He posted screenshot with his id in another thread, and the id’s max elo is 985
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You probably come from aoe 2, where Towers actually make the area safe until you can use defended siege to push it, or you really have a huge mass of knights to throw away. It is also because the Towers in aoe2 shoot multiple arrows opposed to Aoe3’s.
Aoe3’s fortification needs to be used as temporary time gaining buildings. Main composition of your defense should still be your army count. It is somewhat underwhelming, i agree.
No problem. Towers cost 100 wood, and build limit 15. I build them around base far away for looking the area. Remove all bonuses to buildings from russia and malta and give them something usefull.
I’m honestly curious what you think a normal unit shipment is?
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Real age 2 rush civ shipments:
8 Chu Ko Nus
9 Qiang Pikemen
7 Steppe Riders
1 Flamethrower (artillery LOL)
10 Rattan Shields
12 Seminole Sharktooth Bowmen x2
6 Carbine Cavalry
8 State Militia
5 Regulars
8 Comanche Horse Archers
7 Cheyenne Riders
9 Cree Trackers
7 Cowboys
7 Cetan Bowmen
5 Club Warriors
6 Club Warriors
3 Axe Riders
4 Axe Riders
2 Tokala Soldiers
Russia age 2 “RUSH”
13 Streltsy (LOL 1 train in barracks)
6 Poruchiks (aka 3 halberders)
4 Cossacks (aka 2 hussars)
5 Cossacks (aka 2.5 hussars)
Tula Arms Foundry (2 greanadier)
11 Royal Arquebusiers (skirm with 10% melee armor LOL)
Rush civ with Outpost hp population upgrades, yes.
You’re fairly new to the game, there’s nothing wrong with that. We were all noobs once. But you need to learn the basics of the game. Many of the complaints you’re making come from a lack of knowledge of this game, I think part of that comes from playing other games in the series (which are so different that they could be another series).
5 Cossacks is one of the best age 2 military shipments in the game. 750 res on a military shipment is way better than most military shipments in age 2.
Cossacks deal 26 damage each when Hussars only deal 30. Hp wise 5 Cossacks is better than 3 huss too. Not to mention an extra 10 ranged armor.
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Also, you can’t entirely judge rushes by shipments. Civs have different bonuses, Russia’s vills train faster (3 vills come out faster than 2 from another civ) so you are extra well suited for long age 2 plays.
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I completely agree if I hadn’t played the game for 1300 hours. It’s not that “I have a problem”, I don’t have any problems at my rank 190 in Treaty. There is a problem with a game that should work as intended. Instead of the useless 30 damage, it would be possible to add +2500 health to the blockhouses and commandery. Because these barracks shoot like crap, and you can only build 7 of them! This is a big disadventage. I need my barracks all over the map, like any normal civ. And Malta cant defend more than 1 side at a time.
I’m not talking about me a pro player, but Russia up to age 3 is behind everyone in score except Japan. So this is the weakest economy in the age 2.
I didn’t really want to get into a stats measuring contest, but I have 1900+ hours on DE and way more than that on the original game. My rank in treaty is, as of last I checked, #69, not that it matters. very few people play ranked treaty, I’m not great at treaty compared to some people I’ve seen around.
The Dunning Kruger effect dictates that at a certain level of knowledge you overestimate how much you actually know or how good you are at something. I think I have around 1600 elo in team and 1400 in 1v1 (I’m by no means a great player), but I kinda know what I’m taking about.
In a different thread you stated that neither cannons nor hussars counter skirms, and that simply isn’t correct. I believe you also asked what the difference was between Musks and Skirms, which is fairly basic. You also seemed to underestimated the usefulness of better culvs that survive an extra hit, culv micro is a core skill in higher level treaty (to be clear, I’m kinda rusty here and it’s an area I could improve in) as culv supremacy is what gives a player the right to have artillery which is very strong against the pop efficient infantry-based armies that tend to be dominate in much of the higher level treaty scene (talking generally, some civs get strong cav that are staples too). Infantry is used over cav in treaty in general because it’s more pop efficient, and with extremely high amounts of resources that is what matters.
Except it was an intentional game design decision not to have towers be as anywhere near as strong as they were in the other Age games. They wanted a faster paced game with more movement (to be clear, I’m not insulting any of the other games, just pointing to a difference). I’m not saying that there are no, or should be no defensive civs, I main Ports (defensive), and play a good bit of Dutch (defensive) and Russians (more aggressive or super late game). But it’s important to note that the game is built around military in a way many of the other games just aren’t. TCs are powerful, and a good town defense uses building placement, TC fire, and often military units (or at least vill punching and MM) along with sometimes some additional fire from an outpost, WH or blockhouse.
