Originally Posted by NodachiSam
I just spent like four hours trying to get the AOE III trial version to install and after playing it for 30 to 60 minutes I uninstalled it. I was incredibly dissapointed with it. It sure is pretty, but it is still an AOE game. I bought and played all the AOE games up to Age of mythology (though I didn't get its addon) before I tried STW. It can't hold a candle up to a TW game in enjoyability.
AOE is just a click fest. There is little tactical strategy and I don't think I could go back to a RTS game now. There is no morale (which is huge), no elevation is considered (as far as I can tell), exhaustion isn't considered, formations arn't considered. Certain troops are better at killing other troops but that is it.
I remember the first AOE being advertised with "build you empire!" or something like that but it clearly isn't. You get no sense of building a society or political empire. There is no sense that your actions would be historically relevant. It is a real shame. I don't think they are willing to really experiment with the title since it has been so successful either. The total war games aren't perfect but they are the best I've found. Clearly a major aspect of the game will be war (the battles are the best I've seen), but I wish there was more to do in peacetime and the strategy map had more depth. More diplomatic complexity and realism would also help a lot. RTW was a definite improvement but it could go much further. Constant war can get tedious.
I keep saying it, my ideal game would be some mix between TW and the civ games which had frustratingly limited combat. It, and to some extent the TW games, simplify historicalness in the extreme that could only be remedied by much more complex simulations of the evolution that political units and societies experience. Obviously they are just games but America showing up in the stone age as an independant society puts extreme stress on my suspension of disbelief.
Like Arcanum said, it isn't really fair to compare the two; they are different animals. Obviously a lot of people enjoy RTS.