[Suggestion] Nerf forward castles

[thieftdp8498]

@MrCrispyButt

The proof is it ended MY games prematurely in early castle age

lmao LMFAO. nice proof you got there, no wonder people dont take you seriously no more.

[ZeroEinna]

Since the focus is on the subcategory of Castle Drops and not the more general category of Forward Castles, something of note is that map generation is the major determinant of efficacy of a Castle Drop, colored by how the player has built around said generation. The same is technically true of Forward Castles, but while a Forward Castle can be a Castle Drop, the principal purpose of the Forward Castle is to secure a critical spot that an enemy ought to reasonably be able to establish map control over. This may be a matter of securing/denying resources, position, or simply to pose a threat. This is a more complex concept than it is being presented as. Initial Forward Castles are often placed in areas that are theoretically sub-optimal, though follow-up play has the forward position’s support.

[FloosWorld]

@MrCrispyButt

The proof is it ended MY games prematurely in early castle age

Early Castle Age means a time frame somewhere between 19 - 22 minutes in-game considering a build like Scout or Archer Rush is played and both players have little to no idle TC time. This means your opponent already had to send a significant amount of villagers to stone in late Dark Age or early Feudal Age and probably moved forward with those villagers while going up. I’m honestly curious to watch one of those games.

@MrCrispyButt

Or you make two defensive towers to shoot down the tower builders.

Or just destroy the towers with villagers without having to waste 50 Wood and 125 Stone for each defensive tower. For your opponent it’s a much higher investment to keep those towers running than it is for you to destroy them.
Remember, Towers are available from the Feudal Age and require Murder Holes, a Castle Age technology before their minimum range gets eliminated, so that’s 200 Food and 100 Stone in addition. Not to forget Flechting, Bodkin Arrow and Bracer that further increase the tower range and cost in total 600 Food and 350 Gold before reaching their full potential, needless to say that some civs lack the final upgrade. Oh and did I mention Ballistics already? Without it, you can dodge arrows from Castles and Towers if you know in which direction to walk.
The game meanwhile also added an optional range indicator, making the Mandala mods an official part of the game that further help to see the total range of Castles, Town Centers and Towers.

@MrCrispyButt

The games still sucked because castles were made and few if any units were made.

This sounds like a super Low Elo 1v1 game (500-600 I assume) where both players don’t know how to deal with Castles, probably even building a Castle without army to protect the villagers.

@AbledManatee867

However, it’s impossible to watch the entire map on the alert, and if you don’t have archers and you notice when the castles rises to 30%, this castle will go up, you must abandon area around Castle

It is possible - occasionally look at the mini map, build Outposts, kill the villagers with Knights or push them away with monks.
30 % is nothing as the construction time for a Castle is 200 seconds in-game with 1 villager. I don’t know the exact calculation but with a Castle that’s constructed by 3-4 villagers, 30 % still is enough time to kill the workers, I mean the term ‘Daut Castle’ for an almost finished or quickly destroyed Castle exists for a reason.

@ZeroEinna

the principal purpose of the Forward Castle is to secure a critical spot that an enemy ought to reasonably be able to establish map control over. This may be a matter of securing/denying resources, position, or simply to pose a threat. This is a more complex concept than it is being presented as. Initial Forward Castles are often placed in areas that are theoretically sub-optimal, though follow-up play has the forward position’s support.

That’s exactly what we’re trying to explain in the last couple of posts.

[Malycos654]

i think it’s quite noticeable on the mini-map (with colors) when you have 8-10 ennemy villagers walking in your city and then build a castle right next to your TC on a early castle time …

Edit: i dont think what i wrote on my precedent comment was unnecessary. Because for the author it seems early castle drop is an easy strategy to do.

[AbledManatee867]

@FloosWorld

30 % is nothing as the construction time for a Castle is 200 seconds in-game with 1 villager. I don’t know the exact calculation but with a Castle that’s constructed by 3-4 villagers, 30 % still is enough time to kill the workers

I suppose archer or Monk defenders isn’t at your base (for instance you are Knight civ or your archers had gone to enemy’s base for aggression), and Knights simply blocked by quickwalls. Then counter Castle remains as only answer. If construction 30%, enemy’s Castle will be builded earlier. Even if your defensive Castle goes up (then petard battle ensues), all your eco in range of enemy’s Castle will be eliminated by enemy Castle.