You can insta train late game if you have the right cards, but I basically agree here. Russia could use a few more blockhouses. I’d say 10. There is a reason not to let them have unlimited pop-free DPS that can instantly spam armies of infantry.
Malta has serious design flaws. Basically everyone agrees on that.
Something important to note is that Russia underscores. As almost every civ, if your opponent is Russia, and they have an even score with you, you’re in bad shape. I believe it’s tied to vills that only cost 90f and infantry that cost about 75% of normal cost. Civs like Brits and I think Dutch tend to over score because banks cost 700 res for basically 4 vills and Manors cost 140w and brits build more than they need for the extra vills leaving the houses just around doing nothing except adding score and LoS.
Me too, but you tell me that I’m a noob and don’t know how to play. But you’re not saying that I don’t know how to use towers. You’re saying I shouldn’t use them. And I started this topic with the fact that they are useless. This is nothing to argue about. If we start measuring skill, we will come to the conclusion that Italy needs to be nerfed. Because I was playing in one team game and there was a dude who didn’t have a problem with rust. He dodged the artillery volleys of 14 arrow cannons with his bersalgieri so that he lost only 5 people, and then killed these cannons in melee, shoot up the shogun and moved on. This guy fought 1v3 for 25 minutes and won. ITALY SHOULD BE NERFED! This is just stupid. As I have answered many times in this thread: I am fine. I play and win more often than I lose. I am giving an example of the fact that towers are of no use, but all people only wnat to talk about me and not about the topic. This ratty trick won’t work here.
We are discussing the use of towers. If you want to talk about me, create an appropriate topic.
I can congratulate Portugal. They have 12 towers with 90 damage + town militia. They are stronger defensively than Malta. Do you think this is an example of good defensive building design? Is everything really working exactly as intended?
I don’t expect that they can be persuaded to agree to my terms for changing the towers, but if they really look closely, they will see that increasing the damage of all three tower upgrades +5 will have a very positive impact.
I don’t agree. There are very small maps (Texas for example) where you have to deal with 7 blockhouses at once, and no one has yet complained about this. The only reason the Russians only have 7 barracks is because they shoot.
The main problem of this situation is not even the presence of 7 barracks (I still win anyway), but the fact that you have no towers. You can’t use barracks as towers (collecting them all in one place) because if the enemy spews 10 mortars, you will be left without infantry. So no normal barracs, no normal towers. Disadventage.
And not 10 blockhouses, but 14 like other extensive fortifications.
I can insta train late game means Russia is late game civ. Every civ can rush, but Russia rush is not effective.
Yes, the problem is the same as in Russia. Malta can normally build soldiers only in castles, and there are no more than a maximum of 5 of them. That is, the problem again is not in the design, but in the fact that the towers do not work.
By the way, there is a big design mistake in Russia here. They made a game for Russia through forts, but did not make a game through blockhouses. This is also stupid, given that Russia has shipments for blockhouses but not for forts. And make age 4 fort play. Without shipments for forts.
We always talk about Malta or Russia here, but people who know other turtle civilizations can also say something. I’m sure everyone has the same problems.
For people with a phobia of long games, I want to say that WALLS drag out the game much worse than 7 high damage towers.
What about the Dunning Kruger Effect effect?
Yes. Towers are strong and useful for a wide variety of things without being so strong as to completely negate early aggression or create unbearable statements in the late game. You’re not asking for a small buff, if 2 outposts could melt an army worth 3x their cost it would upend the way this game plays. Games in AoE3 are fast paced, they can start and end before an AoE2 player makes it to the feudal age. This is a core design choice and changing it is an idea for 2003.
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Actually I’m saying they have valid uses (as I even said before) but they aren’t supposed to be great. They’re kinda a niche use thing, which doesn’t mean they don’t have any uses or that you shouldn’t use them, it means you should know how and when to use them.
Italy is pretty weak actually, from your comment I can’t tell if you know that or not. I’m reading some sarcasm into this. If you weren’t being sarcastic, this sounds like a skill imbalance and a situation in which you needed hand cav to stop his skirms meleeing your artillery.
I think Ports are a better designed civ than Malta, which needs some kind of buff but not necessarily one to their towers.
