This thread takes the stance that the Mongol TC rush in its current form is broken. As such the point of this thread is to suggest possible solutions to the limit the power of this problematic strategy.
There is already another thread talking about the Mongol TC rush in a more general format if you are aren’t looking to discuss potential nerfs.
The following is a list of possible fixes and any combination might end up being the correct solution.
-(Edit)Creating an area around enemy town centers that prevents hostile buildings from being setup/built within said area
-Once the Tc starts to unpack a unit may still move into the area it takes up and prevent it from unpacking
-Have tc’s deal bonus damage to other tc’s (this way the defender can garrison villagers and do a reasonable amount of damage)
-Have the tech cost stone, this would mean more time is required for the stone to trickle in and also increases the investment from the Mongol player
-Increase the research time so that it is still a small investment but doesn’t finish until around the time players are advancing to feudal and have more tools to answer the massive threat
-Move the tech to feudal age to ensure the other player has a fair opportunity to reach feudal before facing the technology
-Reduce the impact the tech has on the move and unpack speed of Mongol buildings.
-Do not allow the tech to effect the or have it apply less to the Mongol tc
-Create a cool down period between subsequent attempts to move the tc, so that players can safely move their vills away and have a moment to gather resources before the tc closes in. they may then rinse and repeat
-Remove the tech entirely
-Remove the tech entirely but replace it with something else that rewards the use of the mongols migration mechanic. One such tech could provide 1 second of 2x building speed for every second spent by the building in transit, allowing up to 30 seconds maximum of this faster creation speed to be stored. The exact numbers could be tweaked.
What do you think of these ideas? If I missed anything I’m interested in reading other possible solutions.
I dont think the mechanic needs to be removed. However, a longer cooldown period between pack/unpack times would be best. Or perhaps, make it so that a TC can not be placed within the range of another TC, unless it is owned by the player.
Biggest thing to keep in mind with nerfs though, is that not every person playing the Mongols does this strat. Many prefer to play them the way they are intended to be played.
As a Mongol player myself, I dont really like the idea of the TC rush. I feel that the Mongols have decent units that can be used to play a fair game. Though the units could use a slight buff to make them more viable early game since Knights absolutely decimate them in numbers.
I like the first potential solution, I hope they don’t completely remove the mechanic since I like the idea of different civs having different play styles to learn and counter.
What happens when you try to take over the yellow unpack marker with just a worker unit? Does it move the unit? I feel like that’s the most elegant solution.
How often can we expect patches and balance changes? I’ve never followed any AoE game.
If you put a unit inside the unpack area, it stops the building from unpacking. Though, its a bit hard with only villagers. Perhaps making another scout or 2 to burn down the building (scouts actually do decent damage to buildings). However, that does require food…
This cannot happen without buffing the migration mechanic in some form, remember also that migration is also mongols only defensive strategy - as they have no walls and their outposts cannot be fortified nor make castles.
One idea is that you could remove the tech, but every time the mongol player advances an age it increases the movement speed of their packed buildings by an amount. This would allow it to scale into the late game, without being broken in dark and feudal, and also remove the cost for something which I honestly think mongols need to be viable.
They should absolutely not go with any specific targeted fixes that involve adding oddities in the game like TCs deal bonus damage only to TCs. They should aim for smooth design decisions that make sense and aren’t unintuitive or create “messy” design. Imagine 5 years from now if they did a fix like “TCs deal bonus damage to TCs”, the game would be riddled with extremely oddly specific mechanics that would make the game a mess.
What would neuter this rush, but not eliminate it, is to move the Superior Mobility upgrade to Age 2 requirement. This would allow you more time to scout it, prepare for it, AND the power of the rush is in that you can quickly relocate the TC on Dark Age, following the enemy around when his workers relocate. You would not be able to do this without that upgrade on Age 1.
This is seen as a meme build like the Planetary Fortress Rush from Starcraft, and that build is a joke build that works at low level, but is very easy to stop. This tech change would put it in line with that, because when you see the TC slowly waddling into your base, you just put a worker on top of it and it can’t do anything, and the opponent loses because he has a completely stifled economy.
I think that this is definitely a solution with a lot of potential as it allows the tech to function as is in all other ways, while greatly limiting its early game damage potential. With that said what it limit the damage too much, causing the build to disappear entirely?
I really do like the migration mechanic and I would much rather see a fix that allows the migration mechanic be preserved or even possibly buffed at later stages of the game, as long as it is changed to no longer be what is essentially a free win. I think your idea is quite elegant in that it reduces the power of migration when it is problematic (dark age) and creates a more rewarding use for it later in the game when you have many other tasks to preform and as such the migration needs to be valuable enough to spend actions on.
I agree with your line of logic in regards to avoiding odd unintuitive fixes like bonus this one unit gets bonus damage only against this one unit as it make the game more difficult to learn. It seems like you tend to agree with the suggestion that it be moved to feudal then
Having a background in other rts’ I do like the idea of cheese builds, so does the build really need to neutered, or just reduced in power to a manageable level?
I agree that the mechanic should most definitely remain and am glad to see others feel the same way. I think the tech that buffs this mechanic is currently problematic, but it seems like there are some good solutions that wont hurt the Mongol race as a whole, perhaps the potential fix will even have a positive impact on more “standard play” for the race.
Welcome to the forum! I totally agree. I hope the mechanic isn’t removed either and its definitely a very unique style of play. It just seems too powerful at the moment. I am all for build and strategic diversity though!
As far as I am aware AoE doesn’t preform hotfixes and as such it will take until a larger patch is released. It is typically a couple to a few months between patches; however this is my first time play AoE so close to launch and I don’t know what their patch cycle closer to launching a title looks like. I’m hoping they do something fairly soon.
Game is pretty broken by a Mongol match up right now. Until fixed you’ll see an exodus of streamers and hype along with the rest of players. Back to SC2, AOE2, and BW we go…
I sure hope they move that to the feudal age quickly.
The problem is even if you play normally you get a very unfair advantage as other side has to commit everything to prevent it as they assume you will do, and this completely handicaps them.
