AOE3 Forums

FAQ
1) Why ask Sandy?
A - he was lead design on Warchiefs, The Conquerors, and Rise of Rome, plus he's an affable, well-read guy. Also he's been in the electronic game industry for 18 years. Before that he was in the paper game industry (primarily RPGs) for 8 years.

2) Can Sandy get Age 3 to run on my machine?
A - he is just a designer. You'd need a help desk guy for that.

3) Can Sandy fix ESO?
A - he leaves ESO issues up to the ESO team.

4) What about Halo Wars?
A - he can't and won't say more about that than is already released by ES.

5) Why won't he answer my question?
A - perhaps he already has. Look in the Ask Sandy archives - your question, or one very like it, might be there.

6) I looked through every single archive and my question was never ever asked before. So why won't he answer it?
A - he reserves the right to arbitrarily fail to answer any question. It's not like he's getting paid to do this, after all.

7) So why does he do it?
A - he loves you guys. In a totally platonic way that would never interest anyone from Human Resources, of course. [Edited on 10/31/2006]

Sandy, what do you think of the russian empire, (before USSR) and do you think that they were a world class power before the USSR?

1) When ES changed Dutch Extensive Taxation (Age V, Capitol Tech), did it intend to boost or nerf it? A- look the Dutch get the same excessive taxation as every other civ, PLUS they get an increase in the number of banks. Obviously they have the best excessive taxation in the game.

Does it still effect bank gather rate?

No, it doesn't. That is my point.

1) When ES changed Dutch Extensive Taxation (Age V, Capitol Tech), did it intend to boost or nerf it? A- look the Dutch get the same excessive taxation as every other civ, PLUS they get an increase in the number of banks. Obviously they have the best excessive taxation in the game.

Look. Before the Xpack, it was just like everyone Taxation AND also increased Banks gather rate by 50%, which could mean +4 Banks (assuming you got all 8 - which is a very obvious assumption in Imperial Age, also considerating Decks can get up to 25 cards).

Now, it allows you to build more 2 Banks. After all, we can pretty much say their Extensive Taxation was nerfed by 2 Banks. What I would like to know is if this was an intended result or ES accidentally removed the +50% bank gather rate.

So, did ES want to get Dutch Extensive Taxation nerfed in the Xpack, or it was just a mistake? Any other reason for such change?

That doesn't really make a big difference, no one really cares about Imperial balance apart from some exceptions. Though, I don't see why would ES intentionally nerf Dutch at this point. [Edited on 10/31/2006]

Sandy, you said that preferences are same in x-pac as in AoEIII.I compared boxes and they do have same preferences, but why's then x-pack running slower than AoEIII.

And why are you counting down?This is ask Sandy XX=20.The previous was 21(Drinking age!). [Edited on 10/31/2006]

The description of the Aztec coyote runner says they kill skrims and artillery. This is in a sense not true. You normaly loose a lot of coyotes from artillery before you get close enough to attack the cannons. I have the card "silent strike" and thats when the coyotes actually work very very well against artillery. If a cannon opens fire on a coyote at max range they are alomst as good as dead unless they are stealthed. So my question is why are they not very resistant to artillery fire because cavalry are very resistent to it and aren't coyote runners supposed to be very similar to cavalry. I am just asking and not critizing your job at warchiefs, i think it is great and you did and very nice job.


P.S. To all of you who are saying regan was a bad president you are very very wrong. [Edited on 10/31/2006]

Posted by: Archy_of_CALIFORNIA The description of the Aztec coyote runner says they kill skrims and artillery. This is in a sense not true. You normaly loose a lot of coyotes from artillery before you get close enough to attack the cannons. I have the card "silent strike" and thats when the coyotes actually work very very well against artillery. If a cannon opens fire on a coyote at max range they are alomst as good as dead unless they are stealthed. So my question is why are they not very resistant to artillery fire because cavalry are very resistent to it and aren't coyote runners supposed to be very similar to cavalry. I am just asking and not critizing your job at warchiefs, i think it is great and you did and very nice job. P.S. To all of you who are saying regan was a bad president you are very very wrong.

Coyote runners take ONE pop. Thats why.

Why did you like the original Beowulf more than John Gardner's Grendel?

Likest thou onion rings? Are there many of them to be found in Texas?

How are trips for ES members organized? For example, if you were going to Germany to talk about ES' latest game, how many days warning would you have, and would it be fully paid?

Do ES members take vacations a fair amount of the time?

How come Ottomans don't have any new Level 40 cards in Warchiefs?

Would you happen to know how life was in the Ottoman Empire for a British merchant newly arrived in Istanbul, let's say? Wouldn't there have been strict regulations upon foreigners like him, and much fierce economic competition due to Italian interests in the region, and perhaps Spanish interest too?

Nothing new planned for the Aztecs, single-player wise? :S

How come the Aztecs get so few buildings? One would have expected the mighty Aztec Empire to be mighty in terms of more than mere soldiers, but in having a huge city/town in-game as well as in terms of its HC, no? Just as Europeans can build large cities/towns in-game?

Nerf Cetan Bows. It DOES NOT MAKE SENSE spending so much time to make the Sioux historically accurate, such as making them a nomadic cavalry civilization... and then screwing all that up by giving them the best ranged infantry in the game. The Iroquois and Aztec should have much better infantry.

What is your favourite all-time video game?

Posted by: Mithrandirdragon How come Ottomans don't have any new Level 40 cards in Warchiefs?

I believe SANDY has answered this question like 20 times now and the answer is they get the same amount as everyone else. check the last ask sandy thread its still posted.