There’s really no reason not to allow this victory type in ranked. It’s rare to see anyone go for a Wonder victory, but when someone does it’s really fun trying to defend or stop it. It’s a huge risk to do and usually not a good idea, there is no harm in allowing it in to ranked.
As for Relic victory, well you really should be able to stop your opponent from getting every single relic. If your opponent has every relic you probably are going to lose anyway. I’ve been playing Age of Empires II for ~24 years and some of my most exciting and memorable matches were Wonder victory wins. Below I posted two images from two separate games where I had a wonder that was actually about to die from the incoming projectiles flying through the air towards it but we ended up winning before the projectiles could hit and demolish it. Incredibly exhilarating match.
I can only speak for myself here - I consider Wonder and Relic victories to be boring as they both somehow tend to a player turtling. I can see that they’re appealing to some but overall, I’m happy with Conquest as the winning condition.
For Standard Victory under ranked conditions, you still have the Quick Match queue.
If Wonder/Relic victory was enabled you’d be lucky if you saw a Wonder victory one every 100 matches. It’s almost always a losing strategy. They’re also satisfying to destroy if your opponent tries it, and in the event it actually works it’s incredible for the player who pulled it off.
Essentially what I am saying is if this victory type was enabled, you probably wouldn’t even notice it. No one is going to be hurt by adding it and it’s not going to shake up the ladder and ruin everything. It’s almost silly it’s not enabled.
In my experience if your opponent lets you take all the relics they likely are going to lose anyway. I’d not be opposed to a separate option for relic and wonder victories so that Wonder victory can be enabled while Relic victory stays disabled.
I like your idea. Wonder and relic wins will only affect the boring maps such as Michi and Team Island in team games. This is why I think they should be complemented.
BF is fine, fast imp or fast onager can counter it. We indeed need wonder win on Michi , because you need to have both bbc and onager to break through that is cancer as f.
That’s not true. There’s definitely stuff where you give up full relic control to get a better Imp time and kill them before the gold trickle starts to really matter. Relic victory is straight up a bad idea. If you’re going to lose anyway, you should lose normally. If you weren’t going to lose to the relics, they shouldn’t be implemented anyway.
Then you’ve killed them before relic victory timer has mattered. And again, I’m not opposed to only allowing Wonder victory in ranked and keeping Relic victory turned off.
I think he is correct about 1v1. The player who can have all relics means he also have full map control. Also, multiple relics can provide good gold income.
It is a different story in TG, 1 to 3 relics are not enough to compensate 1 tc behind or 2 min IMP delay.
I think it is also in idea to enable Wonder Victory for standard ranked after 3 hours, because the 4-6 hour stalemate games on Baltic don’t feel right.
It doesn’t prevent turtling at all, it has the opposite effect, it will cause more turtling. Imagine if a turtling player decided in dark age that he would be going for a Wonder victory? He could start building a complex layer of stone walls in castle age and then get the stone wall HP upgrade, before finally building his wonder right in the corner of the map behind 50 layers of reinforced stone. That’s not skill, that’s just a cheese win.
And then he’d have to spend 1000 food, wood, gold, and stone on a Wonder, which is telegraphed to everyone in the game, with it’s location visible, and he’d have to paralyze his economy by sending 30+ villagers to build it, and then he’d have to wait 200 years of game time after building it to actually win from it.
I find it ludicrous that players actually are so terrified of change they think a Wonder victory would be OP or ruin the game. I’ve played this game for over 20 years and even when standard victory is played no one ever goes for Wonder victory. It’s incredibly rare to see and can make an awesome last chance attempt for victory. You’re scared of change if you think Wonder victories would even impact the ladder. If devs snuck it in without saying anything you wouldn’t even notice.
He could just repair and add more walls as needed while constructing it. 30+ villagers also seems like nothing when you build your entire plan around turtling and booming for the wonder. That’s similar to how Hera won NAC 4 with Flemish Revolution as he built the entire match around it.
Completely irrelevant because he will be way ahead of his opponents since he will be 5 TC+ booming with no military behind reinforced stone walls in order to get to the Wonder, so 1000 of each resource is easily affordable and 30 villager build time is no different from other players building a few castles. The fact is, Wonder victories being enabled causes more turtling, not less. At low ELO level, you would probably even get 2 players turtling, both trying to get to build their wonder before their opponent.
Aoe2 is a war game, not a building game. Play Sim City if you don’t like the aggression.
