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AoEII has fantastic pathfinding. That and the formation system was the game's secret sauce. In early RTS games like Warcraft, half the game was micromanaging y

AoEII has fantastic pathfinding. That and the formation system was the game's secret sauce. In early RTS games like Warcraft, half the game was micromanaging your units from place to place. You'd send your army to a location, and if there was an obstacle in the way (such as a forest), they'd awkwardly path around the edges of it, one tile at a time (causing massive congestion, because the units at the front would obstruct the ones behind). They'd arrive at their destination one by one, and if the enemy was waiting, they'd get slaughtered. In Age of Empires II, your army would arrive in a solid mass. It was a relief: you could actually play the game, instead of babysitting a bunch of units.

adastra22 3y ago
Habadakus.
- stodor89 3y ago
  prostagma
  - imiric 3y ago
    Vulome. Etimos. Pani. Wololooo <3
calvinmorrison 3y ago
Much improved. AoM has some buggy pathfinder edge cases still but its enough that its an annoyance not a mainstay.
rollcat 3y ago
> In early RTS games like Warcraft, half the game was micromanaging your units from place to place. This is probably the most annoying aspect of StarCraft 1 / BroodWar (1998), considering the game still has a very strong player base and is very enjoyable to watch (even if the clunky mechanics are too much to bear for me to play it). > You'd send your army to a location, and if there was an obstacle in the way (such as a forest), they'd awkwardly path around the edges of it, one tile at a time (causing massive congestion, because the units at the front would obstruct the ones behind). They'd arrive at their destination one by one, and if the enemy was waiting, they'd get slaughtered. In SC1, they wouldn't even arrive on location half the time, because the pathfinding is so stupid they'd get stuck trying to walk up a wall. It's so infamously bad it's still being mocked: https://youtu.be/mCEZ2hIcUW0?t=134 https://youtu.be/mCEZ2hIcUW0?t=134 - still, a great game! In SC2 (2010), the pathfinding has been massively improved. You can give orders to hundreds of units and they will all figure out how to navigate complex terrain. They will still clump up at chokepoints or occasionally get a bit stupid when trying to path around other units that are engaged in a fight but this is more easily fixable with even a tiny bit of micro. However SC2 makes no attempt to make units maintain formation. So if you're moving your army across the map, still best to keep an eye on it, and group up / pre-split / set up before attacking. It's a bit less of an APM game, and more of an SPM (screens per minute) game.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  It is amazing how well Age of Empires 2 aged. My regular gaming crew likes RTS sometimes, usually AoE2. So, we decided to try out some Brood War, since it was the decidedly superior RTS 20 years ago. Could barely finish the game! All the comforts they’ve added to AoE2 over time (bigger viewport and better graphics mostly) and the grouping/pathfinding made us spoiled. I played a ton of StarCraft growing up and it definitely has a high rank in the pantheon of games, but I’ve been converted to AoE2 I guess. Wololo.
  - rollcat 3y ago
    Blame the pro players! When SC Remastered (released 2016) was under development, they specifically protested changing literally any single thing impacting the gameplay, including resolution (the 16:9 aspect ratio can be toggled back to 4:3). They were all rightfully scared of the remaster having very little support moving forward, and getting stuck with new bugs that upset 18 years of accumulated "balance" (as in: everyone figured out how to play around the existing bugs and the game converged on a ~50% winrate in all 6 matchups). I think it was the right call, considering (unlike the AoE series) that SC has always had very asymmetric factions and matchups. It's very easy to make a trivial "fix" and wreck that balance, leaving a significant part of the pro player community with no tournament wins = no income.
- rvba 3y ago
  StarCraft Brood War worked on computers with 16MB of RAM. The game was incredibly impressive when it came out: technically, graphically, sound, single player, multi player, map editor with a custom programming language that allowed to make very complicated maps (there are tens of thousands of them, including custom maps with own minigames). On top of that the game was just nice to play in both single and multiplayer - where it had great balance of 3 distinct factions. SC:BW is a game from 1998 yet still probably the best RTS ever. And it worked on machines back then.
  - rollcat 3y ago
    > a custom programming language You mean the trigger/action system in StarEdit? I wouldn't call it a programming language, but it was a very nice introduction to scripting, especially for me as a 10yro kid at the time. I probably owe a bit of my career to it.

