I’m sorry, but I like the new meta better than the previous one, it allows me to use the revolutions much more than before and I love that, please stop asking economic civilizations for nerfs that are only using their strengths. I think we would all benefit if, instead of asking to weaken x strategy or mechanics, we asked to improve the others, for example, the Rush of some civilizations needs improvements.
An example of a good Rush and also an excellent example to follow, is that of Central America and its Santamaria’s Fire card, although not everyone can do the same, I think that a card could be given that allows a Rush suitable for the current situation.
I propose the following, change the effect of the Advanced Artiller card and give it to all European civilizations.
Advanced Artillery: Allows to create artillery foundries in second age, sends 2 artillery foundry construction wagons, allows to train Petards and mortars in second age.
I think this change would help counteract the issue without ruining the fun for newer players and those of us who enjoy fast revolutions.
I think it is easier to nerf Sweden and Japan houses than to buff every other civilization in the game. Having them not provide housing is an interesting idea. After all, constructing a trading post requires wood and doesn’t provide population.
I feel i should specifically state to avoid confusion:
I am not advocating for economic civ nerfs directly, I oppose the idea of Economic booms that require either zero map or zero risk.
Eco civs like brits and dutch have clear downsides. Brits only get vills and you need natural res to gather for them to be useful- because of all the high res maps, thats less noticeable now. Dutch has banks that drain hunts and compete with housing for wood, while vills cost coin. Dutch is a strong eco civ but because banks cost so much food, they still drain hunts and are forced onto the map. The only nerf I’ve ever thought dutch needed was ruyters should be slightly more food cost.
swede and japan have neither of these risks. shrines generate unlimited res while providing pop and cherries in base are safe.
sweden GENERATES food by building torps, the inverse of the food drain that dutch has.
Yes for Japanese/Swedes/Inca I’d say the population and some additional income you get from natural resources (the latter is not applicable to Inca though) feels more like a reward for booming, not like other boom civs where you need to risk other things for it.
Japanese is a little more okay-ish as cherry orchard is safe but slow.
Swedes is another story. You can just drop a torp at home and play it like any other civ, it already gives you some additional eco on top of a normal eco (which Japanese do not have) with the berry bush, while other houses don’t. You drop it next to natural resources you get even more eco.
Yes you’ll pay some extra wood for that. But other civs spend 100w for a building that does nothing else at all. They also have their own (and larger) cost barrier for additional eco. For Swedes you get both with one thing.
From my limited understanding with a lot other games, not limited to RTS, “a little extra cost for two weaker effects bundled” is usually better than the standard single effect, unless they downtune it a lot (which never happens). 100% price for 100% effect is not as good as 25% price for 25% (or even 20%) effect because you get and benefit from the latter earlier. For example the small extra eco you gain by spending ~20 wood.
That’s the same problem I have with Swedes design, both its units and the civ as a whole. Those unique features are nice on their own, but not when stuffed into one. Torps can gather resources. That’s nice. But why it ALSO grants some free extra food?
I’d remove the berry bush spawn completely and make it a card effect.
Also some off-topic random thought:
The entire AOE series is already in a different spot from many other “traditional” RTS like starcraft or warcraft. AOE3 even more. In many other games there is little concept of “eco building” at all (if there are, they are minimal). Your eco rely on natural resources entirely. You need MORE map control in the late game.
AOE is different maybe for the sake of “historical realism” and I appreciate it. You have several eco buildings. I think this is mainly because of the scale ----- in starcraft or warcraft or cnc you have two military bases encountering in one battle. It’s okay if there is nothing like farming at all in the scope of one battle in a small location. When you portray cities and nations, it would be weird.
It turns out you need to venture out for map control in the early-mid game and then you can turtle back in the late game. Because of this design, whenever you play with the availability/cost of eco buildings you can get early turtle factions.
AOM has some attempts to break this formula. Map control is required to build more TCs, which gives you a huge population advantage and a really strong defense.
Some other games like Rise of Nations have limited farms per city and direct income based on map control. That also encourages expansion whatever faction you are.
AOE3 tunes it backwards somehow. Yes when you control more trade posts you’ll gain some advantage, but the bonus is not that big and trade posts are fragile.
