Suggestion on Walls

[FoggierWizard41]

Starcraft is a way different game thus it doesn’t make a right evaluation to compare these 2 games at any extend, you can still use buildings to work as walls in Starcraft, almost everyhing is different and there are solid options to defend early aggression.

Nobody has called timings non-strategic in this thread, don’t think it’s a right approach to claim that. I completely disagree with your points, walls are result of strategical thinking process and requires skill to be placed in correct way.

Nobody has asked for 1v1 supremacy to turn out to a treaty either. It’s your opinion, In aoe2 you make walls in the age 1 every game and it doesn’t essentially make the game turn into a treaty.

While I am not against timing pushes, if every game in Aoe3 ends up in age 3 with timing pushes, then it becomes much lesser than a strategy game, it becomes one sided window, that requires practice of only same way, and reduce variety, then again. It no longer becomes a strategy game.

[FoggierWizard41]

@Adribird90

• Would you agree to increase the cost of the wall? (in AoE4 it is 1250 hp and 7w, which is somewhat offset by the higher wood gathering rate).

In Aoe4, walls are much more efficient and takes way longer to siege, unlike Aoe3 where you don’t even need to make a siege investment most of the time, because infantry can deal wood walls very easily most of the time.
Aoe4 outposts are much cheaper as well, and unit siege against walls are more limited, can’t siege stone walls without artillery either.

@Adribird90

• Would you agree to remove the mortar card in the third age and include mortars in Fortresses?

Considering Aoe3 is a tempo based game, I support idea of having mortar card stay in age3, which is a great card to deal with walls, but again it’s unfortunately not popular.

@Adribird90

• Would you agree that siege units (or anti-building units) should have an extra bonus against walls?

It already works that way in Aoe3 with recent changes, mortars deal x2 against walls.

[Adribird90]

In Age of Empires IV, the fire rate is 2 seconds, and 15 units with torches quickly destroy the wall. Siege units perform well in these situations. Stone walls are expensive and take a while to build.

When discussing siege and anti-building units, I’m not just referring to mortars but most artillery and petards.

Do you want the wall to be stronger like it used to be? Solve it with an exposition where you can promote effective and enjoyable counterplay.

P.S: And remember that in this game there is the Snare to better defend yourself from the raids.

[Dopsch1997]

You generalised your point and said “any other rts of this genre”. That is why I picked Starcraft here. And I agree, they differ in their nature, but that not make my point less valid. It shows that walls are not necessarily the epitome of RTS as a genre. Age of empires 2 for example has a healthy use of walls as well, but since your resources are not infinite (in most cases), you have an incentive to push out on the map. In AoE3, while your eco will be severly hindered if you loose access to the map, you get more safe hunts than you used to, and you have several civs that do not meed map control to produce units or grow their economy. I never suggested walls should be removed. I just disagree with buffing them.

On the second part I misread, you stated that with the focus on timing pushes, there is a lack of strategic variety. While I get your point, I still disagree with the idea that the excessive (not counting in general use of walls, like walling off strategic locations or resources spots, I mean just 10 layers of walls after each other) offer more strategic variety. Excessive use of walls forces the same playstyle over and over again. I never said that walls cannot be strategic, but again, the excessive use that we see on the ladder in combinations with certain civs has nothing to do with “smart” play. It is not a single wall that saves your vills from certain death, it is a cluster of randomly drawn lines that just hinder the enemy on every stepp along the way. If this is the way you want to play the game, that is your free choice. I dislike that idea, and I can say with confidence that out of the 60+ players I interact with on a regular basis, 55+ would agree with me on this.

Age 2 has a different dynamic though, resources work differently and I think one has to agree that age 2 is much slower when it comes to gameplay progression. Average gametime is higher than in age 3 without question. And what I mean by my point is not that players would stop attacking like they were in a treaty phase, but rather that confrontations would take the form of a treaty fight, with walls behind walls, always reaching lategame, always going 200 pop. While this also has its appeal, I don’t think that it makes much sense in a high tempo game like AoE 3 to force this kind of engagement. People are not missing out on the game just because you don’t reage age 5.

I see your last point as well, and I think it is valid. But just like you don’t want to see a neveranding repetion of timing plays, players like me do not want to see neveredning walls. Both is disencouraging players from playing the game at all. And in the end, the most important thing is the health of the playerbase in my opinion.

[FoggierWizard41]

@Adribird90

In Age of Empires IV, the fire rate is 2 seconds, and 15 units with torches quickly destroy the wall. Siege units perform well in these situations. Stone walls are expensive and take a while to build.

