I’ve recently started banning arabia in my 1v1 games. The map is ridiculous now, sometimes you dont get viable forest patches, while the enemy does which increases unfairness. My last game of arabia I had hills on all my in-base resources so I couldnt build any tc on them.
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The current Arabia is a lot better than the previous versions. Some of the previous versions wouldn’t even give trees at all. Hills should maybe be altered though.
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Oh man the hills, often times surrounded on all sides and so condensed. I often have to build the farmers somewhere else in castle age since there’s no room to fit a castle + tcs on the flatlands except outside the base in key areas. Tho I castle the main gold if that’s the case and build the second castle back near the new base. It’s rough, but doable
The map itself is nicer and more natural feeling though. Hills could do with a bit of tweaking I do admit.
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I think it’s better than the previous two patches (at least we get woodlines now)
But they should lower the amount hills around the base, at least around the berries, gold and stone, it’s a pain to wall around them and, as you said, sometimes you can’t even build TCs because of them
The fact that elephants and rhinos COMPLETELY replace boars also kinda makes it less diverse, and the fact that now it’s always desert terrain
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I don’t play Arabia much, but I was pleasantly surprised when I tried it a while back and it was a nice green map! If that never happens any more, that’s too bad. I don’t really like playing on the desert terrain as it’s a little bright; and green terrain seems more interesting to me for some reason. Is somewhat why I don’t like playing snowy maps
I think there’s a mod that replaces every terrain with a default grass (except water, ice, shallows, rock and all those that are important to distinguish, of course)
That, and guaranteed rhinos helps make M@A/Archers stronger than on previous Arabias. Yes, Memb denies this by saying there is one less deer now, meaning the total food of 2 rhinos + 3 deer is almost exactly the same as 2 boar + 4 deer. BUT it also means fast builds can get away with pushing less deer. Examples:
2 Boars + 2 Deer = 960 food (not including decay)
2 Rhinos + 2 Deer = 1080 food (not including decay) for 120 food more than the typical 2 deer push for aggro builds on old Arabias.
Methinks Memb doesn’t consider this. 
The current one is good, but it needs 3 main changes.
1:
We should still be able to get boars, but have rhinos and elephants being more common.
2:
The hills need to flatten a bit more and go a bit further away from the bases, or at least the main resources.
3:
You should occasionally get a green Arabia gen, but maybe only like 1 in every 15 games or something.
I really hope that after KOTD4 the ranked Arabia map reverts to the version we had before. The elevation variance is just ridiculous, every resource on a hill and it requires less forethought and skill in placing buildings or town centers because you have at most two options (usually both sub-optimal).
There is a reason so many games in KOTD4 have featured all-in Castle Age play, time-honoured strategies that have been developed on previous versions of Arabia over the course of two decades are virtually impossible on many of these generations. The rugs are daft, the desert terrain is unvaried and rough on the eyes, the sheep spawn in the middle of nowhere and the increased elevation is just ridiculous. I have played and enjoyed hundreds of ranked Arabia 1v1s and the current version is such a turn-off that I’m now banning it.
Many people had complaints about the recent changes to Arabia, but that version of the map was far more balanced and playable (typically defensible woodlines, not every single tree spawned on a mountain, space to expand economy) and I look forward to its return or successor after whatever deal Memb has with Microsoft expires.
Edit: It’s also very telling that Runestones is leading the current poll for 1v1 RM ranked games. Runestones is essentially an Arabia clone that doesn’t suffer from the issues many have highlighted with KOTD4 Arabia.
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The hills are a bit excessive on kotd4 ara I agree. But are you seriously claiming the version before which everbody seems to agree was the worst arabia basically ever was better?
Imo seeing the community divided over open vs rather closed arabia would be to permanently keep the division between arabia and runestones. People have complained about DE versions of arabia and its wallability for quite some time. Now that we have a very open one these people are satisfied while others that got used to (and learned the game with) a semiclosed one are pissed.
I mean there are some ara clones which are easier to wall and other maps that feature similar generations but these are different to arabia in one or more respects so it’s still not the same.
On hd/voobly we had the distinction between dry and green arabia which comes kinda close to kotd4 ara and runestones comparison. Arabia is the most played map by quite a large margin. I don’t see any argument why we shouldn’t reintroduce two versions of this map to account for different playstyles and preferences.
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Green arabia was never used outside of some casual lobbys, it was a version of arabia designed to be a map where begginer can play on easily. This is not comparable with current arabia / runestones.
As for KOTD version, the map is pretty good in terms of wood etc. However the only (great) issue with this map is hills, there are just too many and make the map pretty repetitive and very agressive everytime.
