarding and enjoyable victory parade you can do with cheap godpowers to be recasted and making multiple titans.
I heard you can build town centers anywhere without requiring to place on settlement. But it became into the village center and also an inferior version of the town center because you can't garrison your villagers and have slow in creating your villagers.
That's exactly right. It's also a weaker option in terms of health, attacks and garrison space, plus it doesn't give you population space, nor does it act as a trading target. Very niche imo, hence it didn't make my top 10 list.
@@NakamuraRTS You should have still mentioned the obvious goal to move the game towards aoe2 and give those players some form of familiarity. In some of the custom scenarios i've played with modded pantheons, i recall there was norse major god that couldn't claim settlements but you could build a town center building anywhere but required a minimum distance for trading and it was accounted that every training time for the villager was very slow.
How are the new norse units ? Were they needed ? Are using them a lot ? I am not a fan of myth units no longer being god specific. It was a cool decision, to specialize into a navy god and sacrifice your ground.
@@dnaseb9214 The new norse units are very good at their jobs, but terrible at everything else. Though you can build with them, so you get at least that even if the circumstances aren't ideal. I don't think the Hirdmen were needed at all, but it is beneficial to use them vs cavalry. The Godi was super important to add so that norse can deal with ranged and flying myth units. I agree that the naval myth unit stuff reduces choice a bit, but the change is good for balance. It makes major gods without naval myth options much better on water.
@@NakamuraRTS Does that mean that brezerkes no longer counter cavlary ? Or the hirdmen counter cav even more. If so is there a reason to get berzerkers now ? "makes major gods without naval myth options much better on water." they could have just given one of their minor gods a water unit, take the crab from hera and give it to a underpowered option just for that major god, for example.
@@dnaseb9214 Berserkers are generic units, no specific strength. They'd soft counter cav due to core stats alone, but have no multiplier. Hirdmen are just Norse Katapeltes really. I agree with your sentiment that the naval myth unit fix is not ideal, but it's better than doing nothing. Adding new myth units was probably beyond their scope/budget.
The water myth unit change feels bad? Like... the point of choosing minor gods is to decide what units and god powers you'll get access to. My instinct to this change as a casual player is "but I loved deciding whether or not I wanted the water unit", because it forces you to actually adapt strategies as you go instead of just going with a pre-set build. Does this help make that more of a choice and less of a given?
I can understand your perspective, but in reality the water maps were always very unbalanced in the original game. Very heavily used to lean towards Greek and Egypt, and also very often had to be played with the naval myth unit-granting minor god. So you do get more diversity with the new setup, actually.
@@NakamuraRTS Yeah that was really my question - casual play it felt more restrictive but I wanted confirmation that there was a competitive reason for this choice because unfortunately this game isn't as well documented as AOE II (which is a shame because I always preferred the feel of AOM).
@@NakamuraRTS do you GET all myth units or just the myth units for the Cicvilization for example you as greek would not get the norse myth water units right? just the greek ones?
Bring back old animation of villagers that are moving randomly on farm. Loki Giant have weird 360* movement (very fast rotating movement). the meteor special effect “smoke”dust” wears off very fast. Nidgogg is to low to the ground and his size must be resized by 10%
Nakamura what do you think, do you maybe assume they will add up visual human unit reskins after minor god techs are researched ? I texted multiple times this small detail on AOE discord server because i played the beta and many people seem to agree with me and this
Yep it's disabled in ranked games and also quick matches AFAIK, as Naka showed there is a checkbox when hosting a game for whether military autoqueue is enabled (and he also didn't mention the economy autobalancing which is also a checkbox). Both these checkboxes are off by default in games where they aren't set to being on, but both are on by default in single player campaign etc.
Almost all are good changes, except the Auto Queue "compromise", which is simply a regression from the AQ we had in The Titans. Devs are cowards scared of RTS purists' insane demands for apm sinks
@@lekhakaananta5864 It is intuitive that worker creation would be somewhat automated as micro heavy combat is more satisfying to play than what is essentially drudgery for drudgery's sake. Hard to complain too much about a genre staple that were all familiar with though, especially with some other QoLs thrown on.
That's why the opposition to AQ is insane. Auto-scouting is way more auto-play than auto-queue is. Scouting is actually interesting; you constantly adjust where you want your scout to go depending on what new things you find. It's insane that AoE2 got auto-scouting and AoM can't get auto-queue. So we get the option to let the game do bad scouting that could actually use a human player's decision-making, because we're busy being forced to press a single button over and over again every few seconds to have optimal unit production.
@@zonetropper I have, there was some problem and it broke the game. Possibly due to a trigger I used. I haven't seen a single person hosting a custom scenario in the lobby browser, have you?
Most of these changes are thoughtful and graceful. Very well done. In particular, I really like the Wonders rework and the scaling, more powerful myth units. The attack move and fairer maps are no-brainer goodies. What I hate are the increased early game food, increased supply cap and retained worker autoqueue. I already never enjoyed AoE and AoM's insistence on always aiming for 80 workers not even counting caravans, while temporary worker cuts or low worker playstyles are made invalid, unlike in other RTS. Even while workers take up 80% supply as you mentioned. With the release of Retold I was hoping they would tone it down, but they have for the most part gone the opposite direction. I love that they removed fighting unit autoqueue. I think AoM players will appreciate the self-expression and differentiation in playstyles that it creates; how much you foucs between macro and micro, good spending and good usage of spending. I really wish they would remove it for workers too, to naturally create more scrappy games and not have even noobs have massive ecos. With the max supply and starting food increase, it sounds even more late-game biased. What do I know, maybe most players don't mind that.
So the main base food definitely helps you survive for longer. But buildings and villagers are a lot weaker, and unit counters are a lot more intense, not to mention myth unit and god power strength. So I actually found that game durations got shorter! As for pop vs eco, the increase is in favor of army population! The original AoM had pathetic late game armies due to the eco focus, and people used to fight with buildings and walled siege weapons. Now the army can break through that nonsense if the conditions are right. It's fantastic imo. The new ratio is more like 60-40 in favor of the army, a huge improvement.
@@NakamuraRTS Oh, thanks for the info! I didn't know about villagers and buildings, that's actually sweet. More harass and sieges! Regarding the population though, my concern isn't the army size but the eco size and the lack of worker-cutting strategies. And now, with greater total population, I am afraid that it would benefit even more to churn out eco non-stop, because a low-worker maxout would be impossible to abuse against high-worker maxout. :(
I find it better to single target and focus enemies down one by one than spreading out my attack, especially if it's a troublesome enemy unit, if you spread out your attacks I find it less efficient imho.
