Please nerf the building mechanic

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Hello everyone, this is something that its been bothering me for a long time in this game. And I really love this game but still, at times when I see players abusing of the current construction mechanic it makes me uninstall the game for a while. Even if I win, it’s just really annoying for me.

I know many people defend it saying something like “its a strat of the game”. But thats not an argument at all. The game has changed so much already and so far its been for the better. So just because something its already part if it doesn’t mean it can’t change.

Besides the building mechanic was created and adapted for a different era with more lag. Now it’s honestly a broken mechanic that in my opinion makes the game slower and ridicule.

And to be specific, I’m talking about the unstoppable constructions. 1 villager stopping entire cavalry charges with just the foundations. Castles that get to be built in front of you no matter how much you attack it, forcing you to seek the vills which they can also block you with more foundations.

I know there are many ways to outplay those strats, sure, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make here. My point is that it looks ridicule, its annoying and also boring. I believe it’s this mechanic what it makes seeing armies clashing or getting outsmarted by getting flanked or surrounded something very rare.

The mere fact of seeing someone building 3 houses and a castle right in front of you, it throws all the strategy and the inmersion in the game right out off the window.

Its fun of course see someone doing a quick wall and all, but honestly, it would be better if instead of that there were strategic anticipations with a prewall and unit maneuverability, that would be more exciting and interesting instead of just blocking everything everytime with the same thing.

Right now, there is almost no fear nor consequences of misplacing your vills because you can always quick wall.

And there is been already so many good suggestions from so many players to stop it. Construction interruption, constructions checkpoints, expansion damage to the villagers building it, more damage to buildings under construction, walkable foundations etc.

So there are options and on my own opinion it would improve the game and attract more people if there a way to balance the construction mechanic.

So please, if there is a dev reading this, please at least test it to see how it goes. Just as there are many people defending the current building mechanic, there are many others its against it. So I dont think it would hurt to try and see how it works.

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More damage to buildings under construction could be good.

I think it is a weird mechanic, and it does seem like a cheap strategy, but it is impressive and exciting when Viper, Hera, and the like put it to good use in tournaments. I’d be a little sad to see it to go.

If someone is good enough and fast enough to pull it off, I want to say, “More power to them.” They’ve earned it. It is one of those things that can separate the good from great. Since many of those things have gone away as DE has evolved… with “auto” everything… I think this mechanic needs to stay.

But maybe there is an opportunity to have damage be like 1.25x or 1.5x for buildings under construction. I just don’t know if this would ruin the fun of the strat or throw balance out of whack

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I think something else could be relevant aswell.
First incresing the cost of some of the structures used. walls and gates. Houses could get even less armor.
Secondly, reduce the refund for not completed buildings.

This would limit the effectiveness and make it more punishing when not executed well.

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I wouldn’t be a fan of increased cost to walls and gates. Defensive stuff, in general, including those have already been nerfed a ton over the years. And is it just me, or do villagers hardly gather any wood the past handful of years in DE compared to HD or CE? Either way, I’d hate to see the cost go up for walls and gates.

Houses getting less armor could get annoying, imo. Too weak and enemy just targets them to constantly annoy you with destroying houses and you having to build more just to keep up with the house wreckage.

It makes the most sense to me to make the partially-constructed foundation be more susceptible to damage than the fully-constructed building, unless it would render the strat mostly or completely unusable

The poor player is already getting attacked and losing valuable resource collection time in trying to stave off an attack by planting walls/houses, probably has a villager or two dinged up, and you want to further punish them?? :sweat_smile: You are ruthless! :wink:

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Intereesting take.
Though I should have be more specific here I also would like to associate the higher cost with better durability. That’s on my side.

In general though I have to state that I was one of the few voices who criticiized the wall nerfs speciically and everybody here is free to look up very specifcally what i said about them a few years ago.

Now ofc we live also on a bit different times and the alternative change I proposed back then isn’t really an option anymore. I just recently made a topic on speaking about walls again - and the concept is simle. Making them more costly but durable in the exchange. Which can reactivate defensive play on maps which allow good walling up.

I have to agree that the idea is possibly a bit too punishing. It’s not my commonly shared reply. But tbh I also don’t see a way to make it “less punishing” but at the same time more consistant AND balanced to execute. It’s too nieche. Which is also funny, cause some time ago quickwalling became a base skill. Ofc there are different levels of execution.
In total I think it’s actually fine these days, as executing the base mechanics of the game these days is so much more powerful that wasing tapm on paying on attention (as it would be required for 99.99 % of the players) is just not worth occasionally caching some enemy units. As someone already said, it’s basically only Viper and Hera who do this - and that’s fine imo.
So i take back my idea because of obsoleteness.

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If I remember correctly in AoE3DE units do 5x the damage to buildings under construction. I don’t think AoE2DE needs it to be that extrem but maybe 2x the damage to buildings under construction would be logical. With that change they could undo some changes they did to Tower Rushing since those towers would be a lot easier to prevent now.

It is pretty wild how many units van be stopped by a single villager building a house but how slowly the repair rate on the same house is once it is build.

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I think i have ultimate solution for this problem.
Here’s what I would do: for buildings that block the path during construction, allow free movement through them until they are 100% complete.

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