But… It’s entirely the other way around? You don’t need villagers on food anymore so you have to take care of your wood line instead of wood+food, and on top of that you have way more lumber for outposts…
Nah, you’re hyperboling right now and waay overextending it.
To get another TC you need 400W+300S. For a dock you just need 150 W(or 75W).
And that’s exactly what I’m talking about, you’re telling me that having a dock is like having an extra TC.
So something like 2 TCs in the dark age for a low fraction of its price it’s ok for you?
For me, as I stated in the OP, screams GO WATER OR GO HOME on any map with at least some puddles.
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I do not think I’m overextending and yes I am very content with its price.
Like I said in upper thread, water eco is very vulnerable to raid even against basic military ship since docks do not provide enough shelter or arrow fire like TCs and fishing ship can only gather food and nothing else. It can also be a waste of resources in the late game if you do not manage proper balance between land and water. This is all the same even in AOE2 DE nowadays.
You also say like as if 150 wood is cheap investment in early phase of the game but most of the time it is not. You have to sacrifice fair bit of age-up time to get that surplus of food income and 150 wood is just an up-front cost. You need extra wood income to keep the fishing ship production going so you have to invest your villagers for wood gathering when normally you don’t need that much wood when you are just aiming for regular fast feudal age.
Besides, It’s not like anything else is blocking you exclusively while letting other players to have that advantage unless you get extremely unlucky map generation. You are the one who chose not to take that early advantage and decided to go for something else. You understand going for water eco is very profitable. If so, then you have to make sure to damage your opponents eco before it gets out of hand.
Head to head combat is rarely a good choice when you know that your eco is falling behind compare to your enemy. That is why I advised to be more aggressive than you usually do. Water eco does not pay off instantly and it takes time to build it to certain size. If you’ve found out or already know that opponent is going for water and you are not planning to do so, then you should know that your time is limited. However you will be able to take initiative if you didn’t slack around with military production. That’s your timing window for you and you have to make sure to keep that pressure going on constantly.
Damaging your opponents eco is one of the most basic attack plan in any RTS game. It is more important when you know you have less income than your opponent. Mindless attrition and one-note strategy can only get you so far. Be adaptive and practice different things if you aim to win some games.
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Exactly, it sounds absurd that they want something nerfed just because they don’t want to go water themselves when the game is giving every tool necessary to contest it and get a good economy early out of it. Why wouldn’t you want to take advantage of it?
Should we limit civs to one TC too because I dont want to have to build a second tc to catch up in units or nerf rushes and units because I can’t be asked to make an army early?
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I think the problem is that it doesn’t have any other benefit to go water (on puddle or lake maps not islands) and if you nerf the fishing rate it will be mostly pointless
Hybrid maps tend to have rly long dark ages as the meta is to go spearman on land and multiple docks (if there is a lot of fish - on the river map ofc less docks) atm at decent level of play. That’s also the reason why mongols excel at hybrid maps with the double spear production - going water without spears/towering your docks is not even an option. Maybe fish need a small gatherrate nerf - but ofc you should pull significant ahead if you can keep your docks alive .
We also saw TheMista and TheViper winning bolder bay after losing water in french mirror - or mista FCing with fish letting fish die as abbasid going for a heavy siege push. Overall I think the hybrid maps with almost no or 1 deep fish per pond seem fine.
Pure water maps are just unplayable atm as everything except french is not viable.
The only problem with fishing economy that I see is that the game doesn’t teach anything about it. None of the art of war missions teach about water economy and naval gameplay so most new players are unaware of how good it is.
Once you get the hang of it it’s fun and so rewarding! it’s a build you have on your arsenal and I like how it makes use of all map features and it’s viable to all civs.
Aoe3 most civs can’t even go water or they will get rekt on land while it is an autowin for the civs that can take advantage of it.
Obviously feudal hulk is a problem but once it gets nerfed all civs will be on equal ground when it comes to water
the thing is that fish is not the only source of food… why fish should be better? lol
Fishing boats are better, but they are better early. The longer the game goes the more inefficient they become and then other food sources on land become better
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Fish should be important, especially early on, as the first dock is basically acting as a 2nd TC in Dark Age. But I agree it should not be as strong as it is right now. Fishing ships could be slighty more expensive or the gather rates a bit slower.
If you lose water you should be at a disadvantage, but still have a chance of winning, like 60-40.
Seconding this. Adapting to the map is a core game concept and players should be rewarded for it.
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I’d prefer if it was more of a risk-reward situation (e.g. with a more impactful resource investment). Taking forward hunts has a much worse risk-reward factor for example (walking distances, additional micro work to push deer, easy to get raided, relation between mill cost and potential food, the fact that a dock is essentially a second TC producing “food-only-vils”, the potential for water resources to recharge).
But as it stands at the moment, going water is, as you say, so strong that it’s practically forced upon you even on maps where a fighting navy would never make sense (e.g. black forest puddles).
Tbh, the biggest issue I feel water eco has is that it makes mongols on hybrid maps way too op. The mongol player is the only one that can really go water cause if the enemy does it they just die to double production spears unless it’s bay or a back pond.