David_J_Rogers

Perhaps there could be counter-formations, it could be the same concept as counter-units although it would depend on your formation. Hence, if a player's army was surrounded by enemies and reverted to a "box formation", they would receive more HP/ defense as well as a small damage bonus if actually surrounded by units. And the other player could counter the formation by micromanaging units, or the use of another formation if disadvantaged. For instance, a spearman will more than likely win against cavalry due to the distance the spearman can strike and the vulnerability of the cavalry. However, if there are many spearman against a handful of cavalry - say the player sets his spearman in the wrong formation and hence, loses many more units than they intended to, or completely loses it. I don't know how that could be implemented in code, but I could also see this as being a bad idea in some ways.

Maybe if you go into the Nomad gametype for a map, you have a cart that can kind of do everything. If it unpacks, like Hephaestion said, it will create a miniature town center. Thus the player can build buildings that would be found in a traditional style of gameplay. Once the resources in that area are depleted, again like Hephaestion said, they could repack their town center and keep their buildings there to create a new base elsewhere. Maybe for the nomad gameplay there would be primitive buildings as well as a limited amount of buildings since nomads moved where there was food.

Micro-transactions are unfortunately in the future for several games. The newer generation consoles are a prime example of it. For instance, I have Fortza Motorsport 5 on my Xbox One and one of the cars for online racing requires that you win an INSANE amount of races (that means coming in first) in order to get this car - alternatively you can pay I think it was $30 and above to get the car automatically. It's usually the Publishers that aim to make the most money out of it rather than the developers at points. Of course they could have done the HD re-touch up for free, however, that would be very unlikely. Developers are unfortunately losing a bit of money because of things like used games, borrowing games, and/or piracy. Thus, they have to find a way to make all of that money they are losing to things like that back so they do not go out of business. Remember the music industry problem back in the early 2000s because tons of people were downloading hit music illegally that really hit the music industry hard? This is KIND OF similar, although the only difference is there is constant and rapid growth in the video game industry - so it is not that great a problem, but it still is a problem. The Video Game industry alone is expected to grow 22% in worth by 2017. I just recently took a GSP class in September of 2013, so my mind is really fresh on this, and I also did a paper on it. Hence, they will continue to charge $20+ for a simple HD graphics amp and improvements of a lot of features, while also restoring the multiplayer, because money is involved. And quite honestly, the cycles that developers work now, they deserve good pay. I mean, some full feature games come out every year - let that sink in on how many programmers and artists are involved day-to-day with that. Anyway, that was an off-topic subject I wanted to get into. Either or, I encourage the idea of Age Of Empires on mobile devices, although they would really have to water it down from the original games in order for it to play smoothly and with an easy user interface.

Lol. Sorry, I'm just now finding this out. I completely didn't even have any sort of knowledge about it until just now.

You can really see it at the end of the video when he presses to view the entire cover art for it. I think it is coming for sure.

Hey guys!! The other day, I was watching this recording of the Age of Empires II: HD remake stream, and I found something that may interest all of us. That's right, it's not that we found out that zombies actually exist.. nor is it the successful cloning of a dinosaur.. It's... Age of Mythology: Extended Edition - a remake that is planned to come out on steam in the near future with expansions to the original game. Here is the link, you can view the layout for that game at 44:15 when he is hitting the keyboard. http://www.twitch.tv/ageofempires/b/507086933 EDIT: I just found a trailer of it on Youtube guys, it is definitely official. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I9YFelMWMU#t=49

Man, with Games For Windows Live taking Age of Empires Online down in July, I was down about who was going to step up and make the next AoE - and figured they had to give up on it since the break-apart of Ensemble Studios and the scattering of all the original developers of the game. Nonetheless, I am still happy to see they are still trying to keep it alive. Even if it is a mobile version, maybe this one might make enough money to set forth the next AoE?

A debuff is actually a good idea. Maybe the debuff could also apply to other heroes in the area making their abilities a little debuffed as well including their Aura-effects?

