[freehunter]

I haven't played AoE in over a decade, but looking at the original graphics in the article, it looks exactly like I remember. Nostalgia often is not kind to games we used to love (haven't played Goldeneye/Perfect Dark in a while? Don't bother), but AoE, even looking like a 1997 game, still looks just fine.

Maybe it's because so many F2P mobile games copied their art style directly so it looks like it could be a mobile RTS from 2015 that's kept that art style so relevant.

[moron4hire]

Yeah, Goldeneye/Perfect Dark are pretty bad (though being a PlayStation kid, my primary experience was TimeSplitters, but they're all practically the same game), but that's more for the controls than the graphics. We kind of take FPS controls for granted these days (and when modern games like PUBG make crouch C instead of the Most Natural and Just CTRL, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth), but it was far from a solved problem 20 years ago.

But the RTS genre has literally not changed at all since AoE. The big question in my mind is: is AoE a universal truth, or are RTS developers lazy?

[alnitak]

Have you tried SC2? It requires some getting into, but the dynamics of the game and the relationships between different races and the tech tree is very well thought out (a well timed upgrade allows you to kill a given unit in 2 shots instead of 3, changing the balance dramatically).

In many ways, as an AoE1&2 fan, I find SC2 a good continuation of some of the best aspects of the RTS genre that requires both a tactical and strategic mind.