Why Are There No Empires in Age of Empires? (2019)

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• Hacker News
• I think annihilation is a property of how we played the game and not of the game itself. I get that the game was designed around it, but there's nothing stopping players in a Free For All from subduing an enemy into slavery instead of wiping them out, some may call this an ally. In fact, it's probably the optimal strategy, annihilating might be a pyrrhic victory, where one player is knocked out, and the 'victor' is left with half an army. The only winner in that situation are the rest of the players who are now better than the two players.

  Except NvN games, I except FFA and 2v2v2v2 games to show elements of empires, it's only games with two sides where minmax becomes a viable strategy and damaging the enemy is the same as strengthening yourself.

  by TZubiri
• I have never played an AoE game. In Civ, though, if you’re not at least considering conquering other players' cities and adding them to your country you may be playing the game wrong. Sure, in Civ 6 you can win on science, culture, religion, or economics. Conquest is still one method of winning, and those cities you conquer are not your subjects until they are. Cities along a border can even choose to switch loyalty based on your culture’s influence overriding theirs.

  The Master of Orion series includes mechanics for your conquered planets being less productive at first if they are mostly peopled by an alien race. In the WG reboot at least, there’s even a government agency you can build on a planet to get it to assimilate faster. It also supports the idea of low-morale planets rebelling.

  by cestith
• Well, sure, and there's also a 200 population limit per player (in Age of Empires 2, at least). And no day-night cycle or seasons. These are clearly intentional choices to capture the vibes of economic and military conflict while massively compacting the scale of true historical conflict.
  by tshaddox
• I married into a family who basically only plays AOE properties. The parents in their 70s have played since the first version and now play AOE2 3-5 hour games every Sunday after family zoom with their son and his wife. Their two daughters are more devoted to AOM (Mythology) but can play AOE2 very well.
  by angmarsbane
• this guy is a huge dork. I love it. I read to the end and was treated to his analysis on BSG main batteries.

  https://acoup.blog/2019/11/29/collections-where-does-my-main...

  by gorfian_robot
• I think Rise of Nations (an amazing spiritual successor to the original AoE games) fits their definition of empire a lot better. You create multiple cities in your “empire”. The ones at the core naturally grow larger and prosperous, while peripheral ones generally have specific uses like training a military or mining resources. You can also capture cities from neighboring civilizations.
  by paxys
• Wow, that’s actually really interesting. I knew of other empires in this shape (to me the Kushan empire is the most obvious syncretic example) but I didn’t know they were all shaped this way. I suppose I always imagined empire being a bigger thing than kingdom but this definition seems more useful. It seems that other definitions don’t involve resource extraction necessarily but power over multiple nations. Still, it’s a useful frame.

  In practice I suppose this must have been the case because you can’t easily impose monocultures especially when information travels slowly.

  That makes me curious if military tactics of the time also had regional variation and if the relative strengths of various regions came from their awareness of certain tools being effective. Bringing in a foreign army with its foreign techniques might have been like bringing small pox to a population- they’d have no defense the first time around so if you’re fast you get them all.

  Altogether an enjoyable read. Thanks.

  by arjie
• For those who aren’t aware, AOE2 is thriving today with a huge player base, fan base, ongoing development and large international tournaments (recent Red Bull Wololo tournament in London, for example). I play this game regularly with friends and love it.
  by fylham