@FloosWorld

It is possible - occasionally look at the mini map, build Outposts, kill the villagers with Knights or push them away with monks.

Game gives 10-15 distraction at the same time. Pro players even not see Forward Castles a lot, for instance, famous Daut vs Liereyy. Liereyy managed to win the game but he slept to Daut’s forward Castle. You can not expect from players to be better than Liereyy or another top pro players in terms of reaction. Match moment I am talking about:

Liereyy vs DauT | WWC | Quarter Final #3 (Bo5)

[MatCauthon3]

@AbledManatee867

Game gives 10-15 distraction at the same time. Pro players even not see Forward Castles a lot, for instance, famous Daut vs Liereyy. Liereyy managed to win the game but he slept to Daut’s forward Castle

Thanks for proving our point. Even though this castle went lsrgely unscouted and lierry was late to respond, and the castle went up, he was able to pull away, rebuild, and win…

Which is exactly what weve been telling the op for a long time

[Malycos654]

After this video you showed. It only confirm everything we said about how forward castle arent that overpowered and how to counter it.

After the forward castle lierrey built his economy somewhere else and created the counter unit for Korean uu. Then he did a fast imp treb push.

@AbledManatee867

You are writing unnecessary sentences to appear as if you are making arguments. Null politicians and academics uses this technique.

I throw this advice right back at you because we are going around in circles with you

[FloosWorld]

@AbledManatee867

I suppose archer or Monk defenders isn’t at your base (for instance you are Knight civ or your archers had gone to enemy’s base for aggression), and Knights simply blocked by quickwalls. Then counter Castle remains as only answer. If construction 30%, enemy’s Castle will be builded earlier. Even if your defensive Castle goes up (then petard battle ensues), all your eco in range of enemy’s Castle will be eliminated by enemy Castle.

Let’s assume a game on Arena, where contesting the Relics is part of the way the map is played - normally you create monks from Castle Age on and unless they’re outside the base for taking the relics, they’re mostly at home. It’s a similar case for open maps like Arabia. So they can help denying/delaying a Castle drop.

@AbledManatee867

Match moment I am talking about: [Video link]

The match you linked just prooves our point that Castle drops aren’t game deciders. Daut’s castle in the match linked denied Liereyy access to the gold spot and woodline but as this was Nomad, he could reestablish his economy a bit more behind. This isn’t pro player stuff only, I’ve also seen it happening on the ranked ladde. It’s very often a “it depends” kind of thing.

[Martinurello]

I insist… The problem is no that forward castle is OP. The problem is that it goes against the “normal” development of a match. Again, is like laming. Game mechanics should disuade player to make that move.
instead, should give others tools to pushing turtling style, like trash siege, for example.

[thieftdp8498]

@AbledManatee867

Game gives 10-15 distraction at the same time. Pro players even not see Forward Castles a lot, for instance

just because “even pro players can’t see it” does not validate any of the other points that castle needs nerfing.

imagine I say “because everyone can see it, we should buff castle drop”.

please bring more useful debate that isn’t centered around argument from authority.

[AbledManatee867]

@MatCauthon3

Thanks for proving our point. Even though this castle went lsrgely unscouted and lierry was late to respond, and the castle went up, he was able to pull away, rebuild, and win…

@Malycos654

After the forward castle lierrey built his economy somewhere else and created the counter unit for Korean uu. Then he did a fast imp treb push.

This Forward Castle didn’t span TC and farms, it only delete gold minings thus it isn’t that strong. However, Liereyy beat Daut mostly thanks to sloppinesss of Daut who gave too much conversion to Liereyy’s Monks. On the other hand, if Daut tried to build Castle near to TC, Liereyy would give proper answer and punish Forward Castle Age.

@thieftdp8498

just because “even pro players can’t see it” does not validate any of the other points that castle needs nerfing.

imagine I say “because everyone can see it, we should buff castle drop”.

Castle drop is extraordinary case. One player can rally after 15 Crossbow death after sudden Mangonel shot but good placed forward Castle will win you the game which is most snowbally thing in the game.

Daut one time deleted 3 TheViper’s TC with only 1 Castle Drop, he was winning solely thanks to this Castle but he threw the game afterwards. My suggestion was decreasing Castle Age Castles melee armors from 8 to 4 and increase Ram’s speed from 0.5 to 0.55 by the way.