First off, sometimes talking about the level of game knowledge a player has is relevant. Sometimes it is a gap in game knowledge or skill that creates issues (ie it’s not always an issue of game balance when an individual has an issue dealing with a build, unit or strategy). In one of your other topics you said some things that make it sound like you lack certain knowledge about the game. Then you brought up your own treaty rank as an ‘Appeal to Authority’, so you made things about you first when trying to shut someone else down. Then basically got upset as people started noticing that what you said wasn’t extremely impressive.
The appeal to authority combined with the following statements is why I brought up Dunning Kruger. Also, I questioned your game knowledge, I didn’t go after your intelligence… certainly doesn’t seem as though you showed @DRIVE2024 the same respect.
[quote=“JuanTheHunter, post:20, topic:253812, full:true”]
What is the difference between a skirmisher and a mu################# [/quote]
I don’t agree with your logic here, but would this last one apply to outposts by you own logic?
Do you really think that an age 1 tower (+15 dmg) destroyed an entire army?
Do you really think that if the tower grade 3 can kill an imperial hussar 1vs3 it will be too strong?
So its kinda spy?))) I think this is enormous problem!
I mean if someone crazy person ####### ### Italy 8 hours a day for several years in a row. This is not the person by whom the performance of this civilization in the game should be assessed. Conversations about who is a noob and who is not are irrelevant.
Let’s just defend by TC. And give the opportunity to ALL barracks to accept shipments. The deletion check is very revealing.
I have got upset beacause I say that “towers not dealing damage its a problem, noone build them” and people said “Your just stupid noob towers are not for damage…” and noone told me for they need. It feels like I’m having a conversation with 5-year-old children. It’s really frustrating, yes.
I am ready to explain every phrase you took out of context, if you don’t understand something.
And so children, in this case we see a conflict situation in which the first speaker claims that the second is an interested person who bends the facts for his own benefit. There is no discussion of the proposal here, it’s just a conflict. Stupid, ugly, infant conflict.
So what’s the problem with understanding what I’m talking about? Now the towers work as pikes, but I want them to work as a defensive structure. I made such a proposal, and heard only derogatory remarks addressed to me. No constructive criticism. Besides, as I already said:
I am sticking to your examples. 5 hussar vs 1 outpost, 8 hussars vs 2 blockhouses, etc. In all of these examples the outposts are already winning, the only issue is your expectation is way off on how effective they are supposed to be. Again, a hussar costs 200 resources and an outpost costs 250. If 5 hussars are attacking an outpost, the hussars are 3-4x as expensive.
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This is an outpost after an attack by 3 Spanish hussars of a post-imperial upgrade with three shipments and an improved arsenal.
Yes, hussars are more expensive, but outposts cannot crawl around the map and attack the enemy base.
I don’t see the problem
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Y los húsares también cuestan madera por la población más el costo del establo.
Torre = 250 madera
5 húsares = 300 madera, 600 alimento, 400 oro
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Let’s summarize the last 80 posts.
I said that the towers only work against ships (which, by the way, didn’t bother anyone except OperaticShip743. Only he plays on sea maps.). I also said that there are nations that were designed to play early defense, and they don’t work now. Apart from Portugal, their towers are the strongest in the game. It’s generally impossible to counter without mortars. But no one complains about Portugal, everyone only complains about strong outposts.
I received several counterarguments to my proposals:
- I don’t use towers at all.
- I use towers to watch.
- I use towers to make shipments.
- I use towers to hide settlers.
- An attacking army costs much more than towers.
- You noob.
So let’s go in order.
- Your vote has been counted.
- Too expensive.
- So you need only one.
- If the tower is far enough away and your anti-cavalry are not dragoons, they will not make it in time. The tower will be broken and the settlers will die.
- Food gather rate: 0.84/1.09
Gold gather rate: 0.60/0.78
Wood gather rate: 0.50/0.65 + age 3; 720 resourses 0.80
+settlers not gather.
I don’t agree that the tower is less expensive. - Negative.
Next we moved on to discussing specific cases. And they even came to some consensus.
- The multiplier vs settlers should be removed on towers 2 in 3 upgrades.
- The fort must deal siege damage.
- 7 barracks for Russia is not enough.
- Malta is broken.
Several new points of discussion then emerged:
- You noob x2.
- A bit of hierarchical trash speech.
- platypus_slayer1 need normal anticav.
- Russia is a rush civ.
- Towers must hit multiple targets.
- The game shouldn’t be “slow”.
So what can I say on these points.
- Multiple targets as an option. But I’m leaning more towards the Baja California trading post.
