Please Reconsider the Landmark TC HP Change

Hi, a bit of background about me: I’m a veteran of the AoE series and former competitive RTS player (I’ve grinded AoE-series ranked ladders since 2001 back on the MSN Gaming Zone and was ranked top50 globally in both AoM and AoE3). While I no longer compete seriously because I’m old as hell, I am still passionate about the series and want to see it succeed to its fullest. Now to the post…

One update that many people may not have noticed in the HRE vs English showmatch yesterday is that the starting TC hp has been radically changed from what it was in the beta – from 2400hp to 7000! I understand that this was done because the beginning TC is considered a “Landmark” and thus included as one part of the conquest win condition.

However, this change has the (very likely) potential to dramatically stretch out games from 15-30 minutes to the 45++ minutes we saw in this showmatch and hurt both the game’s watchability and playability from an Esports standpoint. It also makes no sense for an Age 1 TC to have 2000hp more than an Age 3 keep.

If the devs are still absolutely insistent on the Landmark TC having more hp than normal TCs, then I would suggest that the Landmark TC scales with Age instead: 2400hp in Dark, 3200hp in Feudal, 4800hp in Castle, and 7000hp in Imperial. This would preserve rush possibilities early on while still preventing easy Landmark sniping with later, more powerful siege weapons and other highly-upgraded units.

I’m not sure how starting town center hp would have such a significant effect on game time. From what I have seen games are usually over before it is damaged at all. To me rushes win by killing villagers not towncenters.

1 Like

Maybe 7k hp is a bit too much, but I disagree with the stretching out games part. If you are so ahead that you can take out all of your enemy’s landmarks, including the 2.4k hp starting TC, then surely that extra hp won’t save them for another 30 minutes - maybe 3. Now, if you are talking about someone just trying to sneakily snipe the landmarks for a victory in a close game, then IMO that’s just a good reason to keep the change.

2 Likes

Nearly tripling the hp is pretty significant. Not sure how it couldn’t be.

But yeah, maybe I should have added that this change has gone along with a trend of other changes that encourage turtling while discouraging fast-paced, dynamic play. Changes like the price of the keep being reduced from 1000 stone to 800 stone (their first instinct to put it at 1000 stone was correct, imo). Changes like stone walls being invulnerable to attack from all units except siege, etc.