Innovating the game (crazy ideas)

Hello all.

I don’t use the Forum so much, but every now and then I come here and then I find lots of suggestions for news civs. I think the game has enough civs already (not that we can’t come up with some new ones…).
Nevertheless, what I think the game currently needs is new general mechanics, like new techs for university or the Town Center that would be accessible for most civs.
Or perhaps, when playing online, having optional details that change de game mode, like activating this or that “mod”, that would be official, at least for a lobby game.
But here are some crazy ideas that would innovate the game:

  • Warrior monks (mainly for asian civs): monks that could convert, but not heal, and could defend themselves and dodge arrows (lol).
    (on this topic, I really think african, arabic and asian cultures should have their own monk figure)
  • Loan (research): researched on market, specially for diplo game, where you could loan some resources and receive slow interest return from the reciever (draining current gains from him, till you received a greater amount).
  • Camel caravan: a group slower trade route unit, that could rely on some ranged self defense, while moving, and would grant greater income.
  • Caltrops (research on town center on feudal): a 3x3 trap “building” on the ground, that would mainly damage cavalry. Good against low armor unit and would also slow troops on it.
  • Spiked palisades (research on town center on feudal): palisades that reflect some damage while attacked by melee units.
  • Saboteurs: common melee unit (maybe researchable) that have great bonus damage against siege units that are not unique.
  • Bandeirante (portuguese UU): I Think organ gun does not reflect a typical portuguese military unit and should become a regular siege unit on siege workshop. The portuguese should have the Bandeirante, a unit that would explore Brazil’s interior land and trade with the locals. So this unit would be A FAST PACED HANDGUN (oh yeah! just like the Mayans have fast paced archers - the plummed archers), with great sight range, shorter firing range and more HP (since they survive in the forest), but with lesser armor and bonus damage agasint archery range units, instead of infantry.
  • Flaming arrows (research): something for general boost on towers, that I find very ignoble defense building. The fire could make not only a greater damage, but grant a bonus damage against siege. Or this could simply be a change on the heated shot tech.
  • Fast bombard (research): I dunno why, but in AOE2 bombard towers fire the slowest projectile ever. It is almost impossible to be hit by it. Even with Arcabuz portuguese tech. So perhaps there could be a Imp tech that would make bombard towers (at least them, if not also bombard cannon) fire their projectiles with much greater speed, almost like in AOE4. THIS would make Turks a interesting choice.

I know this is all crazy talk, but I would fancy some of those ideas on the game, just to shake it up a little.
What do you guys think?

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i like your ideas. Sounds great :slight_smile:

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I enjoyed reading your suggestions, they were very creative and most of the them demonstrate that you definitely put some thought into them.

Warrior Monks: Made me think… The way conversion works currently, does the distance between the monk, and the target have any effect on how fast it gets converted? That would be a neat idea to explore.

Loans: I’m down with that, as long as the interface for which these transactions took place were easy to navigate, I dig it. It made me think of a technology as well. “Smuggling” which would make it so buying resources made the buying/selling increase/decrease increments 50% closer to a 1:1 ratio, at the expense of decreasing your trade unit speeds by 15%.

Camel Caravan: Hell yea, like a trade unit that acts like a ram, it can take a lot of projectile damage, but is super slow, but gets like 10X the gold per trip!!

Saboteurs: We already got those in aoe2, they’re classified as ‘Hero’ units, and you can make them through the scenario editor. I basically refer to them as suicide bombers.

And yea this is all crazy talk! But shaking things up is fun sometimes!

Here’s a crazy idea: Allied vision by default in ranked team games

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I think at least in some map like michi, allied vision should be on.
Just like the vision of black forest is different from other map

On all maps it should be on since start, currently premades on discord or something get edge over solo players or split, 2premade, 1 random etc. On michi its actually most useless to have it dark age since all go fc with markets, except khmer

3 Likes

Thanks for the comments!
About the monks, as I’ve seen in a video from Spirit of the law, the conversion works as percentage of success each ”round”, that increases each round and per monk at work. So you could convert at first attempt, but with a very low probability.
Imagine if monks could concert while fighting? Lol

But that’s the portuguese team bonus… I don’t miss allied vision from the start since I build market as soon as I can.

Yeah, good chance to buff Portuguese then.

Such a stupid counter argument without any consideration of reality. Do you play ranked TGs?

If you queue solo for TGs then you know that strategizing is impossible without vision in the first 15m. Poor communication, low apm prohibits typing and explaining, just bad team mates who go fast castle pocket in arabia, runestones, this map pool’s gold in center map, and not to mention language barrier. Maybe you are skilled enough to coordinate or just a noob who goes market boom, but this is no the case of rest of us.

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Not just premades on discords, certain players dont communicate for various reasons. So, even if you are solo queuing depending on what time you play you will be matched with people having language barrier or players who simply dont even ping when something critical is happening. Eg: i might have 6sc and ping my flank saying my sc are here, they would be no communication so I would go to enemy flank or pocket. Meanwhile my flank is dying to 3maa and he doesn’t even say anything and resigns soon enough.

So this is not just a matter of premades vs solo queues. It is much more fundamental prob than that. This is why allied vision should be on by default in all maps.

