Building comparison
head to head
Age of EmpiresvsPlanetary Annihilation
Neither is meaningfully harder - they pose close to the same test. The widest gap is variance, and it is a single point.
Age of Empires
Optimization · Mind & Math
The original historical RTS of advancing ages, booming economies, and rushing armies.
Planetary Annihilation
Optimization · Mind & Math
An economy-scaling war of build orders, scouting and multi-planet attention.
Age of Empires leans Optimization (Mind & Math); Planetary Annihilation leans Optimization (Mind & Math).
Age of EmpiresPlanetary Annihilation
Axis by axis
Execution5 vs 5
Same score on execution - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Age of Empires
APM and micro under pressure
Planetary Annihilation
Multi-planet macro demands relentless APM and attention splitting
Reads6 vs 6
Same score on reads - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Age of Empires
Scouting and countering human strategies
Planetary Annihilation
Scouting and out-guessing a human's expansion plan matters constantly
Variance4 vs 3
Age of Empires leans a little harder on variance, though the gap is small.
Age of Empires
Fog of war and map resources
Planetary Annihilation
Procedural systems and fog hide early information
Optimization8 vs 8
Same score on optimization - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Age of Empires
Build orders and eco timing dominate
Planetary Annihilation
Economy scaling and build orders dominate - near-solvable openings
A matching score does not mean a matching test. Two games can both sit at 10 on execution and demand completely different things of you - which is why the reasoning above matters more than the number beside it.