Not much, it's slightly reshuffled to take into account that Myth Units have more hp now and that divine damage exists which ignores armor resistances.
These sound really interesting, did they do anything to improve the caravan-dependent late game? Running out of gold mines was always the worst part in a team game.
You'll find it worse now because due to being ported on the de3 branch of the engine means goldmines run out even faster, and they decided to make the trade caravan gold amount even less than EE and AoT.
Naka, did you know if they're gonna change the others factions? I've only seen norse rework, the others are almost the same, with one or another changes. We need more myth units too D:
Almost everything that could be changed, did get changed. It's just the Norse got the most attention from what I've seen. Greek stuff is more on the tweak level.
not to sure about unbounding sea Myth units from minor Gods it was always a big trade off taking a strong Water Myth unit over taking something that was good on land, also very unsure how i feel about being able to summon multiple titans, those things where like WMDs and could really just become a win more unit rather then a tide turner
You're assuming that the old minor gods are the same. They're not. They've been compensated accordingly Even then the old naval minor gods offer a tech for their myth unit, even if they aren't exclusive. Dionysus gives regen to Scylla. Njord gets Trench Krakens. Nephtys gives a chance for Siege Ships to resurrect as Leviathans
Your #2 change seems to be inspired by AoE 2 because for HD's African Kingdoms, they also reworked water and added Demolition and Fire Rafts in Feudal Age
The only thing bothering me is putting the same upgrade as one tech. Reinforce Ram and Naval Oxybeles meant a player can specialize one type of ship over the other and that introduced some dynamic in the ship combat.
Did anyone else feel like the Ai just wasn't there? When I was playing I was mainly playing the campign on titan but didn't have any problems beating the Ai. took till mission three for the ai to attack me and it only did so with small forces that I beat off rather easly. Played an skirmish match and the ai didn't even leave its base to attack me letting me maxed out and clean wipe it. I hope this was just the ai being wride and not how its going to be in the end.
Even in the original game, the titan AI in Consequences never put a big challenge with attack waves. In Breaching the Surface, I saw no significant change other than there are more myth units in the armies.
Hello, can you check the cyclops throwing ability for me? I'm saw a AOM Retold Beta gameplay that show cyclops throwing now only damage the target, not kill it instantly anymore. Can you check it for me?
Im not sure how i feel at sea myth ubits being for evwryone no matter what god you choose. Made it felt like those decisions had a bigger impact. Like do i prefer rhe other god's twchs or do i want naval superiority?
The general tweaks around naval is that (as far as I recall) every heroic age minor god has one naval focused technology. This along with the myth unit availability means that you can now pick your minor god based on your strategy, regardless of whether you are playing on a water map or not. I think that's a positive change.
I'm worried about the retold it's very similar to age 3 (which is free btw) it changed a lot of things and the most worrying is increasing the villagers from 80 to 100 and removing the auto which will make the game much more difficult to deal with the economy , fighting and making strategies came in last place
The big changes in de3 came much later than launch. Sweden was easy ranked elo and the Saloon was changed the most with homecity grinding and revolutions. The other changes were just touch ups and less drastic, so i don't think this can apply to aoe3tad -> de3.
@@NakamuraRTS They will most likely not get rid of it during any betas, as they don't want people to use footage from any betas to base their reviews off. The permanent watermark is there as proof of being beta content.
Hello, I just came off a call with Bill Gates. He says it's because every modern RTS has a decent attack move, and AoM belongs in the modern era too now. . . . . . I don't think the devs did anything particular (or at least nothing too substantial) to make this happen, it's just part of the AoE 3 DE engine that they made this in.
You should check out a similar video by my friend Fophuxake, who goes into into a lot more of the QoL changes. It's also her first video, so please give her a like & sub! ruclips.net/video/uty22NUTk74/видео.html
@@NakamuraRTS Will this remake include Atlantis & China as playable civilizations or is it just Greece, Egypt, and Scandinavia like the original?
You can summarize many changes by saying that Favour as a resource is now far more important. It no longer feels like a 'bonus' resource as it did before. If you ignore gathering it, you will be crushed by the enemy's myth units and god powers
That's a good way to put it.
I feel it very hard in the beta, IF you dont invest in getting favor, you will get steamrolled very early in the game. Also, the greeks myth units is strong as hell !
@@TheBrunov2 This is a much needed change if they want to make the game an Esport spectacle. For many years the META has been about massive human armies but very few myths. They needed to put the Myth back in Mythology.
Favour has always been important. Not investing in favour at all meant you could get steamrolled by myth units without counters. The cost of reusing the god powers is very expensive though, so I don't see it as a game changer. I could be wrong though.
@@benrobinson375 I am not expert in AoM by any means.
But I was able to beat the AI on the second highest difficult in about 3 minutes or so and won a couple maps of many vs me.
(Just couldn't deal on the hardest difficult due to that 100% handcap bonus) talking about the original AoM obviously.
Anyways... The META was always human armies... Myths were... Not worthy enough.
In fact, was one of the reasons I liked Loki, because I would get them for free, either by the hero's random attacks, or by fightning and getting favours...
Spending production resources and time to collect it, never seemed worth a while.
At least Norse could get for free, and egypthian as a passive as well.
Greeks however... Why bother?
"the game has to climax and so do we." you're so real for that
Ayy someone noticed!
naughty nakamura = best nakamura!
We need decay effects back though... no skeletons left on battlegrounds are a downer...
As always, modders will easily bring it back.
IMO they should have just made it a togglable option and it's a damn shame that we have to resort to using mods to return it.
@@Timmothy_playswill it support mods though?
@@Not_Nyx864 That is the plan. And the engine supports modding. It is a part of Age of Empires III DE
Awww god here come the lazy methods of modern day gaming studios leaving content out 🤦♂️
not only body decay effects but arrows shot are much worse than the original, they look weird af
I’m stoked, not gonna touch ranked, but I love playing against computers and playing with fun units
i hope the ai isnt completely useless like it is in the original
@@aw7614 I don’t dislike the Age2 ai, so hopefully they can get it close to that
@@offroadturkey how are they in a 3v3 setting? I find the AoM 1 they are useless. And in certain game modes they don't even compete
@@aw7614 i noticed the norse ai tends to move in your base the take your starter gold, damn dwarves of course they would lol in a 3v3 on hard mode i thought they good on their own but need your help from time to time depending on who the third enemy attacks. sometimes they push back to the point of winning the game for me before i reach the 5th age
Me too. I'd love if the developers would add interesting PvE and Co-op gamemodes and scenarios for us to play. They often focus too hard on PvP, but I'm convinced most of their players enjoy singleplay just fine.
