People are playing a strategy game doing the same strategy in every game

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
1

This is something I just noticed playing ranked.

A lot of people play french, and all of them try the chivalry+archers rush.

I am main abbasid, I am tired of stop these rushes, so 100% of the matches I play against a french, I know what exactly he id about to do.

It’s ridiculous, just won every match against french with abbasid as I know what is he gonna do, and I know the exactly build order to not only stop the rush, but also counter rush and finish the game.

Seriously, people are playing strategy game, or playing a build order game?

This is not a complain post or a cry, in fact I won every match against these people, but it surprises me a lot.

People don’t want to play strategy, they just want to win by memorizing a build and doing it till the end of.the times.

Imagine a chess game where you know exactly what the opponent is gonna do… That’s exactly what happens playing 1v1 ranked.

If you are wondering how to counter this rush with abbasid, just do:

  1. 7 to food, 1 to build house and house of wisdom, then to food (8 food)
  2. 4 to gold, then the house of wisdom and press Q
  3. 6 to food, 5 to wood, 3 to gold
  4. 1 to build tower in french gold, 2 to stone

Next is, build horses, and pikers, then stop the first attack and upgrade the tower so they can’t get gold.

He will try to kill the tower, so move your troops, but keep an eye on the near gold, because he will try to get that gold. Raid this gold.

Build rams, finish the game.

6 Likes
2

I was wondering as well, what’s the fun for people doing the same thing over and over the whole time. Even if they win a bunch of matches with this, is it really satisfying!? I also see many players doing one single civ… which for me looks dull… Ok, they master that civ, and since they know one build order very well, they sometimes have better chances to win, but I get bored when I play the same civ all the time.

I mean, for me it’s ok at the end, they can do whatever they like, it’s just different for me. I rather loose a couple of games, than doing the same thing over and over the whole time.

Ah, and thanks for the tipp / guide :wink:

1 Like
3

Well, all your post is the definition of META, unfortunately.

4

Its only because of the dev forcing games to be extremely competitive. They learn build order from someone and don’t want to discover any alternatives or variations because its too risky and you will always lose if you make a wrong move.

I personally don’t follow any official build order unless my teammate needs some support. e.g With English my opening is usually classic double knight and we put too much early pressure. I think 2 TC french build will have more potential. I am currently refining the build order but It has so much flexibility. It has following selling points:

  • Age-up timing around 4:45 to 5:00
  • 2nd TC around 5:30 to 6:00.
  • Can survive without access to gold and stone even sometimes without food but delays army production.
  • Around 8-9 min you have 2 Barack (out-produce french knights), 3 Archery range (out-produce English production) and 1 stable and depending on how was opening you can even produce units at constant rate from all production buildings.

You can even get away against other french player. I am not sure if it will work against any pro but in lower elo its so smooth. I tried in 1v1 and around 12 min I was in opponent base with 8 Knights, 50 Archers and 40 Spears and 1 Ram and even being in castle age he couldn’t have stopped push. As french you dont need to age up to counter armored units. You can rely on knights.

Build order usually goes like this:

  • 7 on food (spread villagers so you get enough food to age up)
  • 1 villager → Build Horse → Build Mill → Gold
  • 1 villager → Mine 5 gold and drop mining camp → Research Wheelbarrow
  • Next 4 villagers on gold (Total 6 on gold)
  • Next 2/3 on wood. Get lumberjack once you have 25 wood and then house once you have 50 again.
  • Get 200 gold and drop landmark with 2/3 villager on food. (You might struggle a little with villager production with 3 on landmark but highly recommended as you can get away with 1 or 2 villager as french. Second TC has more priority)
  • Get gold for woodcutting upgrade. I don’t exactly remember how much it costs for french. But I get around 130 gold and + 100 if I am going for single knight opening to force Barack from opponent.
  • Move all gold villagers to stone. By the time you age up you will have around 300 stone.
  • Immediately research woodcutting upgrade when you age up. (Timing is usually around 4:45 to 5:00 depends on resource spawn.

At this stage the build order can branch.

  • You can put stone villagers on wood and get 2nd TC as soon as possible. And put newer villagers on food and wood.
    OR
  • Put stone villagers on Gold and newer villagers heavily on food and some wood. It will delay second TC slightly but will help in constant single knight production.

In first case you can survive without gold/stone and even food. You will have so much wood after making second TC that you can even farm transition if locked out of all resources except wood. Losing wood is game-over. You can put double Barack against french and Double or Triple Archery ranges against any other civ. Its much more flexible at this stage. But around 9 min mark your production will be beast. Usually double spear, triple archery and single knight production depending on how much gold and food you could secure.

