Age of Empires: Definitive Edition

I bought this new version because I felt nostalgic and wanted to play AoE again, but this is way too difficult. Even the easy difficulty is often too hard and there are some campaigns that are extremely frustrating to win. It's true I'm not an expert and talented player, but I played the original game in the past as a child/teen and I remember it being challenging but still enjoyable. Now, it's a crazy anxious run against an AI that's too quick at developing, attacking and wiping out my villages. I don't really expect the devs to make the game easy and ruin the experience for people who look for hard challenges, but I'd like for them to take into consideration those players who simply want to play at a slower pace and I'd appreciate it if they could make the easy difficulty easy for real... and also improve the AI's moves because, as other people also said, is very bad.

The first PC game I ever played. Thanks Grandpa for sitting me down and teaching me the ropes. I will always cherish the memories of playing this with you

I expected a lot more from this release... The unit pathfinding is disgusting and it's disappointing to see a classic game that I grew up with receive so little attention and care other than the graphics overhaul. I hate the soulless UI btw. This game has so much potential but after playing AoE2: DE, it feels like a nightmare. I understand that the developers probably wanted to preserve the original experience but I think they could have implemented some of the QOL improvements from AoE2: DE without making people cry. If someone truly wants the original experience with archaic unit collision and pathfinding (IIRC, it wasn't this bad in the original.), they can always run Win 98 in a VM and play the original version instead. TL;DR: It's a boomer cash grab and I don't recommend it.

Very little chance of having casual fun with this. I purchased this for a little bit of nostalgia and wanted to have a RTS fun building bases, playing with tech trees, finding out about units (again), building the armies I fancied. So I did what I often do with RTS and stared the campaign on easy. It's a non stop grind fest against a relentless AI. This is NOTHING like the original game (which was, perhaps, too easy). All I've done in the early stages is try to stay alive. They come at you constantly from the early game without you even starting to agro them. They have near perfect resource management and rebuild their base immediately whilst you struggle to keep your last watchtower up. If I wanted a game where I needed god level micro management, I'd hop on Starcraft II multiplayer and select the Korean servers. What doesn't help is that, whilst they've 'updated' the AI, your own units remain dumb as a tree stump. Just like the original, they wonder off to die, they can't path, they wiggle about instead of attacking properly. Yes, I could probably work out 'a tactic' to improve my resource management and then a unit type that let me cheese the game to win scenarios. But I'm more into the 'builder' side of RTS and there's really no fun in that for me. So what you have is a reissue of a classic title with 'reworked' enemy AI but none of the old jank removed. I'd rather just play the original. No woo loooo looo for me.

I've been playing the original game "too much" over the years and finally decided to try this Definitive Edition out, with high expectations. After now completing the whole compaign and playing 12 or so skirmishes I'll give my honest review. Visually and graphic wise it looks good, the maps looks pretty and the music is also good. Playing through the campaign was both enjoyable and annoying at the same time. Most of the maps are perfectly re-created, some with minor changes and other are entirely re-made, and I've no complains about that. Most of them are very well created. Now the main issue is the AI, as they've this incredibly annoying habit of giving up whenever they feel like it, and because of this most of the missions objectives are pointless because the AI will give up before you can even complete them. It completely ruined the experience for me. Somehow they managed to make the pathfinding way worse then it used to be? Units keep getting stuck in each other, villagers bumping into each other, etc. It didn't used to be this bad at all. If it stopped here I would still leave a positive review, but unfortunately when it comes to playing Random Maps against AIs it's straight up not fun at all. The AI is extremely player aggressive, even if you play a 2vs2vs2vs2 Gigantic maps you'll find 5 of the enemy AIs just constantly attacking you from all possible flanks, ignoring each other completely. And of course, they know where everything you possess is all the time. It's this bad even on lower difficulties like Standard, the difference is barely there between the different difficulties. Making the AIs super player aggressive is like adding rubber-banding to a racing game, it's not how you make a game challenging and it's a perfect proof of developers not knowing how to make good AI at all. The pace is also so bad, you're forced to rush up the ages and attempt to rush someone down to not getting rushed down yourself. In the original game you could afford to have some battle on Tool age, then Bronze age and finally going Iron age without rushing. Here you're forced to rush Iron age to not die quickly. There's only 1 way of playing it, not the near infinite options in the original game. They also still haven't learned how to make good AI strategies, as they keep leaving out important upgrades for them. Pretty sure the AI is also cheating with the resources even on lower difficulties. All-in-all the game looks good on the outside but unfortunately isn't as fun to play. Could be worth buying when it's on a -75% sale though. I'll go back to playing the good ol' classic instead of this failure.

[h1]我去除了原版的贴图和UI，但我故意不小心保留了战役模式的50人口限制，死妈的关卡设计与AI难度，部队的弱智寻路与碰撞堵路，令人作呕的微操，这样你才能知道这是原汁原味的帝国时代初代，才能在打通本作之后自称老资历与惊人的老人。[/h1]

Resumindo esse jogo brevemente * Meu aldeão foi devorado por um leão * Esqueci de fazer casa e fiquei travado em população, mas corrigi * Meu exército de 3 homens foi humilhado por um cara só (Nunca esqueci isso) 10 minutos depois: * Já to xingando em hieróglifo * Construí 12 fazendas e ainda to sem comida * Meu império parece uma vila do interior em 1998 Mas aí… Eu ganhei uma batalha…uma UNICA batalha pode ser pequena e sofrida mas ganhei. E pronto. Meu cérebro automaticamente: “Eu sou Júlio César!!!!!!”

If you play RTS games to "feel" the weight of history rather than just to click fast, this is a must-play. It strips away the complexity of modern titles to focus on the core appeal: building a legacy from the dust. It’s a slow, rhythmic, and deeply nostalgic celebration of the cultures that started it all. I believe it isn’t just a game about war; it’s a game about the persistence of culture and the rise of humanity.

Campaigns force you to use the highly unwelcome "remastered" soundtrack and new graphics. UI is now lifeless like all the rest of the AoE "Definitves". HD graphics makes the game prone to stutters, and of course, there ARE revisions to certain facets of the game (go ahead, guess) -- so you're NOT actually getting the 100% original experience. Finally, why is this 150 mb game now 12gb? If you're really DYING to play AoE1 like in the good old days, go for it, I guess.