Example of "micro" according to Relic

You play English 1vs1. You rush to castle because you need crossbowmen.

You built castle at third age. Enemy is attacking so they use a ram to go first and send to a house next to the castle. The castle start attacking the ram while the ram is not attacking to the castle. Enemy archers are behind the ram, shooting to your troops.

You paid a high price for that castle so you expect it will help you in the teamfight (you’re behind in army). But then the fight starts

So micro is:
castle is attacking ram like dumb

  • You click the castle
  • Then you target enemy archer
  • The castle kills enemy archer
    *castle target again to enemy ram like dumb
  • You click the castle
  • Then you target enemy archer
  • The castle kills enemy archer
    *castle target again to enemy ram like dumb
  • You click the castle
  • Then you target enemy archer
  • The castle kills enemy archer
    *castle target again to enemy ram like dumb
  • You click the castle
  • Then you target enemy archer
  • The castle kills enemy archer
    *castle target again to enemy ram like dumb
  • You click the castle
  • Then you target enemy archer
  • The castle kills enemy archer
    *castle target again to enemy ram like dumb
  • You click the castle
  • Then you target enemy archer
  • The castle kills enemy archer
    *castle target again to enemy ram like dumb

wow next time I will hire a Chinese guy for this “high skilled micro”. And all this while you’re controlling your troops and villagers.

Good job Relic!!

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Have you ever try to queue attack orders while pressing shift? It’s there, give it a try

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and what about the button “attack same type of unit”

It is most likely intended behaviour. There has already been a discussion about the TC targeting rams too. Some like it some not but devs probably came to the conclusion that otherwise defensive buildings would be a little bit too strong. Hasn’t really got anything to do with “high skilled micro”.

Build melee units to attack the ram or just use some villagers. You can even garrison your units inside the castle as soon as your opponents starts to target them so you have got plenty of options to deal with the situation.

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This is fixed really easy with a company of heroes mechanics, in COH, you can place a tank/AT unit to prefer attacking units instead of armour or vice versa… I don’t understand why they don’t use this in age IV, rams should be armor units and castle should have a option to toggle attack preference, easy fix!

then it would be too op. this is how relic manage “balance”

I was under the impression you quit AOE 4 about a week ago now. But I’ve noticed since then, you’ve posted a doom thread just about every day like clockwork. Is it safe to assume you’ve returned from said hiatus? I normally avoid toxicity but it’s starting to seem like you’re stuck in a rut and simply not helping yourself. <3

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Smart people are always looking for solutions to difficulties! And stupid people just complain that things don’t go the way they want. He didn’t even know how to play the game. Do not learn, do not find solutions! Then post the complaining thread.

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Wow 20000iq. It doesn’t work for buildings.

It isn’t there, test it first before saying anything.

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Again it isn’t. “Micro” should not be forced on defender. You should garrison units inside ram to defend units against TC fire and ungarrison to defend against units burning it down. You are paying 800 stone for castle. A single ram should not be able to nullify all of its dps.

It takes way longer to transition to melee units from ranged fight than it take to build a single ram. By the time your units arrive you would have already lost your position. Also if you are feudal you are fucked because using spears to burn down rams is useless against archers/longbows. Also never use villagers to burn down rams. Not only it idles your eco for a long time but also losing villagers is far more expensive. You should never use villagers to burn down ram if there are archers/longbows defending it.

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Nah its so called “micro”.

Why exactly should micro not be forced on the defender? Is there some logical reasoning behind this statement? Rams cost 300 wood, need a blacksmith and siege engineering tech. So it’s quite an investment as well.

Tbh I have barely seen an army composition without melee units. Especially since mangonels have been buffed to counter ranged infantry your kind of forced to build melee units from castle age on anyways. Villagers are viable too. If your in feudal age and building spears against longbows+rams your doing something wrong. Build horsemen or atleast add them to your army composition.

I feel like defensive buildings auto-targeting rams is a somewhat compensation for their 100% hit rate which makes them very strong in the first place.

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If the game would micro for you, there would be no micro. Micro is the micromanagement executed by the player. Not the engine.

