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.