Keeps are too weak

That just means you would have to spam even more barracks, ranges, workshops and stables.

castles being able to produce units is an english only bonus.

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Thatā€™s what I thought. I think spamming buildings and doubling the size of your base just so you can replenish your military is pretty ugly and annoying. I hope they do something about it.

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My bad then - I may have mistaken it with the HRE Landmark. All I remember is that there are multiple structures in the game that allows you to train every unit.

Iā€™m also curious what the civ designers are trying to accomplish with that building. Presently it feels like a vestigial organ included because the earlier Age games have a building that looks like it (big, shoots, appears in age 3). But this iteration doesnā€™t serve nearly the same function of its ancestors (trains its own very important units).

In my experience designing and analyzing civs in this franchise, any time a building, unit, or tech fails to carry its weight, then it should either be adjusted or removed. Otherwise the civ feels bloated. Right now the keep is bloat.

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I wish more people realized this. Itā€™s one of, if not THE, biggest reasons non-AoE2 players give up trying to play the game (Starcraft players in particular). The AoE series is never and should never be as fast as some other RTS games like SC, SC2, WC3, etc. but that doesnā€™t mean it needs to move at a snails-pace relative to these games either.

Want to make AoE4 crash and burn as an eSport before it even gets off the ground? Make it slow, campy, stalemate-prone, and have buildings doing most of the fighting instead of units.

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A castle is the general term for a garrison surrounded by walls, with military buildings and a keep (or stronghold) within. Castle is silly.

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I was thinking that the keeps of different civs have different abilities. I couldnā€™t test out all the possibilities but hereā€™s what I gather:

  1. English keeps train all units.

  2. Abbassid keeps heal with a tech.

  3. French keeps boost productivity of other military buildings around it.

  4. Mongols no keepā€¦ too mobile for that.

  5. Delhi keep can do something with a tech which Iā€™m not sure Iā€™m allowed to talk about due to NDA.

  6. HRE keep can garrison relics and get stronger.

  7. Rus and Chinese - I donā€™t know any special keep properties yet.

I have played China but I donā€™t really know what good their keeps are. But Iā€™ve extensively used English and Delhi keeps which get destroyed easily, but are useful.

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They do have different abilities per civ but itā€™s not impactful enough to give them strong character and identity. @AndyPXIII is right: at present keeps feel like bloat and seem to lack a clear purpose in the overall game design.

In AoE2 ( and to some extent 3 ) castles/forts act as dynamic match objectives. They are so impactful that their positioning dictate key player goals during a game, and destroying one tends to be a major momentum change that paves the way for a burst invasion. This is a very exciting dynamic that is central to AoE2ā€™s watchability as a competitive game. To the extent that this dynamic exist in AoE4 it is simply weak and a bit ā€œmehā€. Keeps are way too spammable and they are destroyed way too easily.

To make them more impactful AoE4 keeps should probably be made more expensive (1000 stone up from 800?), to make them less spammable, but also much more powerful to make them more impactful.

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each unit garrisoned gives 1 extra arrow though afiak. I think keeps ae for unit protection, which works best if units are inside :slight_smile:

What is there to missunderstand about that? Soo start reading. If your lucky there might even be some illustrations. :wink:

I donā€™t understand people saying: itā€™s not AoE II adapt. So you are basically saying keeps should be almost useless buildings and shouldnā€™t have a big part in a medieval game. I remember castledropping on a water map - and instantly getting trebbed down by a castleage player - the keep damage is also super underwhelming and even feudalage rams completely destroy them. They donā€™t even kill TCs in reasonable time anymore and midgame armies dont need to fear fighting near them. They feel like an almost obsolete building for me.

With 800 stone they arent cheap either.

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Keeps are not spammable in AoE4. The fact that keeps can be destroyed easily contradicts your claim of keeps being spammable. If keeps can be destroyed easily, then they simply cannot be spammed. They also cost a ton of stone.

From what Iā€™ve seen from players at the top level, keeps are pretty much only used to defend sacred sites. Theoretically, keeps can also be used to protect resources that are far away from the main base, but games usually donā€™t last long enough for this to happen.

In my opinion, keeps are fine as they are now, though small balance tweaks would be fine as well. Trebs are quite expensive, and if your opponent invests too much into trebs, you can counter that with greater infantry/cavalry.

If a keep can be taken down by some basic rams then what is the point of the keep? What purpose does it serve? Might as well just make a little stretch of wall and put a tower or two on it and it achieves the same effect.

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I agree they could use some buffs. Maybe more fire armor, health, etcā€¦

It would also be nice if they could be connected to walls.

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The sole purpose of the ram is to destroy buildings. It shouldnā€™t be surprising that rams can take down a keep. As with trebs, there is a downside of building rams which is having less infantry/cavalry. Although I will admit that rams seem a bit too overpowered at the moment, mostly because of siege engineering. With siege engineering, rams donā€™t have to suffer from having slow movement speed. You can also build multiple rams at the same time without a single siege workshop.

In short, I think keeps are basically fine as is. Siege engineering might need nerfing.

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You keep saying keeps are fine but refuse to admit what purpose they serve. What are they fine for? What do they do? Fight off a few stray villagers that strayed into its arrow range?
If a dozen Men at Arms can build a few rams for a little wood and crack a keep like an egg why build a keep at all?

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I made this obvious in my original response:

And so I saidā€¦ a stone wall with a tower or two accomplish the same task.
Why build a 800 stone keep when even half of that stone gets the job done?

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I already told you my recommendation for nerfing rams. Please read through my post again: