Tooltip says:
“Enables Caravans one Age earlier and makes them move faster over Favored Land. Caravan trading with allies grants your allies extra resources.“
But at this point nobody uses it in second age, I found that time research and cost makes it not worthy
May you have any strat with this tech? If not, Devs please buff it, it’s practically unusable atm.
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Caravans is quite a big investment to make early on. To make the trade worth it you have to place the caravan quite far, why makes it quite vulnerable to raids, specially that early on that you dont really have much of an expansion of buildings going about. To keep the cost of producing caravans is also quite the task. It simply ends up being cheaper to make a second town center, which also has the added function to serve as a building that secures a zone.
Even if you make the tech cost 1 gold 0 favor you wouldnt see it in most games in classic age, since its not the tech thats expensive or bad its the whole support you need to make early trade viable.
The tech is quite good thou later in the game inreasing caravan speed akin to gaia lush channels does.
In big TGs you can do some caravan plays with Nuwa, throwing the clay paesants in corner and secure it. But more often times than not it takes quite some time to pay off the investment and you could have probably gotten a faster ramp with a tc and a safer one as well.
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Yeah, that’s why I have been trying some meme strats, using it, but yeah I can’t achieve more than 1300 with this strat.
Maybe a change in caravan cost would make it possible, but idk, hopefully devs could realize that nobody uses this tech in second age
I dont think this is an issue thou. Not all techs should be usable as soon as you unlock them imo. Some techs you get later on when the time is right. Besides giving china a way to securely turtle inside their base and never have to get out until they are mythic age is something you dont wanna be up against when that china player is good.
is one of those things where i think its good its not viable and since the tech does do other things its fine as it is imo.
But then why unlock caravans in Classical age?
Not all people play for the most optimal route. We can look at Hera for Demeter for example, competitively its worse than heph, but it gives more flavor to the people that want it.
You can play meme strategies for fun, to tinker with it and it def pays off when your opponent ignores you exist, which happens at a low enough level.
Take Other techs like Kronos unique tech. You aint getting that in archaic or classic age unless you are doing some mem strat. Same for Nuwas unique tech. Same for Tsukuyomi (unless you new moon a tower) And this applies to other minor god unique techs. Not all of them shine as soon as you can unlock them if you care to play optimally. But if you dont you can for sure tinker with them and play off meta. Sometimes it will payoff other times it wont, just being there isnt harmful imo.
In legacy AoM I used to make shorter trade routes in team games a good amount of times because I needed safe gold. It worked well usually when doing that so I had the gold to keep making military I just didn’t have a large surplus of gold as a result compared to having a longer trade route that wasn’t getting attack too much.
In AoMR having a shorter safer trade route can help keep you from getting gold starved in some situations with Classical Age caravans.
I understand that part, but I don’t share the same perception because there are some situations that gives you different buffs but doesn’t unlock a unit an age earlier that wouldn’t be useful, let’s see ares’ tech with hipaspist (useful in greek vs norse matchups), or sekhmet’s tech with catapults (useful for siege in almost every case you can afford it).
In kronos unique tech, you have reason in there’s no reason to get it as soon as you have it, but that tech doesn’t unlock anything earlier so it doesn’t have a benefit if you get it earlier than later (You have less buildings and can’t afford less of them at early game). Practically every tech in game has a moment to get more revenue for it, but “Silk road“ no, if you make it in classical where there is a lot of fights, the cost of the caravans + the time it takes to research this tech, practically eliminates the possibility of getting a benefit from getting them earlier.
Yeah, Currently, the amount of investment in trade is really high and not convenient even in team games.
Sure, we can agree to disagree.
Theres many times you just dont use it. Specially as hades
Seems you are treating unlocking something as a completely separate deal. In the end is the same dynamic. You dont have the resources to invest into moving towers in classic age. its simply too costly.
You are breaking down “unlocking” something being completely separate as a whole mechanic than just another type of number buff, which i guess under that limitation imposed sure its different in a sense, but thats not all the tech does, so imo it doesnt need a new effect, and its not a matter of the tech cost as we discussed earlier.
Except it does, because unlocking caravans is not the only thing it does. The devs intentonally gave all techs that unlock something a second use so no tech becomes useless at any point in the game. Same for relics. This is why ares also boost the hyph damage, freyr buff rams, rheia with infantry armor, etc etc.
Silk road is there for the historical reference and it’s immensely useful in some campaign levels where you have plenty of food and wood but are gold starved (which is most campaign levels except the second to last). Not all tech have to be useful in ranked pvp.
The tech itself is designed to make short trade routes more valuable. It’s difficult to get a full route across the map covered with sacred ground, but a 10 gold route is significantly easier and will yield more over time with this upgrade. And this kind of route is inherently easier to defend.
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Many times is not everytime, and i have seen being used a lot in Greek vs Norse comps
Of course, It has to give another buff so tech would be useful anytime you get it, My observation is that there is no situation in which you could try this tech in classical:
You have silk road avaliable in classical and it gives you:
- Caravans avaliable in classical
- Speed for caravans on favored land
But it’s not convenient to make it in classical because not enough building spreading the favored land on map, so the other effect must be useful right? but no, it’s not, so why having this tech in classical?, why enabling caravans? (On heroic you can make caravans normally, even there’s a myth unit in heroic to make the deal)
From that perspective, this tech is not useful in multiplayer and i don’t think this was made on purpose, probably they tried to emulate what aoe4 has with trade strats (Abbasid or Mongols) but atm, game needs to change different things to achieve something like that, Hopefully, they could touch the right points to make it a viable legit strat
I disagree with this statement because it’s already in the pvp field (Imo if it’s not useful for the purpose as it is designed they could get rid of it or try to balance it, and I don’t think that a design decision would be made something to not be useful in pvp, so let’s put it in pvp :P), the campaign stuff has it’s own side in singlepayer and that’s another perspective because singlepayer always puts a perfect escenario for everything.
The campaign doesn’t have its own thing in single player. AoM has always used the campaign as an intro tutorial for learning how to play a particular civ. This means the campaign civs are always kept in sync with multiplayer and the campaign civs will not have their own balance, but rather the campaign script itself will be balanced around the multiplayer civs. In the campaign you mostly play the multiplayer civs as they are, with only a few story bound additions.
Considering you are forced to pick a god or the other at each age up, you are essentially dropping 50% of your upgrades based on your situation and match up. Not only that, but even for gods you do pick, you don’t always get all their upgrades. E.G. you’re not gonna upgrade your MU when playing against hero build atty.
As I said, this upgrade is a niche one, but it certainly has its use cases, and even if you can’t pay off the upgrade that easily, the fact that it gives you better gold income on short routes than you would have without it gives you an opportunity advantage in particular sitations
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What I meant with campaign being on other side is that, we can’t talk about campaign in this situation because has different rules, Campaign is practically designed to make some techs and strats work, that in a multiplayer game would not be viable, Additionally, All techs in game have a benefit, but sometimes are not niche, they are not useful or worst, they are contradictory, you could calculate the amount of time to receive the revenue of this tech and I don’t feel like it’s possible to get more that any other strat in game.
I invite you to try strategies using this tech in ranked, quickmatch, teamgames and comment me.
If your on a map with Oseberg Wagon relic that can also help by making Caravans cheaper to make and move a little faster.
Hey, that’s pretty nice, i could try if using that relic a trade strategy would work, hopefully yes
But thats only looking at it through a meta standpoint. Many things are not viable when looked like that, and its fine imo, just like other techs and minor gods and strategies are not viable as well.
This part i think is where we most difer, i think its good some things are not viable. Like we had gimpses of what a tower rush can be in AoM. And it got nerfed and now its no longer meta and i think its a good thing its not the case. Some strategies become unhealthy when they are very viable. A late game civ that can adquire a way to not have to leave its base its not something you would want to deal with as an opponent.
Exactly, not eveything needs to be out the front in terms of popularity or viability. You haver diversity in contrast, things stand out because they are better than others. Defining a tech only from a meta standpoint in pvp would discredit many techs and playstyles people have.
And some things are better if they are not viable imo.
Actually that’s why things as balance exists because some features in the game are not working as intended, and by the attributes given to this tech, it’s not working well as intended
Yeah, I think we differ here because I don’t think that should be things nerfed to the ground, for example: If you nerf something to the oblivion you practically cut a part of the game, things like Kronos rush or Nu’wa’s forward barracks are creative and different strategies more than the already stablished 1TC, 2TC, FH, while these strategies get a decent balance, it gives more options for the player not just cut it off.
Also Trading practically involves having map control, I suggest to take a look at Trade strategies in aoe4, and how this games don’t break the balance of the game, obviusly they had to balance them, but at this moment It’s a legit strategy, which involves a high risk + high reward.
Hopefully it could get a place into the balance, cause AoM has potential for more ways to play different civs
They are working as intended. The tech is not bugged not the interaction. The effec simply isnt good.
I think you are confusing not being meta/viable with not working as intended.
Somethings are simply unhealthy and such interactions are better being removed at least imo. Its to the develoers what kind of interactions they wanna enable and how oppresive should they be. Things like villager rushes, or archaic age rushes are mostly deemed not fun for most of the playerbase and thus are removed or tunned so its not as oppresive or have an actual risk involved in them (like the ones you mentioned).
Justifying anything because its “not seen now” or “creative” blindly makes things hard to balance. Some civs have outright no counter to some of this dynamics and you can rework the whole game towards it being doable or simply take the option down, one of those is easier to do than the other.
Other things like fei beast on villagers saying good bye to them in 2-3 seconds: Is it creative? Sure! Is it new? Kinda, i guess? Should it be returned to the game? Prob not. Was being able to autobuild walls as nuwa inside her sacred land creative? You bet ! Was it insanely strong and vialbe if you had good apm? Indeed Did it promote a creative play? You bet? Ohh you are raiding me with tuma? Well tough luck, now thay are trapped in a box, centaur? Same deal, You are pushing me in? Well let me drop 6 rows of walls to delay that. Things can be both new, creative, flashy and still unhealthy to the game imo.
To adress your example, the whole dynamic of the complain of kronos rush is the lack of trade off it once had. Usualy rushes tend to be you do damage but if it fails you are behind. previous to the most recent vill trainning time change kronos rush was very clean and you lost basically nothing into it. Now its better since you actually have to trade some eco or idle time or how fast its done to rush, its not a free investment that either pays off massively or the game continues as normal, you can actually fall behind if the opponent avoids taking damage.
Nuwa tower rush went from you are screwed if your gold is on the front to now you actually have ways to deal with it. Its not dead, its just not the best option every single time as it used to be on release.
People like to point out to 1 specific thing that works in another X game while disregard the other 10 things that work different and enable it to be possible. AoE defenses are much stronger. The tradepoints are set in place and not in your base. Trade itself is cheaper. Theres whole landmarks dedicated to trade, not a single tech. Walls are stronger. Gold reliance is much less important (theres units that dont cost gold and theres a whole extra resource in stone). Town centers work different to the way AOM´s does (it gives pop, its limited in aom to only certain places in placement).
Siege is widely available to all civs in similar dynamics. All civs can siege down from range a place and theres melee siege rams available in the equivalent of classic age.
To disregard all the other dynamics that fundamentally change how a game goes if you just sit in your base and turtle in AOE4 vs how it happens on AOM to say “hey it works here” misses why it may not be such a good idea if such a thing is viable, since it in fact would not work the same way.