To add to what @Green4uu and @MatCauthon3 have said: as OP played AoE 2 last time two years ago, so you should be aware that players at 900-100 Elo became a lot more competent and an 1k player two years ago is nowadays more like an 800-900 player. More and more players in that region are now also able to beat AoE 2’s extreme AI without Tower Rushes but rather by playing something standard like a Scout Rush.
And as green said: On open maps, you should be always making units which also applies to other Age games, such as AoE 3 which itself is faster paced than AoE 2.
No it just shows that even when you get castle drop. Game is not automatically over and you can come back since they succeed to win. So far so good, only the game with songsong ended up with a lose.
I answer this part of your comment by that
And i will say it a third time. When you go for a full TC boom and get castle dropped with no army to defend then you deserve to lose (if you ended up to lose), specially on open map like the one they played.
This is not just a problem of having super micro/macro skill similar to a pro player but a problem on the strategy itself.
I was talking about the viper game posted above, not my games. I like Arabia, I would play only Arabia if possible. I dislike ‘turtling’ games as well. I can’t actually remember ever trying to boom with 3 tcs on hitting castle age with no army because at 1000 ELO everyone is constantly trying to rush you. There seems to be zero possibility to even think about making 3 tcs on hitting castle age with no army. It seems in pro games they are less aggressive sometimes so Viper can get away with more.
Obviously, using deductive logic, if my ELO stays at around 1000 and 30 percent of games involved forward castle drops, it is likely that sometimes I am able to still win. The point is that it just sucks when the whole game is mostly about a building and not units. There is no fun back and forth game involving counter units and micro, instead it is all about a castle or getting to the next age just to get the one unit that can deal with a castle.
Anyhow, it is clear most AOE2 players, at least the ones in this thread, LOVE castle dropping so it makes sense that it stays extremely strong and encouraged by the game. I wonder why no one has suggested buffing forward drops. People who want to play with units can play AOE3 and the castle droppers can castle drop each other all they want in AOE2.
Nice, you finally realised that on open map your opponent will not wait you have the perfect city to rush you.
You are serious? I will not mention closed map game because they are intended to be more defensive but on arabia. Pro players are very aggresive. You see them trying to raid each other on feudal age with archers, scout and other feudal units.
Since we already told you how to counter a castle drop. How they are not that overpowered with video that shows players who succeed to win despite castle drop. The only thing i have to say is, get better.
I know that there are already videos in this forum sharing how to handle castle drops but I figured this one would be useful as it shows what castle drops may look like at lower levels (1100 elo) and also provides pro commentary
There’s a simple way: mark Arabia as your favourite (Left mouse button) and ban Arena (Right mouse button) and whatever map in the current pool you don’t want to play. As Arabia is the most played mad, this means you should get it 95 % of the time, including Arabia-esque maps like Runestones.
Because a booming playstyle isn’t really viable on Arabia and fits more on closed maps like Arena or Black Forest - unless you’re Viper, who in general loves a greedy playstyle and knows how to get away with it. And tbh with you, this sentence makes me doubt if you really were in the 1k-ish area before you stopped playing AoE 2 as even two years ago, Feudal play was the way to go on open maps. You can’t just play SimCity on an open map and expect your opponent to do the same.
Pro games are a lot more aggresive than a 1k game. Down at 1k, people sometimes make army but don’t really make use of the units. If you watch the Viper v Hera games I linked, you’ll notice how extensive the Feudal fight between the two is.
Which almost never happens but we discussed that matter already…
Same here, we gave examples how a Castle drop is not the end of the world.
Who says Age 2 players love castle dropping? I guess everyone can agree that it’s an annoying strat, like Tower Rushing, but if you know how to deal with it, it’s not the end of the world/game.
Because it isn’t as OP as you want them to sound like. I could give you examples of games where I either didn’t make use of Castles at all, or Castles were just the cherry on top of a push.
You mean AoE 3, the game which even is more aggressive than AoE 2 with the introduction of Batch training?
From the Hera Coaching vid emraz linked, I highly suggest watching the part from 27:10 on.