Nice one Naka!
No u. Hope you'll be around for the next beta wave!
Been player of AoM for 20 years and I'm hoping that Retold will bring together all platforms and a lot of new players will join. Because that will mean that we will have long and ruitfull support from devs with constant new stuff. Cant wait to see what will "Freyr pack" bring... and I wish you that with Retold you will get a lot of new subscribers as you deserve :)
i was really hoping to come back as it had an amazing campaign, but I feel the keybindings are vastly outdated, same goes for the engine, the victory conditions need some rework, and I am sad they didn't expand the campaign a bit in the form of putting easter eggs, or some extra side mission in campaign itself for lore or fun things.
Due to that where I wanted to buy it immediately when I saw it, after seeing footage, I have mixed feelings, I want it as the matches look so cool, but due to above I am not sure I would enjoy it as much as I want and perhaps it is better to keep the good memories
Hoping for the same, we've been waiting so long for something like this. New gods, new civilizations, new campaigns. Give us everything!
I'll be here to make vids and stream :D
@@Egomotion1 Theres a whole new expansion coming out later, so with that we can get new campaign and a lot more. Also this is still in beta we don't know what will be in the full release and I'm pretty sure they will update the game a lot.
Don't see the voobly crowd moving over any time soon.
I play the EE edition myself and probably will pass. EE was pushing it for me with the expansion, thankfully chinese are rare in 1v1 quick match.
Retold seems like too big a departure from the original. Not what I personally look for.
Nostalgia for me is an important factor. I love the game itself but the nostalgia elevates it so much in addition.
@@Wimpiethe3 I think this will be wrong because retold will offer new opportunities for tournaments, prizepools and balance shifting which means the meta and godpower pickrate/winrate will shuffle every once in a while; which is what exactly moved the voobly crowd out of AoC towards de2(WK even prepared the people for de2 to get a good landing with the dlc content from aoe2hd).
Same goes for De3 and ESOC Tad, once de3 came out every tournament and event migrated to de3 and ESOC ladder was left catching dust.
Honestly I think it was a great choice to tie the reusing of god powers WITH the Faith resource, it makes choosing minor gods ALOT more important, AND it massively brings more focus on Faith instead of it just being a second hand resource to occasionally buy myth units or certain upgrades.
It's going to make the Atlanteans interesting since they use their Faith in a more diverse way, in addition to using Faith to buy Myth units, they also use Faith to upgrade their human units into Hero units! so they already had a bit of a balancing act when it came to Faith resource management!
Exactly, this turns AoM from AoE with 4 extra spells during a whole game into its own game. I always found 4 spells/game really boring.
Imo the best change are the MU changes. Scaling, More Tech, Less Pop and less One-Shot MU is amazing imo.
I personally do miss the one shots, but maybe that's just me!
@@NakamuraRTS I always found it kinda boring when my Mythic-Age Units got oneshot. I love the brawl. And on the other side I didnt like that One-shot units aside from oneshotting where kinda weak :/
Cyclops without oneshot is completely useless. It takes cyclops like 10 seconds to throw the unit. So 10 secs definitely waste for half health bar
@@ardaarsen As you can manually use the ability, you could ask the Cyclops to not do it. They're quite strong on their own, not needing the Elder upgrade to do real crush damage
Combined with the new and improved Pestilence i.e. Fortifications don't fire arrows, Cyclops rushing is looking like a viable strat (instead of a meme one, that it used to be)
@@devangnivatkar2649 Still Cyclops one shot was pretty cool. RIP.
Well done, great summary highlighting the important stuff! You already hint at some of the changes in game design, I love that!
#1 0:20 *Attack Move* works correctly (alt-righclick btw) = less RNG army clashing, so army composition + micro are more relevant
#2 1:10 *All 3 warships* available in the Classical Age (though not balanced yet) = accelerated and diverse water strategies
#3 1:50 *Repeatable god powers* = stronger timings
#4 2:24 *Wonder Age* that buffs myth units and god powers immensely (more engaging than the old win countdown) = accelerant to conclude a stalemate game
#5 2:52 *Rework of Norse* (anti-cavalry unit, ranged hero, third military building) = ??? = profit
#6 4:05 Egyptian major gods have *unique Monument bonuses* = more distinct build orders and playstyles between the 3
#7 4:58 *Increased population cap* (from 160 to 235, you got the numbers wrong) = win condition of competing for TCs comes at a later stage of the game, building/walls less dominant, easier to snowball a lead
#8 5:40 *Myth units are stronger* (get buffed per age) = as hinted in #3, you have to incorporate favor gathering in your game play or get overwhelmed by the opponent
#9 6:26 *Fair map generation* (same scripts as Voobly) = the game fulfills one of the prerequisites for a competitive scene
#10 7:03 *Autoqueue exists* for economy units, lobby host decides the situation for military units (but not in ranked) = a *good compromise* for both camps
(#11) 7:32 More bonus damages = as hinted in #8, *combat becomes more snowbally* and the game more action-packed
~70% of techs, game mechanics, god bonuses, stats like bonus damage, etc. have been altered heavily.
It kind of feels like AoM2 and shouldn't be compared in a straight manner with the original game, imo.
Personally I would summarize #3 and #8 in "use a lot of favor or lose" and add:
- Build orders and eco flow have changed significantly. For example gather rates of food sources are closer to each other, so less incentive to hunt on the open map early.
- Projectiles work like in AoE2, so we now have archer micro!
- Pathfinding has to be improved until release. On the one hand unit blocking and box formation have been removed, on the other hand villagers are more vulnerable in the Classical Age.
Lastly, what is your first impression of the game's design?
> Even stronger timings and more snowbally than before ... but if everything is somewhat op, nothing is.
> Removal of 2 early win conditions (rushing enemy hunt for food lead; denying 3rd TC for pop lead) give less of a framework what to do and when to do it ... I guess gold starve all the way now?
#5 - Removing Norse asymmetry = ???
#10 - instead makes those who want the full autoqueue stay on not-ranked and simply feel no incentive to compete in playing a worse version of the ruleset.
Projectile micro just moves the game towards aoe2, why? We are planning to make an aoe2 playerbase or an aom playerbase? Because that sure didn't work out for aoe4 lol.
Nice overview! AoM was the first computergame I played by myself as a kid, 20+ years ago. Really looking forward to Retold!
