I want to suggest changes/improvements in regards to 2 things that bothers me about monks (besides having to micromanage them, but I can understand that from a game balance perspective). First one is auto-healing nearby units when having them following another unit. I was surprised really that they didn’t do this already. I thought that if I had them follow a unit, that they would heart hurt units within a certain range. I would love to see this being the case.
The other suggestion I have is in regards to civs without Theocracy mostly. I would love to see some kind of indicator that informs me if monks are regaining faith. Too many times have there been times when I put monks to convert several different units at once, and some of those units die, while some don’t, and at this point, if the enemy units moved around a lot, I don’t know which monk has faith and which monks doesn’t. So actually having some way to know which can convert and not without having to select them individually would encourage more use of monks without Theocracy.
It is a little counter intuitive to not have following Monks automatically heal nearby units. Would simplifying healing micro really be that strong?
Speaking of Theocracy, I recently learned using multiple Monks for one conversion can speed up that conversion. Because each Monk makes their own roll for a successful conversion each time the game checks for conversions. More Monks = more conversion rolls. Since I started playing the game, I thought Theocracy was for simplifying Monk micro. But it’s actually a huge boost to group conversions from how Monks really work. Here’s the source I used:
not healing while moving is just a basic thing of how age of empires works. there is not a single unit that does a task while moving. it always is either move or do an action. same for vils, military and also monks.
if that mechanics would change the whole game needs a lot of rebalancing and i do not think that would be good for the whole game.
I would love to see some kind of indicator that informs me if monks are regaining faith.
I looked into making a mod that would do this, but it appears that it would require changing all the graphics for monk move/attack/idle from each angle, and that’s way beyond my abilities so it never really progressed,
Yeah, I looked slightly into this too, and it’s hard to even see first of all where I can grab a reference to the amount of faith the monks have left, and then make something to mark it without it affecting monks with full faith already. I guess it might require copying the monk’s animations and then make it play those animations over the default ones if the monk has less than 100% faith.
Yeah, fair point, but then again, the monk healing is not that great overall really. It is very slow to heal one unit to begin with. Very easy to outdamage the healing done by one monk, since only one monk heals a unit automatically.
I just thought that it might help with giving a bigger incentive to using monks for healing since their healing is already quite bad. So not having to move the monks after units constantly too might make it a bit more viable strat.
Depends on how it’s used - its best use is in team games with a well informed and co-ordinated team - but in 1 vs 1 it’s situational and depends on enemy output, it has the power to overturn the odds in certain battles but will fall flat if the enemy uses the right composition and you’re not keeping watch
you still need to build other units to support the formation, and the formation itself has other forms and compositions
If you ally with byzantines, or not, this formation is the optimal support for mass palladins against pikes and to continually heal them for each battle within and before while playing ‘ring around the fortress’ to pick off pursuing pikes or other units while the palladins heal
Or, if it was such a viable strat it would be meta.
If it was such a viable strat pros would be using it.
The problem is not my imagination, the problem is you believing that this strategy would be viable at a decent level 11
Mainstream metas that are easy to understand and use are great for the masses and the pros get really good at them and adjust and fashion new metas that become mainstream.
This is not a mainstream meta, this is a easy to get to know and hard to master meta, kind of like the boardgame ‘go’; it’s the type of meta that won’t become mainstream unless each and every person who uses it is either a genius or practices perfectly until they get the general hang of it and master its many forms.
Just because it isn’t mainstream meta and easy to use and undestand doesn’t make it not.
On HD my elo isn’t up to date because I haven’t played it much since I’ve improved on a personal level, and on de I haven’t played competitive enough to get proper reading on my personal level. Current computer can’t run de and HD is good for 1 vs 1 at best before hitting the good old turtle.
I’d place myself somewhere around 1580-1640 pre DE on HD
And after DE I improved and pre DE on HD I’d be around 1640-1710
I’d place my current elo for 1 vs 1 on DE around 1100-1300, and for team games it was running around 1800ish or so, I’ll double check, but I know team game elos are inflated and go up and down on a dime.
That being said, my personal elo is not a reflection on the strategy, it’s a reflection on my current usage of it, and I feel it can go allot higher than where I am right now.
And yes, I am talking out the back end
regarding my own elo, but it’s where I feel I’m at
Or it’s just plain bad and everyone trying to use that healing fortres bullshit would just get smacked by a decent player.
It costs way too much gold in both units and upgrades, it’s slow to get going and it gets absolutely destroyed by halbs + scorps. Hell, the first one gets recked by a full arbs army with someone decent at micro.
this is such a stupid thing to say i can’t even express it. first of all, the meta can only be mainstream, since it’s the most efficient way to play. Then we have the “easy to understand”. No, it’s not, ptherwise we wouldn’t be talking to someone like you who advice someone to use a strat that simply doesn’t work against a somewhat decent player.
You also say that the meta is easy to use: then why everyone is not 2k or something, Jesus, 80% of the player base can’t get a m@a opening straight, 90% can’t pull off a drush without messing their own eco and you call it easy? Furthermore, the game has so many variables that after a certain point you simply cannot go for a cookie cutter strategy and you have to adapt to map generation, civs match up and sistuations.
if it’s not mainstream it’s not meta
you are really delusional: trust me, not even Liereyy, who is literally the best micro player this game has ever seen, could make that stuff work. it’s not meta, is something that can work at a really low elo and nothing else. if it was that good every pro would go for it-
the reality is that you army is too gold intensive, lacks mobility and you would probably be raided to death without having the possibility of replenishing your “healing fortress”.
The army is self sustainable at 2-3 relics and 5 farmers with a backlog of wood.
How you make the initial army is through careful use of your eco, market and careful selection as to which part of the army you wish to create first, and have that survive to the final army build as much as possible based on enemy composition.
As of current I get to it on arabia defensively, and I feel someone better at dark age/feudal age rushes would do much better than I’m doing currently. if I can get it there, you can get it anywhere. And my micro sucks.
I feel like you’re focusing too much on the healing fortress alone and thinking that’s all there is to it. It’s the centerstone to the basis of the strategy in certain situations, but it’s only one piece of the puzzle. Use other formations and structures alongside it to get its intended purpose, and make sure to get really good at micro of the fortress in general if you want to use it on its own or reliably in general. Learn how to retreat when it’s obvious it would be pummeled.