adastra22 3y ago

Habadakus.

stodor89 3y ago
prostagma
- imiric 3y ago
  Vulome. Etimos. Pani. Wololooo <3

calvinmorrison 3y ago

Much improved. AoM has some buggy pathfinder edge cases still but its enough that its an annoyance not a mainstay.

rollcat 3y ago

> In early RTS games like Warcraft, half the game was micromanaging your units from place to place. This is probably the most annoying aspect of StarCraft 1 / BroodWar (1998), considering the game still has a very strong player base and is very enjoyable to watch (even if the clunky mechanics are too much to bear for me to play it). > You'd send your army to a location, and if there was an obstacle in the way (such as a forest), they'd awkwardly path around the edges of it, one tile at a time (causing massive congestion, because the units at the front would obstruct the ones behind). They'd arrive at their destination one by one, and if the enemy was waiting, they'd get slaughtered. In SC1, they wouldn't even arrive on location half the time, because the pathfinding is so stupid they'd get stuck trying to walk up a wall. It's so infamously bad it's still being mocked: https://youtu.be/mCEZ2hIcUW0?t=134 https://youtu.be/mCEZ2hIcUW0?t=134 - still, a great game! In SC2 (2010), the pathfinding has been massively improved. You can give orders to hundreds of units and they will all figure out how to navigate complex terrain. They will still clump up at chokepoints or occasionally get a bit stupid when trying to path around other units that are engaged in a fight but this is more easily fixable with even a tiny bit of micro. However SC2 makes no attempt to make units maintain formation. So if you're moving your army across the map, still best to keep an eye on it, and group up / pre-split / set up before attacking. It's a bit less of an APM game, and more of an SPM (screens per minute) game.

bee_rider 3y ago
It is amazing how well Age of Empires 2 aged. My regular gaming crew likes RTS sometimes, usually AoE2. So, we decided to try out some Brood War, since it was the decidedly superior RTS 20 years ago. Could barely finish the game! All the comforts they’ve added to AoE2 over time (bigger viewport and better graphics mostly) and the grouping/pathfinding made us spoiled. I played a ton of StarCraft growing up and it definitely has a high rank in the pantheon of games, but I’ve been converted to AoE2 I guess. Wololo.
- rollcat 3y ago
  Blame the pro players! When SC Remastered (released 2016) was under development, they specifically protested changing literally any single thing impacting the gameplay, including resolution (the 16:9 aspect ratio can be toggled back to 4:3). They were all rightfully scared of the remaster having very little support moving forward, and getting stuck with new bugs that upset 18 years of accumulated "balance" (as in: everyone figured out how to play around the existing bugs and the game converged on a ~50% winrate in all 6 matchups). I think it was the right call, considering (unlike the AoE series) that SC has always had very asymmetric factions and matchups. It's very easy to make a trivial "fix" and wreck that balance, leaving a significant part of the pro player community with no tournament wins = no income.
rvba 3y ago
StarCraft Brood War worked on computers with 16MB of RAM. The game was incredibly impressive when it came out: technically, graphically, sound, single player, multi player, map editor with a custom programming language that allowed to make very complicated maps (there are tens of thousands of them, including custom maps with own minigames). On top of that the game was just nice to play in both single and multiplayer - where it had great balance of 3 distinct factions. SC:BW is a game from 1998 yet still probably the best RTS ever. And it worked on machines back then.
- rollcat 3y ago
  > a custom programming language You mean the trigger/action system in StarEdit? I wouldn't call it a programming language, but it was a very nice introduction to scripting, especially for me as a 10yro kid at the time. I probably owe a bit of my career to it.