Shoreline fish is in a weird place. It gathers too slowly to cover the initial costs and generate quick momentum.
Compare it to pro scouts (I know pro scouts is still so very strong)
But pro scouts pays 450 res , waits 75s? Then requires a scout 65f? Then you can usually at minimum fairy your close herd back home inside 4mins. That’s 2450 food return at .825f/s gathering, for an investment of 450 research cost, 150w stable, and 65?f scout. We know depending on the map, say like caramel… You’re making 7+ scouts… So wayy more than 2450 food return.
But to stick to the comparison. Docks are typically 150w and fishing ship 75w and takes 25s? To train. But on maps with only 2 shoreline fishes per pond at 500f per shoreline, it takes nearly 4min to JUST break even on investment??? To break even?? All this comes at a cost to early momentum.
IMO, we either need to make shoreline fishing gather as fast as deep fish BUT cut the total fish in half such that it works like a quick explosion of resources similar to deer but not as long lasting.
Or have shoreline fish gather even slower but make it twice if not 3 times bigger. Like a 1500 food shoreline that gathers slower than berries 0.5 f/s. This way the entry investment point is low but effectively the payout is in the mid game and beyond.
Example of a high level game that didn’t pan out for the guy that went shoreline fishing. Game 9 of loue vs ML, ML with Abbasid built 75w docks, yes they were immediately harassed but even later when they went highly undisturbed, I didn’t notice the resources giving ML any momentum or advantages over loue French initial land grab. Then by mid game all the fish was gone and ML was left with 3 docks and 7+? Fishing ships just taking up population.
I’m convinced that last game left ML on the back foot basically the entire game for attempting the shoreline play. Imagine instead the fish lasted so much longer, loue stopping harassing the docks mid game would have resulted in a decent surge in resources to stay competitive, especially thru mid game farm transitions. Or if the fish dried up even faster but provided a burst of resources, he may have been able to generate an initial push to reverse the loue pressure.
If nothing else I hope the devs can study that last game and other shoreline fishing games to sketch out what exactly shoreline does for the players.