Competitive Community Proposal About Trading Post

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
1

Greetings everyone, I will present the proposal signed today as the group of competitive players related to the trading post in the game.

As many veteran players know, Trading Post cost was 250 wood in the original nilla game, those who played in the nilla game know that the nilla was the most balanced compared to any other game, most age ups had their own benefits.

In order for the game to become balanced like it was in the old nilla time. We come together as competitive players and present the proposal for the addition of 250 wood trading Post to the game.

The purpose of preparing this competitive community proposal is to help the game get to a better place in terms of balance, and on this occasion it supports the playability of different ages in the game.

List Of The Aoe3 Players Who Signed 250 Wood Trading Post Proposal

MackGoat, Swisherguys, dennis, Kevin, Revnak, ChefSudiste, TsarVane, Kynesie, Aykin, Phoenix, Mavaar, Juliank, Juliank, risi123, Jui, Kaleli, Breaking_me, ComeGetSome, Martiskainen, Jimmy, Batuhan, Tsukasa, look_tom, Robin, HvNy, gusgusbr, Oreos

As it is known, the fastest paying back investment in the game is Trading post, if you look at the nilla aoe3 balance, many of the balance elements are considered with no trading post start with ottoman being exception. We can see that Aoe3 is balanced in a way that so there is no tp in the age 1, in the current situation, many civs can get a very fast fortress strategy without even needing to stay in the commers age, even the most rush strategies remains meaningless, so we think that the addition of 250 wood trading post to the game will be useful for Aoe3 DE players.

there be pros in this proposal as well as cons, but we are sure that the pros of this proposal are much more than before

  • Pros

Strategic variety will increase which is the main goal of any rts game, because civs that rely on TP start will focus on also playing age 2

Most of the strong considered civs are also starting an age 1 TP, such as Spain, France 12/10, Brit GMT, China, Haudenosaunee,Port, 250 wood trading post will help to slow down those strategies which are considered overwhelming

Most of the weak considered civs start with no TP, this will increase their chance to compete against civs which can tp start in age 1

  • Cons

A few civs can be positively or negatively effected with this change which can be fixed with some changes

  • Additional thoughts

Otto starts with 400 wood, can still build TP + Mosque while sending capitalism shipmente, to make sure Otto can’t TP + Mosque start with capitalism I can suggest either moving capitalism shipment to age 2 for Otto or remmoving capitalism shipment, another option is removing 50 wood

Inca TP already costs 250 wood because of the outpost feature, my suggestion is to increase Inca TP cost to 275 wood

Malta age 1 TP strategy will be effected most with this change, my suggestion is making German tongue shipment 400 wood by giving option to arrive fast, this should address malta can still boom with German tongue

Italy architects should also build Trading posts slower

Thanks for reading.

24 Likes
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It’s been boiling for long time. Let’s finally bring FF botting to fold

1 Like
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I Agree with all said by the friend. With the addition of Buffing the Advanced Trading Post card. Giving the ATP bonus Back to 45% Discount in TP price and 25 Damage attack for TPs. This TP price nerf is good to giving other civs a chance against others. Is notorius a hard Spam of high Game Tempo civs like Spain, Otto, France in Ladder. Its time to Stop that to we see more civs being played in the ladded

1 Like
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But some civs need to be compensated by having 50 extra wood start. Not all civs with TP opening are OP or should be nerfed.

5

Agree with tp to cost 250 wood because these ffs need to be slowed down and also agree with german tongue with the cost and it being sent somewhat quicker.

1 Like
6

Vanilla AoE III only had 8 civilizations, so that meant fewer civilizations to balance, making it easier to balance the game, so of course it was better balanced. Using Trade Post cost of 250 Wood in any way to suggest that it makes the game more balanced is ridiculous; it will just change the balance between civilizations, not actually make it more balanced, and it will also reduce the amount of different strategies people use because you will see fewer natives from maps being used because of more expensive Trade Posts, for example.

I would hate if the game went back to 250 Wood Trade Posts, and I know I am not the only one who likes them being 200 Wood, as seen in a poll from this forum.

3 Likes
7

Yeah

nope.

I am not sure if this will stop FFing civs from FFing. At most it will delay them by a few seconds, but not that much. People will adapt to gathering the missing wood in transition or prioritize wood treasure.

