Changes to dark-age walling

With the current state of palisade walls, it almost seems like wall-fc or drush-wall-fc is the meta and it tilts the game completely in favor of the civs with which drush-fc is a good strategy. I felt like if the walls remained weaker in Feudal age with an option to upgrade for some extra cost, it might be still feasible to wall with strong eco drush-fc civs without favoring the waller as much as it does now. My thoughts on this:

  1. Palisade walls have 150 hp, 1 melee and 4 p.armor in dark age and take 8 seconds to build (current stats is 150 hp in dark, 250 in feudal, 2 melee and 5 p.armor, 7 seconds to build)
  2. The upgrade to 250 hp in Feudal age doesn’t happen automatically. Instead players get a tech in their town center (say Fencing) that costs 75 wood and 45 seconds to research. This upgrades the palisade walls to their current stats in Feudal age (250 hp, 2 melee and 5 p.armor, 7 seconds build time).

This way if a player wants to go for drush-fc and gets good value from the drush, they can wall, invest into the upgrade, be 2 vills behind but get the early castle age. And players who go for early feudal and somehow defended the drush can still do damage or get a small 2 vill lead and not fall behind. Thereby drush-fc can be “A” meta and not “THE” meta for Arabia.

With the holy cup having some crazy stuff like priests and Feitoria like monument that turns into player’s control, I thought this might be a change that can be added into the map pack. And I suggested these changes to MembTV for KOTD-4 tournament. But unfortunately I think it needs to be implemented as a data mod or a game balance change. Anyways he suggested that I post this on DE forums and get some feedback. So what do you guys think about this?

2 Likes

One could argue this is a huge nerf

I don’t think you realise how detrimental it is to be 2 Vils behind… nevermind 1 (25sec)

Try again

Also if full walls were really such an issue there’s the majority of the maps in the EW pool that almost completely prevent full walling. So is this an issue from people who don’t actually play? Or from a minority who do play?

And why are so many on Reddit complaining about open Arabia, opening runestones and upvoting the same posts on Reddit?

5 Likes

In that case, it should be implemented with the town watch tech and increasing its cost to say 75f and 75w. 45 sec of idle time is too much.

5 Likes

Its still slow and tbf walls dont need more restriction because they will become invalid and replaced with houses

First of all Empire wars is meant to be an aggressive game mode. Secondly, plenty of maps like Runestone, Acclivity, Kawasan, Frigid Lake, Wade, Eruption are wallable.
And what about RM. Most maps are fully wallable. And walling has a better return of investment than any other form of military aggression till castle age.

Ya people who don’t know anything about the game like Hera, Liereyy, casters like Membtv.

The complaint about open Arabia was because of the previous patch where woodlines were generated in such a way that walling wasn’t possible at all. That has been fixed now. And 80% of people are less than 1200 elo and some of their opinions might be biased towards castle age or imperial age play.

I don’t think you realize how much little investment goes into walling as compared to military. You spend like 60-80 wood + 2 or 3 mins of villager time and you’re safe. You wall and your opponent doesn’t and instead goes for early military, you’re almost guaranteed to win unless you have a huge civ disadvantage. I’ve personally picked good castle age civs, done the walling myself and won many times myself.
With proposed change, yes you’ll be 2 vills behind but you’re walled and getting extra town centers or upgraded army much earlier. So if you have a more closed map or a stronger civ for drush-fc like Mayans you can wall, get this upgrade and still be ahead in castle age, but may not be miles ahead than someone who tried to attack early. This opens up more feudal play.

That’s true. But houses cost 25 wood and takes thrice as much time to build. So if someone fully covers their base with houses thats a lot of investment. But you’re right if walls are nerfed this way, probably people might house wall their entire base.

I think this is an interesting idea that could be tested.

I only like this change:

1 Like

Only drush FC is meta, blank wall into fc is bad. Easy counter: don’t wall into fc, make use of your timing advantage. Don’t blame the game if you make the wrong strategic decisions. If you see the opponent going for early walls, you can easily punish that by just adapting. Nobody forces you to make a scrush against a fully walled player. It’s actually a very poor strategy choice in that situation.

