[Balance] Bring Back AOC Arabia

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

Please release us from these endless recurrent attempts to “fix” Arabia, we’ve come to a point where even pro players simply ban Arabia, I’m not saying AOC Arabia was perfect, far from it, and I’m not too emotionally invested in nostalgia, we need AOC Arabia that we’ve been playing for decades back in the maps pool.

Not necessarily the exact old map, it was way too random, chaotic and potentially unbalanced. However, with that being said, it had one single element that the current Arabia’s lack (and pretty much almost any map in the current map pool, including Runestones) - Larger woodlines.

It’s the most crucial enviormental factor that influences the current disguisting meta, full walls into mass Tower Centers, status quo and little to no inovative play, AOE strategically is narrower than ever. And it’s a direct result of having thin woodlines, composed of a fixed number of 67-69 trees per woodline in the current Arabia/Runestones.

Having unsecure wood source leads to zero legitimacy nor credit to initiate some sort of aggression, you’re consistently occupied with protecting your own realm due to the fact that one unupgraded Archer can shut down a whole woodline. Something which barely happened in AOC which had almost twice the amount of trees on average per woodline.

This desertation of Arabia leads to an impotent mirroric Castle Age where Town Centers desperately pretend to be a shelter for lumberjacks, building a TC per every woodline has become mandatory. Huge survival nuisance that limits the resources being invested in offence.

My suggestion is to end this madness and instability at the very core of our game and esport, by simply increasing the amount of trees per woodline without increasing the amount of trees over all. This means lowering the amount of starting woodlines per player from 3 tiny woodlines of 68 trees to 2 moderate woodlines of about 100 trees.

Less woodlines, More trees.
Please take care of our precious old game.
Thank you.

Runestones Arabia
Runestones Arabia735×604 154 KB

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2

Fully support. It was a good map.

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Thank you. Getting inspired by this solid map is what we need.

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i prefer the arabia we had before this one.

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@MatCauthon3 Understandable, I’d consider both however as bad interpretation of the original Arabia.

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You nailed it, ever since arabia got the wood lines thinner, archers have usually always a spot where to hit, it has become a typical raiding spot, current woodlines are not even worth to place a tower cause it might end by the time you reach castle age.

Lakes are something shouldn’t come back, cliffs where fine in the middle, also deers on aoc arabia weren’t consistently close of each player, they could appear in the middle the 8 deers together, so luring wasn’t something that common, cause there was a high risk of losing scouting time.

Aoc arabia was still better than all the 3 version we have had, the current map has now turned into a defensive castle in the front hill or a castle push in the enemie’s front hill…

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@SouMexican Yeah, the lakes are definitely something I dont want, especially not within the starting TC reasonable radius.

Developers keep switching the amount of woodlines (Arabia has 3, Runestones has 4), their angle and their distance from the TC, yes not a single effort to deal with the amount of trees each woodline has.
I’d start with 2 woodlines of 100 trees or more.

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I would like to have no cliffs or lakes, keep the hills, but move them away from the TCs, and prevent all non wood resources from spawning on them (at least). The only thing I really like about the current Arabia is how the resource spawns are more balanced. Ideally they should have 2 large woodlines at the back, and either 1 large, or 2 smaller woodlines at the front. That makes resources fairer, the hills can still be used well, but don’t unbalance it too much, walling is possible, but harder than it used to be, and should improve the overall quality of the map.

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I actually enjoy new Arabia (as I enjoy Crater and Meadow and so on) tho I agree it is much more open. I think the old Arabia is pretty similar to black forest tho. To me I prefer the previous Arabia for the balance.

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Old Arabia also had more Wolfes!

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Guys were crying about walls, so they made an anti wall map. So, this is the perfect map for them. It’s even more open, and you can end the game early with a scout rush/other feudal aggression. So, what’s the issue?

I don’t see the big problem. If you bring back the old map, they will cry about walls being OP again, and demand even more nerfs to walls.

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12

Yea honestly WTF even is the new Arabia? Please change it.

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I said this earlier, and I mean like months ago. If a map like this were to happen, they’d not like it, as they realize that games where you just both YOLO everything forward get old pretty fast.

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Yeah, and the devs listened to them. There are many civs that need to wall up, since they suck in the early game. They should release more versions of Arabia. Arabia plains (the new one), Arabia Forests (older version of the map)

Case in point: Nerf wallers

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Smaller woodlines = full wall fc boom?
Am I high on something? this is the opposite way around, smaller woodlines = aggression.
Larger woodlines = easy wall = fc or whatever strat I want

And people that like to wall will wall anyways.

they?
YOLO?

Okay, you seemed a reasonable guy till today; you saying a game that has fights as soon as possible gets old pretty fast, so what’s the deal with arena or black forest wall boom games?

Arabia had too much camping + walling (above a relative high level, let’s say 1k6+?), any changes towards fixing this is welcome. This new arabia has some other issues… but mates c’mon, games are more interesting now just because is harder to wall

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I mean, you can see the sentiment even in this thread, people resent this new Arabia version. I personally like very open and aggressive plays and maps, but even I dont enjoy it when it’s literally all I play. I think most people who generally play aggressive still don’t mean/want to play full YOLO every game.

The map is now basically perfect if you want to play a hoang rush 10/10 games, but it’s not a good design for game variety.

EDIT: Now that I have thought about my response a second time, I think there are better ways to accomodate for those who just really can’t fathom playing the game past feudal and early castle age.

  • Budapest: This map is pretty good, it presents a bit of a variety with the double TC start, and having such a boost to the early game means aggression will happen much earlier, since the eco gets rolling fast. It’s usually also more difficult to wall yourself in, so this could be a good addition to the map pool.
  • Sudden death: No 3 TC boom, due to the nature of extra TCs being disabled. So walling would still be beneficial, but you don’t get a massive eco lead, since you get no extra TCs. This game mode would be pretty aggressive.
  • Regicide: Regicide starts with extra villagers, so again, eco gets rolling much faster than normal, and therefore aggression happens earlier. This mode might be good for civs that tend to die early (byzantines, porto, etc) since the Castle can protect the eco around itself. Having a king would also add a bit of fun into games, since being behind wouldn’t necessarily always mean a game loss, if you can pull off a king snipe.
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Hoang rush get nerfed A LOT on this new arabia by making it more open.

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As if people don’t still wall it 1111 houang would just start walls at 2 mins

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I watch some of hoangs stream the other day and the new Arabia has definitely nerfed his fast castle rush. To my great surprise Hoang is playing feudal age now 11

Then the game after he took it to imperial age and won with woad raiders, crossbowmen and monks. Never seen that from him before

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I like the idea to place the woodlines more at the edges and keep the center open. It makes walling more difficult an therefore avors scoutrushs and aggression overall. Easy walling favors archery and therefore just the meta.

Besides that i agree with the opener, that the woodlines are too small and too thin. That favors vill picks with archers and makes the game a bit dumb.

2 Likes