I don't have access to the beta, but I read that Titans can now travel through water! Definitely had a few AOM games where I unleash a Titan, only to realize he can't crush my enemies because he's too afraid to get wet!
@@WillHerrmann and cross walls!
I completely missed the Wonder age while playing, i was just messing around with some titan AIs and my ally built a wonder, i was so confused when i could not find the timer anywhere lol.
Honestly, this retold version is the steppingstone for AOM2 in the future. The new changes are definitely welcomed to stay, both in retold and AOM2.
AoM 2. Don't give me hope lol. I'd lose my mind.
@@NakamuraRTS we got AOE4, they wouldn't be remastering all the games unless they have plans for the future.
Considering how AoE4 turned out, I don't have high hopes for an AoM2 designed to be a fully independent entry to the series. Now renaming Retold to AoM2 would work fine, though.
@@MrAbgeBrandt The zoom limits are what killed AoE4 for me. The same will happen for AoM Retold.
I would love a sequel, but for now I'm just more than happy that this game got all the needed changes they need from the original. Seriously, the myth units feels like how I imagined they were back in the original game. Impactful and dangerous.
Great video Naka, was planning to make one similar but you and Fophuxake covered it so well!
Thank you! More is better, so I'm happy to see your review also :D
You didn't mention Village Centers. It took me a few games and some reading before I realized I could place TCs anywhere and not just on settlements! Village Centers provide no population but train vills and most other TC units, and I think the training time is slower. Not sure how much they will impact most games, but it's an interesting design choice.
I didn't include it on purpose in my top 10 because it's too niche due to drawbacks. You pay full price, but lose on training speed, building hp, arrow fire damage, range, garrison capacity, as well as the ability to trade with a TC. They're ok for a turtle+boom kind of strategy, but I'd be worried someone looks the wrong way at this building, making it collapse, lol.
As a old player of AOM i love a lot what aree doing with this Retold and thanks for summarize the changes
Im so happy they are increasing the population cap
My #1 change. I'm actually interested in the game now!
Okay, that is the most important change!
So excited for this, and especially for the new god packs and civilizations!
Wonder Age is an odd one. I feel like it's *so* expensive (both in its resource cost, and the time cost of all those villagers building it rather than gathering res) that it'll almost _never_ see actual use in play. Did you see any cases where it happened in a game where both players were being competitive?
I'm also curious about how positive the reception to Goti has been. Isn't it basically a reskinned Bogsveigir? And I thought _that_ unit was _badly_ received. What makes Goti different?
I've not seen Wonders in a real game, no. It will be very rare in 1v1. More likely in large team games, like think 3v3 and up.
Godi are imo better received because they're heroes, and not very good against human units at all.
Godi have low base damage and take 3 pop, exact opposite of the Bogs. You could spam Bogs like Egyptian do Chariot Archers. Godi, you have to make them with consideration, and micro them for best results
I've played lots of skirmishes this past weekend, at least one for every major god, and I found the wonder age really entertaining for late game (almost all my games were me vs 7 additional AIs). In a Ra game I ended up having an army that included 3 titans and 14 sons of osiris, i proceded to use it to completely crush a ra titan AI that had been a nuisance almost all game. That was only possible because of the wonder, that once built i had to protect so i could train the army
As someone who doesn’t care about human competition in these games, I am SUPER excited about the Wonder Age. It’s just inherently cool to build these massive monuments, but in the original they either did basically nothing or they caused the game to suddenly end. Wonder victories were a flavorful option that just weren’t satisfying to play towards or against.
Adding in that Wonders now basically unlock a victory lap where you can live the fantasy of spamming foolish mortals with lightning bolts (without resorting to cheats, instead as a result of perseverance and resource management) is a HUGE boon for solo players like me.
From a narrative perspective, the design problem with Wonder victories was that you built towards a non-combat climax and then the story suddenly ends. Wonder Age adds in “falling action” to the narrative, allowing you to enjoy everything you built and really play with all the toys.
I’m glad to hear that it’s tuned so as to not really effect competitive play while providing big fun spectacle for solo players, really clever and nimble design.
@@pantslesswrock can still affect competitive play but rarely however the effect is a good one, if a player manages to build it, it does deserve the benefit.s
im still hoping they add new myth units
Draugr NEED to be added to norse! maybe they ressurect on a cooldown or something, spread a disease DOT, or have some evil eye damage ability. add Draugr to Hel maybe? and instead of hel just giving you giants that other gods already give you.
I'd love for Hel to get her own myth unit. I get that her design is based around giants, but perhaps that design should be handed to Loki instead.
Good bet for the Draugr lol. Except they are just a Bogsvegir with the Chakram thrower gimmick from de2.
hey they are actually in the game now if you buy that new Norse dlc god, you get access to them if you pick new classic era minor god. They are archers and can multishot. So overall pretty good, considering Norse tend to somewhat lack ranged units.
Amazing video naka (just added this line in edit, I thought it should be obvious tho how much I enjoy your coverage of this game, but it never hurts to be nice and positive to folks).
I wish I had followed the game more in the past to actually know what was a meaningful change from the EE version (which I never played, I only played the original version when it first came out and I don't remember it much at all, I never even played the Atlanteans for example).
I'm incredibly excited to see your beta review tho I can definitely already tell some of the things you won't be so happy about lol. But I'm a lot more optimistic about the future of AOM after getting to play the beta, even with said rough edges. Game is incredibly fun, and I think it could be a big hit for MS this year, after some rather rough RTS launches by other companies earlier in the year.
Thanks very much. I'd say that you missed out on the original, but hey, we can't all play all the games. I missed out on more than I care to admit!
I do think this beta was extremely fun. Retold will be great, there is no doubt about that. I will have some harsh words about some severe issues though. The beta was undercooked, this needs more time in the oven. And Microsoft has no business rushing things - they can afford making good products and doing right by the fans.
All that said, I'm excited for the launch, and look forward to covering this a lot more. Even with the issues, it blows the other recent RTS releases out of the water.
My wishlist for Retold consists of 3 main things:
1) I want them to make interactable corpses for every unit. So that we can make Ressurection a thing. Either through God Powers, hero/priest abilities, or other mechanics (like for example - sacrifices). It really is high time for a fantasy mythological world to be able to have ressurection in it.
2) AoE 3 style *Community Plaza Ceremonies* for the future Aztec / Mayan / Mesoamerican civilization. I just love that mechanic.
3) Great tools and support for modding the game. This way, the community can just go ham, and create impressive mods, adding special characters (heroes, gods, titans, units from other games that sort of fit the game - like the Lich King for example, or maybe vampires/werewolves ?) and even whole new civilisations. This would CONSIDERABLY improve the game's longevity.