And the solution to the current drush fc meta is to just invrease castle age research time so a feudal military play has more time to make damage against the greed.

One more of these silly “nerf walls” threads from people who don’t understand that this is a strategy game and every strategy has it’s counter strat. Scrushes can be countered by early walls, but early walls can easily countered by blank fc. Only because you don’t understand the game balance don’t mean that there would be a disbalance. Don’t complain if you make exactly the opener that his opponent opener counters because you have the option to counter his strat. The game isn’t responsible for you chosing the wrong opener.

3 Likes

If this was the case. Make walls much stronger with this new tech. Not standard strength. Like 2 to 3 times the HP for palisades. Otherwise, it’s really hurts the game due to anti walling.

A single strategy meta itself is bad when you have a wide variety of civs with different strengths and weaknesses. While definitely all strats can’t be the meta for a map, there should at least be a few competing strategies spread across the strengths of a wide range of civs.

If the game forces one gameplay all the time, its really not a strategic decision.

Yes no one forced, but what if I want to use that strategy. What if I got a civ like Magyars or Mongols that offers good early Scout rush play or what if I want to surprise my opponent by doing scouts with Britons and later transition into archers after getting some value.

Easy there Viper. The problem is not about me doing scout rush and complaining because opponent walled. Its about possibility of different strategies. If I’m against a civ that’s better in castle age but weaker than mine in Feudal age, I should have the possibility of getting value from my feudal attacks. Then its about decision making of whether or not I want to invest into Feudal. Right now the game is like you MUST go castle age sooner and not invest much into feudal. So obviously the least risk choice with every civ is to wall and hit castle age, irrespective of civ.

???
Are you really trying to argue that there isn’t any other meta opener than drush fc anymore?

Again?

But you are actually argueing to nerf certain strategic choices (which are actually bad overall strategic choices because you want to make your meta opener (scrush) more impactful.

And you do get a lot of value. At least most of the time. Key is to scout and check what your opponent is doing. And if he plays a strat that counters your strat, then you should adapt. That’s the key part of a strategy game. There is no guaranteed damage (in terms of getting an advantage) with any of the meta openers. If it was like this, the game would be terribly designed. Every strat needs to have a counter strat, otherwise it’s disbalance.
We have the rushing build orders as meta strats for a reason. Because they are usually the ones that give the most value. We don’t have “Full wall into FC” buildorders or whatever. Because these builds are generally bad. Even if the opponent does this you can get a lot of value with only a few scouts, hitting the opponent walls from multiple angles, scouting the map, getting map control, getting intel about the next moves of the opponent. And of course limiting the expansion of the opponent. Don’t forget that if someone walls that early he heavily limits the space of his base. At some point he is out of it and when he tries to move out for expansion, you have a nice chance of punishing him for that moves as you already have some scouts out. Not to forget how frequently overchops and little holes in the walls are happening that can be punished.
Even if you make just 3 scouts and see that the opponent is fully walled you get a lot of value by just doing the things explained above - usually more valueable than the full wall of the opponent.

The only “walling” strat that is currently a bit too strong is drush fc (that includes walling after the drush). The others, like early walling or walling after clicking up are either kinda bad openers or just common sense - if you move out with your army you want a little bit of protection for your eco to ot be raided to death that easily. But these late walls after clicking up are not up when the first opponent rush arrives, so both players going for that strat - in the end - have to take some early damage and in most games this first skrimish is the key factor of determining the roles the players take for the reminder of the match.

We have these rushing buildorders as meta builds for a reason, because they are overall the best openers. But this can’t save you from bad decision making. If your opponent has the right tools up to stop you from damaging his eco with your current military, you should stop making that military, get up, and use the remaining military to get as much value as possible out of them you still can get.
That’s how it should work and it works perfectly well atm.