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I guess the point I was getting at when I criticized your idea about allied vision is that it isn’t the games fault that players aren’t playing the game the way it was intended.

Team Ranked RM is supposed to be played with a team. Four random solo queued players put together does not meet the definition of a team. So the when solo player clicks the ‘Find Game’ button, they basically agree that they will be put at a significant disadvantage when fighting against a well coordinated party (the way it’s supposed to be played). A pre-made team over discord could, and probably often do, coordinate their scouts in dark age to all harass one enemy, this is extremely frustrating for the solo player being targeted, but it’s nowhere close to being unfair.

There’s only so much you can do to combat the laziness of a casual player. Auto-scout was one of those features that attempted to do so.

To address your point regarding the enabling of shared exploration only for Michi and other closed maps like Team islands, I could definitely see that happening just like the 5 minute treaty was done to accommodate the Nomad style maps.

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I don’t see any situation where this wouldn’t present a very high probability of abuse, ie. borrow large amounts of res from someone and then turn on them immediately.

Other than that, decent ideas. Stuff like Warrior monks and caltrops have been suggested many times, and it would be nice to see some implementation of them, if only in the Editor.

Wait. Wait. Wait.

Remove bloodlines… And halberdier

If the game is meant to be played the way it was originally intended

Let’s go franks! If you think knights are dominant now. Wait until we get the OG franks (yeah I know their eco was worse)(I’m just exaggerating to make a point)

And while we’re at it, it’s interesting to note how significantly knights were buffed (+20% hp) yet pikes weren’t. Yes halbs were added later, but that’s nothing to do with the massive 20% hp buff on Knights. No wonder we’re in the knight dominant meta (exaggeration of course)

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There nothing stopping people from abusing normal sling in diplo games. Like saying give me food/wood and i give gold then turning on them. Thats just part of of the diplo and the risks you take trying to use people to achieve victory. That said they can always make it so that the loan is slowly repaid regardless of alliances (if even necessary).

So:

  • For RTS games I like stability whete the only changes are “minor” and with the sole objective of improving civ balance and map fairness.
  • Game innovation is something I may only enjoy in RPGs and MOBAs.
  • If you want to play or watch the game competitively (pro games and ranked) and feel that the game is dull, you can look at #### ## other games. No need for everyone to “poison” the game with crazy changes competitively.
  • Most of your changes sound interesting for a custom mod in lobbies (except for loan, unless you can prevent people to give you resources) and camel caravan that would probably be very hard to implement.
  • These ideas are your crazy ideas, do not expect other people to have the same, and even less that people will find a concensus. A official mod like this is out of the question.
  • I also had the idea of a parralel queue replacing quick search, where the community decided and voted for a new balance change (or reverting one), the balance changes only affecting this parallel queue. But I would expect less and less people to play it if balance changes are too crazy.
  • I am interested to see how popular the “rome at war” mod will be, and how actively played it will be. Just like your ideas, a group of people tried to make a newly balanced game with brand new units amd all. Their mod seems extremely well thought out, if it does not get very popular, your ideas have no chances of being interesting or popular every for 50 players.

Some nice ideas. I think a fast gunpowder uu would be too close to the spanish. Other than that sone good ones

My apologies, I mistakenly took you for someone that appreciated nuance in a discussion regarding “playing the game the way it was intended”, so I’ll spell it out for ya bruh. And maybe give you a little context.

TEAM RANKED RM [is intended to be played] as a TEAM versus a TEAM.

This side track ties into another discussion I was having with the guy I was initially replying to on another forum topic.

So you got in your little jab, you must be proud. Now let’s respect the OP and end this here so as to keep things on the topic at hand and not derail into something else.

Woah woah woah, hold your horses there buddy and get a hold of yourself. If you feel like something I said was inaccurate, show me what it is that I said, and why I am wrong. I’ve given you the same courtesy thus far, but my level of respect for you is beginning to take a nose dive.

This is not something I go around bragging about, but since you brought it up by calling me out of touch and closed minded, and you have no way of looking up my credentials. I have over 15000 hours playing this game. I am well known on the Steam Forums, and in the Scenario editing community. But I am very new to the scene here on ageofempires.com. So my bad buddy, I stepped on your turf, and now you want to show me who’s boss.

Got it out of your system? Let’s hope so, and end this little back and forth, because it’s not fair to the OP. If you want to take this further, feel free to add me on Steam, do a search for “DMg Halt” and send me a request, and we’ll talk it out.

A Ranger’s Apprentice fan. Interesting. Anyway, I’m just going to give my take on the TG thing. Ranked TGs are meant to be played as a team. That doesn’t mean only premade team, it just means a group of allied players working together to win as a group. So solo queuing is totally justified, if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t even be an option. There’s no reason it doesn’t deserve to be treated well.

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Agreed. And this is not to say that solo queuers are bad players, only to point out that if you don’t do something the way it was intended, you will get bad results compared to those that do. I make this argument on the Steam Forums quite often in response to players complaining about how they’re always getting put with bad teammates, quitters, and mid-game AFKers. You shouldn’t have to put up with that stuff, but it’s hardly the games fault that it happens and playing with a team is a way to avoid this.

And yea, I am a fan. You?

1 Like