That’s great you found out that they wanted to support Castle rushes in AOE2. And then they didn’t want to in any other game they made. Those are the facts. I mean they could have nerfed castle rushes so they aren’t possible or feasible anymore, but no one ever has. Its too bad though because AOE2 is a great game other than the castle and tower rushes, unfortunately I get zero enjoyment out of getting castle or tower rushed 50 percent of games so I won’t be playing online ranked AOE2 (versus friends or whatever its not an issue obviously because no one I would play with wants cheap wins in that way) so I guess the rest of you can enjoy it and if they want to attract more players they can consider making an anti-castle rush civ with abilities that make building rushing them extremely difficult. It would be a cool civ to make and would cause me and others like me, who have liked my posts in this thread, to buy and play the expansions.
castle drops are too ez to counter, needs some buff!
Well you spend a good part of your economy to gather 650 stone and then move like 10 villagers or more to build inside or near your ennemy base. High risk should be rewarded
A Castle drop requires you to mine 650 stone and send 10-15 Villagers forward and is very easy to punishes unless you have significant a military advantage It is a very easy way to throw a game. The only time a castle drop is overpowered is if you are playing on Nomad or Socotra in which case you should no what you are getting into, or you are playing against Sicilians which can be unfair.
I think the discussion is not about if Castle Rush is OP or not. Is about how it “ruins” the progress of a match and distorts the supposed frontier defensive and map controlling nature of the castle. Except in maps you mention (nomad and socotra) where “frontiers” are so close or are not so defined.
As I see it, castle drop is Castle Age’s laming. Legal, require skill, high risk but high reward. Still shouldn’t be promoted imo.
Yeah, because of stuff I previously mentioned:
- AoM and AoE 3 don’t have stone which was mostly used for Towers and Castles in AoE 1 and 2, so they had to come up with something to make Forts and Towers not too OP
- Afaik AoM’s maps are about as big as the ones from AoE 2 but AoE 3’s maps are smaller
- That’s why AoE 3 has a build limit as well as protection zone that is still small enough to come close to the opponent’s base
In AoE 2, garrisoned military units even increase the number of arrows a Tower/Castle fires which also encourages an offensive use.
Trushes are more like an exception. I think in my 200+ ranked games so far I was only trushed 2-3 times - first time made me tilt, then I knew that villagers melt towers due to their +3 bonus against buildings in general and an additional +6 against stone defense. If you play against certain civs (Koreans), you obviously know that a trush is possible but you know what? For a castle drop to be succesful, you need 650 stone (or just 488 if you’re Franks) + a bunch of workers and units to back the construction up, otherwise it’s gg for you.
Castles are high risk and reward, not a game decider or ‘cheap’ strat (both literal and figurate). If you fear a castle drop, you can even preventively build a defensive castle yourself.
There’s already one in the game - Byzantines with extra HP on their buildings as well as free Town Watch and Town Patrol, both drastically increasing the LoS for all buildings + every civ can build an outpost that makes spotting drop attempts even easier.
That never helped me with castle drops. I see it going up and by the time I get anyone/anything over there the castle is already up and/or the guy quick walled his villagers to protect them while they are building the castle, which means if you don’t have a sizable number of archers ready, or enough stone yourself to quickly make two towers and put villagers in them nearby, you can’t stop it. Just a civ with the Gaia power from AOM would be enough, simple, enemy buildings not allowed within certain radius of said civ’s TC or farms or whatever.
Is this the low elo legends thread? Hello brothers
That’s why you should scout your enemy for any suspicious behaviour (early on stone e.g.) and should always expand towards the enemy as AoE 2 is like chess on speed. The less map control they have, the better.
Idk if it already was the case two years ago, but meanwhile foundations have been nerfed to have 0 armor which also nerfes quick walls.
And speaking of denying castles - archers alone can’t do much, you can also use monks to buy time against a castle drop as shown by T-West in this video:
Yeah, the people born able to move their mouse faster than everyone else think that even though they are very very very small in number (for example top 100 in a player base of 20,000) compared to the overall player base (where the actual money from game sales come from), their opinion and game experience means everything and everyone else means nothing and should be ignored and ridiculed completely. And then they wonder why they keep facing the same opponents over and over in ranked. Never made any sense to me, but that’s how it is.
