This is from a video posted by a variety streamer content creator. He is a very good example of a casual player and in this instance he claims “I’m suprised this is even pop capped” which in my opinion is very true. this army looks very small . although I understand that a part of pop cap is to make game function properly and too much units might cause lags/desyncs but I think we can still allow a little more space for more units.
I would like to know your opinion about it. I will link the link to video below with a time spamp Its a very funny video watch it if you have time for it.
Population cap is actually high in AoMR it just is limited by how many houses and Town Centers you can get which is for balance reasons as well as performance reasons (many people have performance issues when there is a lot of stuff).
A lot of people want more population. I personally don’t want too much more.
Maximum houses and 3 Fortified Town Center you get 235 population so if I was to increase population in some way it would be to increase Fortified Town Centers to give 5 more pop each to get a beautiful 250 pop instead of the ugly 235 that you would see in 1v1 games from maximum houses and 3 Fortified Town Center.
I don’t understand why they just give us a lobby setting for population cap (house limit).
I know it would ruin balance but why not allow people to have fun?
More pop means a boost in offensive capability. With some players already considering towers to be borderline useless, increasing the pop cap too much would need a counterweight of either buffing walls, towers, and fortress buildings, or increase limits for those too, or a combination of both. Otherwise, turtleing as a tactic would stop being viable, and pantheons with a defensive focus, such as the Egyptians, would be at a disadvantage.
It would be a natural change to tie the Tower limit to the House limit, right?
Buff Towers a little and set their build limit to be the same as Houses (they don’t count towards the same limit, they just use the same number) so 16 by default down from 20 atm.
(2 Towers for 1 Manor)
That could work as one part of the formula, but yes, essentially.
It should maintain a good balance.
As it stands right now, the usefulness of towers, even when fully upgraded, is debated. With higher pop, and no changes to defenses, armies could get so big, the ability of a fortress to shoot arrows will stop mattering.
I agree that armies do look small even at max pop. The problem lies on balancing a higher pop against buildings as others pointed already in this thread.
That said, 250 max pop with 3 TCs upgraded would be good for the game for sure.
Now seriously. (If some Dev read this) You maybe (ONLY MAYBE) have an opportunity to solve this if you increase population before chinese DLC will be released. I would see perfect an extra “classic mode” with 10 houses, no reusable powers and even with their own rankeds separated from the main game.
But if you don´t want to see AoM Retold as an AoE3 2.0 increase number of houses in some way (maybe an update in fourth or third age, etc…) and update battles at the level of the saga. Bassed in your comunications where you said “we want to rescue the potential of AoM couldn´t have in its days” I would assume that you don´t want to see AoMr like an AoE3 2.0
I recomend don´t using balance as an excuse. In general (not just in this case) when somebody suggest an idea for a game, people who don´t like it use “balance” as an generic excuse. BALANCE ISSUES can always being solved or confronted.
Each little feature or change that you introduce into a game (a new civ, a new mechanic, a new unit, a new weapon…) will create a balance problem. However, you’re not going to see people complaining about introducing the Chinese because “they will create a balance problem in the game”.
First off, thanks everyone for sharing their opinions.
I do agree that balancing can be solved but I don’t know how difficult it might be to solve it.
My main concern is that as of right now the max pop army is meh and it can be upgraded to an “acceptable” amount by just allowing two more houses. and I dont think it will affect game performance that much. Although sadly i dont think this will ever happen since the game is not designed for large scale battles (I might be wrong about this though).
Every game should prioritize their casual audience. casuals don’t really care about balance. but such a small army on the screen of their favorite streamer without a doubt leaves a bad first impression.
I think the engine is just designed for more “delicate single unit interactions” rather than “large scale army clashes”. Like comparing Total war warhammer and AOEIV.
When it comes to army size, I wouldn’t have an issue if the devs trippled that, meaning tweaking limits and and requirements so we can have three times as many soldiers.
But I’d want that to come with some serious buffs or an overhaul to defenses. Towers, fortresses, walls, whatever. Because if this doesn’t happen, you might as well not bother building or upgrading any of those, except for the fortress to train siege units or elephants in case of the Egyptians. But you wouldn’t actually need siege engines, because when your army is that size, buildings aren’t an obstacle no matter what units you bring, and it’s better to focus on units that are effective against the enemies also large army.
I do want the pop cap increase and buffing defenses if needed. Allowing us to build 2 more houses would be nice. Increasing pop cap on TCs I don’t like, because it’s already too much of a benefit for acquiring them particularly on large multiplayer maps (4+ players).
We have to consider the amount of Villagers people are making. The meta is always maxing villagers, and then people even max caravans and if there is fish they make a lot of fishing ships.
Notice how much population the economy consume? 160 pops just from 100 villagers and 60 caravans.
Just reducing villager limits to 80 and caravan to 40 already increase pop for army from 75 to 115, a whooping +50% military numbers in a standard 235 pop game. (16 houses + 3 tc)
In AoE III and now in AoMR with Poseidon you have a melee cavalry unit that does area of effect damage so with population caps if too high can steamroll the enemy.
If you try to balance something for very high population levels it will effect things at other population levels too so need to be careful with population levels in games.
