At low/mid ELO, a lot of nomad-style games are ruined right at the start because someone decides to fight with villagers in the first minute.
I posted this on AOEZone recently and found that I am not alone in this - it is a universal issue at low/mid ELO. The pro players love nomad and i would love if that good experience could also be had by casual players.
However, it is not clear what solution would work without causing other problems (I am sure that the devs and other members here are much smarter and more creative than me, and hope they find some good options)
Thank you devs for continuously adapting and making this such a lovely game for all of us <3
Links/pictures to the AOEZone thread and poll are below:
I have lost a game or two of nomad due to losing a villager fight. Since then, I’ve been aware of when my villagers are vulnerable (being followed, building the TC with only once villager, etc). If my spider sense in tingling, I will place palisade foundations.
What makes nomad exciting compared to other maps is that you don’t get a fair start.
You can add another 1 to the second option from me. I think vill fighting is a part of the game.
I wouldn’t have a huge problem with removing the berber speed bonus tho until TC is complete. Just like scilians don’t build their TC faster or chinese don’t get 6 vills, that would be fine.
PS just cause I think it’s fine doesn’t mean I’m actively searching to do it, or that I’m any good at it.
Okay, then can we also remove the civ negatives until the first TC?
Playing random civ on the standard Nomad map and getting Huns can really ruin you. Most people place a dock (150 wood) on the water and a TC (275 wood) on a woodline. But, Huns start with -100 wood for 375 total. If you place a dock before placing your TC, you don’t have enough wood for your TC. You’re dead.
Despite this, I would actually prefer that all civs start on Nomad with their bonuses (and negatives) intact. What’s the point of having such a variety of civs if they don’t have situational advantages?
I lost one game of Nomad because I made a Hun dock before the TC. So what. I learned my lesson and I’m now a better player.
I don’t see the problem with this. Villager fighting is part of the game. If you can pick off 1-2 enemy vills early then you gain an eco advantage for the whole game. Their TC also builds slower if they’re down a vill.
Some games end very early if the reaction is to go all in with villagers until death. I assume this is players saying they don’t want to play a game with an early disadvantage after losing a vill. If they did want to make it a long game the answer is to hide your othervills and build your TC, then start booming. Quick wall while building if needed. If you’re up against early aggression they will likely fall behind quick from not building their TC early.
Persian TC drop is a funny one. I’ve had this done to me a few times on Nomad, and tried it a few times myself after that. It’s actually really easy to counter if you don’t take the bait. Again, just build your eco and beat the early aggression player in Fuedal or Castle Age.
For some background, I play mostly arena because it allows me to perform early strats in relative peace. When the opponent forces me into nomad I am ready to give them the early pressure that map allows. Its funny how salty people get about this, they ban the map with stone walls, and then complain that your villagers are hitting their villagers 11
Many players choose not to lame and choose not to vil fight before the TC goes up, because they personally consider it unsportsmanlike. Those same kind souls do not complain if the opponent prefers a more aggressive approach, and will learn techniques to counter those situations.
TLDR: You can always do a counterplay or take precautions. Wall your vils while building a TC and you will never have a denied TC
If you are fighting vils under your TC foundation, there are 3 options:
The enemy has less vils than you, in which case you should win the fight
The enemy has the same amount of vils as you. Fighting-wise you are in equal conditions, but you have the advantage since you can at any time wall your vils next to your TC and keep building, whereas your opponent would have to spend time walking.
The enemy has more vils than you do, either because you have vils on another part of the map or because you are getting teamed-up on. At this point you can either run away with your vils and make the total idle time for enemy villagers higher than yours (you gain an advantage), or you once again wall your vils and build a TC.
You have alternatives and counterplays in each case, if you lose because you played poorly I don’t see the problem with that.
Last night I played a game of Nomad where the host added a 5 minute treaty to eliminate villager fighting. Unfortunately, this resulted in a player sending a villager to my TC as I was building it and walling my nearest woodline.
