Are the Persians strong on heavy wood maps?
Let’s say black forest, arena or any other maps which have lots and lots of trees. How strong is trashbow spam with the Kamandaran tech? I found myself able to spam like crazy trashbows. They could die on mass, but they were cheap cannonfodder, so it didn’t really matter.
Works even better in team games. I saved gold for some key units, like knights etc. But I can make hordes of trashbows with no gold cost.
I think the answer for Black Forest is not very strong at all. When you have the Khmer player coming forward with like 60 Ballista Eles, or some portuguese with 20 bombards, the crossbows just don’t stand a chance.
On Arena I can see it being more useful, as you can use petards to bust through walls and go after eco with them.
And that is one reason people don’t like black forest maps. Game plans like mass ballista elephant actually work and there is not much in the way of reliable answers
dies to siege: SO/Bombard Cannon
besides it’s not a problem that it works on Black Forest. The UU is almost completely useless in any other map style
yes but how many civs actually have good siege?
no its a problem that its really a pain to deal with.
In a 1v1 going Ballista Ele is not likely, even on BF, the opponent should break through the walls well before you tech into it and mass them.
So that leaves us with team games
If all draft random, then getting Khmer is already a low chance, lower than the whole other team not having siege.
If all pick civs and the whole team proceeds to picks civs with no SO and Bombard on a map like BF, then they kind of deserve to lose.
No it isn’t. It’s already a useless UU in almost all maps and situations, at least let it be good at something for once 
its useless in most situations because its expensive and hard to get too. much like other elephant unique units.
once you get a mass of elephants going though, it becomes an incredible pain to stop.
furthermore i’m not saying nerf the unit for the love of god. i’m just saying - this is one of the reasons people DON’T LIKE TO PLAY BLACK FOREST STYLE MAPS. because the games are long, drawn out slogs and they end up with compositions like this that just aren’t fun to play.
Because a lot of people play only one map and don’t like feeling like a 1000 rated player all at a sudden
In my opinion a lot of players have very inflated elo from playing only one map, and their true skill level shows when they have to play a different map style (which tends to be a few hundred elo less)
you want to know why they like Arabia? its the most balanced map there is for land play.
its open which allows both cavalry and archer play.
its got a balanced distribution of resources that lends itself to pretty much every civilization in the game.
it encourages earlier aggression and games don’t tend to drag out and stalemate.
compare that to blackforest where games easily last over an hour real time with ease.
it encourages walling and stalling even beyond the current walling meta (take a look around and look at all the people unhappy with walling in the past year).
it encourages compositions that you normally couldn’t feasibly build too that many civs just don’t have an answer for, making it frustrating to play against.
Based on this logic, we should remove all maps but one from the game. Because that’s how we make a fun and diverse game
Good luck getting newcomers to the game actually stick around. I tried recruiting many people to AoE2 from other RTS games. Most of them just ragequit the game from getting defeated early and never come back. I know this is anecdotal, but it’s true, games are ending way too quickly.
What is the point to have all this civs, tech trees, 4 different ages, when you can decide most games in Feudal/Early Castle, following the same strategy regardless of civs?
You have to admit, that getting to 1500 elo with 0 game knowledge is NOT a well balanced situation. For example you can not get to 1500 elo in chess by memorizing 2 openings and nothing else.
i’m not saying to remove other maps - i’m just saying thats why people enjoy it.
compare that to say a map that has extra hunting - that lends itself to a map where say - mongols have a distinct advantage - or a map with shore fishing ponds - that lend itself to an Indians advantage.
a map with extra berry bushes is going to give franks an advantage.
a map with extra sheep would favor tatars or britons as an example.
a map with fishing ponds on it is going to lend itself to persians, japanese, lithuanians, etc.
just as examples.
so teach them the basics in games against the ai, or with eachother. every single friend i have brought to aoe2 i have told to avoid multiplayer until they know how to boom, wall, basic unit control and counters, and at least 2-3 build orders.
go look at how long games in sc2 are lasting and come back and tell me age 2 games are ending way to quickly.
what is the point of having dark and feudal age if nothing happens during them? it makes the game slow and boring to watch if its just booming.
you’re not going to get to 1500 elo with zero game knowledge. someone without game knowledge isn’t going to be able to effectively boom or execute a build order well enough to get to 1500 elo.
You can certainly do things in these ages without needing to end the game. You can go lame, you can try and establish a sneak forward, etc.
Given that most search results for sc2 result in ‘is sc2 dead’, it might not be the best example to follow.
Yes you absolutely can. One of the friends I got to try the game did it. He remembers two build orders, doesn’t know most of the tech trees at all, nor the civ bonuses, but has a high enough apm and concentration to execute (previously played other RTS games especially starcraft, so I suppose that helps)
lol its ironic that you bring these up - you know how many people quit the moment they get lamed?
as for a sneak forward - i’ve seen those end the game too - but you literally just decried ending the game early and then bring up two strategies that tend to end the game early.
SC2 still has more players then AoE2 does. food for thought. and more people watching tournaments.
but even still - even back before SC2 was dead it was STILL a faster game then aoe2 is to this day.
do you know how many pros don’t know the full tech trees of civs? know how many times i’ve seen Viper have to pull up the tech tree to see if a civ he was playing had a certain tech or unit? you don’t need to know everything about everything to be an average player of the game. and FYI - executing a strategy is at the core of what RTS is, and you don’t need to know every little detail to execute a good timing strategy.
Unfortunately laming is one of the things I got my friends to practice early, as it’s one of the good strategies to delay the early raid from the opponent.
Well, the thing is, adapting the same style might have the same effect on AoE2, meaning AoE2 will be more dead relative to AoE2.
I get that. But his elo is clearly inflated. He’s not an 1500 player, at all. I just showed him two build orders that work on Arabia on his level. But if he played a map like Arena, he’d get trashed by an average 1200 player.
and yet its one of the most universally hated strategies and a lot of people tend to quit the moment they get lamed/
sc2 is dead because it stopped receiving support - not because it was fast paced.
do you know why the arena tournament is called the “clown cup”? because arena players were called “Clowns” because arena basically eliminates pretty much anything that isn’t a fast castle build order, slows the game down, and doesn’t really teach you how to handle early aggression.
it gives you a safety blanket that keeps you safe from mistakes you make. whereas more open maps encourage scouting and responding to what is actually happening in the game.
Well, that’s exactly why I spend so much time on helping my noob friends practice laming 
Since Arabia is popular and a very open map, it encourages you to take every advantage you can, which might occasionally include the opponents boar…
but on a more serious note, it’s a good way to practice a clean dark age. As you often have to multi-task in AoE2, it’s a good way to practice multitasking.
and that’s fine - but my point was - you were decrying games ending early - but here you are encouraging two tactics that end the game early - see the irony?
Unfortunately this is by necessity. Laming delays the opponents early aggro, allowing you to have more time to prepare. So if you scout the enemy base, and laming is an option, it’s worth going for it, thanks to the design of the map. As Arabia heavily punishes mistakes, not laming when you could have, often gets punished by an early army picking your eco apart.
doesn’t matter - you decry games ending early - and yet you encourage two strategies that do exactly what you don’t want. you know what else could lead to you not getting punished by an early army?
teaching your friends scouting and reacting to what they see. they got a barracks down? see if they start making militia and scout for other buildings. respond appropriately. or walling your base properly. both solid options. neither leads to the game ending early.
scouting and knowing how to react is one of the biggest tools in your belt in aoe2.
Isn’t laming also scouting and reacting Jokes aside, of course, your suggestion is also part of the ‘tutorials’