Castle Age Start Showmatch | 5 Games Played vs DauT | Hosted by @ellie4k

[MrCrispyButt]

@FloosWorld

This sounds like a super Low Elo 1v1 game (500-600 I assume) where both players don’t know how to deal with Castles, probably even building a Castle without army to protect the villagers.

You’re wrong. it happens in about 30 percent of all games around 900-1000 ELO, which is where I was during the 1000 hours I played AOE2 DE before I quit two years ago.

[FloosWorld]

@MrCrispyButt

You’re wrong. it happens in about 30 percent of all games around 900-1000 ELO, which is where I was during the 1000 hours I played AOE2 DE before I quit two years ago.

Well, my bad, but on that Elo a castle isn’t a game decider either. I speak from experience as I’m in that region as well. Offensive castles are part of the strategy but it often boils down different situations:

• If you can’t stop the castle, avoid its area, maybe relocate affected villagers
• Test if they have Murder Holes and already damage it
• Ram it down in Castle Age or if your castle is close enough to theirs, send Petards
• Wait for Imp and treb it down

The latter is mostly the case and evolves into a treb war.

This just makes me further curious about the games you’ve played.

@AbledManatee867

This Forward Castle didn’t span TC and farms, it only delete gold minings thus it isn’t that strong.

Which just further prooves the point that forward castles aren’t as strong as some people think and it often is a “it depends” situation. Rarely you get the chance to build a straight-in-your-face-castle in early Castle Age because most people wall off before this could happen.

[thieftdp8498]

@AbledManatee867

Castle drop is extraordinary case.

actually it isn’t. I have castle dropped and lost the game, and also ones where I won the game. game has been around for decades and if its vastly imbalanced it would have received updates.

it is all about execution, I know truth hurts but I think its time to move on!

[Malycos654]

11. No really 1111111111.

Then why did you provide the first video? You classified this first forward castle as an exemple for your argument but it confirms ours.

@AbledManatee867

Liereyy beat Daut mostly thanks to sloppinesss of Daut who gave too much conversion to Liereyy’s Monks.

Yes, if you renember. I said on my previous comment that he did the counter unit for war wagons.
Beside he tried to build another castle that could have hit his TC and got denied.
To be honest the situation was quite desperate for Daut since liereyy had the control of water and was ahead on economy. That second castle drop was his only chance to get back on the game.

As for the second video.

@Malycos654

But more seriously, when players try to castle drop on a early castle age. Most of the time they dont have an army to cover them, or at least 3-5 soldiers. But it cost more than 650 stone and delay your castle drop.
if we add to that, the time it takes to 8-10 villagers to come at your base (knowing how slow they are) and to build that castle we have at least 1 min 30.
At this time if you say you dont have a single men to defend against it and go full economy. Then you deserve to lose.

This second video just proved MY SO UNNECESSARY SENTENCES. Viper did a triple TC boom and got castle drop so this is kind of deserved for him. But he didnt gave up after that castle drop. He scattered his eco, fought back and won.

@AbledManatee867

You are writing unnecessary sentences to appear as if you are making arguments. Null politicians and academics uses this technique.

mmhhh, Uno reverse card? 11.
Joke aside. I start to wonder if you try to prove us that forward castle are strong or not and deserve a nerf ( this is the goal of this post right?). Because from what i saw it seems you are more on the nerf side but your exemples says otherwise…

[MrCrispyButt]

@Malycos654

Viper did a triple TC boom and got castle drop so this is kind of deserved for him. But he didnt gave up after that castle drop. He scattered his eco, fought back and won.

Do you think the average player at 1000 ELO (the vast majority of the player base) can recover from losing 3 tcs and farms to a 650 stone castle drop to come back and win? Do you think it is common to be able to lose all your tcs and most of your farms while the enemy loses nothing and still win? Do you think Daut would use a strategy that only works against noobs, against Viper? I think the huge amount of video evidence of pro games where forward castles are used is irrefutable evidence that castle drops are extremely strong and used at all ELO levels, even the highest. The reason there is a video on it is because it is so remarkable that the Viper DID manage to come back and win versus it.

