Similarly to aoe3, melee attacks your snare enemy units, meaning slowing down their movement speed for a brief moment.
While in aoe3 the whole army gets snared (every unit which the enemy selected together and gave it a command), here in aoe4 just the unit which got attacked should be snared.
This would change the way cavalry and archers work especially.
Cavalry would become super vulnerable to spearmen, while being extra strong (hello horsemen!!!) against archers and better at raiding.
Aoe4 is very very boring and frustating in that way, that the player with the more mobile army can also choose when and how to fight.
Your ass gets crushed in a fight? No problem, just run away!
Also archers don’t really get punished currently for moving too far out of town/protection without any spearmen.
At the same time it’s quite a task to protect archers with spearmen, as the cavalry units can just snipe your bows and run out.
Especially knights profit from the fact that you can’t punish them.
This change would make the game a lot more dynamic and reward good micro management and decision making when it comes to military.
With “formations” it wont work.
So you need to change formations as well.
Cause, currently the army move with the speed of the slowest unit.
but overall I do not agree, that snare should be added:
this feature makes game more intense.
You wont camp the best position, cause you “afraid” to loose all army, you can try and run away. It adds dynamic to the game.
i’ve provided example above.
If you attack == be ready to loose untis → boom every game.
Agree. They need some sort of mechanic to stop the player who didn’t just spam Knights/Lancers from being destroyed the moment his wall gets one hole in it.
Team games at the moment have just devolved into Cav spam as their speed and power allows you to pick and choose favourable engagements and quickly respond to threats/opportunities across the map.
Snare could be added for “special units” say a new Civ and its unique unit.
But it would really disturb the flow of the game in all honesty.
You already have a “reverse-snare” mechanic in the game for melee units, as when they get close enough, they get a charge bonus that increases their speed slightly.
While a mobile army is good, they rarely mesh well with siege, and once walls and keeps are up, then mobile armies become much less effective as the game goes on and bigger portions of the map get sectioned off.
Snare would make melee way too impactful. It’s also frustrating in that there’s no counter (vs. the existing melee charge which rewards micro to stay out of range).
“just micro” is what the existing system rewards. Getting into melee shouldn’t be a death sentence. There are better ways to tune underperforming melee units.
“the army that is the more mobile force has an advantage” is exactly the point of it. This is why movement tends to either come with low armour, or high cost. Or you make use of static defenses instead of being caught out in the open where mounted units shine.
The problem in my opinion is melee-range pathfinding is a bit iffy. Units can take too long to walk around the melee to engage with the other side (you can even see this in something as basic as the combat Art of Wars).
Snare is just inherently an unfun mechanic that tries to force balance.
Like Gorb said, there are better ways to attain that without ruining the experience for many.
I, for instance, cannot stand snare and it is singularly one of the few mechanics that keep me from enjoying AoE3 even as just an immersive experience.
I’m the exact opposite, I love snare. It drives me nuts that cavalry can just run in and out of battles with no consequence. The incessant dancing with no commitment is the opposite of fun.
I come from AoE3 and I disagree with the proposal.
The snare is somewhat controversial (there are even some AoE3 players who hate it), it would radically change the way battles take place, there would be major balance issues, and it would tends to favor defensive strategies.
If you want to add micromanagement, include what the majority community wants: All units to have at least one special unit, arrows missed the target (with a slight favorable balance on bow attack and defensive structures), and that in the slopes you win defense or attack.
If the cavalry is more meta it is because there are open maps and especially they are still bigger than I personally would like.
Someone can put it in custom games and have each player play what they want. I understand that there is some over-representation of AoE3 players here, but I highly doubt that mechanic has a future.
If you’re running in, landing a single hit, and then running out, you’re not going to be killing anyone. If you stay for the length of time to kill someone, you’re open to being killed by the usual counters.
The toughness and value of the stronger mounted units is heavily reflected in their cost.
Regardless, I don’t think some kind of snare mechanic a) makes sense when applied to cavalry and b) isn’t going to fix any problems with them, arguable or otherwise.
I like the snare mechanic but can totally understand why many hate it. With that being said adding divisive things like this to a playerbase that may not be familiar with it probably isn’t a good idea.
thats not true. If you add an mechanic that make it less sufferable towards age progresssion like adding anti snare that soft the effect but not nullifying. you get slowed but you can get out of here becuz still have some speed to go away from spear from an cav raiding as example. only late game counters can snare heavily like ottoman jannie vs cav if they want to implement
I mention that one as one of the issues they need to adress
If your spearmen aren’t literally next to the thing they’re supposed to be protecting, why are you blaming the cavalry? Exposed ranged units (including siege) are open to harass, that’s how it’s supposed to work, no?
From non-siege ranged units (so, archers), cavalry will take damage almost up to the last second. The “punishment” is the fact that any melee unit takes damage coming into a melee fight, and then leaving it. The benefit cavalry has vs. normal melee is their speed. Which is then again tuned by their cost.
I dunno. I disagree that cavalry don’t get punished, but even if we argued that until the end of time, I really don’t think it merits melee getting a snare in general. That seems a way too wide a net to cast over the specific discussion of “cavalry harass”.