I don’t think the majority of players have a problem with the passive resource income. The DE meta is far superior to the original meta, and all civs are viable(except maybe at the very top of the ladder but there’s never room for everybody anyway).
To me, this whole discussion about passive bonuses sounds like a l2p issue. All civs have a way of generating resource passively. There is no civ that doesn’t have a passive resource income. There’s nothing special about Japan’s shrine, literally everyone else either has 2 factories or some other source of passive income that’s about as equivalent to that. There is some assymetry, but that is fine. For completely symmetric experience, there’s aoe2. And yes, shrines may deny hunts, but in the late game it is trivial to snipe them. Ironically, shrines and torps are literally the only passive income sources that do require map control, yet people complain about it lol.
We could work on map feature to improve interactions. Make non-affrican natives more attractive. Increase income from TP (maybe allow train level trade routes to ship 2 resources instea of 1). Civs themselves are fine.
I mean not really, the amount of resources you get from the map was supposed to outstrip anything you can get by turtling up unless you play for the very lategame
TP eco used to be so strong that it was nerfed when it got to DE, that is saying something
The problem is that alot of civs can jump between that states or have some advantage and the opposing civ cant expand fast enough to take advantage of the faster resources
Part of the problem is that a lot of maps just have enough res in/near base that civ can just turtle up without investing too much and that there are just many good defensive options and ways to generate res
You’re right. I mean “some civs now can…”, not that turtling is always better than map control.
But starting hunts and mines still consume very quickly. Then some civs with better eco buildings or trickles can turtle better than the others.
when the players who’ve been around for 10+ years call it bad and the new (not noob, new) players play primarily the passive eco civs… thats not l2p issue, its a genuine discussion on how the apm requirements of countering turtles vs turtling and discussing how economic investments in an rts game need downsides too.
I am a japan player at heart but I’m very aware of the advantages the civ has. At least the civ is very slow to start now, but i think its a good discussion to have without just calling it l2p to try to shut down experienced players as if its just a meta issue and not a design issue.
Bringing the APM and “new and old” discusion in this literally defeats your whole point. Do you want to maybe try again? I hope you do realize you’re not the only one here who’s been playing this since vanila times. Also, nobody cares about APM, the only game that was designed around APM was SC2, to hopefully ride on the hype of SCBW, and we all know how that worked out (bad).
Look at this thread for what it is: people get better at higher level at fending off rushes, so rushers who climb the ladder through one trick poneys are forced to l2p macro and come to the forum complaining. This is the natural evolution of the ladder on all RTS games. Aoe3 is no different.
Anyways, I still look forward to having my argument demolished: all civs have passive income which amounts to roughly the same resources, and the meta is better now than it has ever been.
I think if there are 2-3 hunts that can be herded to near your TC, that is considered too much. That is enough for a fast industrial and basically allows you to transition into that turtle eco in record time.
older forms of fast industrial kinda required you to get some map control to secure res to be able to age up. we have seen more and more almost naked FI due to the massive amount of res from the map
i refer to apm only to say if something is easier to do while only offering advantages, thats bad for everyone
yes a torp and a factory are the same. both cost a shipment, locked in age 4, take a deck slot, cannot be rebuilt, and compete with 1600 res+ military shipments.
Because other civilizations need other solutions, and unfortunately, I don’t know them well enough to offer an alternative that I feel comfortable with.
Also, the card does not enable the creation of falconets, please read the modified effect, it changes it for a reason.
What little imagination. XD
They would be useful to have a diversion or best case scenario so you can defend a position, for example the two artillery foundries, mortars are obviously good against infantry and too expensive to waste on an early siege where you don’t we have a large amount of resources and population.
it would basically allow civs like otto who already build artillery foundry and have tp eco to basically siege your base from a safe range defended by jan abus before any culvs could come out.
and the mortars soften enemy formations as well.
when first had the ability to make hurracas in age 2 it basically just turned it into spam hurracas and deletes buildings.
I think it should also enable Monitors in age 3. And it should give a slight discount for artillery upgrades so that the card isn’t totally worthless once you get to age 4.