Don’t forget: buildorders are only there to get you a good start into the game. The main part of the game is on adapting. There is and hopefully will never be “guaranteed damage” to any build or strategy. And that’s what makes the game so great.

Have walls not been nerfed enough already. I know the developers are intent on turning the game into a Call of Duty style E-sport with 10 minute matches but further nerfing walling or making maps even more open will remove the final ounces of strategy from the game. Unlike the past where you could play the game in a varied way, the only viable tactics which will work will be running your horsies around your opponents base in box formation

7 Likes

I think a lot of people will riot if wall is further nerfed and I can understand why you want to nerf wall. I think we can try a different way rather than keep nerfing it.
One way to do it is to buff militia line vs wall/buildings, The militia line currently doesn’t have a defined role in feudal. Doing so not only make militia line more relevant but also make wall less effective this way.

2 Likes

I think this is indeed the best “solution” to the current power of drush fc.
Either that or reducing the castle age powerspike a bit. IMO it’s not the walls that are too strong but the castle age powerspike, why drush fc is so strong currently.

Oh I didn’t know that you have to scout your opponent during the game. Common man, by 8th minute players are walled.

Nice, great explanation and all applicable for castle age plays. Feudal age people are walled. Those walls can’t be broken in a reasonable time even if you have a sizable feudal army. By the time you break-in, there are a couple of house foundations behind. By the time you break that and enter, opponent is in castle age and knights are out.

Ok I saw that, now what. I lost all the advantage my civ offers. The opponent has hit the age where his civ shines. I can use the scouts to maybe snipe a monk or find out town center positions but my opponent has gone ahead already.

Once again, I’m not talking about making a ton of archers after you’ve seen skirms or making Scouts against a ton of spear+archers. That’s obviously bad decision making.
I’m talking about ---------WALLS--------- . I make scouts, opponent makes spears. I’m adding skirms, fletching on the way and the walling is done for opponent. Now I can’t counter walls. All that investment is now only going to cause some moderate villager idle time.

I understand that and I’m not saying every investment must lead into damage. When palisade walling offers a lot of value for very little investment, its almost always going to favor civs that have a good dark and castle age more than those with good feudal age. It doesn’t make the game even.
I’m not suggesting the removal of palisade walls altogether but rather keep them in a way where chances of feudal break-in is higher or it requires some additional investment to prevent feudal break-in.
In castle age if your opponent walls and you have knights, crossbows or cav archers, you can break-in with army itself or make siege or drop a castle and do petards. Its so much riskier to just wall and hit imperial age. The castle age investment pays off in the form of damages or map control. Feudal army does very little.

Its the best meta in most situations for RM-Arabia.

why the wall cannot be nerfed?

there lots of ways to do it gradually until it get the balance.
etc increase the cost, building time, reduce the HP.

All of the above can keep adjust slightly.

As they got nerfed before im not a big fan of this idea since it makes walls useless

1 Like

right now we are talking about wall is too powerful.
They tried to change the map of Arabia which made a mess.

what if the woodwall increased from 2 woods to 3 woods?
what if the woodwall decreased the HP of 5%
what if the woodwall building time increased 5%?

I really dont see the above “slightly” or “gradually” change will make the wall becomes useless.

No. They are not.

Sorry, but palisades are actually quite easy to break down. Maa/archer make short justice with them.

The reaseon drush FC works is because of the timing advantage you get with your drush. Not because of the power of the walls.

And btw increasing wall cost or building time would actually make drush fc even stronger in comparison, as with this build you have nice ressource floating before going up to feudal and therefore increased cost of walls just wouild change the buildorder a bit, but with other rushes you would have big problems with walling behind the rush because your eco is much more tight.

So the changes of making walls more expensive would just disbalance the openers even more in favor of drush fc. (It’s actually no coincidence that drush fc has become so strong after the last wall nerfs),

So your proposals to “fix” would just not work. They would make the standard archer/scout rushes even worse in comparison to drush fc.

1 Like