What's your favorite and least favorite ao game

[Puppeteer12]

Title is self explanatory, say what your favorite and least favorite ao game and why, it could be for multiple reasons such as setting, factions, mechanics and etc. but if you only have played one, say what ao game you are most and least interested in playing next.

I start with mine, my favorite is fantasy and least favorite is ww2. I start with my favorite, I love the setting and has probably the most diverse factions out of the ao games but its suffers the most from balance issues such as how underpowered the undead and scalefolk are. For ww2 I don't have much to say, the factions and units are a bit samey for me ( no offense) but it does help with the balance.

[Hyuhjhih]

Same . Fantasy most and ww least.
Fantasy bcz of its theme and how each faction is clearly(to some extent) distinct for different gameplay style.
Ww because, I think it lags too much when compared to all other variants I tried(both public and dev version variants) plus, I'm not actually a 'world war' theme type player.

[makazuwr32]

I tried so far only 4 games.
AoS, from which i came to this community.
AoF, second game that i tried. Fantasy theme is also most easy to understand and has least amount of holy wars.
AoWW, tried it and tried to help with its development, but... Let's say we have way too different positions. To avoid any conflicts (since lots of info provided about some soviet and nazi weapons is some times completely opposite for me and for dev team of that time as well as completely different visions of same events) dropped. Do not like holy wars.
AoG, last game i tried, highly pre-alpha feeling.

Now about rankings:
1. AoF, obviously. I like that it has different races with unique gameplays. Each race has its own weaknesses and strengths and thta allows you to plan things well. I also took a very large part of developing aof into what it became right now.
From 100 points i will give it right now 79 (due to various unbalances existing and 2 major planned updates yet to work on). When everything we planned (major ones, not some various subs or extra units), it probably will go up to 90+.

2. AoS. Most interesting game after aof so far for me due to changes made by endru. Not playing online here though simply because do not have time for this game as well. Also helped here quite a lot, especially with some balance issues.
From 100 points i will give it 63. Mainly because i can't predict gameplay here as easy as in aof. Civilizations might make it more enjoyable for me up to 75+.

3. AoG. Quite promising game so far. Still too early to evaluate it highly but nonetheless it is interesting.
Fron 100 points i will give it 40 right now. Did not test it for 2 months though.

4. AoWW. My nightmare due to dissonance between history i know and story that is given in this game. Especially because one of my hobbies is to research a ww2 history (soviet-nazi front especially since it is my past but nonetheless i also research other countries). Gameplay wise it is better than aog but due to that part with history i can't evaluate it anywhere reasonable. Not that i can be objective here anyway — 2 of my grand grandfathers and 3 of my grand grandmothers died from nazi's hands.
From 100 points i will give it 44 points for gameplay and 2 for story. On average 23 points.

My ratings:
0-25 — unplayable for me;
26-50 — need to watch on it, somewhat interesting, but not high replayablility;
51-75 — good game, fun to play, definitely comes into my collection;
76-100 — best of the best games.

To compare — other games outside of ao-games in my evaluation (numbers only):

Strategies:
Heroes of might and magic 5 Tribes of the East — 97/100
HoMM 3 SoD — 87/100
HoMM 3 HotA — 94/100
Warcraft 2 — 91/100
Warcraft 3 — 89/100
Dune 2000 — 100/100
Cossacks 2 Battle for Europe — 95/100

Open RPG (and somewhat close to):
Borderlands — 69/100
Borderlands 2 — 77/100
Titan quest — 80/100
Grim Dawn — 88/100
Super Metroid — 93/100, various hacks to it have value for me from 28/100 up to 100/100
Metroid Fusion — 71/100, variohs hacks to it have value for me from 22/100 up to 94/100
Metroid Zero Mission — 79/100, various hacks to it have value for me from 11/100 up to 98/100
AM2R — 100/100, can't set score higher though
Call of Duty 2 — 57/100

Minecraft — varies from 51/100 to 99/100 depending on version, map and mods.

