How to change the walling meta?

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
22

better maps would be preferable to making the faster civs even more overpowered than they already are. arabia is not an open map. almost every single map available in the standard pool is just a wallfest. the solution isn’t to adjust the bad beginner maps to make them 5% less wallable. the solution is to actually put much harder-to-wall maps in the pool and let people pick custom RMS maps to play for ranked instead of the default beginner ones that are included in the game. it doesn’t matter if they have community voting if all you can vote for are a bunch of wall maps

maps that actually have water combat AND land combat can’t walled as easily. you shouldn’t be able to wall your whole economy. the lakes maps are not good examples of water combat because the fish is basically walled-off for free. and mediterranean/baltic are awful because fish is so important and the land is walled off too easily

almost the entire default map pool is bad. that’s why we made custom maps over the course of 20 years.

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23

You don’t need stone to wall. Buildings and palisades are more than enough in 99% of the cases. The investment of a player fielding an army in feudal and upgrading it is way bigger than the one made by the player walling. The only realistic way to break out of this is either to break through his walls (which is hard if the other guy is paying any attention) or to tower rush him, which is a big investment which will further delay your own castle age.

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24

Archer rushes arent really popular in 1v1. If you werent able to deal any damage before, your opponent already is on his way to castle before your archers arrive.
Militia are popular, but only to try to delay the opponents fast castle a bit and go fast castle behind. Man at arms arent really popular either, as most people will be walled by the time they arrive too.

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Completely agree with @MustySnizl, if the enemy goes fast castle, most of the time you are forced to go fast castle aswell. And since you’re the one who is reacting, the enemy will be in a better position. I do not think that the situation is as bad as people say, but I’d definitely agree with some small nerfs to palaside walls. Probably a HP reduction is the best idea with some tweaking of some special maps that are known as the most wallable maps.

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What are you talking about? Stonewalling in feudal is nonsense in 90% of the times, when palaside walls are as effective

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27

I think you need to change your strategies instead of asking for changes that affects everyone, walling even with palisade involves idle vill time and wood, most maps in ranked pool are not easy to wall unless some really good luck in the map generation, a large wall of palisade wall is like 100 wood which really slows down anyone.

Houses and feudal buildings have been already nerfed they have less HP, 5 man at arms or villagers can take down dark age and feudal buildings in no time, even stone walls, 3 vills break in in like 2 mins, also walling with stone takes forever to build.

What else do you want, if you increase building time or less hp to palisades, there wouldn’t be any defensive against m@s+towers, next i can see you asking for a less attack on man at arms or increasing their creation time because they are too OP or asking for towers to lose 400 hp more.

The hoang strat pays off really good vs full wallers, fc+siege, the guy is really weak under pressure but with that style he has been top 20 just playing the right strat and we all here can agree that you might be picking the wrong strat.

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28

Try 2 Barracks Supplies M@A against full wood walls, at least in very open maps or lower ELO. 10 or more M@A is the bare minimum critical mass to reach, as 10 M@A on any non-TC Feudal Age building will quickly tear it down, even without Forging. Out repairing 10 M@A won’t work either, as it takes 4 Villagers to do so + so much wood that the defending player would be better off letting the building go and rebuilding elsewhere. Unless the defending player full Stone Walls, a 2 Barracks full M@A rush should break in eventually. Here’s the build I’ve been practicing as Byzantines, usually without pushing deer, for a generic Dark/Feudal Age:

6 on sheep.
4 on wood.
1 lure boar.
4 on berries.
+1 on boar.
+2 on wood.
3 on gold.
Research Loom, then research Feudal Age.
(22 total population.)

While advancing to Feudal, build 2 Barracks. Upon reaching the Feudal Age, idle your TC, research Supplies and Man-at-Arms, build a Blacksmith to research Scale Mail Armor, then start making M@A. Your main target inside the opponent’s base is keeping them off of gold, then stone, then wood. Use your M@A to destroy Mining Camps and Lumber Camps. When you have at least 10 M@A, you can also destroy military buildings.

With a generic Dark/Feudal Age civ and without pushing deer, there will be a temporary lapse in constant M@A production as your sheep Villagers transition to Farms. Pushing one deer helps with this. But pushing two deer opens up the option of adding one or two Villagers in Feudal before idling your TC, or adding Forging with a temporary lapse in constant M@A production that is the same as not pushing deer.

As this build was discovered with the Byzantines, any civ with Supplies can make this build. But Aztecs, Bulgarians, Burmese, Celts, Goths, Incas, Japanese, Malians, Slavs, and Vikings will get the most out of this build. Though for myself, Vietnamese is the most interesting pick, because their scouting bonus means your Scout could stay in your base long enough to push all deer, where you can then use the Vietnamese economy bonus to buy Horse Collar, Double-Bit Axe, and Gold Mining with 3 deer, or replace Gold Mining with Wheelbarrow with 4 deer.

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29

Sorry, but which ones aren|t easy to wall?
In the current map pool the only ones, both 1v1 and Team that are not easy to wall are Acropolis and Gold Rush and even on gold rush full wall into fast castle is meta, because the distance to the enemy is just so far.
Arabia is easily and consistently wallable with around 30 palisades. That really is not that much of an investment. Apparently enough it isnt, because it is very much the meta to do so.
Alright, you got a point with man at arms and towers. That is a strong strategy and this is the kind of discussion I was looking for.
But should this not basically be able to be countered by just having military yourself? Scouts to raid your opponents eco, especially the gold. Archers to kill m@a and deny new towers coming up. Doesnt seem to be an uncountarable strategy. From my understanding the only reason this strategy is so popular at the moment IS the full walling. As you get a tower that can deny new walls coming up, while having a unit that is reasonably good to destroy the initial walls.
I dont really see why a strategy that is supposed to counter walls will become OP if walls become weaker. That kind of feels to me like saying: “if you reduce the hp of archers, skirmishers will become too strong.”

