What if you could see everything within X tiles of your allies TCs once you hit Feudal, and you get total Carto either on building a market or possibly reaching Castle Age?
i would like it if carto was reintroduced as two techs:
gain vision around alliesā buildings
gain vision around alliesā units
maybe even stepwise, first you get 75% of the vision radius, then 100%.
could then talk about which part should be free. eg 75% around buildings is free, 75% around units when you get a market up. then the 75%->100% upgrades you need to research in the market
It was bad enough when Cartography was a tech, please donāt split it into another two. As of right now, even building a market is a pretty big commitment for any non FC build in the early game. Unless you are Saracens, then you are probably fine.
being a tech isnāt bad if itās cheap enough and researches relatively fast. but iād be ok with both 75%->100% techs being combined into on carto tech as well.
but im also fine with how it is at the moment. instant carto in feudal age sounds like it could be problematic. carto in dark age is just a bad idea
What about a new TG map with Cartography since the beginning?
I miss the olden days when you had to make a market and actually research a tech (Cartography) in the market to see your teammateās line of sight. Seems like itās just automatic once you build market now, if Iām not mistaken, which is more boring and simplified. I donāt want or need my hand held so much
EDIT: Or it looks like it is just free now requiring 1 second of research? I prefer a cost, and a research time.
1 Like
Itās not about hand holding, itās about being able to quickly and efficient coordinate with your team. Itās free and instant once you build a market, which is a lot better than a tech that took ages, lotās of res, and required a building you donāt usually need in the early game.
1 Like
To me, itās hand-holding. If you want to quickly and efficiently coordinate with your team, then just make a market and spend time/resources researching the tech. The game is set in medieval times, so at least require some effort to get a livestream of your teammateās movements. Devs already greatly reduced the time it takes to construct a Market, iirc; how much more time reduction do we need?
And if your enemy researches Cartography faster or can coordinate better, then perhaps they should be entitled to the victory.
PS: Many things in DE have been streamlined. Times reduced, player efforts simplifiedā¦ more hand-holding (i.e., auto-stuff or quick stuff)ā¦ all to make the game easier, faster, fewer clicks, and heavily favor offense gameplay because thatās cooler to look at in marketing videos and tournamentsā¦ and what the ELO-ranked competitive scene demands, no doubt. I mean, even the Cannon Galleon tech was removed.
Since Cannon Galleon tech was removed, why does Cartography tech even still exist? Might as well make it āautoā, too
It literally hasnāt existed since the Conquerors, but it costed 100 food, 100 gold, and 60 seconds of research time. Assuming you kept those values now, thatās a lot of res that could be going into creating military or villagers, wasted.
1 Like
Itās not wasted. You admit itās highly beneficial to see what your teammate is doing, right? And to, effectively, insta-double your explored area? Then why shouldnāt such a strong benefit have a decent cost? Be in the dark, visually speaking, a bit longer if you want to buy villagers and military a while longer instead.
The game is full of econ and military tradeoffs and timing decisions, it makes it interesting. Not sure why Cartography has to be free and instantaneous when other techs arenāt. Well, I do know since I already said it in my last post and you reinforced it: it goes against the āgame should be fast, strongly biased toward offense, and all actionā philosophy.
I just donāt like too many freebies or insta-exploration things in a game like this. Is why I also donāt think sheep should be usable as cartographers 
2 Likes
I see this is being said a number of times, but it is not true. Cartography only became free with Forgotten Empires, and it got removed even later.
I think this is very flawed logic. If we follow this logic, you would also lose vision of your scout once he goes too far away from TC and the map is only revealed once - if! - he comes back.
I think the fact that the cost of cartho is defended while other QoL stuff and the ahistorical amount of control is accepted is nothing but conservatism.
Its not about hand holding, and its not about aggressive gameplay (for the QoL). Its about making the game about decisions, because its a strategy game. And the less āclicks without decisionsā (e.g. sending villagers to wood after constructing a lumber camp - what else would i want them to doā¦) i have to make, the more i can focus on strategy.
Canon Galleon is a completly different thing than QoL changes, it was made avoid campy island games.
Again, i can see there are arguments for cartho to be in the game (they dont convince me, but they exist), but āit has been that wayā and āits more realisticā arnāt valid points from a game design perspective.
I also want to remind you that this concept is unique in RTS. Every other RTS (including Aoe2s successors) i know of has shared exploration. There is probably a reason for this.
2 Likes
I said it once and I said it again.
Free cartography since dark age is badly needed and totally not overpowered or anything else, would be just useful QoL improvement.
There is no strategic aspect or ābrokenā aspect of it, itās just pure annoyance at this point.
You want proof? Portuguese team bonus would have been regarded as super OP omega broken if free cartography since Dark Age was so powerful.
Itās totally not the case, instead, most people complain itās too weak.
So just make it free for everyone and pick another more useful bonus for Portuguese.
Also a side note, premade team can stomp you even without free cartography, because they are accustomed to coordinate themselves via chat or audio.
2 Likes
Maybe but strategy wise for the complexity of this rts it would make less sense imo
I honestly think its what you make out of the vision you gain from your allies is more important same if you got 1 vietnamnese and can strategies for an early attack since you know their location
Also i see people mostly complain about communication mostly here like op as the whole market things seems more secondary
A good qol would be to increase chances to communicate properly with your teammates instead of not communication at all getting cheesed 2v1 and flame them.
1 Like
Well then at least give us 2-5 different pings instead of just one and display the pings on the screen, not just the minimap. That would make it so much less frustrating to try to find enemy scs in your allies base.
I reckon something like righclick drag to a wheel of different pings like attack careful help and more
That would require even more premade taunts, on top of already over one hundred of them.
Hardly doable.
If you donāt share the same language, only localized taunts can help you.
At least with free cartography you could look at the map, you can see your ally is coming to help you, or maybe you would see that your flank decided to go scout instead of archers, and adjust accordingly.
That would help. Sometimes you get people that ping all the time for different reasons, it becomes annoying after a while, if the sound were different at least you could focus on most important ones.
Just an example of the too big amount of taunts: there is a specific taunt for market which is taunt #52.
Iāve never seen it used, ever. Most people just ping the spot and say āmarket plsā or āmarketā.
Same for maps like Black Forest where you ping and say āwallā, there is taunt #54 for that.
Too many taunts, sometimes I wish I knew more of them.
Trust me it doesnt
What you can do un feudal when you got a market which is fair in it self
Getting a market is hardly a priority in feudal.
Most of the times you get blacksmith and either stable or archery range(s).
So what would you propose?
Or fc and use a market?
I would propose that it wouldt require a market but i think that would make it too unstable in feudal since the market and carthogephy are representing trading and exploration of new routes
Anyway i think the problem isnt the view but rather the communication and i allready proposed something to that