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I don’t see how this could be called micro. The castle attacks ram (closest enemy) by defect unless you click the castle then you click an enemy. Then the enemy will be killed and the castle will attack the ram again.

Autotarget the closest enemy is “macro”, a precoded decision by the game. So instead giving me the option to choose what kind of unit to attack, the game decides for me. And manually I have to change target every fkcing time.

so the rule “attack the closest enemy” its ok for Relic and they don’t bother that I have to click every time to change this rule. They call this action “MICRO”. They are sooooo wrong

by definition micro is “control of multiple units simultaneously when required.”
Relic needs to create fake micro when its unnecessary because of poor design of AOE4. If castle could target efficiently then it would be too OP. Since they dont have any f*cking idea how to handle this they coded the autorule “attack the closest enemy” doesn’t matter how inefficient this could be. They never coded a special castle ability “ram killer” like boiling oil because that would change the whole game.

At the end castle gets nullified with only 300 wood. Again, this is not micro even this is not how RTS games are handled.

if the castle or TC attack the closest enemy (in the most inefficient way) every time that kills an enemy I selected before, then the game is doing micro AGAINST me. This is no micro, it’s just lame “balance” from a mediocre game

The word’s “Micro” and “Macro” have become gamer buzzwords. Buzzword being a term that is used in numerous contexts to the point that it’s lost a specific meaning. Same with words like “Meta” or “Professionalism”.

“Macro” means the general steps used in a system to accomplish a task. A-Moving a Blob of Units would be considered a Macro form of military control.

“Micro” means any detail-oriented steps intended to make the Macro action more effective. Splitting would be a Micro action, if A-Moving was considered Macro.

However, both “micro” and “macro” are ultimately made-up concepts. Pure idealism. It’s an imaginary categorical system that divides actions into two main fields. It itself, does not exist. Therefore, it’s always subject to usage. There is no correct or incorrect.

In gaming, I think players are often alluding to a specific type of skill curve. To take a new player and give them the feeling of “catching on quick”. To make average gameplay feel like good gameplay. Then to take the curve from average gameplay to good gameplay feel like excellent gameplay. Good to Masterful, feel like amazing gameplay. In reality it’s a deception of mathematics. It’s easy to get performance of 1>0, difficult to get 1.5>1, extremely hard to get 1.6>1.5. Nobody wants to feel like they are trash at their favorite game, and everyone that wants to be great, wants to feel like it’s in reach. Even if these feelings are created through mathematical slight of hand.

In the science of it, we’re really talking about investing into the diminishing returns of efficiency. Which is where the metric of APM starts to rear it’s ugly head (and destroy hands) and where the generalized Micro/Macro classification system starts to break down. What is Macro for an average player is NOT Macro for a Pro and if you compare a Pro to an Average player, the Pro will have disportionately high “Micro” representation. Because where the standard of line which divides these two categories is drawn, shifts depending on the demographics being compared.

There’s another more complicated system for representing/using Micro/Macro but it’d require writing a book and I think it’s not necessary for the average AOE’r. I would imagine only Pros would stand to gain from it.

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ehm I do not know what you’re saying but macro is not necessarily related to micro, macro is

so everytime the game does automatic functions is called macro, for example “kill selected enemy → switch target to closest enemy”. another example would be “kill selected enemy → switch target to lowest HP enemy at range”. This rules are completely arbitrary and decided by Relic Games. They wrote the macros thinking in “balance” despite it kills the player experience and generates awkward and disgusting situations.

If macros cant be edited then they should go for the most efficient decision, and they should learn about player experience IN REAL TIME. Unfortunately this would provoke serious imbalance, making units or buildings too strong for pro players.

This game is mediocre with simple mechanics so units and buildings must be dumb as hell otherwise the balance would break hard

Oh very interesting! Thank you for this source! I’m not a developer nor work in computer science. I work process improvement. So it’s not surprising we’re using the same words for entirely different methods/concepts. Very very cool.

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Btw, can we manually target enemies with the TC now?
Havent played in quite a while.

yes but after killing target will switch to closest enemy again and again…