I’ll start with a statement which may be controversial to some and obvious to others: Matches involving water are not good - or not as good as they should be. I think most people identify with this statement, we see water maps often banned in ranked, we see stream numbers drop off when streamers spectate water matches, and we read a lot of complaints about them online. I want this post to be a driver of positive change, on both sides of the argument. For people who currently enjoy water maps, I want you to see that it is possible you can enjoy them even more and for people who currently hate them, I want you to see that good naval gameplay is possible.
Before we even begin throwing around solutions to problems, I think it is important we identify them. You see, there are many different problems discussed by the community, with regard to naval gameplay. I think some of these can be too specific and ultimately stem from one larger hidden problem:
Water gameplay lacks the necessary level of complexity to cross a threshold where interesting emergent properties evolve. In video games, often the most enjoyable pieces of content, particularly in strategy games, come from emergent properties. Emergent properties in the context of video games, are interesting mechanics that arise from more base level rules that have been defined by the developers. They are often unexpected, but pleasant properties of a game, that come from the interaction between low level design decisions and the player. It is these emergent properties that drive the meta of a strategy game. The continual discovery of these emergent properties by the playerbase is what can lend a video game an incredible longevity with little developer input.
Let me lay out a basic example of this in AoE terms. Consider 3 basic properties defined by the devs:
- The best units cost gold.
- Gold is scarce and finite.
- Gold is placed in interesting locations on the map.
These three basic properties drive some very interesting gameplay.
- Players must think about how they take their own gold.
- Players must think about how they deny their enemy of gold.
- Players must think of how they use their expensive units.
- Players must weigh the risks of taking neutral gold.
- Players must consider when they attack in the context of how much gold is left on the map.
Etc, etc. In AoE2 there are countless examples of these higher level strategies arising from lower level development decisions. The slight complexity difference between Age1 and Age2 I think explains a lot as to why 2 was so much more popular, even though 2 was only slightly more complicated, the mechanics meshed so well together they still continue to this day to interact in undiscovered ways, driving new emergent properties.
Finally, allow me to tie this into water gameplay. On water:
- You can gather 1 resource: food (gold also through trade in multiplayer).
- Units cost either wood or gold or both
- No building on water.
- No terrain features driving gameplay decisions, eg. hill bonus
- Terrain features such as wood lines, gold and stone, etc drive the interesting placement of buildings and units.
- No at sea naval conversions
- Simple unit counters
And the list goes on. I am not suggesting we address these specific points, but am simply pointing out just how bland water gameplay is in comparison to land. This is reflected in the water meta, which is very slow to change and is also very one dimensional.
I believe that with the addition of a few well thought out simple mechanics and changes, water gameplay can cross the complexity threshold required, where these mechanics interact with existing ones, producing new, interesting, emergent properties.
Final thoughts: People often find water maps troublesome, not because water is actually complicated, but because they don’t play on it often. Then, when they do find themselves on a water map, they are not rewarded with interesting gameplay that sparks their curiosity and drives them to want to improve and try out new strategies. It leaves them with a bad taste in their mouth, wanting to return to the more interesting and better fleshed out part of AoE2. Please do not focus too much on the examples I have given, they are just examples of a wider problem I am trying to portray. Please discuss some small changes you think could be made that could interact with existing mechanics to produce more interesting and varied gameplay.
TLDR: Water gameplay is not complex enough in terms of the sum amount of interesting base mechanics. The small amount of current base mechanics can only interact in a limited number of ways, failing to produce any interesting emergent properties within the gameplay. This results in a 1 dimensional meta, simplistic strategies and no ‘uh huh!’ lightbulb moments for the player. There are a very limited number of decisions the player must make with regard to their water gameplay compared to land.
On a side note, it is also these emergent properties that make strategy games like AoE2 so hard to balance, a small change can have a very large consequence, as it could add or remove an emergent property of the game.