The civilizations play more diverse than those of AoE2 so even with just 8, there is a lot to learn. So if you like the changes from AoE1 to AoE2 then you might like AoE4 -) But then again different enough to be AoE4. However, after putting these things aside, I love how they have adapted the AoE2 concepts. In addition, I like the art-style of AoE2 a bit better. I found that much better with the classic dimetric projection. Sometimes you have to move to camera to another position, just to be able to click on a unit. So you can actually play the game without turning the camera, but what I don't like is the perspective. Of course the sales have decreased in quality since then, but so too has the number of games I want to play, and the time I can spend doing it.Д«eing a big AoE2 fan myself (pre-ordered the original version back in the day), I think you should try it.ДЇor me, there is one major downside: The camera. I for one absolutely have more money than I once did, but to be honest I stopped pirating long before that in '09 or '10, once I realized that the then-ridiculous Humble Bundles and Steam sales reduced the actual expenditure required from 'gotta save up' to a mere 'gotta skip buying takeout tonight'. 'If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable.' Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem,' he said. 'We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. It doesn't take much in terms of providing a better service to make pirates a non-issue.вЂќ вЂњRussia now outside of Germany is our largest continental European market The people who are telling you that Russians pirate everything are the people who wait six months to localize their product into Russia. This makes me think of GabeN's 2011 commentary on expanding Steam into notoriously hax0r-infested Russia: the smart money scoffed at the prospect, keenly aware that the Russkies will just steal your product and why not make it that much harder for them to get their hands on it?

> Anecdote: some one else's account of this was that it was really helpful because the Linux portion of the community (while much smaller than other segments) provided consistently high quality feedback/bug reports. I don't think any company is good or bad but Valve's offer to game devs is a pretty decent one. The list of things that benefits the users is also pretty big (steam sales). That's what I can think off the top of my head benefits the game developers. These are useful for game devs who iterate on their formula (most use achievements to see what percent of a user base does X). They process payments (PayPal charges ~3% for this, Stripe is 2.9%)ДЁ.

They allow you to generate steam keys (at no cost to you) and sell them on your own website.Д§. Provide networking and social integration (chat, anti-cheat, friends, etc).Д¦. Have one of the better VR abstraction layers for game devs.ДҐ. They host content at edge so downloads are super fast.Д¤. They distribute the content all across the world and handle region specific laws about what can be sold, etc. Host downloads of games (sometimes 100s of GBs). They provide a community forum for your users.Дў. They manage the most popular games store in the western world.ДЎ. Valve does quite a bit more than just proton.Д .

Age of empires 2 ports