It’s harder to mass units in aoe4 because of the unit batch system, it gives defenders even a bigger advantage, also having ram option is a much better advantage as it prevents from outpost attacks as well.

@Adribird90

When discussing siege and anti-building units, I’m not just referring to mortars but most artillery and petards.

Most of the artillery units are already available without needing a card, it wouldn’t make much difference.

@Adribird90

Do you want the wall to be stronger like it used to be? Solve it with an exposition where you can promote effective and enjoyable counterplay.

It’s rather having walls get it’s fair amount of use, which it doesn’t in Aoe3 because early game walls require a rework where it becomes useful again. I don’t meant to buff or nerf, but rather get a rework to get it’s fair amount of use in the game.

[FoggierWizard41]

@Dopsch1997

You generalised your point and said “any other rts of this genre”. That is why I picked Starcraft here. And I agree, they differ in their nature, but that not make my point less valid. It shows that walls are not necessarily the epitome of RTS as a genre. Age of empires 2 for example has a healthy use of walls as well, but since your resources are not infinite (in most cases), you have an incentive to push out on the map. In AoE3, while your eco will be severly hindered if you loose access to the map, you get more safe hunts than you used to, and you have several civs that do not meed map control to produce units or grow their economy. I never suggested walls should be removed. I just disagree with buffing them.

Aoe genre is Aoe2, Aoe4, AoeM. AoeO. and in starcarft you can still use buildings to works as walls. Like with Terran you have supply depots also there are chokes everywhere. Villagers can also fight decent in starcraft 2. In fact, it’s making the games stale by having walls stay as it is right now, which has been overnerfed without demand or agreement of the competitive players.

@Dopsch1997

On the second part I misread, you stated that with the focus on timing pushes, there is a lack of strategic variety. While I get your point, I still disagree with the idea that the excessive (not counting in general use of walls, like walling off strategic locations or resources spots, I mean just 10 layers of walls after each other) offer more strategic variety. Excessive use of walls forces the same playstyle over and over again. I never said that walls cannot be strategic, but again, the excessive use that we see on the ladder in combinations with certain civs has nothing to do with “smart” play. It is not a single wall that saves your vills from certain death, it is a cluster of randomly drawn lines that just hinder the enemy on every stepp along the way. If this is the way you want to play the game, that is your free choice. I dislike that idea, and I can say with confidence that out of the 60+ players I interact with on a regular basis, 55+ would agree with me on this.

I think we have an agreement in this point, but it’s also important to notice that the reason of having too many layers of walls is because of wooden walls being inefficient to be enough to hold pressure, that’s why it could be in a way where it’s strong and can’t be made as much layers but still be good enough.

@Dopsch1997

Age 2 has a different dynamic though, resources work differently and I think one has to agree that age 2 is much slower when it comes to gameplay progression. Average gametime is higher than in age 3 without question. And what I mean by my point is not that players would stop attacking like they were in a treaty phase, but rather that confrontations would take the form of a treaty fight, with walls behind walls, always reaching lategame, always going 200 pop. While this also has its appeal, I don’t think that it makes much sense in a high tempo game like AoE 3 to force this kind of engagement. People are not missing out on the game just because you don’t reage age 5.

I get your point, however I think it would be great to increase variety for Aoe3, and promote strategies where games can be played in different ages as well, right now majority of the games finish before industrial age, which I think is problematic.

@Dopsch1997

I see your last point as well, and I think it is valid. But just like you don’t want to see a neveranding repetion of timing plays, players like me do not want to see neveredning walls. Both is disencouraging players from playing the game at all. And in the end, the most important thing is the health of the playerbase in my opinion.

Fair, I am glad we share common points, I see where you are coming from as well. Hopefully we get changes where games get into a variety rewarding and all strats get their fair share in terms of popularity.

[Adribird90]

You have shown countless times (in your games) that walls don’t need a rework unless their counterplay is more effective and fun.

In AoE4 it’s not the batches, but they don’t have homecity.

[FoggierWizard41]

Their counterplay options are effective, about fun part it’s subjectvie thus I can’t judge it. Based on the popularity and use of walls, I can definitely say that most players avoid building them to cover base because it’s just not efficient, that’s why it should recieve a change to be popular, this doesn’t essentially mean making it stronger but make it useful in a way it fits to the game.