- The game SHOULD be a long one against Malta, Portugal and maybe Russia if they change the fort/musketeer game to the blockhouse/strelets game. And also the USA and MEXICO who also play through forts. This is how the design was originally supposed to work.
- Regarding the fact that Russia is a rush civilization, I saw how Lionheart plays against Japan. He outplayed Japan from the very beginning, but instead of GG, Japan fought back with only shipments, and fought for another 10 minutes, and only then surrendered. He even started to panic. A normal rush nation would have won 10 minutes earlier. Therefore, I don’t think that the Russian Rush is so effective that you can only use it. I watched another game where a guy in Mexico fought with Russia. They both rushed each other and Russia lost. This is my opinion, it may be wrong, but neither my experience nor the YouTube videos counter it.
One of my takes sounded like this. The game works fine without the towers (Malta goes to hell), but I think this is a big gap in the gameplay. Nobody plays through buildings. But the game provides for this. Now I’ll show you which cards have to compete with economy cards or soldier enhancement cards.
Barracks, War Camps and War Academies get +100% hit points; Blockhouses, Kallankas, War Huts, and Nobles’ Huts get +50% hit points; Watch Towers get +10% hit points (Malta goes to hell)
Blockhouses can train Falconets and Mortars
Trading Posts get a ranged attack, +20% hit points, and -35% cost
Buildings get +40% hit points
Ships 2 Blockhouse Wagons; Blockhouses get +25% hit points
Grants all defensive building upgrades (if not already); costs 250 wood
Outpost built limit +7; Walls, Outposts, Fixed Gun, and Fort hit points +25%
Ships 1 Fixed Gun Wagon (Have you ever seen what he looks like?)
Buildings get +25% hit points
Ships 2 Outpost Wagons; Outposts can now train Crossbowmen, Pikemen, Hospitallers, Sentinels and Fire Throwers
Villagers build buildings 65% faster (Most nations do not have room for this card. Economy and strengthening soldiers occupy all slots.)
Barracks cost -50%; War Academies and War Camps cost -25%; Blockhouses, War Huts, Nobles’ Huts, and Kallankas cost -15% (Malta goes to hell)
Ships 3 Outpost Wagons; upgrades Outposts and Blockhouses to Frontier (if not already)
Barracks, War Academies, Caravanserais, Corrals, and Stables cost -30%; Blockhouses, War Huts, Nobles’ Huts, and Kallankas cost -10% (Malta goes to hell)
Walls get +600% hit points and +500% build time
Outposts, Outpost Wagons, Blockhouses, War Huts, Castles and Watch Towers cost -30% wood; Nobles’ Huts and Palaces cost -15% wood and coin
Walls get +200% hit points
Architects get +25% speed and build buildings 65% faster, build military buildings 45% faster instead, and can buld Outposts and Walls
Forts cost -50% and build time -50%; Fort build limit +2
Town Center, Wall, Blockhouse, and Fort build time -50%
Town Centers gain a bombard attack that can be used even when not garrisoned by villagers
Ships 1 Fort Wagon; Fort build limit +1; Forts get +2 Line of Sight and +10.0 attack multiplier against heroes
Bastion available at Walls
Ships 1 Fort Wagon and Fort build limit +1; allows Militiamen to be called from Outposts and Forts
Forts get LOS and range +6 and become able to attack other buildings
Forts train units and research technologies 200% faster
All infantry and cavalry in an AOE of 32 around Forts have 25% more attack and hit points
Buildings get +30% hit points, build time -30%, and grant coin upon being built instead of XP
Ships 1 Covered Wagon; Town Center build limit +1; existing and new Town Centers spawn 1 Frontier Post Wagon
In short, I’m tired. This can go on forever. I mean, it’s not my idea, it’s just not completely finished. And i see the problem simply in damage.
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Except I read the context.
You said Hussars don’t counter skirms because they don’t have a multiplier. But that isn’t a fair standard. Skirms as a unit class usually have low hp and a low base damage, on skirms it’s the multipliers against heavy infantry and light cavalry that make them powerful. on top of the low damage they have negative multipliers against heavy cav. Low damage that is cut lower by a negative multiplier and even lower by the ranged armor most cavalry has.
Most heavy cav have high hp and do decent damage to skirms because they have high base damage and skirms don’t have melee armor. That puts melee cav in the position of receiving little damage while dealing reasonable damage. You even have the option to back up the cav with anything dealing ranged damage to kill the skirms while your huss take very little damage. Musks can even do this because they can dish out damage to skirms fine they just can’t take the hits back. It’s hard to mirco all the skirm shots over the hussars to hit only the muskets without significant overkill.
