[POLL] Remove Civilization selection in Ranked

Should civilization selection be removed in ranked (i.e. random civs only in ranked)?

  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

I think this would make ranked much more enjoyable + mysterious. Also your beloved stats website would become more accurate with an even spread of ‘selections’ vs. wins:loss across all civs. I guess some sort of ‘spreader’ could be implemented to make sure it isn’t always selecting the same civs for each player. Yes this doesn’t make it 100% random in one sense but overall yes. +, nothing else can be changed around, so why leave civs as a variable?

Cheers

p.s. Please don’t combine this thread with some random-■■■ thread about ‘aoe2stats’ and completely ruin the poll and the point of this thread

3 Likes

I almost always play with random civ in rank, but i voted against removing the feature.

In my opinion ranked needs to be the place where you can get easily into a game against equally skilled opponents. Many users like to play pick civ (many players pick their civs), so let them enjoy their games. Pick civ vs random civ dont really make a big difference in my opinion. Other factors have a bigger impact on the outcome.

11 Likes

I think the ? button feature they introduced is the perfect compromise

9 Likes

Terrible idea, I think.
Most of the playerbase very likely doesn’t know all the civs.

Most of the new players are already quite afraid to jump into ranked. This would skyrocket that feeling.
Just play random if you like it and enjoy the option of random mirror the game gives you, but don’t force other people to play the way you want to play.

I’m saying this as a 18++ player who’s perfectly fine with playing random btw.

8 Likes

There is something called pay to win, burgundians and the incoming new civs…they are obviously not going to remove their best card to force player to buy the expansion.

Anyway for 1x1 i don’t mind, there is more honor there so a lot of players in decent level goes for random civ, problem are team games, you are not playing a tournament and your elo doesn’t reflect your skills, so random civs for team games should be forced, i don’t know how that guy called Will haven’t noticed that britons and franks are being used 99% of all team games.

3 Likes

Forcing to go random for everyone? No, But I would love to see a separate ladder, “random map random civ”. It would lead to much more interesting matchups I think, especially in team games. And the other maps would finally receive some play instead of Arabia every day of the week.

3 Likes

As everything ever introduced, its awful you have to set it every game - at least for me

1 Like

I always play random because a personal taste, but I think the game should offer the most customizable experience for each player.
However, I would like that “random” players should have a better reward than “pickers” players. I. e. More points earned by winning a match with random civ and vise versa

2 Likes

i only want to pick civs in 1v1, and even there i’d like a separate queue for pick-civ and random-civ

teamgame needs a random civ queue. position-picking completely destroyed the balance of the game

I think everyone can play with whatever likes, removing it is not only arbitrary but absurd.

2 Likes

Interesting idea, yeah this would be much better

Perhaps remove the option to select position, instead of civ picking then?

that would be an improvement, but i still think random civs is the best choice for this particular game’s ladder

if there were more resources spent on balancing 3v3/4v4 (instead of sacrificing it for 1v1’s sake) and more well-rounded maps in the pool, then maybe civ picking would work better

but given this game’s balance, random civ is better. there are too many maps where civs just get some ridiculous advantage, so you lose if you don’t pick those (eg. persia on nomad). this makes the game too repetitive

team positions is doomed with how this developer balances the civs (all power concentrated towards massing a single unit instead of spread out across multiple options). but we also need way better map pools if civ-picking is really going to work out.

civ picking is more fair if you don’t know what map you’re playing during the civ-selection. like if you want to pick persia that’s fine. but you won’t have a 100% chance to play nomad, and persia might not be overpowered on other maps.

we have played random civ teamgames for 20+ years. we know it’s not perfect, but at least we get to play something that resembles age of empires that way instead of this shallow variant where people just make 1 unit for the entire game

2 Likes

Eh! On the other hand you then create scenarios where civ wins happen and adds more RNG to the game. The “?” is a good compromise, as mentioned earlier, because the majority of the players have to go for it, so its somewhat fair.

Forcing players to go random sacrifices a lot of the competitiveness / fairness for civ variation, which is not necessarily good – just like a significant number of players dont like the map pool even though it adds map variation.

BTW, Persia on 1v1 Nomad has a 50% win rate between 1200-1650 Elo, 38% above 1650 (though I assume the Nomad play rate is abysmal at this level), and a 52% win rate at Team Games. Not really strong since its been nerfed like an year ago.

Regarding picking civ blindly (without knowing the map) also leads to people picking civs that play well in most environments, like Persians, Japanese, Mongols.

the obvious solution is to just have random civ queues + pick civ queues
let people play what they want

it’s just a complete failure to understand how age of empires works to think these are exclusive choices

if i want to play random civs, i’m more likely to get a game for that in 1v1. it’s nonsensical. 1v1 is the try-hard mode. teamgame is the casual mode.

if this applied to everything, disorder and confusion would run rampant. If civs were random from the beginning, no one would complain

I would prefer a middle ground. Somehting like choose 15 civs, you will get one of them. This way its somewhat random, but I know I dont get (insert civ here) because I absoluteley dont know how to play them/they suck at this map/the suck at every map/are just op and playing with them is no fun

Not a good idea at all - Getting a bad civ on a certain map can decide the game before it even starts. CIv choice is a must in ranked. I would hate to lose based off a random civ selection when I may be the better player. Civ selection matters and is part of the strategy,

1 Like

let me finish this sentence:

… only with a certain civ on a certain map versus a certain civ

If both map and civs are random, it’s more llikely both of you will need to plan with what you end up with

Ah no.
If the map is set to Arabia, and one person gets Huns, and the other gets Vikings, that is hardly a fair game. 1v1 of people with the same skill level will not be a fair contest.That’s not an opinion, that’s fact, backed by evidence.
I think random everything would be good in unranked - But if we want AOE2 to continue as an e-sport it needs to be not random luck on your random civ allocation.
There are definite civs, and counter civs - It would hardly be fair if a player got Britons (an archer civ) against Goths (an infantry civ with a unique unit which is counter-archer). Again, not saying it is unwinnable or there aren’t viable strategies, but there is a reason civ choice is so structured in high level games.