i think most of the people here are not focusing the point.
my main point of this thread is mainly related to choices.
AOE2 is a game full of decision making, where to build, which stragegy, making what counter units etc.
however, such map generatiom restricted the choices too much. yes, it s not the end of the world, but why, why doing this so extreme?
if you guys want to talk about how to tackle the situation. i believe we should first post out own elo so as to justify the point.
This may sound obvious, but there’s being a conscious design plan by the Devs to make Arabia more suited to early game aggression whether through general balance changes or map changes, it’s things like the increased tree distance, less thickness, , all the hills, general nerfs to houses/walls all designed to boost aggressive play. The reasons for this? I’m not sure, if I had to guess it may be due to early game aggression being more interesting for spectators, the Pros wanting to play in a hyper specific skill testing min-maxing manner, maybe to have a clear defined “aggressive map” alongside a clearly defined “defensive” map in the form of Arena for balance purposes? I’m not sure exactly
Generally I’m not a fan, Arabia used to be a good generalist map in between things like Socotra and Arena, but now it’s being shoe-horned to the former with iffy replacements. They even once made alternatives like Runestones more like Modern Arabia
Yes, but strategy involves adaptation to the terrain, so you know that if you play Arabia, you’ll have this kind of condition for expanding your base or placing your troops. And your opponent will have similar conditions. You take your action based on these conditions. And it could even imply not to build any additional town center at all.
I used to play this game in the early 2000, and Arabia has always been the open, aggressive map. It’s not like the dev has recently transformed it into that. Some variations have come during the time but the principle is always the same: you don’t have to wait 15 minutes to see some action, and you don’t have to wait 1 hour to end the game. That’s basically the reasons for Arabia’s success from the start of AoK and AoC. And I don’t see how the new generation of Arabia doesn’t respect it.
At the moment my ELO is around 1450 btw
I used to play this game around 00s for few years and got back to the DE.
Even for the DE, Arabia has been edit many many many times.
Everyone has different interpretation what’s the essential point of Arabia, why it’s so welcome.
To me it’s the diversity and flexibility. People are able to choose different strategies / approaches in this map.
some how I think they randomly mix up Arabia and Green Arabia is a good thing, because I love the diversity.
If you are saying below map, there’s nearly not much choices to build a 2nd TC in the whole map, is what you are preferring. Then I can just say we have different aspect of the spirit on Arabia.
personally I am not a fan of Runestones, I remember there’s a period Arabia is very similar to the current Runestone that the woodlines are too much that people are walling to FC super easily.
I agree with you that I would prefer something in the middle.
I didnt know how’s the current Arabia look like, havent played 1v1 a while, but what I remember previously there are some games that I am almost forced to all in, not because the opponent strategy or civ. but because of my own shitty map that I nearly have no chance to defend.
In the early days of DE, Arabia was super easy to wall. 4 or 5 dense forests around your base, 250 hp and 2 wood palisade walls in dark age made fc quite possible.
He could also chop the straggler tree and build tc on the eastern gold. And from the minimap, the opponent map doesn’t look that great either. Magyars is a much stronger civ than Koreans on such open maps.
But its not always this extreme. If its always easy to wall, then again the obvious choice will be minimal feudal army to defend till walls are complete and then standard castle age play. Why not try playing a long feudal age.
If you played from those times, these maps are just a heaven. You wouldn’t even have those 2 woodlines above the minimap in that screenshot. Instead you’d have 1 woodline around a pond, cliffs everywhere, boar behind that woodline, sheep and deer miles away. Can’t believe you played that Huns-only Arabia nightmare and still feel these maps are extreme.