Either or, I still think the Heroes should have some characteristics that shift the tide of gameplay when a player versus another player, or multiple players/ AI face off. Maybe not too powerful to the point of where a Hero with an army can single handedly beat an army without a hero - I still think the gameplay should be balanced in that way that strategy must be emphasized. Perhaps when a hero dies, the army will lose a sense of morale at their fallen leader in game, and will try to flee or have their hp reduced by a percentage. That could be a game changer. I don't know if that could be correctly implemented though.

It is great to know that my expansion of this gentleman's idea is being considered. Makes me feel like I'm helping. I think any unit can be a hero, but I think per team, they should be limited to 3 heroes. Because having too many heroes would throw off the balance of the game. You can have several options in making a unit a hero, such as making a counter-infantry a hero, making a base infantry a hero, or a cavalry unit a hero - then you can expand on that idea and have the units name change to a great historical leader. Perhaps the heroes, for a price in resources, would have a larger amount of HP, include a special ability (might be too overpowered with this idea), and has an area effect of increasing attack/ defense to nearby soldiers.

Perhaps the use of heroes would be a tad overpowered in a way though. Since this game is heavily based off of the Age of Mythology game, I would suggest that we grab an idea from AoM: Titans Expansion using the Atlantean Civ as an example - where any unit can be made into a hero and multiple heroes can be made at a certain cap. Or perhaps you can get a regular unit to change into a historical hero and for each civilization's different units there would be a different heroes for each type of military unit for each civilization.

I do have a question though. Are there really good exercises to do that will improve my writing with computer code? I mean, basic exercises. If not I'll continue learning about it and figuring it out.

Thanks a bunch, Josh, those are really good. With this much help, it is likely I'll be ready to help soon. Hopefully.

Yeah, I have chrome but I honestly haven't used it a lot lately. The new IE has actually proven to me to go a little faster or the same speed as chrome. Anyway, I am making progress. I hope I can join very soon.

I am making some "progress", I guess you could say. Lol. It took me a while to figure out there were differences in the code other than the tutorial.

I see. Thanks for helping me guys. All of your inputs really open up my mind. I got a lot of sources to look up now. I've taken some notes on a few tutorials and there are a few books in my University store to check out on the topics too. I should be able to help you guys in no time. I'm excited. Since I am a student, I am lucky to have access to Microsoft Visual Studio for free. Oh yeah!

My friend back in Arizona is in the same program as I am. But he already knows how to write scripts and stuff in Java and C++. I can never get a hold of him though. I'm trying to see of my university has some books I can get early. They usually have the latest books on writing code.

What is your opinion on this site? Will it teach me enough? http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/introduction/

I like that there is a lot of good responses. It makes me feel welcomed. Thanks you guys, does anyone have a particularly great tutorial source for writing code? Or am I on my own with that. I checked the web and there seems to be a lot of good ones. Thanks again.

Sweet. Will do. I am looking into them right now. I am so excited to learn and help you guys out. I appreciate all the pointers and I will see if I can write some basic code soon and soon hopefully some more advanced code. I don't own a Linux OS, I run Windows 8 on my phone and on my computer. I dont know of that limits me or not as to what I can do with writing code.

A lot to take in for me. But thanks for helping me out you guys. I really appreciate it. I'll get straight to it.

Anything you see fit to give me I will work my best. I just need to learn to write some code is all. Preferably, I would like to start with basics and move on up. If there is anything you all can give me to get started as soon as possible, I will get to work on it so I can make some productive contributions soon.

Hello Guys, I emailed the developers of this game a while ago. My name is David James Rogers. I am 19 years old and I am currently majoring in Game and Simulation Programming at DeVry University in Long Beach, California. I want to help out since I am going to be a programmer myself in the near future. Concerning my knowledge of programming, I know little to nothing about writing code in C++ and Java. I just started going to College in September soon after I graduated High School and my first GSP class only used Game Maker Pro - which if other programmers know, is not exactly writing code, but takes away the writing of code to make a game. I wanted to get ahead of my class and go ahead and try to help all of the other programmers here. Again, I do not know much, and I understand if you other programmers don't want to teach me on top of writing the code for this game. But, I am willing to learn and I will work hard once I do learn to do this while also keeping up with my school work. I will be happy to help however I can. And getting some real experience with programming early on will help me out in the future. Thanks for reading, and I hope you guys will accept my help.