[Moonshadow7475]

@moonshineaoe

In my opinion walls should be even more nerfed and have a building aura that you cant spamm endless layers of walls behind an dbehind. Also they should remove the Hotkey for making walls pillarless with the hotkey select all type, as well they should move bastion to age4 and spend a smaller upgrade for 350f,w,c in age3 where walls can go up to 4k and thats it. We have enough statical game play with FI, Arty, scaling cards. This needs to be weaken down a bit.

I do not think this is easily achievable. In which direction do you aim the aura? Do you allow strategic enclosure of some resource, like a gold mine or a TP? this is why implementing any of the ### ### ideas is very difficult with walls → there are some many legit uses that would be impossible if you do that, and it doesn’t really fix layering, people would just layer further back, unless you implement such a nerf that walls become useless, which is something to avoid.

Other than that, I fully agree with your post. Walls give a huge advantage in artillery wars and also mess up cavalry quite a lot. The only reasonable counter to them is to simply burn them all down. Which is what everybody is doing right now. I don’t see how they can be buffed in HP without returning to the ridiculous times before the nerfs.

[BonnyMountain91]

@FoggierWizard41

but it’s also important to notice that the reason of having too many layers of walls is because of wooden walls being inefficient to be enough to hold pressure, that’s why it could be in a way where it’s strong and can’t be made as much layers but still be good enough.

If the reason of players making many layers wall is the weakness of wall, how do you plan to stop players from making as many layers when walls are buffed? Why will players make only only one mega buffed wall, when they can make 4?

@FoggierWizard41

I get your point, however I think it would be great to increase variety for Aoe3, and promote strategies where games can be played in different ages as well, right now majority of the games finish before industrial age, which I think is problematic.

Aoe3 is designed and has been played for a long time with age2,3 and4 in mind. In legacy game, most games were played in age2 and 3. With DE, it has changed to be more in age3 and 4. Imperial age is not a normal age progression, as there is no age5 cards, no new units unlocked etc. Imperial age works like a victory condition, like the wonder victory of aoe4. If you can afford to drop thaat many resources, you probably have already won the game.

Infact walls are one of the few things I agree for a major overhaul and change. I would like the wood walls and bastion walls to be separate buildings, and not just a tech upgrade. Wood walls are cheap, weak but fast building wall costing wood. Bastion walls are slow, strong but slow building costing wood and coin. Also would like if bastion wall gates were expensive too and required a short build time.

[Moonshadow7475]

@AnaWinters

Again, last time I tried a treaty game, it was boring as hell because the defenses fell like paper and it just came down to who had the army that could reach the front line faster and more reliably, not down to who could manage an army and a war of attrition better.

If treaty players really like static wall tugs of war, there can be a treaty specific capitol tech that buffs walls, similar to blockade thats treaty specific. But walls need no buffs in supremacy.

[BonnyMountain91]

@AnaWinters you should watch some treaty40 games by good treaty players, games goes on for 30-40min before walls breaking even matters. Most would have 4 -5 layers of wall.

The other popular treaty genre is tr20. You can watch some tr20 games, and even just 2 layers of hastily build walls is enough to hold all game long.

And the third most popular genre is tr60, where most players would have 20layers of wall anyway.

So idk if walls need buff even in treaty.

[HoopThrower]

Pretty sure walls being very, very weak and games ending Age III/IV is very much a design intention.

This game’s meant for fast, quick games and then just move on, not something to slog on forever.

[BlamedApple9268]

Walls were nerfed for reasons, please do not buff.

Aoe3 late game/scaling is not balanced in 1v1 supremacy.

Walls need to thread the line between not allowing every well scaling civ to bypass its weakness to autowin and allow for enough defense to be useful. Walls are currently very useful and we see it time and time again.

This is especially pertinent on DE where every qs map has TPs (favors age-up play, biases games to last longer) and a lot of safe res. Walls on legacy were way too strong but were typically only abused by players going water since maps had such few res that walling would starve yourself before you could leverage your better scaling and shipments. Water was so broken back then too, it was a whole mess. Just a bit of history. Walling incentive for every day maps is strong on DE.

Poll a significant pool of top players and, I’ve been around them, been a part of them, they’ll likely agree en masse wall nerfs were justified and buffs are not. In fact, there is still discussion whether walls should be further nerfed.

The mortar change (bonus vs walls) was generally well received. Bastion is very strong.

“Players don’t make walls = walls must be bad” is 1) hearsay and 2) flawed. Could just as easily say, “OP makes walls = walls must be too good.” For starters the premise is actually true, and Rank 1 player after all.