I watched this TheViper vs Daut game from Dave’s channel and Daut was ahead thanks to this forward Castle. Daut threw the game afterwards. This video doesn’t reveal this because it was shown from Viper’s point of view and Viper thought he defended properly as well. However, Daut lost the game only because he threw afterwards.
I haven’t replied for 8 days because you don’t have ability to understand the clear evidence I’ve shown. You need to stop this and think for a while before replying.
Okay, I’ve watched the cast from Dave as well (the game in question starts at 29:55)
Here are the things:
As the game starts in Castle Age with medium resources, this already differes from a regular RM game
Viper tried a 3 TC boom and Daut delayed that with his cavalry
Daut sends 9 vills forward which is a significant amount of his eco whereas Viper starts booming and is already leading by 11 villagers, so Daut’s eco at home is horrible
Daut’s going for a castle drop as Acropolis is a map that engages a rather aggresive playstyle due to the hills not being wallable
The foundation of the castle was in range of Viper’s TC, so that one’s risky in first place because one shot and you could loose all the stone invested into it, sadly Viper didn’t thought about that as you can see in his POV. He however already expected the castle drop and built the house at a location where he expected the drop.
Daut’s builders are covered by the light cav he used earlier to put pressure on Viper
If Viper was a low Elo player he’d probably resigned due to the castle being straight in his face, instead he brought his vills out of the castle range
The castle prooves to be all-in in first place as Daut now has to wage between making more villagers at home or pumping out Janissaries
Viper’s lone knight snacked 2 of Daut’s vills
Viper moved some of his vills away and started to reboom outside of his starting place
Meanwhile Daut kills Viper’s eco at home
Viper builds a defensive castle inside his base that eventually keeps Daut’s units away and gets some eco kills at Daut’s woodline
2nd castle drop for Daut
Passive gold income for Daut by taking the relics
As Dave showed, Daut didn’t scout Viper’s sneaky base which could have helped him
Viper eventually drops a counter forward castle and also has units to back the workers up
Daut rams a castle from Viper down as that’s the best answer to castles in Castle Age. As Viper didn’t had army at home, the rams just could do their work.
Viper castle drops one of Daut’s TCs, Daut answers with a counter castle. As Viper has more army by now that castle is doomed anyway and that counter castle was more like a meme
So yeah, Daut threw the game by an all-in strat despite still having all chances to win, however, this game doesn’t show that forward castles and castle drops are OP. Viper played like we explained and brought his vills out of danger zone, both still used army and played as normal.
From his point of view or dave point of view it change nothing. Viper did a triple tc boom and allowed Daut to put that forward castle without difficulties
He just sticked 3 tc altogether what a great defense …
And guess what cost him the game? This second forward castle that was completely useless and overkill.
Let’s not forget Viper who took advantage of forward castle main weekness, a messy economy.
He ran away after those two castles drop, he rebuilt his economy and raid daut one with one knight followed by some camel archers, then he did his own castle drop to finish him.
What kind of clear evidence did you show us? Something like. Early Castle drop are only effective if your opponent play triple tc boom simscity, or early castle drop arent game ending this is how you counter it?
Write as much as you want. It doesnt change the fact that castle drop can be countered by following the arguments we said. And your videos prove that. which is even more embarassing.
Don’t agree with that.
Sometimes Castle drops can deal really serious damage against an unprepared opponent. Especially if that opponent just clicked up to imp. If you are lucky, you threaten the imp TC. But you can also deny important ressources or open a breach to raid. Splitting the opponents eco, so he can’t migrate and a lot of other factors that often are neglected in our discussion.
It’s often a “Hail Mary” attempt. Most of the time it fails, but if it works, it can flip the tide.
Ofc there are alos Castle Drops to close a basically won game. And strategical Castle drops. But these also have to be seen in the spotlight of the overall situation of the game.
Franks are famous for their game closing castles eg. But you can’t close a game that way if you don’t already have some kind of advantage. And with these drops you often just bring the inevitable faster,. It’s rarely the case that they decide games. And for me, I don’t like playing hour long games that have been basically decided at 20 minute mark. it’s just waste of time. So I’m fine with these game closing castles.