I would say my #1 change is how the Atlanteans gain the favor - via the oracles that are limited to 10 now. Shame we didn't get to play them.
Yo they weren't in the beta, this is cheating! :D It's pretty cool though, can't wait to try.
At what rate would you say they gain favor now? I wanted to play Atlanteans and mess around with reusable powers, but they weren’t in the beta so no spamming Tart Gates for me lol
The old way was very cool. Sure the faction is made up but it made perfect story sense what would please their gods.
@@KarmaSpaz12 Yeah but the oracles gaining favor are pretty much the same idea, just in different way - rewarding via expansion as well, just not via TC building but for scouting which is a key to an expansion. At least that's I would interpret it :D .
@@richard7199 Heh, no clue at all for the moment. Let's hope it will be more than the Egyptian monuments or it would be just too slow.
i was 5 years old when this game first came out, and i used to watch my dad playing and later on play it myself. i consider my memories of this game as core memories. it's basically the pinnacle of my gaming passion. thanks for the informative video! we will be getting it :)
@@okandy98 always amazing to hear how integral this game is to our generation
I don't like how they changed the hud design in game and some of the icons, but I like a lot of the game play changes.
@@hhattonaom9729 yeah for sure, I can't get used to the new layout. Floating resources because they aren't where I'm used to it. Weird hotkeys due to 4 rows of buttons. Will talk a lot about this in my review.
I was wary at first, but after playing for like basically the whole weekend I'm happy to announce that I got actually fond of the new UI. I found out that information was easy to find when needed.
The only thing that confused me and still does is that I couldn't find the tech tree in-game
Agree! Classical was more authentic, more atmospheric. That's why I'm not going to buy the game at launch, or pre-order it, though I did think about it.
@@TheGoodLuc what a weird take bro
@@Vaquedoso That's not the only reason.
I’ve been playing age of mythology and age of empires since the beginning. This game looks amazing and so fun! I really hope they take the time to work on custom games bc that really was so fun in old AOM. Also can’t wait to see what they did with Atlanteans the argus hekka giant and automaton myth units gonna be sick!
My favorite is obviously the biggest population cap
I quite like the reusable godpowers, adds another dynamic and layer of strategy rather than rushing to the powerhouse GP's and winning with a timing attack!
Major downside I struggled with is the hotkeys. I still use legacy hotkeys and AOE2 DE has the ability to switch to legacy hotkeys in options. I really hope this is added to the final version or I'll have two choices:
A) Forced to relearn hotkeys from scratch and change my entire aoe2 DE hotkeys over to the new style (as I am still active there).
B) Remap all the hotkeys to old-style where possible and choose/learn new ones for the additions such as the great hall
The hotkey issue is the main reason I didn't play much beta sadly, it was too much work for 3 days worth of games!
> Major downside I struggled with is the hotkeys. I still use legacy hotkeys and AOE2 DE has the ability to switch to legacy hotkeys in options.
I use the Grid ones in 2 DE but yeah, in my first games in Retold I built a lot of storehouses by accident as I was used that the house hotkey was e :D
Totally understandable that you'd want legacy hkeys. I much prefer to learn more efficient hotkeys as it's a new game anyway, but this really cannot be ignored - you won't be the only one.
@@NakamuraRTS Not put in a good word for your old flatmate? 😀 Weasel's only live for 1-2 years man!
But yeah, the less serious players wouldn't invest the time to learn them. I probably could over time but it's hard to undo 25 years worth of muscle memory.
@@stuartmacaulay5761 I'll mention it in my review for sure
@@NakamuraRTS Great thanks buddy, loving the improvements so far! it's going in a good direction 🙂
I liked wonders given a victory after a certain time limit as it favors more defensive and peaceful game play which I love to do as the Egyptians.
Considering your commentary on attack-move commands, it strikes me that a homeworld style band-box attack command would be great in many RTS games.
I was hoping for something like this this was the videos looking for for retold
Wow, that is a lot more changes than i expected. I'm getting kind of excited.
@@volbla you bet, and I just scratched the surface to get a broad overview vid out. Almost everything that can be changed has been changed lol
Its like a new game in a lot of ways there are so many small balance changes. But all the units are immediately recognizable.
I noticed in another video that the ulfsark is now called the berserk? Why would they rename units? It's kind of like they're removing a lot of the nostalgia for long time players. Also the voicelines are all different from what I know. Did the devs give responses to these changes?
It is different, but I mean it is what it is. They're probably not going to explain themselves!
@@Joek9100 It's not just the name, Berserk means warrior wearing bearskin so they changed the appearance as well. Ulfsark means warrior wearing wolf skin. There are far fewer references to Ulfsarks, historically so they might have felt it was needlessly obscure. Berserks were mentioned a lot in Viking texts, but much less was known about the Ulfsark. I think it's a sensible change. If they didn't change it, new players to AoM would have probably wondered why Norse civs didn't have Berserks since they were so prominent in the history
@EhurtAfy did original players wonder that? I didn't. Nobody is going to think that. If anything they'll just assume they are like berserkers. Just odd and a change I don't think was needed.
@@EhurtAfy And the non-aom players instead of learning what an ulfsark is would just figure it behave the same as the aoe2 berserk. And obviously a bunch of aoe2 modders have lot of inspiration to look in aoe2 and retrofit them in a new version of aom :)
@@zonetropper I can see what you mean, but there are plenty of shared units between the two game series and behavior is not 1:1. Additional problem is Ulfsarks should actually be called Ulfheðnar and they are described as "wolf-skin berserkers" in the ancient literature. Ulfsarks are berserkers wearing wolf-skins. The important thing to understand is that, "berserk" is not just a noun describing the "bear shirt" or "bare of shirt" warrior, it's also an adjective for "entering a state of wild fury". There were many types of shamanistic warriors, bears, wolves, boars, and they were all went berserk and animalistic in combat
Great summary, thank you!
I hope the release won't be another disaster, there are still same rough edges in the beta.
After a very very long time, this might be the first game i am tempted to buy before or on release.
@@R4ZORLIGHT for sure, it's a bit undercooked. But there is so much good in here, I'm really hopeful for this one
I think release will go well lookin at how it's doing in the advance access stage, reviews are positive too. I think the "disaster" might occur after 6 months when the honeymoon period is over and the PvE people ditch and look to other games.
@@zonetropper but thats the totally normal for non live service games
Great breakdown!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Are the armies max number that you can select with box selection increased too?