For runestones that’s the opposite, this map is very flat and closed
An Arabia on the middle ground between these 2 versions is probably better,
i feel like the version of Arabia with garanteed wood in the back was fine with , but with many repetitive aspect wich make the map too predictable that the KOTD version do not have.
And please stop changing arabia map scripts everytime , just take a good base like KOTD one and tweak it instead of changing completly the maps scripts.
The current arabia is just too agressive and snowbally.
Ofc it’s better than the one we had before, but it’s too heavily favouring specific playstyles.
Please devs, put Arabia back to the old state that slightly favored agressive play, but let so many strategies still be viable/competitive.
I think we need some ideas how we could look for “different” defensive approaches than walling. But before we found tools that replace the utilty of walls we shouldn’t maybe think about making walls more expensive.
Walls are just too important in the strategic balance of the game to blindly nerf them.
I also think a lot of people don’t understand that you just need walls to not be raided to death atm. The other tools just don’t work as intended. It’s not about “turtling” or whatever, they are just essential atm.
So increasing the cost doesn’t even lead to less walling it just leads to a flaw in the strategic balance as there are some civs with high and some with low early agression potential. And the civs with low early agression potential don’t have a “choice” but walling way earlier otherwise they will be raided to death. And the nerfs / cost increases of the walls just makes it even more punishing to have a “slow” civ.
So imo the game needs more/better tools against raiding if we want to have less walls on “open” maps. I made some proposals like better counter units, but I think a lot of things could work. Just nerfing walls won’t lead to them played less, they are just too essential in the current strategic balance, you just need them in defence so you can’t just be raided to death. Even and especially when you play “agressive” and try to push your opponent you want your walls up so he can’t too easily have a comeback with just raiding you while you try to push him.
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Arabia is supposed to be an aggressive map. Not a slightly aggressive map.
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Who said this? Ornly just said in the stream also that he liked arabia having so many different strategies viable.
Yes, Arabia was slightly favoring agression, but not to an amount you couldn’t play defensively anymore. And this is imo the best balance for a versatile map.
And don’t forget, I am a “more defensively” minded player. Not that I dislike playing agressive, but I usually chose the more defensive approach even if I know I have a slight disadvantage there. It actually even motivates me. What I don’t like is if I am forced to play a specific playstyle on a map cause I know I would lose otherwise.
And I think there are a lot of “defensively minded” players that share that kind of perception. And offensively minded players want to have the advantage, which is fine.
But if some players try to trick the devs by just claiming that arabia was only “their” map, this becomes a problem for the communty, as if devs follow that bs narrative that arabia would be an “agressive” map only it will only divide a community that chose the map because of it’s versatility and diversity.
Arabia was a versatile map and need to be restored to that state!
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You can play defensive on Arabia. Stop spreading wrong information. Just because they nerfed it doesn’t mean defensive play is now trash because evidence shows otherwise
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Don’t try to revert the things. The reason we had this silly arabia changes was because people claimed that the map would be too defensive.
Well arabia IS an open map and it is supposed to be aggressive and yet the best Playstyle has been minimal offense, play defense and go to castle.
Please stop that kind of narrative. Maybe you perceive it as an agressive map, but nobody knows if there ever was an “intention” how the map “should” be played.
And as far as I recept it, the map became famous because there wasn’t a clear “favoring” in playstyle and a lot of strategic approaches viable. Yes, we always said it seemed to favor the more agressive approach, but that doesn’t justify to use that narrative to shift the map more and more into “just agression”, cause it never was this kind of map.
This is a very annoying approach to take over the “definition” of what arabia is “supposed” to be. An approach to take over the whole definition of the game. The game is supposed to be a “strategy” game, not a game which heavily restricts you in your general and basic strategic approach.
The reason of arabia was always our favourite was that it still kept some kind of balance between the different strategies. Not that it was “agressive”. Maybe it slightly favored agression, but that doesn’t makes it a “full agression” type of map.
And you see what happens with “full agression” maps like socotra. Nobody plays them, cause they are ■■■■■■■ annoying, repetitive and extremly restrictive. You have to play them the one way only.
This actually showcases the community doesn’t wants this kind of “agression only” maps. So please stop that kind of narrative. And don’t try to get the interpretation majesty what arabia is supposed to be. You don’t have the right to define this ahead of the community. And especially not with the intention to change the way the map has to be played. You try to force the community into your personal perception of the game by false narratives.
STOP THAT.
Arabia was always the best map cause it was the way it was, not because it was different to what you claim it was “supposed to be”.
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It’s an open map. Which naturally is going to favor offense over defense. As opposed to closed maps that favor defense.
And despite this playing defense has reigned supreme.
Even If I’m somehow wrong about it not supposed to be aggressive, the fact is that defense has been yhe best strategy into castle age, which contradicts your constant FALSE complaints about defenses being useless. So stop spreading bull.
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