[FloosWorld]

@MrCrispyButt

Do you think the average player at 1000 ELO (the vast majority of the player base) can recover from losing 3 tcs and farms to a 650 stone castle drop to come back and win?

Yes. Practice makes perfect.

@MrCrispyButt

Do you think it is common to be able to lose all your tcs and most of your farms while the enemy loses nothing and still win?

Who says your enemy is loosing nothing? Their eco at home is absolutely horrible due to going for an offensive strat. Just raid their eco and see how things are evolving into your favour.

@MrCrispyButt

I think the huge amount of video evidence of pro games where forward castles are used is irrefutable evidence that castle drops are extremely strong and used at all ELO levels, even the highest. The reason there is a video on it is because it is so remarkable that the Viper DID manage to come back and win versus it.

Or because it’s rather unusual and makes good content.
If you watch this 1v1 between Hera and Viper, you’ll notice how Viper wasn’t on Stone until Castle Age, used the 200 starting stone to build additional Town Centers and how his first forward building wasn’t a castle, but rather a Siege Workshop to further pressure Hera. He built a forward castle with 7 villagers where 5 have been killed by Heras units, almost making it to a Daut Castle which just prooves our point that Castles are risky in first place. The castle itself was built at around 28:30 in-game which is the time when you are about to hoard resources to go up to Imp. Also, Viper’s castle doesn’t really interrupt Hera’s economy. Viper’s 2nd castle was for gaining map control and securing the gold spot outside his base.

1v1 Arabia | Mayans vs Byzantines | vs Hera

Here’s another Viper vs Hera game, where Viper built a tower against Hera’s archers in Feudal, went on with Crossbows in Castle Age, seen a lot of Hera’s vills on stone but Hera’s forward castle doesn’t come until 34 minutes in-game and itself is just built slightly outside of his base.

4 Ranges in Feudal Age!

[Atafas]

@FloosWorld hey i wanna give a comment. to this as it seems there been multiple cases of evidence that been shown to the op, but the responses seem to loose a bit more ground as it seems for combatitive

I personally think that, if the attempt is made from the enemy to build up a foward castle then of course proper scouting aswell as practice against it is required. Aswell as if your uncertain of the enemys moves then there are outposts you can make

[Green4uu]

@MrCrispyButt

Do you think the average player at 1000 ELO (the vast majority of the player base) can recover from losing 3 tcs and farms to a 650 stone castle drop to come back and win? Do you think it is common to be able to lose all your tcs and most of your farms while the enemy loses nothing and still win? Do you think Daut would use a strategy that only works against noobs, against Viper? I think the huge amount of video evidence of pro games where forward castles are used is irrefutable evidence that castle drops are extremely strong and used at all ELO levels, even the highest. The reason there is a video on it is because it is so remarkable that the Viper DID manage to come back and win versus it.

buddy I’m ngl, you play Arabia right? Arabia is an OPEN MAP, which I will translate for you if you don’t understand what that means, it means you are meant to make army always and try to control the map. If you wanna 3 TC boom and not scout the map or not raise your APM, sounds like a map like Arena or Michi is more for you, it sounds like you want to devote 100% of your attention to eco management and not to army and you don’t like the idea that there is a punishment for that (forward siege, forward castles, etc.).

In any case, any “dry castle drop” at 1k elo is typically some 10 villagers and maybe 3 Skirms or 3 Spears (opponent does either one not both depending on what he saw from you in Feudal).

The key point is that any gold unit beats its counter unit when the counter unit isn’t fully upgrades. So regardless of whether you go for 3-5 Knights in early Castle age, or 5-10 Crossbows, those clear up any counter units from Feudal and after that you can kill the villagers.

I will come up with a foolproof plan to win every Arabia game at 1k elo for you:

1. try to get down palisade walls in Feudal. Most important thing is to make them reasonable. Max 20 tiles away from TC is a good rule of thumb.
2. send 10 villagers to wood (2 lumber camps), set gather point to stragglers, seed a farm every 60w you get.
3. build archery range asap, start making archers, goal is to have a 20-21min Castle age click up (meaning you will click at 18:30 or something), for 1 range Archers you need 4 on Gold, mix in a few Skirms if you see archers from opponent.

If you do all this basic Feudal macro right, you will ALWAYS be to Castle Age first vs an opponent who is Castle dropping. Your 10-12 Crossbows or 3-5 Knights made in Castle age will clear ANY dry Castle drop.