Hey Nakamura! Great video, but I notice what you said about the population boost with more Houses + 3 Fortified TCs is actually slightly better than you said!
Fortified TC provides +10 more pop for each TC, for 25 pop total now, instead of +5 for 20 total! I know that doesn't bump the population boost you gave by very much, but still, a nice extra little boost for the Fortified TC upgrade for the same price!
Apologies, you're correct! 235 pop for 3 fortified TCs + 16 houses.
Is a change I realize when I start playing the beta ... Is the fact when I start a game now is slower .. I have only 50 gold when start and the temple cost is 150
In the extended edition you start with 100 gold and the temple cost 100 gold so u only task in the early game was gather some food and go to the next age
I like the new 50 gold and make you be more creative with the start of the game
Nice video btw🎉🎉
Did i hear that right i can build titan gates over and over again? Like first titan died then ic can build it again?
Yes, but you need a wonder as a requirement for that. Then the titan gate goes on cooldown and is totally free.
@@NakamuraRTS oh my god! This is amazing! 🤩 One of the things i like playing as egyptian is there titan!
I LOVE that now we can use God Powers multiple times, and that Favor Is Way more useful now. Not just for the occasional myth unit, but now to reuse INCREDIBLY op powers :D. Gods I hate that the Beta lasted only for such short a time. It feels like August 27th is so far awayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
I can’t wait to get this game!!! This got me through my parents separation back in the day, such memories made and the days wasted lol
Doesn't sound like a waste given what you're describing!
@@NakamuraRTS people cope differently I guess, mine was with gaming 🥰 and Mythology!!! 😂
I've also noticed the Norse titan is has a lot more health than the Greek titan. I'll have to see the other titans, but I assume it's because of favour being harder to get as Norse, where realistically, Greek can put all their peasants on temple and churn out favour points then recast titan again and again.
The titans all have the same stats. What you likely saw was the wonder age boost.
Once you build a wonder, all myth units, including the titan get buffed a ton.
Also your god powers get cheaper and recharge faster.
@NakamuraRTS Ah that makes sense. The wonder age boost is a cool new addition.
Is there an all military units button like on AOE4 ? I found that the old AOM didn't have this feature and it is very frustrating
Hi and thanks for the video, as far as i can remember the Jarl still had x2 vs myth units. Also a big change is that throwing axeman have a better multiplier vs any infantry unit. As well as fishing boat gatherer rates are now 0.5 food per secons that felt like it was nerfed. Eco techs are different, age 3 kind of hunting dogs, not sure about that. So Thor has no pig sticker and hunting dogs, in general the way the game develops is different.
You're right about all of that, except for Jarls. They get their bonus only if you get the Ring Giver tech from Njord!
@@NakamuraRTS Ok i hope this will be changed, but you also have the ranged hero. Usually the point of Jarls was when Thor/Odin plays vs heavy mythic units / infantry counter civ like Loki / Zeus and having something else then Hersir. Yea but we will see how it plays out with the ranged hero. I can't remember the exact stats of RC / Jarls. Where is the point of going Jarls if you dont have Ringgiver? Are the stats very different? Because in the OG Jarls only had slithly better stats in HP i remember
Centaurs already felt like a massive difference since they can just shoot a volley of arrows in an area. They don't feel like just another ranged unit
Hey, are these newly recorded tracks? Can you confirm that the game contains versions of the original soundtrack’s iconic melodies? That, character barks, and a robust in-game encyclopedia are the most important things to me. Oh, and are WUV WOO and TINES OF POWER still a thing?
All the OST appears to be re-recorded, lyrics sounded different too. Encyclopedia and tech tree and cheats all exist. Others uploaded stuff about these, worth a YT search if you wanna look into it.
@@NakamuraRTS Thank you very much! Excited!
Rough around the edges??? Noooooo. But I thoroughly appreciate your honesty with this great review. Too many people overhyping and going memberberry nuts over this game, glad to hear someone practically breaking this game down 👌
Good video. Do you think its still worth playing the original game just to get better at the retold version? I could imagine that beyond the very basics you can not translate the knowledge when it comes to build orders and units.
Actually learning the units is something that does carry over. They are different in retold, but to know them all is going to put you a step ahead of the general population.
Same goes for understanding the economic rules of thumb. Though builds won't carry over directly.
Hey Naka, i honestly think that the A-click is a huge feature, but still need improvements... for example, I noticed that a unit that has an enemy on the left does not attack another enemy on the right by clicking on the right halfway, it attacks the one on the left instead of walking to the right until it reaches the target.
Hope that will be addressed, the game looks really cool!
I found units are often pushing each other away, and they really get slippery when technically surrounded. Might be related.
the new population limit is good, but i want to know about the mythical units how much space they do occupy now?
probably a unpopular thought, but I will miss the wonder Victory, I don't see why they couldn't make a Wonder Victory require a short research to start a timer (like how in Age of Empires III you can start a Countdown at Trading Posts for a Trade Monopoly Victory), I do like the new bonus, but Not at the expense of the old thing, I kind of wanted to be able to take it in a different direction each time
I definitely am in favor of a "Stop turtling and come attack me or else I win" mechanic. RTS games aren't fun when they turn into trench warfare.
If it isn't added people will make custom maps, which are just the regular maps with the condition added in. It's be easy as hell to set up a trigger for it.
They could add a slider for custom games that says "Legacy Wonders" with their traditional cost, but I think they should hold off on that to start with, so people can give the new wonders a legitimate try, as it's much more fun to play around with compared to their classic functionality.
My guess is to prevent turtling-style win conditions.
This tracks with the increase in pop limits and the reusable God powers, they want finishes to be more offensive based and action packed, rather than them being defensive. Which is a bit of a shame really.
My view is good to offer legacy options while pushing these changes so those who don't want them can atleast play the legacy/vanilla experience and have the option to try out the new changes. Sure that means it will split the scene and whatnot but you are eliminating a potential problem with those people alienated by the changes or that have difficulties accepting them, it's a game that has been played in that state for 20 years and conceptions and views are very hardened to expectations and previous experience.\
Personally, I welcome the wonder change because out of all the aoe games except aoe3, it makes wonders worth to build(in aoe3 the wonders are age up buildings like aoe4's landmarks), and instead of getting a timer for victory. As another comment pointed out, it's a very rewarding and enjoyable victory parade you can do with cheap godpowers to be recasted and making multiple titans.
I heard you can build town centers anywhere without requiring to place on settlement. But it became into the village center and also an inferior version of the town center because you can't garrison your villagers and have slow in creating your villagers.
