On top of the gameplay reasons the other guy said, AoE2 was one of those games that just became massively popular in places like Russia and they played it religiously. Kind of like certain Might and Magic games, which followed a lot of the same trajectories. Once that has happened to your series, you'll never get them to stop playing their one hyper specific game for 20 years in a row.
AoE2 just was a game that felt like it "peaked" for the series and nothing that came after really felt like an actual upgrade over it, instead more of a funny side game.
The only notable exception is Age of Mythology, but that's because it took the framework and then did something entirely unique with it.
They really aren't helping the problem of "nobody plays any other game in the series but AoE2."
Can you explain why? I was too young to be any good at the game when I played but the history of video games is always interesting to me.
On top of the gameplay reasons the other guy said, AoE2 was one of those games that just became massively popular in places like Russia and they played it religiously. Kind of like certain Might and Magic games, which followed a lot of the same trajectories. Once that has happened to your series, you'll never get them to stop playing their one hyper specific game for 20 years in a row.
AoE2 just was a game that felt like it "peaked" for the series and nothing that came after really felt like an actual upgrade over it, instead more of a funny side game.
The only notable exception is Age of Mythology, but that's because it took the framework and then did something entirely unique with it.