Just blindly dropping castles forward won’t win you games against experienced players. Even rarely against unexperienced if you aren’t really lucky with the spot.
if this is how we go about things, then forums as an experience are meaningless since every written thought is “armchair intellectualism and a-posteriori analysis”.
In reality, common sense and rational thought generally can make people agree upon whether something was “good scouting” or “bad scouting”, for example most people would agree that scouting opponent every 5 min is “bad scouting”, but scouting every 2 min is “average” or “good” scouting, so there are rough criteria with which most people can agree and if one agrees that scouting is what denies a Castle, then we only need to determine what is “good” and “bad” scouting.
The point is the op and those who agree are acting as if its somehow possible for the opponent to fast castle and instantly drop a game ending castle in his face, and he can’t answer said castle.
Which is wildly false.
Not only would you be slower to castle age because the stone requirements.
But youd idle a massive portion of your eco just to drop said castle.
You would have minimal army to defend your workers while said castle goes up, meaning a few archers alone could stop it
The odds of even finding a spot to drop a castle so strong that it hurts enough of your opponents economy that it threatened the game are…miniscule
Your opponent could easily pull away from said castle and rebuild elsewhere even if you somehow magically got it up
Maybe. But the fact is we shouldnt nerf stuff based on bad play.
You lose to something like this? Review the game. See what went wrong. Find out what you can do better. And adjust.
I stepped into MP for the fitst time after playing the william wallace campaign and a few others.
I didnt know anything about…anything.
I got stomped because i wanted a strong eco for when i hit castle age and wanted to go up with all feudal sco upgrades and bs upgrades.
My opponent hit me while i was in fuedal age with xbows. And i didnt have an answer
I didnt cry because it felt completely busted.
I rewatched the game and seen what my opponent did, and seen what i could do ro adjust. I also asked him for advice.
Tldr - something isnt op just because you dont know how to respond
not at all. this game has been around for over 2 decades and castle drop has been a thing since the very beginning. people and pro players study this game and learned it so well that the hindsight and speculation are no longer hindsight and speculation. good players know what to do to fight it off, prepare for it by scouting, how to lessen the damage etc.
It’s not really speculation and “arm chair analysis” but based on experience when playing the game and watching replays. AoE 2’s casting tools do a good job of indicating the LOS of each player to show what they can see and how they could react.
As @thieftdp8498 pointed out, AoE 2 was released in 1999 and forward castles are around since day 1.
In reality, you only have a limited place to drop a forward castle on an open map because your opponent propably already walled parts of their economy off and continued to expand their base towards the enemy, so the economy should be save unless you place farms close to your walls.
As the Viper vs Daut showmatch on Acropolish was brought up earlier to show how “op” castles are, let me add this breakdown by Twest which just confirmes what we’ve already said how a castle is not the end of the world:
And as OP previously mentioned AoE 3’s protection zones, let me drop this screenshot where I tried to build a Fort (the AoE 3 equivalent of a castle) near the opponent’s base:
Notice how the tooltip says “too close” and “first Town Center” - Ensemble didn’t want to kill forward plays entirely, but wanted to give players some room to breathe so Teuton Deathstars and Persian TC Drop can’t happen. That’s why I’m perfectly fine to build the Fort below the cliff which still is close to the opponent’s base. Not to mention that Forts themselves are already “nerfed” compared to castles bc they’re only available via a home city card. So that’s the AoE 3 version of Castles costing 650 Stone.
and this was literally exactly what the OP was complaining about
Early castle age
in your face
unscouted
denying multiple tcs
and despite this, daut still had to use units on top of this castle (which negates the OPs point about buildings winning games alone)
and more importantly, Daut STILL LOST. Viper was able to back up a little bit, move villagers away and relocate a chunk of his eco, and managed to win the game against daut despite this game having literally everything that @MrCrispyButt and others have complained about.
So even with the BEST CASE SCENARIO for the “Nerf Forward Castles” crowds argument, the person castle dropping still had to use UNITS (which was one of Crispy’s complaints), and more importantly, they still lost…
