Double the cost of ages

They did it with wonders and it seemed to help. I think the pace should be further slowed by doubling ages too. Dark age basically doesn’t even exist. People are hitting feudal before the map is even explored. Why even have wood walls and barracks available in dark age, it’s pointless. Doubling the cost would give an extra 3-4 minutes to enjoy the dark age. Same with castle, which people often continue straight to. Feudal skirmishes are cancelled. There should be more time to populate the map and fight over strategic positions before castle walls and long range siege come out.

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Bruh, you wanna extend the game time from 30 mins to an entire hour? What do you want to stay in the dark age for? To roleplay with the sheep???

The barracks and walls are there for those civs that spend slightly longer in DA to deffend against extremely early aggression.

Likewise, an effective feudal aggression forces enemies to stay longer in feudal, not to mention that the current meta is to go double TC, which again, extends feudal time.

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No way. Why would we want to make the game longer?

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There is no such thing as extreme early aggression in AoE4. One could even say there’s barely an all in strategy as all in in AoE4 means no second TC, no fast castle but constant villager production while on other similar RTS games one would interrupt or even completely stop villager production. I can’t remember a single pro match where one player has stopped villager production completely during feudal age. And even if there is one match out there it is super rare.

If the cost for ages gets increased or doubled at this state of the game ppl will just build more and more TC’s. So additionally TC’s would need a rework too. Cost increased or what imo is better one basic arrow as it is now and extra arrows from garrisoned villagers only with an upgrade on the TC.

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This is a choice on the part of the players. I’ve seen games between two conqueror level players that remained in feudal for a long time and neither player could afford the cost of going to castle due to the military disadvantage it would cause. Castle age is already pretty expensive and creates a window of opportunity for a player who remains in feudal and makes more military instead.

A similar situation happens with the Arena map in AoE 2. A lot of people think the map is all about doing a 3-4 TC boom behind the walls, and most of the time they get away with it because their opponent does the same, but an all-in 1 TC castle age attack will crush someone who has 3 TCs and no military.

What I’m saying is in both cases people can incorrectly perceive what the meta is because if everyone does the same sub-optimal strategy, they get away with it. But in both cases you do see games where good players understand that it’s sub-optimal, and the opponents cannot get away with it when faced with a serious investment in earlier aggression.

Well the problem to me is that most pro games do not end in feudal (we are not even talking about dark age) but in castle and imperial age. Can a feudal rush be viable and lead to victory maybe with both players staying in feudal? Of course but it is simply not that common. If a strategy has only got a 30% winning chance you might see only 5% or even less go for it. Players want to win and are opportunistic. And that means that people choose to go fast castle or/and add TC’s since it is the safer way.

Yea, it’s too safe. Specifically because it’s cheaper than amassing a siege army. No one should feel like they can get through feudal without building a single military unit. Yet everyone does.

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I just don’t see this in games I watch. E.g. I just looked at the most recent game on the EGCTV YouTube channel, and both players made military in feudal:
ZertoN vs IamMagic: Road to Red Bull Wololo - LAST CHANCE QUALIFIER AOE4 - FINAL DAY! - YouTube

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I wonder if they could at least do some tweaking

For example: feudal from 400/200 to 450/250

Castle: 1200/600 to 1300/700

Imperial: 2400/1200 to 2600/1400

Increase additional TC cost from 400/300, 120sec to 400/400,150 sec.

Hp from 2400 to 2200 in feudal, automatically increases to 2300 in castle age, 2400 in imperial

So although there’s a lot of changes, none of them are that massive as double aging cost(which is way overboard)

It incrementally slows down aging, total of 700 more Res to get to imperial is nothing in the grander scheme of things. But coupled to the nerf to TCs, helps favour aggression over booming /aging.

To prevent Chinese dynasties from getting nerfed too much, they could receive a discount on their 2nd LM per age.

Couple with this, swabia needs to change as well, it’s too attractive at mid elos and down to simply fast imp , so change the discount to a flat -200/200

Another alternative to nerfing aging costs, is to buff anti building damage. Making armies more threatening earlier. Rams were possibly over nerfed, while springs and mangos definitely do too little damage to buildings.