That's exactly right. It's also a weaker option in terms of health, attacks and garrison space, plus it doesn't give you population space, nor does it act as a trading target. Very niche imo, hence it didn't make my top 10 list.
@@NakamuraRTS You should have still mentioned the obvious goal to move the game towards aoe2 and give those players some form of familiarity. In some of the custom scenarios i've played with modded pantheons, i recall there was norse major god that couldn't claim settlements but you could build a town center building anywhere but required a minimum distance for trading and it was accounted that every training time for the villager was very slow.
How are the new norse units ? Were they needed ? Are using them a lot ?
I am not a fan of myth units no longer being god specific. It was a cool decision, to specialize into a navy god and sacrifice your ground.
@@dnaseb9214 The new norse units are very good at their jobs, but terrible at everything else. Though you can build with them, so you get at least that even if the circumstances aren't ideal.
I don't think the Hirdmen were needed at all, but it is beneficial to use them vs cavalry. The Godi was super important to add so that norse can deal with ranged and flying myth units.
I agree that the naval myth unit stuff reduces choice a bit, but the change is good for balance. It makes major gods without naval myth options much better on water.
@@NakamuraRTS
Does that mean that brezerkes no longer counter cavlary ?
Or the hirdmen counter cav even more. If so is there a reason to get berzerkers now ?
"makes major gods without naval myth options much better on water." they could have just given one of their minor gods a water unit, take the crab from hera and give it to a underpowered option just for that major god, for example.
@@dnaseb9214 Berserkers are generic units, no specific strength. They'd soft counter cav due to core stats alone, but have no multiplier. Hirdmen are just Norse Katapeltes really.
I agree with your sentiment that the naval myth unit fix is not ideal, but it's better than doing nothing. Adding new myth units was probably beyond their scope/budget.
I love the new AOMR is different than the original, but and its harder, and meaby I need time to get pro again, but... its ok its better
The water myth unit change feels bad? Like... the point of choosing minor gods is to decide what units and god powers you'll get access to.
My instinct to this change as a casual player is "but I loved deciding whether or not I wanted the water unit", because it forces you to actually adapt strategies as you go instead of just going with a pre-set build. Does this help make that more of a choice and less of a given?
I can understand your perspective, but in reality the water maps were always very unbalanced in the original game. Very heavily used to lean towards Greek and Egypt, and also very often had to be played with the naval myth unit-granting minor god. So you do get more diversity with the new setup, actually.
@@NakamuraRTS
Yeah that was really my question - casual play it felt more restrictive but I wanted confirmation that there was a competitive reason for this choice because unfortunately this game isn't as well documented as AOE II (which is a shame because I always preferred the feel of AOM).
@@NakamuraRTS do you GET all myth units or just the myth units for the Cicvilization for example you as greek would not get the norse myth water units right? just the greek ones?
Bring back old animation of villagers that are moving randomly on farm.
Loki Giant have weird 360* movement (very fast rotating movement).
the meteor special effect “smoke”dust” wears off very fast.
Nidgogg is to low to the ground and his size must be resized by 10%
Nakamura what do you think, do you maybe assume they will add up visual human unit reskins after minor god techs are researched ? I texted multiple times this small detail on AOE discord server because i played the beta and many people seem to agree with me and this
I don't know about ranked. But in campaign auto queue worked for military units. Just right click on icon.
Yep it's disabled in ranked games and also quick matches AFAIK, as Naka showed there is a checkbox when hosting a game for whether military autoqueue is enabled (and he also didn't mention the economy autobalancing which is also a checkbox). Both these checkboxes are off by default in games where they aren't set to being on, but both are on by default in single player campaign etc.
Almost all are good changes, except the Auto Queue "compromise", which is simply a regression from the AQ we had in The Titans. Devs are cowards scared of RTS purists' insane demands for apm sinks
@@lekhakaananta5864 It is intuitive that worker creation would be somewhat automated as micro heavy combat is more satisfying to play than what is essentially drudgery for drudgery's sake. Hard to complain too much about a genre staple that were all familiar with though, especially with some other QoLs thrown on.
That's why the opposition to AQ is insane. Auto-scouting is way more auto-play than auto-queue is. Scouting is actually interesting; you constantly adjust where you want your scout to go depending on what new things you find.
It's insane that AoE2 got auto-scouting and AoM can't get auto-queue. So we get the option to let the game do bad scouting that could actually use a human player's decision-making, because we're busy being forced to press a single button over and over again every few seconds to have optimal unit production.
All I really need is Jotunheim one-hole, Titan difficulty, and 500% handicap :D
Does it still have scenario editor? Always used to make my own maps or play other's the most
Yes.
@@zonetropper i know now, doesnt work in multiplayer though. Hopefully they'll fix by official launch
@@FreeformThomas It works? Make a scenario and pick the scenario option in the lobby settings where the gamemode is located.
@@zonetropper I have, there was some problem and it broke the game. Possibly due to a trigger I used. I haven't seen a single person hosting a custom scenario in the lobby browser, have you?
Can anyone help i put the titan gate down but cant get it past half way to spawn the titan. It says clear the debris or something?
My first play, it took me 5 miuntes to find where to produce Ox cart :D.
Good vid bro
Most of these changes are thoughtful and graceful. Very well done. In particular, I really like the Wonders rework and the scaling, more powerful myth units. The attack move and fairer maps are no-brainer goodies.
What I hate are the increased early game food, increased supply cap and retained worker autoqueue. I already never enjoyed AoE and AoM's insistence on always aiming for 80 workers not even counting caravans, while temporary worker cuts or low worker playstyles are made invalid, unlike in other RTS. Even while workers take up 80% supply as you mentioned.
With the release of Retold I was hoping they would tone it down, but they have for the most part gone the opposite direction. I love that they removed fighting unit autoqueue. I think AoM players will appreciate the self-expression and differentiation in playstyles that it creates; how much you foucs between macro and micro, good spending and good usage of spending. I really wish they would remove it for workers too, to naturally create more scrappy games and not have even noobs have massive ecos.
With the max supply and starting food increase, it sounds even more late-game biased. What do I know, maybe most players don't mind that.
So the main base food definitely helps you survive for longer. But buildings and villagers are a lot weaker, and unit counters are a lot more intense, not to mention myth unit and god power strength. So I actually found that game durations got shorter!
As for pop vs eco, the increase is in favor of army population! The original AoM had pathetic late game armies due to the eco focus, and people used to fight with buildings and walled siege weapons. Now the army can break through that nonsense if the conditions are right. It's fantastic imo. The new ratio is more like 60-40 in favor of the army, a huge improvement.