Because you have to balance a game around accounting for the most skilled players? Because they are the ones who draw viewership, and play in tournaments? Because they are able to take efficiency to the next level, and a seemly insignificant change at lower levels can have major knock-on effects? Also, most of the playerbase is actually single player, and I’m not sure they care so much about how the game balance plays out for the most part. So the majority doesn’t mean nothing, but their input isn’t weighed as heavily as the pros who know what they are doing.
I never ever cared to watch any tournament, as Aoe2 as game is very very boring to watch, even with pros eAPM. We should accept that some games are just fun because we are part of it and not that watching others is what makes it entertaining. I know the importance of Red Bull Wololo and other stuff for facade and making the game a showcase and a timeless classic that aged well. But come on, most of the balance and suggestion just ruin the game… the good thing is that I can always go and comeback between genres when the patches and frustration releases.
thats cause you aren’t good enough at a skill level to comprehend, appreciate, and enjoy whats been played out.
also, aoe2 was made to be fun. it comes the fun for the masses first, only then it attract enough players to have a competitive side. looking at aoe4, what a let down that was.
I like your opinion , not all pro players can satisfy audience with their play styles. Most of them are very boring in 1v1
no need to be a top 100 player to deny a castle drop. Even players around 1100-1200 elo succeed to deny one. And it’s not because someone castle rush on you that it means the game is over.
My exception would go for Hera, he is one that knows how to make the matches unpredictable and made quite a lot of comebacks even with some “weak civs”. Maybe being the 1st that I made contact in streaming idk, but I like his “showman ability”.
The pace of the game is slow and the magic I felt 20 years ago playing a game with symmetric civs is gone, the feeling is that if I keep improving, i’m getting less fun. Dark Age is much more fun than Feudal. I played other games with asymmetric civs and the early game is much more amusing, somehow i can’t stand with rock-paper-scissors that happens in Feudal… this give me the same feeling when I play Aoe4. While 2 becomes very good and unique at Early Castle, the 4 becomes a weird game, but is fast paced at least.
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it isn’t that slow once it gets past darkage, and that doesn’t help you with your argument as biggest tournament wololo uses empire wars which skips DA altogether.
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the symmetric civs still there, thats how AOE and AOE2 were designed. there are plenty of other games out there even among AOE franchise with much different civs.
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thats how it is when you get better as you find fun only when its competitive. well there are other mods and you can try those, and always play other games when you tire of one and come back later.
I agree with that, pro games for me are the most boring to watch. I would recommend ‘break the meta’ (search you tube) for interesting casted AOE2 games. For AOE3 games, I would recommend Lionheart_uk (search twitch or you tube, in particular games where he plays the Mexico civ). They do interesting fun strats, not just the ‘best’ strats, which are extremely boring to watch, for example in AOE 3 both sides make skirmishers and dragoons in equal numbers and the whole game they just snipe at each other. While it may be optimal and necessary to have the highest possible ELO number, I never like to play that way or watch games played that way. Playing versus buildings has never been fun for me, even in AOE3 Ottoman can do a ‘strategy’ where they just build a bunch of TCs all over the map. Since they get free villagers not requiring food it is extremely difficult to punish this, and not fun to play versus at all. That is the closest thing AOE3 has to castle drops, but even that is nowhere near as irritating or pervasive as castle drops in AOE2. And yes, it completely screws you over, you can lose farms, your tc, everything to just one castle. It is just way too powerful. I wonder about giving castles negative bonuses versus villagers, tcs, or farms or something, such that they can’t destroy farms and tcs?
So you’ve never tried hitting their eco or anything like that? The castle is static. Just fall back, rebuild, defensive castle, treb it in Imp, it’s not like there aren’t options. Raid them, pressure their base, prevent them from being able to launch a proper push behind it. You can even use rams in a pinch.