His approach was only marginally effective because, much like villager fighting, there is a time/resource cost and mentally aware opponents can provide enough of a counter (my own walls, placing a lumber camp earlier than desired but get a fresh woodline, kill his villager if he lingers past the treaty time). But, I thought the story was relevant enough to the conversation to pass it along. In this example, adding treaty time to stop pre-TC villager fighting does not prevent other forms of obnoxiousness.
The problem with the vill fighting is that the aggressor is too likely to accrue damage by committing. This makes aggression the proper motif. Even light idling when you only have three villagers is serious problems.
I think we should do the defenders a favor and increase Villager LOS by 2 tiles until the first TC is constructed. This will make it easier to spot out aggressive moves and decrease the likelihood of it’s success. I think I’ve suggested this before, but whatever.
You can’t turn off villfighting and/or create a treaty. Doing so will lead to players laming resources and being unable to shoo away a pesky forward waller. Further, it’ll make Celts extremely oppressive, able to steal enemy Sheep with absolutely no recourse since you can’t fight the villager off. Just increase the LOS of villagers to give players more reaction time to planned aggression, which will tip the risk-reward balance moreso in favor of the defender
Alternative solution: allow people to ban other players and prevent to get matched against them. Let those vill fighter/doucher play against themselves if they really want to behave this way…
Bans will always be abused by people with less than ideal intentions should they be given to those people.
Further, incorporating a player’s banlist into the workings of a matchmaking queue is an excessively difficult task, which is why in all the thousands of threads among hundreds of different games with matchmaking that have asked for one that have not made it happen, your little post will not be the one to convince them to try. Give up.
I suppose on Nomad maps you could give villagers +2 melee armor until their TC goes up. It means each hit only does 1 damage, instead of 3. So, it is a defensive advantage only.
If you do that, it’ll make aggressive player lames way better. When a vill is attacked it is forced away and needs to be retasked. If you just constantly retask a vill to rebuilding, 1 damage or 3 it’ll die either way before a TC goes up. If you turn to fight, a single distraction villager can tank hits as it continuously idles multiple villagers by attacking whichever villager is trying to build.
That further causes the same exact problem with Celts. No.
Correct. I wasn’t recommended sitting there and just getting hit. The idea of prolonging a villager life is that this will provide more time to:
Successfully quick wall
Or, for your other villager(s) to arrive to finish the TC. Maybe now you have time to lure away the attackers while you approach the other direction with the newly arriving vil and wall it in.
Or, maybe get in that last couple of clicks to finish the TC.
Additionally, this means two on one aggression away from the TC is less fruitful. Go ahead and waste time with two villagers attacking my lone villager as it makes it’s way to my TC.
That’s not a problem. Herdable stealing is the intended capability of the Celts (frankly, the wood cutting speed is probably more valuable to make fishing ships). I realize you don’t like that about the Celts, but that would be like complaining about Italian fishing ship cost on standard Nomad. Those can provide significant early boosts. You don’t like that, but it isn’t a nomad problem.
And Celts isn’t OP on Nomad. In fact, they aren’t a top five civ on 1v1 or TG at any Elo level. At their best, they reach spot 9 in 1v1 at lower Elo levels.
No, but you are recommending a change that applies most to low elo, not high elo play. The better players are better capable of defending. Further, you are recommending a change that reduces the risk of making an aggressive play. Even if it decreases the totality of the lame’s threat, it vastly decreases the risk involved in attempting it. That makes a player (put in such a position) far more likely to test the opponent’s capability of handling the pressure.
Random TC Happen-upons with villagers happen all the time in Nomad, and one villager showing up to your TC would be more of a threat now than it would be after your suggested change, as if it doesn’t get walled out, it can idle multiple villagers consecutively, requiring you to micro multiple villagers at once to properly address it. This is an absolutely massive win for the aggressor and a huge buff.
The fact that you either don’t understand this, or do yet continue to push this idea, is mindboggling. I’m going to leave it at that.
Losing villagers in Nomad is absolutely terrible. We agree. Consider that every 25 seconds your TC is up late is one villager dead. Stay this madness.
And gg wp to them. If you’re super worried about that , a simple palisade wall stops that and they’ve wasted huge time and effort trying to end the game quick.