1 Like
5

I really appreciate the detailed write-ups. I main Abbasid/French, but I find more success on the ladder with the French as I find Abbasid too dependent on the 2TC play. @joanka93val Does your build order work w/ a 2 TC build, or do you have to commit to a Feudal tower all-in?

6

I really appreciate the detailed write-ups. I main Abbasid/French, but I find more success on the ladder with the French as I find Abbasid too dependent on the 2TC play. @joanka93val Does your build order work w/ a 2 TC build, or do you have to commit to a Feudal tower all-in?

Really the tower rush is just to stop the french gathering gold, and then he can’t spam knights. It’s not my default strategy as abbasid.

If you are rushing don’t use resources to build a second TC. Opponent will have no choice to build a second TC if you are attacking.

If you are planning to do a second TC scout the enemy to check if he’s preparing a feudal attack. If not, then you can try to put a second TC early.

I am planning to post a video showing the optimal fast feudal with abbasid. Right now I am pressing the Q in the house of wisdom, and getting near 0-0-0 resources. Perfectly optimised.

1 Like
7

What medal?

Summary

20 chars

8

You must be new to ranked RTS.
This literally happens in every RTS game.
Always has.
Always will.

1 Like
9

It is a fundamental problem with the concept of a strategy game. For there to be a challenge in working out the best strategy, strategies must differ in how good they are. If all strategies were equally good, then there would be no skill in choosing the best strategy, you could use any strategy and be at no disadvantage. So there must be a best strategy for it to take skill to work out what it is, but having worked out what it is, you should always do the same thing. And people will share what it is on YouTube etc, so it doesn’t even take skill to work out what it is. So they always, in reality, become games where ability to execute, rather than choice of strategy, is the differentiator.

10

In fact, I don’t like everyone playing the game with the same set of procedures. The game should have a certain degree of uncertainty and change, instead of encouraging players to approach the only way to play infinitely like an exam. This mechanism will greatly affect the It hurts the player’s creativity and exploration, and is more like reciting the answer.

If you can add settings like unit damage floating value (similar to Warcraft III), I think the game will be more varied, but unfortunately this kind of setting seems to be unpopular in e-sports events, after all, the world is to reward those who can get the closest The perfect player.

1 Like
11

I don’t think this “problem” can be solved. And it’s not restricted to RTS games. Every multiplayer has it.

It’s not the devs that force a competitive game. It is the competitive nature of the players.

  • People want to win more that to have fun.

  • Because of that every new patch they go wach a pro play copy its strategy and play that.

So the game can be diverse for a couple of days into the patch and then repetition sinks in.

And no matter what devs do this wont change.

-Even if two or more strategies are viable people will pick one and stick with it. And copy each other so some strategies even if viable are not even ex[plored.

Not even random factor changes that. A good example are , card games.

  • When an expansion hits its usually 100+ cards. But 1 or 2 weeks in and people play the same decks and diversity is gone.

Everithing is reduced to two questions.

  1. Whats the easiest way to reach the destination?
  2. What is the fastest way.?
1 Like
12

It is true that all games will end up in a fixed number of play styles, but we can still change its width and variety. For example, AOE3 has more variety than AOE2, because there are more variable card systems. To increase diversity, it is necessary to increase the randomness and number of variables in the game, so that even if players follow the same process, they may still get different developments and results.

Not sure how much variable AOE4 can add, but at least it could be improved if the developers wanted to.

13

That’s why I suggested advanced mega random as an additional option to mega random. Besides the map every start of the game is different. One time everyone starts with 10 villagers, then everyone has a keep, then everyone has 10 Men at Amrs and so on. The civ would also be random and nobody would now the civ from other players before he scouts it. Like this no fix build order can be used and no match is like the other.

1 Like
14

This is the benefit of abusing some specific builds - they work to the certain level above which ppl just counter them hard because of the blind all-in strategy.

15

In a strategy games demographic, a very small amount of the population finds testing game mechanics fun. Most people, want that shortcut, those tips and tricks to being a great player. Turn off the brain and mimic their favorite streamer. They don’t have the time or desire to spend 5-hour daily sessions in the skirmish maps, by themselves, testing new build orders or smashing mechanics together. Sometimes spending 20 hours and only learning that what you’re trying to do wont work.

Even more brutal in an early release game with huge balance changes, which invalidate a lot of that work/testing/science. So yeah, majority play you’ll run into are copy-paste builds with slight variation or wild west builds.

1 Like