Should AOE IV been set in Ancient Times instead?

[Ajax]

Does Anyone else think that if Microsoft was going to retread old ground rather than advance to modern and future ages, they ought to have done the Ancient World again rather than the Middle Ages?

It's been nearly a quarter of a century since the original AOE, and despite the Definitive Edition (and AOE Online...but let's ignore that) this era hasn't been covered as extensively as the Medieval period has with AOE II: HD (2013) and AOE II: Definitive Edition and its numerous DLC packs.

The Definitive Edition of the original AOE did not change the gameplay mechanics or add new content in any substantial way, but there is so much they could've added or created for a game set in this epoch.

What about all the fascinating and obscure Civilizations, Empires and Cultures of the era? Africa and the Americas were completely ignored in AOE, so we could have had civs like the Kingdom of Kush, Axumite Empire, Toltecs, Olmecs and so on. Europe was also ignored too - no Gauls, Iberians, Scythians, Dacians etc. This is is not to mention all the rich civs of the Middle East and Asia (Elamites, Indus Valley), or the highly obscure but still fascinating groups like the Nuragic Civilization or the Cucuteni-Tripillia people.
Imagine all the possible campaigns- a bronze Age collapse with the Sea Peoples, the rise and fall of the Assyrian Empire, Cyrus the Great, New Kingdom Egypt, Carthage...

Sure, Greece and Rome have been done to death in other games, but there's more to ancient history than those empires, great as they are. The Bronze Age especially seems like fertile unexplored territory. Plus a lack of historical data about some aspects of these cultures could allow the game designers to come up with some interesting and fresh designs - I'd love to see some of the stuff they could come up with for the Stone Age for instance.

The gameplay mechanics of the original AOE are also outdated and were never fixed or expanded upon in the Definitive Edition. Imagine having AOE II level of tech tree choices, unique civ bonuses and units, fixes to pathfinding and A.I and so on.

Does anyone else agree that this was a missed opportunity to delve back into ancient history? Would you like to see them tackle the era again for AOE V? Or do you think it's just too boring and obscure a period to cover again?

if you could create a new AOE game set in the ancient period How would you go about doing it? what Civilizations would you choose? (Romans, Macedonians, Maurya Empire etc) What or who would the campaigns be about? (Hannibal, Nebuchadnezzar, Qin Shi Huangdi, Boudica) and what features would you add to the game?

[Hert the Fisherman]

Agree with you would have been cool to see a refreshed look on ancient times.

[Yagu]

YES, agree very much. Don't really know of many games that even touch the Bronze age. Having a pre-bronze age collapse to classical history setting would introduce so many civilizations that only historians and history nerds really know about, but that are so unique and interesting.

[Muerte]

It looks like it was made in ancient times is all i can say

[Ajax]

Originally posted by yagu321:

YES, agree very much. Don't really know of many games that even touch the Bronze age. Having a pre-bronze age collapse to classical history setting would introduce so many civilizations that only historians and history nerds really know about, but that are so unique and interesting.

I agree, so many people learnt about rather obscure figures and events from the Age of Empires series. There's so much more to ancient history than the well trodden trifecta of Greece, Rome & Egypt. A new AOE game set in this period could help kick start an interest in such a diverse and rich era.

[HE1NZ]

Definitely. If AOE 4 was set in ancient times you would have every period covered between Age 2, 3 and 4. But now we'll have 2 and 4 competing with each other and 1 is rudimentary.

[V I D A L]

But it is.. look at it. It's set in 2002. lol

[Wololo_King]

Yeah its should be great ...but they started on middle ages , for the nostalgia of Age2 and because Age4 will be use for the esports ...

[Metro]

The point of the AOE franchise and his playerbase is that no future game will top AOE 2...even if you made AOE 2 with photorealistic graphics..because if you do that..the complains will rotate from "uggh mobile graphics me smart from saying that" to "Why??? why the same medieval setting, I was promised that there would be an ww2 AOE and a futuristic AOE because i saw that old photo back from 2004, I DEMAND IT".

Its pointless to make a new AoE..just because the playerbase will never accept that a new game could become better than AOE 2.

And im not saying this because of AOE 4...this is something that appear when AOE 3 was launched back in 2004-2005..people will just not accept it...

[Hablo Español]

I was expecting ancient times and Roman empire, but they did not wanted to compete with Rome