Fast castle is doable only in certain situations, surely not every game.
Plus if you fast castle you don’t have any military to help your allies, so yes, you’d have a market, and you could see your ally, and do nothing about it.
Now I read, yes would help.
But unless we get that, the fastest way is to have free shared view, no need to implement anything “strange” at all.
From my experience it is actually really good esp for nomads actually
I’ve read the opposite regarding Nomad maps, some players complained they couldn’t tell their villagers apart from their allies’ ones on the map.
But I can see how it might good for games with prolonged dark age like that, after the start.
Secret trick: self-ally-enemy are the save here
Yes cartography is a strange technology. Historically doesn’t make that much sense because allies would have shared their reconaissance with each other. Should just get rid of it and have shared vision from the start of the game. Would probably mess up the score system though because exploring the map gives points.
Or maybe give access to market from Dark Age.
Just only score what you have explored. I also really wish they would add an option to turn off allied vision as a hotkey, because I also like to know what I have scouted, and what I haven’t.
No, I understand there’s a game to be played. My point is that old-style Cartography played a nice role in helping to sell the fact that the game is set in medieval times. Contributed to the ethos, so to speak. Its absence is a detriment to that vibe; similar to how AoE:IV’s contemporary icons/UI and coloring looks straight out of 2021 and Windows 10 rather than more representative of the era the game takes place in.
But, I’m biased. I’ve played many games over the years where you are alone and around you is pitch black. You have to physically explore the areas yourself to learn what lies beyond the void. Personally, I derive much pleasure in that adventure and see it as a great game mechanic. Theater of the mind can kick in, and you’re forced to adapt or respond to newly discovered things on-the-fly. I don’t see the dark void as some annoyance or eyeroll-inducing hurdle that should be swiftly illuminated for me.
I’m not looking for a real world medieval simulator, so let’s not go down that road. Cartography with a cost and research time was already once part of the game. Effectively throwing it in the trash bin just diminished the overall experience for me a bit, is all.
Fair enough, but I appreciate the strategy involved with deciding when and where to build a Market and research Cartography, knowing it’ll take time, resources, and villagers away from collecting stuff. And appreciate not having teammate’s LoS until I’ve applied adequate time, energy, and resources to do so. I really don’t see Cartography as some annoying non-strategy event akin to tasking villagers to a tree after building a lumber camp. But, oh well…
Every FPS game, even ones set in a past era, also shows your GPS location on a HUD mini-map, has an x-ray vision button to see enemies through walls, have ladders you have to push a button to lock onto, and constant “Press (A) to Use” reminders for everything… but that doesn’t make it right.
Sure, the popular opinion might be to have free teammate LoS, and provided as quickly as possible if not from the very start. That’s likely your answer on why. Sounds good, have fun… – but for me? No thanks. Same with all the things I mention for every FPS game. I’ve played video games a long time, and I can’t explain many of the evolutions gaming industry took, or why every game copy-cats each other and each other’s sometimes highly questionable mechanics… and can’t say I agree with them all 
But, again, oh well… 
And thats completly fine. I love the early stages of Civ5, where you explore and have to plan your cities. Where barbarians are actualy something dangerious. I can certainly see the appeal of this darkness. Its just that overall, for a competitive multiplayer experience, the bad outweights to good by far.
True, i didnt mean to say that “because everyone does it it has to be good”. It was more like a "if everyone does it, including the AoE franchise, there is probably a reason why. Maybe not, not probably.
Okay, for those who missed the offtopic bit, roughly 70 posts ago I stuck my hat into it, and as of like five posts ago, all the offtopic bits were (properly) trimmed. That trimming also got my two cents on the actual topic (improperly) sucked into it, so I’ll paraphrase my point here:
Firstly, a language barrier or some other manner of communication barrier is not solved by carto in Dark age. Secondly, carto in dark age is a team bonus, so if it were to be addressed, Portugal would need a new team bonus. Thirdly, while it’d make coordination markedly better for defenders, it’d also make it incredibly easy for attackers to gang up on the first opponent they see. Carto in dark age would make 3 or 4 scouts very, very deadly, as the needed coordination to abuse a numbers advantage goes way, way down.