We shouldn’t forget this game is still brand new in the grander scheme of things. If we consider how much aoe2 had to change over time. Obviously 4 doesn’t need to change that much, but it should remind us to keep our minds open to change

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That’s a very small portion of players with the highest APM that can still make use of even just a couple military units. The vast majority of players I’ve actually played with are kinda casual I guess, there’s little pressure or incentive to militarize. More time would give more opportunities for combat and strategy.

The way it is now, I sometimes can’t even get a military unit within range of enemy before they hit feudal. If the age up doesn’t get delayed, something else should change like increase movement speed or reduce unit cost or something to inject more gameplay into the first 15 minutes. Starting TC is basically immune to anything any player could do until 9-10 minutes, which is oddly the time it takes to skip feudal entirely. So why would anyone do anything else? If feudal took just 3 minutes longer, everyone would need to start multitasking an army and their eco, not just the conqueror ranked.

Yea, pro players surely have got the APM to control units while expanding economically. And if it’s viable they will just do it. Imagine if the TC’s arrows could be dodged by clever unit movement. You would see constant harassment from players that got 400 APM for sure and they would try to raid all #### while dodging the TC’s arrows. So the reason those top players aren’t going for aggression in most games means that it’s not possible, nevermind how clever and fast one is. And if it is not possible for pro players it’s even less of an option for mediocre and bad players. I dont think people haven’t figured out how to play this game yet. To me atm there’s certain boundaries in the game design that easily punish activity.

Reaching castle age doesn’t make a player suddenly immune to attack, it’s actually a very vulnerable time because they’re down the resources while not having gained much. You don’t need to attack the starting TC to gain a decisive advantage in feudal, just a few villager kills will swing the game if the two players are of equal skill.

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It’s extremely rare to see people do a fast castle with no military - both in Twitch streams and in my own games. No idea how you came up with ‘yet everyone does’. As long as that gets scouted, it can easily be punished.

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Game is as long as a player surrends or get eliminated. What are you talking about is skip feudal and dark age and go to castle, that will take obviously longer.

What the OP is proposing is to encourage people to have more dark and feudal fights, that with the actual landmark cost, dark age fights are inexistent, and feudal avoidable.

The only possible advantage shouldn’t be through sniping a couple villagers tho. More time in ages would help nullify that swing so players don’t feel defeated after losing two villagers.

I just watched that match you linked and while they did make some military in feudal, they both still rushed to castle by 8 minutes. And the player who castled first won. Castling is not vulnerable. It’s impossible to build an army in 8 minutes that can counter that.

The first one reached castle age at 8:30 and had 17 military at that time. When he started building the landmark he had 12 military. That is not what I have ever understood anyone to be describing when they use the term “fast castle”. A true HRE (both players were HRE) fast castle can reach castle age before 6:30, but that can easily be punished, which is why neither player did it.

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You don’t think that’s too fast? Do you think games should have the possibility to end in feudal?

Why does it matter if the game ends in feudal or castle? What is inherently better about it ending in age 2? Shouldn’t we primarily be concerned with actual game length?

Why even have 4 ages if half of them won’t be used most of the time?

Also, like that other guy said. If you fast castle, as in go castle without making military, you will die to a competent opponent.

That’s my point. Right now they might as well start the game at castle age. It seems like a waste of time to play the first 10 minutes if it’s always predictable and the most you can affect the game is through sheep. It doesn’t matter to me when the game ends but earlier combat would make me happy.

In the game linked, the 12-18 military each player produced in feudal did nothing other than poke until their castle age finished. I don’t think a single death occurred except 1 scout. There’s no time for a military battle in feudal greater than the exchange of a few units. Castle age feels guaranteed as long as you don’t do it completely naked.

I’d like it to feel more earned, like holy shit we’ve survived 4 existential battles and managed to expand a 2nd TC, now we get to castle.

I honestly don’t mean this condescendingly but it sounds like maybe you don’t have much exposure to the full breadth of the game. A ton of games have plenty of action in the feudal age. It does depend a little on the factions and maps and the playstyles of the players though. What do you normally play? Ranked, custom, team games? Have you ever watched any AOE IV tournaments? If you’re looking for games that have plenty of pre-castle age action, try 1v1 ranked and watch tournament games or any conqueror rank streamer.

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