Rob Zacny Posted June 12 Three Moves Ahead 651: Age of Empires II in 2026 feat. Hera Len and DM are joined by the current Age of Empires II world champion, Hera, to discuss the state of the game in 2026. We try to explain its longevity, examine what it takes to be a top-level esports player, and discuss Hera's streamer invitational tournament, The King's Gauntlet. Age of Empires II, Age of Empires III, Warcraft 3, Starcraft 2, Starcraft: Brood War Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
barahir Posted 21 hours ago Good episode. I think one reason for why AoE2 has gotten bigger and not the others in the series is the theme. First the simple fact that people like castles, knights, trebuchets, etc and some want a more grounded take on it than Warcraft-style fantasy. The aesthetics of the middle ages still have a natural appeal to people even today, as we can see with LotR and Game of Thrones as two of the biggest new media IPs post-AoE2 (yeah I know the LotR books and part of ASoIaF came first). Also more substantially it's a setting where the counter units just make intuitive sense - a pike beats a knight, a skirmisher with a shield beats a lightly armored archer, rams can absorb arrows but get torn apart in melee, etc. In a lot of RTSes the counter units are more obscure, like gun type A beats gun type B because the game requires it (Age 3 suffers from this to some extent). Things do get a little more obscure with some of Age 2's unique units, but at least with the generic units the counter relationships are generally clean and easy to grasp which makes learning the game more inviting. AoE4 has a similar theme of course, so that is not the only reason for 2's popularity over the others and isn't exclusive with the other reasons given. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