[godOfKings]

lol Dune 2000 u gave 100 point? that was one of my nightmare games, cuz in the last few missions i couldn't develop as fast as the enemies spam and always ended up losing in the end still story wise its one of the coolest games i played

[makazuwr32]

Well i finished game for all 3 factions.

Alas Ordos are my most favourite ones due to saboteurs.

[Stratego (dev)]

i think i only played tru Dune II, but was (and still is) one of my favourite games (with Age of Empires/Kings naturally )

[godOfKings]

Well i finished game for all 3 factions.

Alas Ordos are my most favourite ones due to saboteurs.

How do u finish it when u start of with a tiny army and a construction yard, and just after finishing refinery spams of enemies appear from 3 different directions and they keep coming and longer time passes, stronger enemies appear... It was nightmarish i didnt have enough time to make a big army to explore and start destroying enemy base, i was busy trying to make and keep alive a working defensive army until i either lost all resources or all units and just waited for my inevitable outcome.... Anyways only easy difficulty was actually easy, even normal difficulty was nightmare in the end and i didnt even try hard difficulty

[Hyuhjhih]

Umm? The title, guys....

[makazuwr32]

Well i finished game for all 3 factions.

Alas Ordos are my most favourite ones due to saboteurs.

How do u finish it when u start of with a tiny army and a construction yard, and just after finishing refinery spams of enemies appear from 3 different directions and they keep coming and longer time passes, stronger enemies appear... It was nightmarish i didnt have enough time to make a big army to explore and start destroying enemy base, i was busy trying to make and keep alive a working defensive army until i either lost all resources or all units and just waited for my inevitable outcome.... Anyways only easy difficulty was actually easy, even normal difficulty was nightmare in the end and i didnt even try hard difficulty

Rush for cosmic port and buy there stuff.
I did not try hard difficulty but on normal i passed through all campains. Alas not all maps from these campains were possible for me indeed.

[Squirrel5555]

Strategies:
Heroes of might and magic 5 Tribes of the East — 97/100
HoMM 3 SoD — 87/100
HoMM 3 HotA — 94/100

A man of culture!

[Hyuhjhih]

Welcome back squirrel 🐿. Almost 2 months have passed since you disappeared into a tree trunk.

[Aral_Yaren]

We are in the same boat, oh Stratego!

I was used to be highly active in AoE until late 2017, before burdens of colleague and work reality finally begun to star my skies. I even follow stream just to be in touch.

As for android rpg, I just tried the light offline games like Inotia 3&4, Zenonia 4 and Aurum Blade.

I'm not hyped with PS3 and 4 (perhaps just Tekken 7), in my youth PS2 still ruled at some point - yeah, only rich people could afford or rent PS3 back then. My favorite are (still as I still have the PS2 console from my birthday gift in 2004) Dynasty Warriors 5 and all its variant: the original, Empires, Xtreme Legend and Special. Harvest Moon A Wonderful Life and Yugi-Oh Duelist of the Roses are among the list, eventhough not that high.

As for the topic, I'm proud myself with AoS. Downloaded around June 2019 in fancy hope to find a justified mobile AoE and decided to join MP July 2020, and AoS soon became the only game I have until now.

What is great is that its turn-based mode is astoundingly suits my little off-time and I can take turn anytime preferred. The playstyle too is good, as I highly stress balance and equal resources players can develop. The community is very nice and informative, and less toxic if not at all - partly because such troll is unwanted in AoS, and we are eager to ban him from chatting profanities and other curses for the sake of AoS harmonious atmosphere. The game itself is highly fertile and alive, and talented persons just water this big tree to ripe more to more fruits, be it the Dev Stratego, our current design leader Endru, and other contributors that would be too much time consuming to list from the early start. I can give AoS 90/100, out of being objective that ones may argue, but for some philosophers, "objective is just depersonified version of subjective".

Months ago I tried to go with AoF and found it enjoyable. Tho as Maka and others already stated, rough balance is the Achilles tendon for it, that makes me not so found of it. But hey, there design leaders and contributors are working hard in it so yeah, bright shining sun may arise at the time. Until then, it's 75/100, tho again some philosophers had said on it.

The only Ao's I enjoy.