EDIT: After writing all this, I realized I’m not in AoE2:DE thread. I may copy my post to AoE2 some time. So, the ‘Messenger’ tech idea was meant for AoE2:DE
At the same time it can also be seen as a little mini-game, where paying attention to it creates anxiety and tension… which can be good things to feel in video games, and a motivator for some to hurry up (click faster, do things faster), or change strategies (i.e., start buying military when they wanted to turtle instead, or start building towers and walls when they otherwise wouldn’t)
I’m a little on the fence with showing the score. I could have sworn when I read this thread earlier you or someone talked about maybe devs should make a tech to reveal the score. I rather liked that idea – some sort of “Spies” tech to have scores appear.
- Maybe it can be called “Messengers” tech, where it’s implied that invisible field generals and scouts will do recon on the enemies throughout the game, sending messages back to home to report on enemy.
- Every civ would have this tech, researchable at Town Centers – perhaps from the very beginning, like Loom.
- Maybe make it costlier for some civs, or make it a team bonus or cheaper for other civs, etc. Or, if we don’t want it researchable from the very start, then maybe some civs can just have access sooner than others
By having a cost, the early early game won’t show scores, and it becomes a calculated risk of whether you buy it or not. Don’t make it too expensive, though. I imagine something like Loom in terms of cheap cost and short research time.
- Make it enough of an impact to make you probably wait until you get your econ going nicely. Maybe most will wait until early- or mid-Feudal?.. but not so impactful that it’s overly painful to research.
- Making it cost some Food could be a good way to do it (maybe 50 Food total cost?), because Food is so important early on it’d make it a really tough decision to do it too soon. I think Loom is often (or always?) 50 Gold, for comparison.
- I might be okay with just 25 Food cost, or “25 Food+25 Wood,” if that’d make it more palatable and less annoying for people than “50 Food,” but I think 25 Food cost might be too cheap
EDIT: Oh, there was this other thread today! That’s why I was confused. Is it just coincidence there are two threads in one day positing the banishment of scores? Very strange. See the OP here → An idea to address deer pushing meta
Hahaha, even the AI definitely do this! or at least did for a long while a year and more ago. Not sure if devs have adjusted this?
- Yeah, I usually had higher score early on in 2Human vs 2AI games, and so I would get attacked first by AI and teamed up against by them, too. Once I figured this out, I purposely started going slower in early game so my teammate had the higher score and AI would attack my teammate first instead of me
I don’t do that anymore, but I definitely went through a phase where I did this
If devs add the Messengers tech, I hope they cascade it to the AI so the AI don’t have cheater insights on how other players are doing to dictate their attack target (unless and until they research the tech)
I don’t think that’s a huge issue, is it? I don’t know very many good players who would spend time trying to plant a TC all over the map to try and see where their enemy has placed a 2nd TC. And the odds of it happening by chance are so slim