I played almost exclusively against AIs for the majority of my time on RE, I only really got into playing against people towards the end, so I’m speaking as someone who’s beaten and been destroyed by lots of AIs and people over years.
The AIs play very differently than people. I used to do some 1v3 on expert on RE and it required tons of walls and often the use of holes in the AIs logic to win because all the AIs had a massive eco advantage. They’d all rush with at least 15-30 units and have eco behind it in a way human players just can’t. mass walling wasn’t a choice, it was required, and required insanely early. Sometimes in age 1 to prevent the enemy seeing your buildings so they wouldn’t know where to send their rushes.
All that to say, I understand the point you’re making. But in a 1v1 against a human opponent, you just don’t see walling like that until mid/late game, at which point walls are cheap as dirt.
The reason for that is that a TC, with some well placed houses and a market, maybe 5 wall pieces and a few of the right units and some minuteman will hold off most rushes.
I also play some team and FFA (and sometimes treaty, though my skill in that has degraded substantially from being out of practice) and usually by the time I’m walling significantly I’ve got a strong enough economy to afford it.
I don’t think @coffeeco01 was trying to attack you, and I’ll actually say that your point seemed like a Strawman before he mentioned you play against AI. Then I remembered how they play and things started to make sense.
It’s entirely possible that I misunderstood, but to be fair I think saying that my opinion on the cost of walls is wrong based on the fact that I don’t play against another player is completely incorrect. The walls are worth exactly the same in all game modes, how easy you can build one is a separate issue.
I know, it’s because that wood is more profitable to use to make a house, some improvement or some units to defend yourself from raids. (I also see professional players, I am not unaware of the competitive factors of the game)
If you don’t mind, I prefer to leave this matter settled, I think this whole conversation diverted the main point of this topic.
Until the developers fix the area damage of the walls this will continue to happen, as I said before this mechanic is poorly implemented and should be removed. (I wonder if this is a bug in the game or a mechanic that went horribly wrong)
What’s the point of building a wall that your opponent can destroy with an exploit? This explains why professionals don’t use pillars.
I want to think that at least the developers will solve this problem with the walls.
fwiw, i think the core disconnect is that you’ve had less time playing in the 1v1 meta prior and now than most of us so are making conclusions not based on the zeitgeists of said metas. a quick overview-
RE pillarless was done to save time and res not to combat this glitch. It was actually a bit of a micro/hotkey set up issue, where experienced players would do so and noobs/casual players would be like “oh snap, we ded.” Ofc as others have mentioned, the maps on RE were different so walling was more situational but most again did not promote mass walling as it made team games especially drag on. In DE to even the playing field, devs made it easier than ever to select all pillars to delete. again, this was not done to combat this gltich which:
the glitch is known but rarely used. AOE3 is a small community and lamers exist and are ostracized or mocked quickly. OFC in DE era what is “lame” is increasingly loose, but despite that the general populace works actively to not be “lame.” broken civ users, card abusers, hacks or smurfs, boosting etc is all quickly noted and most of all, most of us play this niche game for fun and glory not pixel points (i like those points tho). Laming wall glitch is also counter able if said defender made military units in this military strategy game. whereas for most civs, walling can be oppressive if they lack age2 tempo. I can say with probably 800 ranked games and 1k or more lobby games, I’ve seen and used this gltich only vs the worst wall offenders and maybe 10 times. this reality you fear simply isn’t common or even frequent. and again, make light infantry and suddenly the walls are defended. Despite being very well known, you rarely see this unless you are walling 3-4x layers in a supremacy game. then yeah dude this isn’t stronghold, and “lame” is often responded in kind. After all, if people could behave themselves we wouldn’t need regular balance patches. I hope this gets fixed someday, but given aoe3’s bespoke, flawless, innovate ai pathing and attack priority currently i think this niche issue is probably on the backburner as they try to get the game functional first.
buffing cards around a glitch only makes shit worse. See gatlings, italic forts, many revolts/revolt cards of how boosting something around a glitched mechanic usually results in pure problems especially if the issue is fixed. there is no rational reason to buff something, or balance it, around exploits. There is as others have pointed out, 2 seperate issue- how walls are played in 99% of games, and then there is bug fixing. like the above issues, its best to treat them as such as combining 2 issues makes things more likely to go astray.
I hope the above helps you understand the positions of others. This is not me trying to counter point nor please dont take it as such. simply think about how others, more exposed history with aoe3 ranked and walls might explain why we know pros to scrubs dont pillarless to combat a very rarely used glitch in 99% of cases.
I still think it can be fixed, just display the cost as 11 wood. Or make the wall cost proportional to the length of wall and remove pillar completely from the game.
Ok, I see your point, but can we at least agree that the walls need some serious re-work?
PS: I know that some players eliminate pillars to save wood, but in my opinion they already solved that specific problem with the last patch. In any case, now the problem that remains is the people who use the walls to abuse the IA passing of the units and the broken area damage of the walls.
Ok, that was funny. (I clarify that I mean this in a good way)
For me, if a exploit is detected, it must be eliminated. I can understand that for certain situations it can be useful, especially against players with 10 to 20 wall lines, but I think a change must be demanded for the walls, staying silent only allows these problems to continue.
PS: Don’t worry, I understand that you are just trying to explain your point of view, I am sure that even within competitive players there are different opinions on this topic.
The area damage of 3 segments seems adequate to me, you only have to attack a pillar to demolish a good portion of the wall, I also think there is a good variety of units with good siege damage.
PS: If we leave aside the exploit I mentioned and the players who put up like 20 layers of walls, in theory the walls are well balanced. (He emphasized in theory)
To be honest, I would love to have a new wall system for the game, I propose something like the following.
In my opinion, each wall segment should cost 50 wood and have no small segments except when there is an obstacle that prevents normal segments from being built. (the cost is this high to discourage making many walls at the beginning of the game)
When we improve the wall with Bastion technology, the walls and stone pillars should be much thicker, the walls would now cost 200 wood per segment, the wall would have more hit points and you can build towers to help defense as well as doors . The towers would cost 500 wood and we could put one per large segment.
The towers could look like the Frontier Outpost or the beta Fortified Outpost
(I clarify that I mean this in a good way)
