For months now ranked or rather the base arabia script for DE is the King of the Desert 4 version. Its ofc a very agressive focused script and especially by giving out the most terible woodlines any AoE2 map has ever seen with hils and ponds it very much forces 1 TC play a lot. As a little break from the stale ranked meta of as little as possible to no Fedual play, it was indeed a nice change. But now we are stuck with a very stale agressive meta and a map that snowballs way to much after just 1 bad fight taken, as a switch to defence is seldom possible. Also this version of Arabia allowes for even less viable civ options.
It was as said a nice change for once but now it realy bores me and like the more closed/boom meta Arabia before i am back to banning it for that reason. I really wish Devs would either go back to the old more various Arabia map script or best case just combine both. Give us an Arabia that can sometimes be more closed (like HC Ara once was) or more open at other times like the Kotd4 script.
To finish my own thought i would like to hear how other think about the current state of the Arabia map script ? Are you still big fans, were you never or do you even care ^^
- Kotd4 Arabia is the best one
- Dont like the current Arabia but still want an open map script
- Prefer a more closed Arabia map script
- Dont care at all
2 Likes
The terminology of “closed/open” is incorrect. Arabia used to be more open yet more closed in a way 2 years ago. Check my POST regarding this subject.
The terminology isnt a set in stone thing ^^
For expressing my thoughts it is very much correct and usefull. On average the kotd4 script is “open” as it makes not only walling of a base in reasonable time/effort harder but also the value. Being walled vs melee units but every single ressource is in range of archer or towers does not make for a closed of base. Eevn if you can seal of a decent base with res acces that save you will most likley be forced to open it once in castle for any chance to ad a use full TC on wood or extra gold.
The old script allowed way more often to have at least a in part closed of base with save ressources that couldnt be raided from early feudal till the end of time. As well as TC options that allowed for secured res once placed, where now again a single skirm/archer can shot over any of those tiny woodlines.
Tho my main point, which you seem to agree on despite our difference in useing closed/open terminology, is that the old map script had way more variaty than the single focused kotd4 one.
1 Like
Yeah that’s the key part. People are talking this like almost a year already, since this weird “change arabia” fest begun. But the devs seem to ignore us completely.
Not only that they don’t change arabia back to a versatile state, they don’t even provide any alternative in the map pool. At first there was at least runestones. But then they even changed runestones aswell.
And this all without any explanation. Not a single word why they did this. I mean they could have at least said something nonsensical like “we want to try how this is perceived blabla…” but nothing is a bit poor for such a major intrusion in the gameplay.
IMO the “right” way to change Arabia (as the most played map of all) is to give 2 variants of it in the map pool. 1 “old” and 1 “new” variant. And then just wait what people like more. Which is played more often and which is favored and/or banned more often. All other ways will always look like “forcing” the community in one direction without having a choice.
And if both variants are liked enough to some extend it may be a chance to “split” that map in 2 different ones, like arabia classic and dry arabia.
1 Like
Why, don’t you love it when your entire base is surrounded by an enormous hill, literally as if your town center was placed in a bowl, and your berries, gold and woodline are on it too making it impossible to quickwall or wall in general? And when 5 archers in feudal or 1 mangonel in castle get on that said hill you can basically just resign?
Maybe there is some hope.
Was told the current PuP has a new Runestones script which is more like the original one. So maybe the next patch will give us at least an alternative if not a colorfull old school arabia script ^^
Oh yeah, I agree with you, I just dont like the use of words, a map can have more trees yet be more open, but yeah, the current Arabia is as open as it gets, you’re rewarded for making Archers no matter what since woodlines are 3/4 trees thick, unlike AOC Arabia where woodlines were twice as big at least.
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We have been playing kotd4 map for too long, tournaments maps aren’t great for the ranked matches, it should have been added like runestones without changing arabia script, the creator(master mind) is now playing BF full time, meanwhile using his map has ruined everyone’s experience specially more on team games, the map generates nothing but hills.
In 1x1 the map is the most monotonous one, man at arms+arch+market up, other BO’s are less effective given the resources distance and hills on the way, the most exciting thing you can do is open straight one archery range and little walls on ur resources or fast 2 militia drush into the same one archery range+market up zzzZZZZZ.
1 Like
I just also looked in the stats of ageofstatistics.com
Thanks to @coolios9876 we now can select different timeframes/patches and compare them.
Since the last Patch the normalised Participation of Arabia and Runestones (yeah, both!) has decreased. Interestingly a lot of other maps “attractiveness” hasn’t changed: Arena, Four Lakes, Golden Pit. These are all strategically quite restrictive maps. But three maps are now played more often: Hideout, Nomad and Socotra. Whilst I think that Socotra just took for the players to get familiar with as it is a very unique map, Currently Hideout and Nomad are more versatile than current Arabia or Runestones. I interprete this as a clear tendency from the community to abandon the current Arabia as it doesn’t provides the diversity it used to. Hideout and Nomad both are very old maps that haven’t changed really. Every change in their popularity is more an indicator for changes to the pool than changes to themselves.
Ofc we could just say: “It’s only good that other maps now become more popular.” But we haven’t done anything on these maps to make them more popular, we only made a map that was more popular worse, so people abandoned that map and looked for better alternatives. This can’t be a solution.
Here the graphs from the stats page I used:
Normalised Map Distribution (new)
Normalised Map Distribution (old)
3 Likes
Honesty I feel like current Arabia is still a closed map - any map that does not have unbuildable tiles (land madness looking at you) will involve someone full walls no matter what…
I agree that we can make the script randomize between a more open arabia and closed arabia, but tbf in mid-high elo (1900 elo) you will still see people full wall no matter what. I actually think walls are too OP in some sense nowadays (I am an agreesive player so my opinion is skewed.)
I disagree that old Arabia is versatile in strategy as well unfortunately - in mid-high elo wall into fast castle is almost always the way to go (and practice how to wall in a good way). You almost can start walling at minute 3 no matter what.
I believe the ultimate solution would be MegaRandom actually - only with a map with no prior information (fish/unwallable stuff/trade market) can true strategy be rewarded.
(Also short term solution that I prefer - revert to old arabia with even more woodlines, but increase palliside wall cost to 6w, and greatly weaken house hp. This way wallers can still wall with ease, but a mild cost have to be paid for safety. And to be fair, why a house is almost as hard as stone wall?)