I hear the complaint about the lack of carto making ally coordination harder. I think it’s absolutely necessary for the reason I’ve stated above. Now, to the suggestion that we delay it’s acquiring but still make it free, I don’t think this is a good idea either for very similar reasons. Sure, the problem happens a bit later, but it’ll still happen early enough that a player is incapable of providing for themselves an adequate defense against a team who chooses to rush. I do feel a coordinated scout attack will likely become meta standard and team games essentially become RNG-based suffering for the first 15 minutes.
By this logic a team with Portuguese + Vietnamese would be super hard to defeat, but tbh i don’t think i’ve ever seen this civ combo in 2v2.
Balancing these things for 4v4 is very complicated. But again by your logic Vietnamese is super powerful because they don’t even need to scout to figure out where the enemies are. You just gotta ping an enemy and have 4 scouts there anyway.
in my opinion it should be available once you hit Feudal Age. Maybe a cheap tech to research in the TC? or free? i don’t know about that. Tying it to the market is a compromise between visibility and making units, and since the game has become super aggressive and fast, not making military is not ideal.
how can he chat if his english is like this? or maybe he can, just type “help!”
If people think it makes it too hard to defend, just make it you can see everything within X number of tiles of an ally TC once you hit Feudal, and full vision once you build a market. Or maybe you can see everything completed allied buildings can, but not units until you get a market. The Portuguese team bonus can then become “Outposts cost no stone”.
queueing these two civs is a gimmick at best. two scouts in dark age doesn’t end a game when your endgame looks like Portuguese and Vietnamese. That’s a terrible civ composition.
now, giving that same sort of start to civs who are actually able to maximally abuse the advantage? different story.
What does that say about the balance of the game? When you have almost 40 civs but only 5 or 6 are viable lol i talked about 2v2 because i mostly play 2v2.
So what do you think would be the best course of action in this matter? Leave it as it is? ( i’m fine with that though)
@TheConqueror753 that’s not a bad idea, kinda like the LOS with fog of war a few tiles around the building. But I think the bonus should be something else.
If there’s a language barrier, maybe in-game chat should have an auto-translator of language.
The forum has a language translator. Bing (owned by Microsoft) has a language translator tool. Just build it into the game 
And then once that is done, raise the price for Cartography to 150 Wood + 100 Gold, and make it take a minute or two to research
You know this would cause OP to rage and create more posts about it, we’re trying to avoid that 
But why would you want to turn it into a tech again?
True, but I just enjoyed it when it was a true tech before
There was a nice build up of anticipation after you clicked to research it, as you waited patiently for it to research, and then a grandiose big reveal with ‘tech researched’ sound when your teammate’s LoS fully unfurled itself before your eyes 
ta-daaa
Now, there is no fanfare. No anticipation. No build up of excitement, no matter how small. It just happens 
Uh doesn’t the market take time to build as well? Or were you literally watching the progress bar of the tech the whole time?
this is such an unbelievably weak argument
how does any other RTS with immediate shared vision not devolve into an “RNG based suffering”
do you seriously believe this? or do you realise you are wrong but instead of just saying “i dont want the game to be changed” , you generate this story?
for crying out loud its an unnecessary team bonus anyway. others have been changed before
so its an RNG based suffering that is NOT affected by communication. got it.
just respond to all of these posts with the truth “i am a conservative that doesnt want anything changed” you’ve been wrong about almost every change that was ultimately implemented. you’re wrong about this one.
Knew someone would try to use that argument. It’s just different for me, sorry to say. Same as why I wouldn’t want a villager to auto-pop out any time you build a TC, Spies to be auto-researched upon castle build, or any other tech that has been there since the dawn of AoE2 to auto-happen upon construction completing for any building. And is why I disliked auto-Cannon Galleon tech being implemented.
By your logic, all tech researches provide zero benefit to gameplay for anyone except from a pure resource cost decision and balance standpoint. Sorry, but in addition to all that and more, I actually enjoy waiting for techs to research and want none of them immediate. And, yeah, I totally pause everything I’m doing and watch the meter bar the whole time, just like all other techs 
Yep, I’d prefer Spies to take time to happen once you click to research it, too