For the subjective argument, (bastion) walls make the game slow down to a snail’s pace. They reduce the whole of aoe3’s diverse combat annd dynamic gameplay into culverin vs culverin for falconet/mortar. Which has balance ramifications as interciv scaling is dissimilar and access to artillery is dissimilar.

Rushing is not a dominant strategy on ladder. If rushing is not dominant, there is no reason to buff walls. Bastion already performs well. Imagine a 5w structure so strong you’d never build more than one 5w layer, what a bad argument. Of course you still would, because it’s 5w and would perform even better. That argument would only register if walls were made so laughably strong that it would be impractical for anyone to ever breach them, which is obviously horrible design.

Bottom line is there should not be a mechanic to force the game into the unbalanced late stages which OP is arguing for. It would not add strategic depth but flatten it.

Reductive to make appeals to walling across the entire RTS genre. These are different games.

[FoggierWizard41]

@BonnyMountain91

If the reason of players making many layers wall is the weakness of wall, how do you plan to stop players from making as many layers when walls are buffed? Why will players make only only one mega buffed wall, when they can make 4?

As already posted, reduce of layers is possible like in Aoe4, this would work out.

@BonnyMountain91

Aoe3 is designed and has been played for a long time with age2,3 and4 in mind. In legacy game, most games were played in age2 and 3. With DE, it has changed to be more in age3 and 4. Imperial age is not a normal age progression, as there is no age5 cards, no new units unlocked etc. Imperial age works like a victory condition, like the wonder victory of aoe4. If you can afford to drop thaat many resources, you probably have already won the game.

That’s inaccurate, Imperial age is part of the supremacy as other ages as intended, can be seen with the unique building capitol which is granted in age 5. imperial upgrades exist for all civilisations as well, in fact, limiting Aoe3 to commerce and fortress age is one of the main reason why competition in the game is not growing, variety is important in all rts games.

@BonnyMountain91

Infact walls are one of the few things I agree for a major overhaul and change. I would like the wood walls and bastion walls to be separate buildings, and not just a tech upgrade. Wood walls are cheap, weak but fast building wall costing wood. Bastion walls are slow, strong but slow building costing wood and coin. Also would like if bastion wall gates were expensive too and required a short build time.

I agree with walls requiring a rework, but this should also make it possible for early game walls to finally be useful again while giving more options.

[Erchere]

Walls are in a good spot right now, might as well have their price slightly increase to stop the painting (wall spamming) in all game modes. Totally against a second upgrade which causes the walls to have increased HP overall. So, overall against the suggestion.

[moonshineaoe]

yeah its hard to achieve, probably impossible if we think about that parts of the game are from 2005, yee i see this point. Otherwise the wall spamming is dumb but at the same time walls are having to be part of the game, i just dont agree with breeze because he is actually the best example why walls should nerfed, on the other side probably spending an age3 upgrade and moving bastion to age4 is something which would be for now enough for me. I just mean make this changes and test it out afterwards to see how it goes.

Yeah about the rest we also agree

[BonnyMountain91]

@FoggierWizard41

That’s inaccurate, Imperial age is part of the supremacy as other ages as intended, can be seen with the unique building capitol which is granted in age 5. imperial upgrades exist for all civilisations as well, in fact, limiting Aoe3 to commerce and fortress age is one of the main reason why competition in the game is not growing, variety is important in all rts games.

Variety is important, that’s why all the units are unlocked by age4. Age 5 was clearly just meant for a tie breaker/win condition in legacy, and DE has become a treaty specific age with faster shipments and whatnot.

In age4 you probably woul end up fighting with 200 pop, if you can drop 8000 resources to age, you have alrewady won at the point, Age5 does not bring any new strategic variety.

[FoggierWizard41]

No game result supports this claim, walls quite much of an unpopular option in Aoe3. There were never an agrement nor a community demand as a whole to nerf walls, in fact it was one of the least supported change by a majority of the Aoe3 community. In fact, having walls this much of nerfed made it even less popular and seeing players build walls has never been a popular option, this is why Aoe3 should recieve a rework to add variety starting with rework to walls where they become an option as it is in other rts games of the genre.

[FoggierWizard41]

Age 5 brings great economic upgrades, as well as unit upgrades that help one player to take advantage of, it’s also important to keep in mind Age 5 is a winning condition age that said, the player with more economy and map control will reach out Age 5 faster and win the game with much better performing units, it’s not a right approach to take it away from supremacy, which been there from the beginning of the game.