Artillery (falcs, horse art, etc) counter infantry. they deal siege damage that cuts through armor and have a multiplier against “infantry” as a class. It’d be the same as giving falcs a 3x vs light infantry and a 3x vs heavy infantry.
You pointed out that infantry can kill falcs in a field, which is true, but that doesn’t change that they are a counter. They have very high ranged armor and are easy to defend. You have to micro to keep your artillery well protected (abusing their range etc) and punish the attacking force if he tries to take them down. Sup games are often won and lost on overcommitments to take down a few cannons. You are correct though that you usually can’t go pure artillery.
Then you look from the other way; why so many skirms in treaty if they can be countered? it’s simple;
1, melee units are less effective (not ineffective) late game because the armies get bigger (and walls change things too).
2, pop efficiency becomes more important than res efficiency (meaning 1 pop units generally shine over 2 pop units. This results in more musk/skirm armies and skirms are made to kill musks. who cares if skirms shot each other because they don’t deal or take much damage.
3, the best counter late game to mixed skirm/musk is artillery, so everyone builds culvs for the right to have other artillery on the field. If I win the culv war you don’t get the most efficient counter to the bulk of my army. If you win same thing goes for you. 5 horse art will do a lot of damage to skirm/musk masses.
It’s all civ depentant, but that’s the basic reason you see skirms ‘tanking’. skirms can tank skirm shots and since skirms don’t kill each other all that fast the skirms are cheap to replace.
As @DRIVE2024 pointed out, if you simply said skirms always use ranged attack, skirms would fair better at close range vs most heavy infantry who have melee armor.
If your suggestion was giving skirms a minimum range (meaning they can’t shot the close guys at all) than you failed to state that was your suggestion even after receiving pushback. Instead you decided to insult his intelligence and use your treaty rank as if any treaty rank to shut down the argument.
Moving onto this, it most certainly does. If my culvs survive an extra shot they can keep shooting at full DPS until you kill them, it’s massive on artillery that does a lot of damage while having low HP. Small stats differences can be a big deal. If our auxiliary dragoons are fighting and mine have an extra 10% attack upgrade they will win in the long term, and over a long battle you will drain faster.
Sounds like you need to mix upgraded Cossacks (per pop one of the best heavy cav in the game) and use your artillery better. You should always have culvs, and usually have more training to replace the current set. Also build lots of walls on the battlefield while the battle is going (in treaty this is important).
Coming back to the main topic of towers;
- Fair enough. Not everyone need to use something.
- You underestimate the mid-game value of LoS. At that point they aren’t too expensive.
- I might want to send shipments to more than one place. And to your suggestion of being able to ship units to barracks that would massively change the current balance of rushes.
- I don’t expect my tower to kill more than 5 units, I expect it to stop 4 vet huss from killing all my hunters while I’m fighting elsewhere.
- Sure, it’s about an even trade.
Do you mean TCs? There’s nothing special about Portuguese towers other than a card no one uses to make them cheaper. Unless you mean Team Costal Defenses, which many civs get and only helps vs ships.
Firstly, Lionheart tends to play unusual builds. Secondly, “Rush civ” is used somewhat loosely. Russia will almost always rush, but sometimes that doesn’t end the game. Russia is perfectly happy to rush, deal damage and age and boom having taken an early advantage if the rush didn’t kill the other player outright.
A long game is a win condition for late game civs. It shouldn’t just “Be long” because of the civs playing. It should be long if 1, we both feel that is in our best interest, or 2, one of us feels it is and the other fails to stop it. With all the turtlely FI plays going on with Mex and Otto we don’t need any boosts to that kind of play atm.
Multiple people have said that you expect too much of towers. They are useful now, and don’t need a 50% attack boost or a massive HP increase. The penalty against vills should go, and I’d change the base build limit for Blockhouse to 10. Malta needs something else, too many of their units suck.
The decision to have towers be weaker than units was an intentional one to make the game more focused on moving armies than on static defenses. I don’t believe you are fully considering the ramifications of further changes that lengthen the game. Some civs are already struggling because they have a hard time breaking a turtle, and Mex and Otto already have some builds that use the age 3 tower card to give them a base that you can’t push without a lot of siege to get them to age 4 very early.
I could easily see an argument for “Buff towers remove walls” but that is a different argument entirely and would necessitate the rebalancing of a lot of stuff because walls are one of the strongest “anti stupid strat protection” there is currently.
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