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Arabia, potentially good map but ruined by bad decisions, too many hills and indefensible woodlines, also rarely one player gets only 1 woodline which makes it impossible to get through the mid-game.
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Nomad, I don’t know how people enjoy this mode, go to stone early and spam Castles, you will most likely win, very unfun/unskilled mode, civs with a strong UU also tend to have a big advantage here because the mode is so focused on Castle dropping.
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Socotra: fun for 1-2-3 games, gets very boring very fast. Laming every game and full Feudal can stay interesting only for so long.
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Haboob: the map is not too bad, it’s a very nicely-designed aggressive map where aggressive civs are at an advantage but it’s not impossible to win with others strats also. However I feel there are not a lot of turtling options for late-game, let’s say you are a civ like Britons or Ethiopians, you can’t really contest the mobility game too much and on this map creating a defensive layer is impossible both due to the big desert gaps you have on each side with no natural walls in the form of woodlines, and because of the impassable terrain that doesn’t let you fully wall. Again I’m fine with Feudal/Castle aggression but in Imp, having full walls of houses/stone is not an unreasonable request because some civs (Britons, Mayans Celts etc. can ONLY do a big push in 1 area overloading army and they cannot defend farms/eco very well in Imperial). Anyway this map is almost fine, just when there is already Arabia in the pool it feels too similar in how it plays out.
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Arena: idk why this map is a staple of ranked like Arabia, it’s a pure civ-win map. You also tend to go vs civ-pickers a lot on this map which ruins the whole experience of actually doing some impromptu strat. Anyway Arena is a map for “Arena warriors” so I won’t discuss it too much, this mode has a strong minority who are big fans of it but I can’t say I like how dominant the civ pick is on this map.
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Four Lakes: why is this map in rotation every 2-3 weeks? Seriously, who enjoys hybrid maps? Lithuanians, Byzantines, Persians, Japanese have a significant advantage on this map. Aggression also tends to be minimal until late Castle age as FC is such a strong strat on this mode that there is no point in doing anything else really. Many civs that have windows in Feudal/early Castle age, such as Mongols, Aztecs, Magyars, Turks etc. feel pointless to play on this map if you roll them. But mostly it feels like a no-walls Arena where both players agree to just not touch each other until min 25-30 which feels wrong.
Maps to bring back:
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African clearing: all the nice things of Nomad, without the bad things like fighting for water and excessive amount of Stone piles.
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Atacama: a nice change on Arabia where the most threatened resource is Wood, not Gold. Can be a win-more map where one player gets wood control and wins the game but overall I feel is 1 of the more fun maps. Also favors tower rushing which is a strat that you rarely see these days (I’m not a huge fan of tower rushing myself, but I think all strats should have a place and Atacama is one).
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Enclosed: it’s more of a Empire Wars map but even in RM it could play nicely. Perhaps favors FC strats too much.
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Eruption: a golden hill map without the hill. Can be win-more for the player controlling gold but at least there is a crater in the middle allowing for comebacks in the form of side Castles
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Hideout: a map like Arena without all the bad things that Arena has. Early aggression is discouraged but, unlike Arena, not impossible and it doesn’t always devolve into an Imp spam fest of the meta unit from 15+ production buildings.
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Land Madness: a nice open map for aggressive play where walling is hard but unlike on Arabia, it’s not entirely down to luck whether there will be a gap in your small walls on those 5 tiles that overlap due to the numerous hills.
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Megarandom, Sacred Springs, Serengeti (haven’t seen this last one in forever and I feel it’s 1 of the most fun maps in the game), Valley (1 civ is too dominant here but it’s a very fun map otherwise) also honorable mentions.
This week has been really unfun, one of the least fun weeks I had in AoE2.