@@NakamuraRTS Oh, thanks for the info! I didn't know about villagers and buildings, that's actually sweet. More harass and sieges!
Regarding the population though, my concern isn't the army size but the eco size and the lack of worker-cutting strategies. And now, with greater total population, I am afraid that it would benefit even more to churn out eco non-stop, because a low-worker maxout would be impossible to abuse against high-worker maxout. :(
0:12 what a good play ;)
I find it better to single target and focus enemies down one by one than spreading out my attack, especially if it's a troublesome enemy unit, if you spread out your attacks I find it less efficient imho.
Hirdman and Bondi simultaneously being brought back is great
I'd love to have Bogsveigirs too
@@matthewsteele99 i doubt they are coming back, but you never know! Maybe this Freyr god has some surprises
@@NakamuraRTS i hate the deletion of any units, because as an SP player who has no interest in MP they could do very well in custom campaigns
@@matthewsteele99 Same for the Khopesh, great early wave harassment unit 😭
Did they change Hero damage modifiers vs MUs?
Not much, it's slightly reshuffled to take into account that Myth Units have more hp now and that divine damage exists which ignores armor resistances.
Are all titans same as before? I really wished they would change them for each major god
My question is: Will the game in its original format still be available?
Game looks amazing. I Like the graphics, for me it's beautiful and keeps the essence of the original.
These sound really interesting, did they do anything to improve the caravan-dependent late game? Running out of gold mines was always the worst part in a team game.
You'll find it worse now because due to being ported on the de3 branch of the engine means goldmines run out even faster, and they decided to make the trade caravan gold amount even less than EE and AoT.
Naka, did you know if they're gonna change the others factions? I've only seen norse rework, the others are almost the same, with one or another changes. We need more myth units too D:
Almost everything that could be changed, did get changed. It's just the Norse got the most attention from what I've seen. Greek stuff is more on the tweak level.
So far it looks promissing. Can't wait to play it, one of my favorite games ever
not to sure about unbounding sea Myth units from minor Gods it was always a big trade off taking a strong Water Myth unit over taking something that was good on land, also very unsure how i feel about being able to summon multiple titans, those things where like WMDs and could really just become a win more unit rather then a tide turner
You're assuming that the old minor gods are the same. They're not. They've been compensated accordingly
Even then the old naval minor gods offer a tech for their myth unit, even if they aren't exclusive. Dionysus gives regen to Scylla. Njord gets Trench Krakens. Nephtys gives a chance for Siege Ships to resurrect as Leviathans
@@devangnivatkar2649 wait so they screwed with the Gods entirely? how doomed are the Atlantean then their minor Gods where some of the weakest
Except Atlanteans don't get the unbinded naval units :(
Is there a max favor cap? Also, cost for recasting god power isn't same for every spell..right?
Max cap removed, and each god power has its own cooldown and cost. I think Earthquake costs 350 favor for a second cast.
I wonder if they plan to add the Chinese extensions and more
I'm glad to see god powers can be reused some like lightning bolt were just like - oh ya... one unit is now dead... the entire game.
Repeating god powers is the biggest W
Why did this Demo and any Info about the Game passed my sight??? Im so hyped now!!!
So is just the same game correct?
Nothing new playable?
Right?
Your #2 change seems to be inspired by AoE 2 because for HD's African Kingdoms, they also reworked water and added Demolition and Fire Rafts in Feudal Age
Yep, and AoE 4 did this as well. Definitely the right way to make water gameplay good in the franchise.
The only thing bothering me is putting the same upgrade as one tech. Reinforce Ram and Naval Oxybeles meant a player can specialize one type of ship over the other and that introduced some dynamic in the ship combat.
Best resume I saw so far. Good video.
can't wait for september!
So many nice changes! 🙌
Did anyone else feel like the Ai just wasn't there? When I was playing I was mainly playing the campign on titan but didn't have any problems beating the Ai. took till mission three for the ai to attack me and it only did so with small forces that I beat off rather easly. Played an skirmish match and the ai didn't even leave its base to attack me letting me maxed out and clean wipe it.
I hope this was just the ai being wride and not how its going to be in the end.
Even in the original game, the titan AI in Consequences never put a big challenge with attack waves. In Breaching the Surface, I saw no significant change other than there are more myth units in the armies.
Hello, can you check the cyclops throwing ability for me? I'm saw a AOM Retold Beta gameplay that show cyclops throwing now only damage the target, not kill it instantly anymore. Can you check it for me?
It does not kill in one throw anymore
@@devangnivatkar2649 thank you. So how many damage it cause to the victim it picked?
@@PhongNguyen-fk9np About 70-60% of the hp of a hoplite.
I need more Nomad style maps
they did an amazing work
Don't have access to beta but does it have Atlanteans? That is my favorite to play
Atlanteans weren't in the beta but they will be in the full game.
Im not sure how i feel at sea myth ubits being for evwryone no matter what god you choose. Made it felt like those decisions had a bigger impact. Like do i prefer rhe other god's twchs or do i want naval superiority?
The general tweaks around naval is that (as far as I recall) every heroic age minor god has one naval focused technology. This along with the myth unit availability means that you can now pick your minor god based on your strategy, regardless of whether you are playing on a water map or not. I think that's a positive change.
I'm worried about the retold it's very similar to age 3 (which is free btw) it changed a lot of things and the most worrying is increasing the villagers from 80 to 100 and removing the auto which will make the game much more difficult to deal with the economy , fighting and making strategies came in last place
The big changes in de3 came much later than launch. Sweden was easy ranked elo and the Saloon was changed the most with homecity grinding and revolutions.
The other changes were just touch ups and less drastic, so i don't think this can apply to aoe3tad -> de3.
is the floating text part of the game or the video?
Fortunately it's only a thing for the beta. Here's hoping they get rid of it for the stress test!
@@NakamuraRTS They will most likely not get rid of it during any betas, as they don't want people to use footage from any betas to base their reviews off. The permanent watermark is there as proof of being beta content.
I am sure the attack move was improved for the controller support..
Hello, I just came off a call with Bill Gates. He says it's because every modern RTS has a decent attack move, and AoM belongs in the modern era too now.
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I don't think the devs did anything particular (or at least nothing too substantial) to make this happen, it's just part of the AoE 3 DE engine that they made this in.
DEATHMATCH!? was Beta only for Berry Picking?
so what youre saying is yet another remake showing youcan actually put effort in it? what was reforged excuse?
basically the best version of game, they just need to keep updating it