More advanced tactics:

1. use your starting Scout every 2-3 min to run around the opponent’s base, see what resources he is gathering (7-8 on gold in Feudal means either 2 range archers, you should also scout what production buildings he made, for example if he is on 2 Ranges 1 Stable it means he is full Feudal etc.)

2. you should scout at end of Dark Age/beginning of Feudal where the 5 main resource piles of opponent are. This means the 7-tile gold, the 2 4-tile golds, the 5-stone and 4-stones. Particularly the stones are what you wanna be looking for, in general in early Feudal you must defend from potential Archers/MAA so you can’t go to stone immediately, people go to Stone at 15-16 min mark if they want to drop a Castle. If opponent is fully walled by min 16 AND he spawned with a back stone that is inside walls and you have no line of sight over, you should always assume he is on stone (particularly if he is a civ with strong UU like Spanish).

The key takeaway I want you to have here is that on Arabia making a forward Castle in early Castle Age always results in a slower uptime by 2-3 min because you must task villagers to Stone early and that means less food/gold collected. It is very hard to make a Castle drop before 22-23 min mark unless your opponent got his walls off and made 0 Feudal army (and you should always make some Feudal army to contest opponent.

Regardless, if his reaction is, full wall and boom and go to stone, you should always beat him to Castle age. Which means you get the Crossbow upgrade before he does, which means you get the first Knights out before he does. And with those strong units you can deny any forward Castle drop. If your APM is low make 2-3 outposts to scout villagers running forward.

The key point here is that I sense you are a player who “likes to boom”, something I hear 1k players say a lot. You would like every game to be a 200-pop confrontation, but Arabia isn’t a map for this. On Arabia you are meant to make army in every age, especially in Feudal. However let’s say you are a more macro-oriented player, it’s still possible to play a macro style on Arabia. A macro player should however always be first to Castle age vs an opponent planning to Castle drop. If you are barely first to Castle age, and a Castle drop catches you off guard, likely your macro isn’t as strong as you think.

Also, can I ask, how do you place your TCs when

@MrCrispyButt

can recover from losing 3 tcs and farms to a 650 stone castle drop to come back and win?

You generally place TCs a bit spread out, generally each TC is 20-30 tiles away from another. It is impossible for 1 Castle to capture 3 TCs, unless you have bad TC placement. So work on your TC placements, if 1 Castle is allowed to go up without army defending it AND it captures 3 TCs, you for sure deserve to lose. The game is a strategy game, if a macro player is bad at placing TCs and racing to Castle age, then the only other good quality you have left is pressing Create Villager hotkey.

I will end by saying that 1000 elo castle drops aren’t very scary, 1k elo players nearly always have bad macro management, so likely they will make 1/3 of the UUs they could possibly make after such Castle drop. Wait until you go vs some 1.7k person going for defensive/forward Castle into UU, and spam UU from 1 TC and min eco, then you will wish to be at 1k elo. At 1k elo, the worst I can see a castle drop do is, like, kill 4 farms, and then you have 5 Conqs without bloodlines running trying to find damage. Make Elite Skirms or Monks, 7-9 Elite Skirms with Bodkin probably beat 5 Conqs if you micro properly, after that you are on your 3 TC and 45+ vills vs his (likely) 28 vills and the game is basically won (1k elo often have a lot of idle time so chances are he won’t go above 30 vills expecting you to resign from the psychological pressure of a castle).

[MatCauthon3]

@MrCrispyButt

Do you think the average player at 1000 ELO (the vast majority of the player base) can recover from losing 3 tcs and farms to a 650 stone castle drop to come back and win? Do you think it is common to be able to lose all your tcs and most of your farms while the enemy loses nothing and still win

For 1 castle to wipe out 3 town centers and most your farms says more about YOU then it does about the person dropping the castle.

Why would you position your tcs in such a way thst 1 single castle is wiping out that much of your eco? And even on the off chance you do put your tcs that close together, common sense woulr dictate that since thats clearly the center of your eco you should be paying enough attention to it to easily spot an opponent dropping a castle in such a position to wipe them all out.

Heck with 3 tcs and farms in yhe area you should essily have enough villagers to fight his vills, thus denying his castle.