the resource system in aoe3 de is currently broken and favors avoiding early interactions with the opponent when compared to vanilla gp. economic buildings such as estates and town centers are too cheap and come online too fast, meaning turtling is far too effective than what is healthy. meanwhile there aren’t enough natural resources to reward investing in map control.
please increase the amount of resources each resource node outside the starting area contains, increase the costs of farm type buildings, reduce their base gather rates and increase the amount of upgrades required, and unify their gather rate/animation state. the imperial gather rate upgrades should be treaty only and balanced around that mode. there should be more conflict around natural resources, while turtling should inflict a more severe economic penalty.
I’ve already made some suggestions here and hope you adopt them. supremacy in de isn’t fun currently, and I find myself wanting to play the game less and less time.
Improving AOE3 part 2 - Age of Empires III: DE / III - Discussion - Age of Empires Forum
Eco buildings are slower than natural resources and need a lit of investment. Im agree with more res but not more cost. Wood is the slowest resource and spending 600 wood to get mining upgrades is not fun. Also most of the times the player who goes farms first lose the game
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these buildings where more expensive in legacy, which meant that players where punished even further for ignoring map control. its no coincidence that the nerf by ep of their costs has resulted in the stale turtle meta of today, where large nodes of resources and map control are sometimes ignored instead of fought over.
the balance of risk/reward is broken in de, more so than in legacy.
Quite the contrary, in legacy the only viable strategy was rushing or finishing the game until natural resources went out. This isn’t the case anymore. The current resource balance is pretty healthy for the game.
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I much prefer the strategic diversity we have now instead of vanilla where only half the game’s content would be used in 80% of your matches.
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They are fine as they are, the wood cost is still very high and these buildings need all the expensive upgrades to just compete with natural res, even if you get them with max upgrades and send cards they are still slow and the actual res gathered is slower than it says due to lost time moving about on the mills and plantations.
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current gameplay says otherwise, with turtling becoming a much stronger gameplay style.
in the end any gameplay that encourages players to avoid interacting with the opponent is one that must be discouraged. what you call strategic diversity is not desired if it results in worse gameplay, there is nothing healthy about neutralizing any attempts by the enemy player to interact, then ignoring the map due to static in-base economy that comes online too quickly and cheaply.
the game should be balanced around being fun and allowing players to have an impact on the other early and often. forcing interactions through the resource system is the best way to do that. if I wanted to turtle id play treaty.
that doesn’t mean all games should be rush or be rushed, but that there should be more risks encouraged by forcing players to leave their base in search of more resources, and opening them up to raid and attacks. in high level vanilla gameplay games can often go on for a while as players know how to defend and there is this constant back and forth over the minimal resources on the map. increasing the natural resources that players fight over would also mean that we get to see more strategies and later ages while not reducing the incentive to interact with each other.
age games are best when you can have some influence on the opponent early and force compromises, risk/reward calculations and strategy shifts, otherwise the game becomes static, repetitive and boring, and there is little reason to continue playing de online.
Don’t really understand your post, you’re always forced to leave your base for resources unless you build mills/plantations which cost a lot of res, you gather slower and therefore have less units and are at a disadvantage.
Most turtling is associated with portugal and they can do it because they water boom and have boats gathering res all over the water, they don’t have an in base pond with unlimited fish.
Japan have shrines which provide res but only 1 res at a time so if you wish to macro for ashigaru you will need either a lot on food or gold, japan also gather slower due to berries and after 10 minutes they are forced to send 2 orchards or build 2 rice paddys there’s always a trade off.
USA can turtle fairly well but they still must expand using tc’s or military to secure hunts and mines.
Inca have houses generating food, but only worth 12 unupgraded vills at max houses after investing practically 2k wood, they’ll always need more food and wood/gold.
I don’t see which civ can just permanently sit in base and have all the resources they need at no disadvantage.
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I understand where you’re coming from. I personally rarely leave base. Probably easier to turtle now. But in no way turtling outperforms natural resources until enough upgrades and cards have been sent. a mill cost 400 wood 1st upgrade 150w c and 2nd 335w c . With all this investment mill still can’t gather more than a normal hunt which is 1.11 with hunting dogs and steel traps while the mill is 0.97 until 1st card comes in. If this card is refrigeration then keep in mind that it also boost hunts.
Gold mines are way superior than estates and is usually the way in which you secure games right now by starving your opponent from gold. States gather at 0.5 while mine 0.6 that’s without upgrades and the cost needed for the upgrades State 300w f for only 10% increase while mine 75w f for 10% and 200w f for 20%
We can say it is easier to turtle now than it was before but it means more diversity
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It is easier cause natural resources are also more plentiful. This allows new units and strategies to shine, and this is a good thing.
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I really don’t see a problem. The lower wood costs of estates and town centers is an improvement in my opinion.
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its not just about being faster than natural resources or slower, its about reducing the risks too early in a match, by which I mean 15-30 minute mark. this comes from cheaper town centers, which allows you to claim resource nodes more safely than before. and with the reduced costs of static economic buildings, that means the transition is less painful than it should be, meaning you can reduce risks while not losing as much in the way of rewards as most mines only contain 2k gold while being extremely risky to gather. 20 minutes into a match with 3 town centers already built, between building an estate or fighting over that 2k gold mine in the middle of the map, which is more appealing?
by increasing the cost of town centers to 1k wood, reducing their hp to 5k, as well as increasing static eco buildings to 800 wood, it makes them much less appealing and require greater investment, more risk and less reward. meanwhile increasing most non-starter mines to 5k gold and increasing non starter herds by 50%, it encourages players to leave their bases more often and put themselves in dangerous situations, where they need to adapt, interact and actively defend/scout. we should emphasize and reward map control through units rather than buildings, and cheap town centers are a big reason why static defensive play is on the rise, while lower cost estates further makes it less appealing to contest a mine that will not pay off the costs required to secure anyways.
15-30 minutes mark isn’t early. That’s pretty late in the game. Don’t know if you noticed but the game is faster paced compared to other age of games.
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That you dislike facing a turtling player doesnt mean that is a bad strategy
My favorite anti turtle strategy is to wall him off from the rest of the map.
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starting mills at 15 minutes is still too early in my eyes, that non starter hunts and mines run out at around this time, players can afford 3 tcs too quickly without much risk, and the highly defensive nature of static eco means that players go for the more easily defensible eco that is hard to punish, meanwhile the player that continues to play the map doesn’t get rewarded as much as they should due to the low amount of natural resources. there just isn’t enough reward to continue fighting over in the map, and the risks from investing in tc’s and static eco is too low.
You should get more resources to train more army and win the battle, if not turtling has won you.
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I actually like that in the new meta ALL the ages are used.
In Vanilla the games were very colonial age focused, nowadays they are more Fortress (late fortress/industrial focused). And this is a good thing as it allows non rush civs to shine more, and it allows for a more diverse pool of units to come and see the light of day.
Hey if at 15 mins you invested 1500w and are willing to commit several hundred food to vils then you really must be safe. Cause at that time a player can EZ 7 falc you, so you better have control of the map.
I disagree, vanilla at high levels was definitely an age 3 focused meta, while age 2 play did happen more often than now it was not the main or most popular age games played where out. age 4 play also happened, though was much rarer.
I’m not against more ages and strategies being available, or that rushing should be the only or main way to play the game. I’m fine with games lasting longer and reaching higher tech, i simply want to change the way players reach it. rather than through static economy hidden in your base behind walls and multiple town centers, i want players to reach those techs through the resources on the map and taking risks. that is why I’m advocating for an increase in natural resources, to supplement higher tech gameplay through the map rather than through turtling.
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