Really? Can we? Again, im not complaining that I cant win matches. I’m complaining that full walling your base is the go to strategy on almost every map in the game right now, as it just does not really have any significant drawback.

It’s not just me though. If I was the only one that had this problem, I would just think, yeah this is the game, whatever. But first of all full walling didnt use to be meta on Arabia for example, and I am certainly not the only one complaining about this. Several top players have been addressing this problem before as well.

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30

The “quick walls” are more problematic than the walls themselves imo. Walling your base at least takes a toll in your eco.

I think the main problem is the buildings foundations taking less damage than they should. And also canceled buildings (delete) returning more wood than they should.

I would not mind if they increased the cost of palisades to 3 wood. And maybe even a very small increase in the building time.

But I think making balance changes to the walls is better than trying to change the maps to “nerf walling”.

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31

What stops the enemy from going archers and deleting your m@a? While at the same time out ecoing you since they didn’t just spend the world’s food on techs and m@a… What’s that like 800 food at least and an Idle tc, only to be easily out micro’d by archers thanks to the pitiful pathing, along with dirt cheap quick walling (even so far as to drop markets or gates with their massive templates to coral your m@a…)

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32

I have a feeling this is another one of those legacy issues where people who have been playing for 100 yrs will say “but that’s how we’ve always done it, it’s fine” like that nonsense with foundation scouting

I agree foundations should take more damage (even if its only minor) and should return less res if cancelled

33

This could potentially nerf cumans later game, since they can only build palisades. While at the same time a mayan team will still pay the current price for quick walling…

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34

What if they don’t go archers? What if their economy is not so great because they’re dumping the world’s wood into repairing and rebuilding? I cannot answer your question without using another question, because it depends and not one game is the same as another. Try it, or don’t. It’s up to you. But as for me, I’d rather shift my own strategies with the meta over waiting for a developer fix.

35

Can you wall 4 lakes without leaving the lakes exposed and literally giving the map control?
Can you wall on islands?
Can you wall in gold rush? the map is way too open now in case you haven’t played it now
Can you wall in arabia 100% of the games or lets say at least 80% without delaying your economy?
Can you wall in acropolis? cus even if you can wall with palisades you have to leave ur base and make ur economy and wood in the open area.

Lets talk about the previous map pool? bog islands? mountains pass? Serengeti and Kilimanjaro? trying to wall those maps is doable but it takes a lot of wood and vills working wihc is bad vs strong players.

I don’t know which is your level but man at arms arrive min 10 and can break anything below 2 mins plus if you have villagers making a tower with them you can get in 100% even in arena.

I see you are saying what if the enemy has archers? well everything is about timing, archers take way more time to gather a decent number of them by min 10 the enemy hasn’t even finished the archery range, so unless your man at arms arrive min 13 i don’t see how archers are going to kill you, m@s have no counter other than walling giving the timing, no walls or any small change would buff them hugely, just adding few cheap and fast skirms that build order is really hard to stop, it was the dominant strategy in voobly, the players will always abuse of the most powerful strategies, so i am sorry boy but weakening the walls would only cause more OP strategies boosting fast players over slow players, reducing the time concept of a RTS.

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36

I think the correct way to fix the pallissade wall problem is to increase the construction time, as gate remove armor bonus when unconstructed and maybe 50hp or increase wood cost by 1 (4 seem to be too high for me) less or something like that and maybe nerf the cumans and mayans team bonus which make walling very easy especially for the mayans ones.

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37

Hi man your ideas are very intererting! I like the third and fourth proposition a lot but I would increase the cost to 3 not 4 wood which seems a bit extreme. But with those 2 fixes it will probably be enough to change the meta and stop the full wall FC. That’s all for me have a nice day guys and don’t forget to upvote his post so the devs can see it :wink:

38

I would go for 3 wood cost for palisades, 4 is too much…

Also to nerf xbows a little bit I think increasing the palisade pierce armor by 1 would be nice. They already have the advantage to target a single tile of wall with a pack of units, something that melee units can’t do. They break walls way too fast imo!

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39

they have palisade gates now

40

Your scout rush is too slow. Use your starting scout to slow one of the villagers from finishing the wall. Back him up as soon as you can. Ideally you just hit feudal and have your second and third scout rallied to the area you’re fighting in. This is a good way to get in there base with a scout rush before there wall is up.

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41

Some days ago i made this thread. It is about the question: Why dont we scouts that much nowadays? Their are three main points:

  1. the current wall meta is too OP.
  2. Quick walling makes sure melee units cant do damage.
  3. pathing of melee units is bad.

Next there were some smaller points.

I just like how Arabia was always the example of an open map and nowadays with the current meta it will be refered to as closed by some players. That shows us how bad the wall meta is: Open maps are just turned into closed maps, because walling is OP.

This thread is about the first 2 points. I fully agree something needs to be changed.

There are some easy fixes:

  1. Increase the cost of walls. This will punish you eco more for walling. You spend resources to walls, while your enemy spend those resources to expanding there eco or military.
  2. Increase the time build on walls. A villager need more time for walling, thus has less time for collection resources. Again this will punish your eco.
  3. Many units needs to do bonus damage to unfinished buildings, this will be a nerf against quick walling.

I would start with just doing 1, have a look what happend. If it is still all about walling, then after a month we can add 2. And in the end we also can add 3.

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