Let the rarely used cards cost less XP

I want to offer a direction of changing the mechanism of the game, after I read this:
https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Experience

According the article, currently all the cards cost 100% XP. This means the later a card is used, the more xp it will cost. So how about if we let the rarely used cards cost fixed amount of XP?

For example, change the frame color of the icons of the the rarely used cards to grey. Let the “grey frame cards” in age 1 always cost no more than 400 XP (They still can be used when a shipment is avalable at any time no matter how many EX points the player currently has, so if they are used as the first shipment, they still cost 300XP.), let the grey ones in age2 cost no more than 800 XP, and in age 3 cost no more 1600 XP. (The number is just for example.)

By let rarely used card not always cost 100% XP for the more late shipments, maybe some rarely used cards could become very powerful, encouraging people put them in their decks.

Just a sudden idea. :thinking:

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That actually is a good idea. Some cards will always lose in the hierarchy. The alternatives are simply too hard to pass up. They are somewhere between the full value of that level of card.

This could actually make them far more usable and frankly just gives other civs a chance to somewhat mimic Japan’s ability to resend shipments, but in a different fashion

Might be interesting but dont know how that will work within the game since shipment techs are listed as having “Ships” as cost - ie each card cost 1 shipment to send, not XP. so you cant really implement a different cost for them easily

4 Likes

will… maybe it is better to strengthen them

3 Likes

Shipments are discrete. Not sure how to really implement them. I’d prefer “bundling” some of them.

It’s an interesting concept, I’ve thought about it before but ultimately the better decision would be to just buff the cards. Otherwise an alternative to your concept could be to just make lesser shipments return a certain amount of XP upon being sent, so you could take a card that’s generally considered ‘bad’ like Ranching, and have it also immediately return like 100xp in addition.

A simple way to implement this, would be if the card give the buff in question + some amount of experience, so the next shipment would come sooner.

Example:
Avanced Mill (no one take this) - Gives the buff plus 300 xp.
Land Grab (sometimes used) - The buff plus 100 xp.

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Actually I don’t expect this will be added to the game in the future at all… :sweat_smile:

I just think if the game let players freely choose any card to build their deck, there are always some cards just better than the other cards in the specific build orders.

But If we let the some rarely used cards cost less in the mid and late game, maybe people will think something like “Oh, since this card is almost free in the mid and late game, why not put it in the deck? Anyway I will get the next shipment soon.”

Will some combinations of normal card + bad (but cheap) card be surprisingly poweful? I don’t know…

Uh… anyway just a random thought. :roll_eyes:
I don’t think adding this feature would make the game more fun.

The simpler option would be to have those cards boost the build XP bounty for mills and plantations and such.

Wow this is a interesting idea, and I actually agree with it. There are some cards that by nature will never be worth the full shipment value of their cost. (looking at you envoy cards)

Some people have suggested having cards give a flat XP amount as a way to get you to your next card, or increase the XP of the things that the cards generate.
This solution has a couple problems. Firstly, not all cards have things to generate ways of boosting XP. Secondly if XP is given only in flat amounts, it does not account for the fact that shipment cost scales after each shipment.

However I think the best way to implement this idea is to make it so a card deemed a lower tiered card, should recieve these two qualities:
-(1) the card does not increase the XP scaling of future cards
-(2) the card returns a certain percent of the XP cost of itself (for example 30%)

Something that must be taken into account is that many of these cards are situational or designed for specific game modes. For example, the fact that I don’t use the card that allows me to train tigers with the Indian monks does not mean that the card is 100% useless and this means that it must be buffed, so that we can use it more often in supremacy. The card is meant for when you’re dealt a team map with a lot of treasures, and is very useful when playing custom scenarios like “LOST”.
So I take it back, just because a card isn’t used often doesn’t mean it should be buffed to encourage its use, it’s simply designed for other things, for specific situations.

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reading the card Panuco Waterways leads to me to think instead of lower cost

You can have some shipment not cost any shipment at all, but take longer to arrive.

But again it will probably apply to only a very narrow set of shipments

I think the reason people ask to make every aspect of the game viable in a competitive or multiplayer sense is because this game allows you to do things that other AOEs don’t. At least in my case, I focused more on the AOE 3 forums, after seeing the direction AOE-4 took.

The dog of war is a good card, but not a good opening send in most cases.