RTS can be tricky, especially older ones like AoE 2 DE which at its core is still a game from 1999 but remastered really well. But usually with some patience you can get there. :)

As for the missions and campaigns, they vary in difficulty. Campaigns have sword icons indicating their overall difficulty from 1 (easy) to 3 swords (hard) and missions themselves can be also played on Easy (or Standard as the game calls it).

Originally posted by FloosWorld:

RTS can be tricky, especially older ones like AoE 2 DE which at its core is still a game from 1999 but remastered really well. But usually with some patience you can get there. :)

As for the missions and campaigns, they vary in difficulty. Campaigns have sword icons indicating their overall difficulty from 1 (easy) to 3 swords (hard) and missions themselves can be also played on Easy (or Standard as the game calls it).

Hey thank you for the info, would you say that waiting and getting 4 is a better shout? I saw that it was pretty short on content though

Originally posted by ThinkOn:

Originally posted by FloosWorld:

RTS can be tricky, especially older ones like AoE 2 DE which at its core is still a game from 1999 but remastered really well. But usually with some patience you can get there. :)

As for the missions and campaigns, they vary in difficulty. Campaigns have sword icons indicating their overall difficulty from 1 (easy) to 3 swords (hard) and missions themselves can be also played on Easy (or Standard as the game calls it).

Hey thank you for the info, would you say that waiting and getting 4 is a better shout? I saw that it was pretty short on content though

Hey. good question. If you happen to have Gamepass, you can try out both games as they're included there.

Also, you can give AoE 3 a try here as it's the only game in the series on Steam to have a trial version. :)

It is beginner friendly with several basic tutorial scenarios (William Wallace campaign, Art of War Tutorials).
It is beginner friendly with tons of youtube guides on perfecting Dark Age, 800-1000 Elo coaching (advanced beginners) and so on.
It is not beginner friendly with a basically unlimited skill ceiling (in pvp). For campaigns this still means that you might fail the harder ones after 10 tries.

Edit: The logic that AoE4 is somehow superior because 4 is higher than 2 is a hard noob trap.

Originally posted by FloosWorld:

Originally posted by ThinkOn:

Hey thank you for the info, would you say that waiting and getting 4 is a better shout? I saw that it was pretty short on content though

Hey. good question. If you happen to have Gamepass, you can try out both games as they're included there.

Also, you can give AoE 3 a try here as it's the only game in the series on Steam to have a trial version. :)

Could do that, thank you. I don't currently use gamepass

Game itself runs well, but there are currently issues with pathfinding that are looked into.
AoE2 DE offers a lot of content for it's price, it was even better before they added 3 DLCs to the base game and increased its price.

Beginner friendly... well, as beginner friendly as a RTS game can be. You have several good in-game tutorials, and as AoE 2 is such a popular game hours and hours of guides on youtube, as well as several site with useful information.

So the genre as a whole isn't beginner friendly, AoE 2 has a better set of tutorials than most and better community support as video guides go (My personal favorite for breakdowns of things is SpiritOfTheLaw on youtube). The Age of Empires games are a bit slower than say, Starcraft or Grey Goo, which makes them more accessible, but they're still fast enough to cause problems when you don't know how yet. The developers have also recently added some features to make the game more beginner friendly, like giving your first scout auto-scout which, while less efficient than a lot of manual controls, is a lot more efficient than not being able to multitask while you learn how to handle an early game economy.
The PvP multiplayer is absolutely brutal to break into though. I've been playing Age of Empires games since 2002 and I'm still not very competitive. Coop multiplayer and related comp-stomps are relatively easy to get into if you ask around, especially since many of the most experienced players on that front are more than willing to help you learn and carry you if needed. I've learned a lot by playing with some of them.

Originally posted by FloosWorld:

As for the missions and campaigns, they vary in difficulty. Campaigns have sword icons indicating their overall difficulty from 1 (easy) to 3 swords (hard) and missions themselves can be also played on Easy (or Standard as the game calls it).

Correction, swords used to somewhat indicate difficulty, now it's quite abundantly clear they indicate complexity (as someone postulated, I think Ornlu?). Which doesn't necessarily indicate difficulty.

Generally, I think the OGs from Age of Kings and Conquerors should be played early on to get a feel for the gameplay.