Perhaps you can combine this with making the 700G slower to arrive.

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tough one tbh, this is certainly coming from a place where many hate the direction of DE favoring shipments and tempo over RE’s a bit slower but also more battling over map resources. 50w extra basically nerfs specific civs harshly and boosts others significantly. It would also undo the last year or so of balance but would shake up a meta that feels stale. Trade 1 group of oppressive civs for a few others with this. 250w tp also restricts many civs openings to only market or 1 house and nothing else (dutch style) so I dont know if this would lead to more varied meta, just a reprieve of the current one. Like as inca there goes tambo openings and locks you to spam kancha. Malta which is already painful into FF locked to just market slow. Aztecs id imagine with their in base plaza rush even stronger. Same with farm opening Iro. A chance like this would hopefully come with lots of internal testing as it would likely not make the game balanced right off the bat and would need time to evaluate every civ deeply. Given we cant even get a hotfix for bugged cards, I worry the powers that be would actually be able to prevent mass lame builds.

But still, i think most players are ready for a bit of a shift and this at least tries to shake up the status quo we’ve had for it feels like 2 years. I still wonder if just mixing the map pool would relieve the passive FF/FI meta without specifically favoring some civs so strongly. If not every map had safe TPs or even a TP line the worst tempo offenders would be nerfed without messing with the civs fundamentals. Maps are already one of the most subtle influencers of civs win rates and we’ve had just increasing mass resource/tempo favored maps. I think this is due to general RTS trends to “quicken” games as people generally prefer faster games (or so its thought from games devs, dont yell at me if you disagree). just my thoughts

3 Likes
9

Ottomans - nerfed.
Spain - nerfed.
Germany - nerfed.
French - nerfed (12/10 especially).
Lakota - nerfed.
China - nerfed.
Ethiopia - nerfed?
Hausa - nerfed.
Inca - buffed (if Tambos stay at 250w), nerfed if Tambos become more expensive.
Italy - buffed (Architects)
Malta - buffed, I think)
Huad - neutral, maybe?
USA - nerfed (and buffed via Chinese immigrates)
Mexico - nerfed
Portuguese - nerfed
India - buffed
Japan - buffed
Dutch - buffed
Russia - buffed.
British - buffed (I think, GMT is better and worse)
Sweden - buffed
Aztec - buffed

There are a few losers, but actually this doesn’t seem terrible.

I think Aztecs would be the biggest winner.

10

What if they keep their cost and just increased build time by ~25%? That would make it much harder to hit a first pass of the trader and nerf them early on. At the very least it would occupy your Explorer longer and increase the time when they are vulnerable to be sieged down while being constructed. It would also still nerf all the civs that can build them with wagons.

5 Likes
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Would be a much needed and much appreciated change

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This change is incredibly unserious. It’s not well thought out and benefits specific civs and hurts all others. This isn’t a serious suggestion and if you had a serious suggestion you would make your case in a manner that is compelling with evidence rather than stating an opinion backed by other opinions that sound like evidence and then upvoted by possibly alternate accounts.

I really wish people around here would do better.

4 Likes
13

Sticking to the topic at hand, I think the Nerf may be aimed at slightly weakening the experience the stagecoach gives you, but modifying the price is screwing the BO of many lower mid-level players.

And beware of unfounded accusations.

14

We really need that civ to get buffed

15

Is this the way though? I could spend 10 minutes and think of multiple better changes that could be made

16

I like the concept of slowing down some of these high tempo civs. Although a disagree with changing tps to 250w I think another way you could go around doing this would be nerfing the xp rate that tps give or even add no tps maps into the competitive map pool.

4 Likes
17

I also disagree with the price increase. There may be more creative ways to stop the snowballs.

1 Like
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@FoggierWizard41 I agree with all you have said except the 275w Incan TP part. The civ is pure garbage atm. Let them keep their 250w TPs because this won’t change much. It’s their civ bonus anyway and it’s not like it matters greatly.

19

I was being sarcastic about them needing a buff. They’re a dumpster fire that need about 16 reverts.

2 Likes
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If that is the case wouldnt an easier fix be to make the trading post an age II building?

1 Like