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[Akura]

Shores of Hazeron? Technically it's 4x, depending on what you do.

[Shadowlord]

Age of Empires 2 is definately the best of the AoE series, but I don't think it comes close to challenging AoM in gameplay. Tell me how it is better.

I'd have to agree with Rex.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Well this is going extremely off topic but I found AoE2 to be much more fun than AoM.

AoE2 was faster pased, the civs in the game were more balanced, the units were much more balanced compared to some in AoM, the campaigns were better and based off real history, the map editor was great, trade was handled better.

The features AoM added were fun, sure. Though god powers/units felt a little bit too much like a "IWINBUTTON" in multiplayer games. The techtree in AoM also felt a bit too confined.

[zilpin]

Master of Orion 2 set the bar, for me.  MoO3 was disappointing.
Space Empires 4 was fun but got boring, SE5 gets way to micromanaged and it throws massive number of very similar technology at you instead of distinct tech.
AoE series, not a fan, and not 4X.  SupCom also not 4X, but fun for a while.
Gal Civ series fell flat for me, but many others like it.

If the micromanaging is what turns you off, give MoO3 a try.

Or, instead of spending time playing a 4X, why not write your own?

[Rex_Nex]

@zilpin: AoE is 4x.

@cata: Not at all. We are debating about which of two 4x games are better in a thread about which 4x games are good and manageable.

Anyway, I have to disagree with most of your points. Yes, AoE was better balanced. That's the one thing I agree with. However, AoM's civilizations were completely separate and unmistakable, therefor I can see why balance was harder to achieve. Each civilization in AoE was pretty much the same; each civ had all the same basic units, a handful of "Racial" units (Asian, European, Native American), and one or two unique units. Throw in some unique bonuses, and you have yourself a AoE civ.

AoM handled this much more attractively by having four completely separate civilizations, with each of those four civilizations having the option to worship one of three gods in order to allow further customization. In addition, your civ in AoM changes as you play; you may start out as a Greek player worshipping Hades, god of the underworld, in order to get powerful ranged units. As the game progresses, you find that your opponent has been hastily producing Calvary in order to counter you. To counter this, you chose to worship Athena during the next age in order to increase your infantry's defense against Calvary. If this scenario were to play out in AoE, you would have a significant disadvantage, with your opponent already having ample counters to your civilization's locked and unchangeable bonuses. However, in AoM you are able to adapt your civilization to counter your opponent or improve your economy.

God Powers are fun, and you can pretty much tell that's all they are meant to be. While they are a big feature in the game, they are not balanced one bit, and I understand that part.

AoE was too fast paced. Games were decided on who can do something quicker or could throw up a wall of barracks and spew out neverending hordes of footmen before the enemy. AoM is slower and allows for a much more satisfying late game.

The campaigns in both were pretty boring, in my opinion. Neither of them were quite as fun as the skirmishes, but I still found AoM's better when I felt like turning one on. You could tell the developers had more at their disposal.

The Map Editor was improved upon in AoM as far as I remember. Why did you like AoE's more? I thought AoE's map editor was very limiting.

[Cheese]

Distant worlds would be quite good for this. You can set AI automation so that you can micromanage certain parts such as ship design and fleet building or basically control whatever you want.

[Shadowlord]

If the micromanaging is what turns you off, give MoO3 a try.

I am shocked and appalled that you would suggest MoO3.

[Simmura McCrea]

What's actually wrong with MoO 3?

[Deon]

It had too many unneeded sliders and it simplified some gameplay elements too much. Also I just didn't really enjoy it, it happens to me and games .

[Rex_Nex]

Dont know if someone said this, but Sins of a Solar Empire is pretty fun and managable. It has its downsides, but its pretty good.

[Rakonas]

I agree with Rex for the most part on the AoM v. AoE2 argument, but many of the campaigns in AoE, especially the Conquerors, were great and memorable. I still hold El Cid as #1 Spaniard because of AoE, for instance.

[BigD145]

Dont know if someone said this, but Sins of a Solar Empire is pretty fun and managable.

No, not really. What would be fun is the love child of Sins, Homeworld, and Nexus.

[x2yzh9]

Nexus is a 4x? I thought all it was was battles?

[Sean Mirrsen]

SoaSE is a realtime 4X, Homeworld is a very well-designed space RTS, and Nexus has just about the flashiest graphics in a space game ever conceived. I guess the point of the above post was a conglomeration of these qualities, not styles specifically.

Personally, I'd like a 4X game where the ship design screen was borrowed from Robot Arena 2. Or hell, just Robot Arena 2 with guns and in space would be fun.

[MrWiggles]

Well, MoO3 lets you either manage a planet directly, or let the somewhat decent governor handle it. And you can direct the governors indirectly with various sliders.

But yea, I wouldn't suggest MoO3 though. Its a bit broken of a game really. The AI aren't able to do some key things. Ship combat favors missiles above all else. So instead of being about tactics, or style choices, it was missiles or else.

Though I think it did research better then MoO2. I found it annoying in MoO2 where you only searching one field, and one thing in that field. I much prefer MoO3 style, were everything was being researched at once, and you got break throughs semi regularly. Although, the random nature of which tech is, seems to be a hit or miss feature.

The planet habitability, I think were also better. I liked how it was a sliding scale between heat and (and I forgot the other thing), so each race could like each planet differently.

Going back to the ships, I think that MoO3 did a much better job at showing the different scale of the ships. It felt like a very nice milestone to have reached, when your ship design became the same size at the Anterians. Which just dwarfed your ships for a good part of the game.

The thing that really just kills MoO3 for me, and makes it an unplayable game, is the invisible Supply Line cost. The concept, I like. Its something along these lines; as your ships move out from your populated solar systems, they need support ships, to supply food, and fuel, and the further they go, the longer the supply line get. This length, also increase the cost.

I've gone bankrupt in the early game more then once, because I was to aggressive with my scouting. And then when I get a huge military up, I go bankrupt again, because I can't afford to move them out.

And I could never find out how much my supply lines were going to cost, or how much they were costing. And raising the military budget, and taxes like fucken crazy, couldn't cover it.


The thing with MoO3 that really killed it with me, was the invisible supply line cost.