Destroying all the landmarks to win is a good idea, but I think it raises new issues in multiplayer PVP games.
1. In 4V4 games, for example, it’s common for players to be destroyed by landmarks and quickly leave the game, forcing them to train their armies to defend themselves against multiple player forces.
Civilizations like Abbas are often kicked out of the game when the palace of Wisdom is quickly destroyed by the Fire Lancers, since you lose the landmark when it is destroyed. And your army is at war far away and needs no help.
2.Nomad maps will no longer be easy to play, because once they are sieged and kicked out of the game, they become few against many and are extremely difficult to reverse.
Suggestions:
Cancelled the way landmark victory will immediately kick out,
① Change the landmark is all destroyed must be rebuilt within 5 minutes, otherwise fail.
②Or give DEBUFF with the amount of resources collected significantly reduced, and 5 minutes to rebuild landmarks will expose all units’ view.
And so on
I think there are a lot of problems with just kicking the player out because the player’s landmark is completely destroyed. The penalties are so severe that players leave early, so in many cases the enjoyment of multiplayer is greatly diminished.
Imagine being attacked by two opponents and losing the game before your team FC can save you.
Being able to kick one member of enemy team out by destroying his landmarks early gives an important incentive to be agressive, and to defend properly. Often in teamgames people are very passive, and this looks to me like a good change. I dont play many teamgames though.
But I absolutely hope they will never do something like forcing me to waste another 5 minutes waiting for the opponent to fail rebuilding landmarks in every 1v1 game I play. The victory upon landmark destruction is designed to avoid exactly this. There used to be a lot of BM players in earlier RTS games dragging the game out forever.
I see only ONE issue. THe abba having only one landmark seems easily abusable. If enemy run in with tons of knights they can just run past everything and snipe their landmark. Meanwhile other civs can place their landmarks around in teammates bases to avoid this. Maybe there could be some extra building you could build that also count as a landmakr for abba and let them place this in team mates bases.
I think Landmark Victory is fine as it is but the problem is the Balance.
China can have 7 Landmarks (Including TC) while the Abbasides only have 2 (including the TC) and because you have to build the House of Wisdom in the Dark Age, you have to place it close to the TC, also because of the Golden Age Mechanic.
Mongols also have the advantage that they can move landmarks away from potentially dangerous spots.
Also some landmarks are Keeps and there for naturally harder to destroy.
One Idea:
Abbasides can move then Landmark Status from their first TC to any other TC (costs resources and TC production time)
Alternatively (or on top of that) the house of wisdom gets a defence ability with a relatively long cooldown (at last 5 minutes) that can give the player some time like:
Call guards that slowly lose health (like AoE3 TCs)
Do a mass conversion without a relic
Become indestructible for a minute
Maybe a idea for all Landmarks:
When a landmark is destroyed all other landmarks are indestructible for 1 minute (30 seconds for Chinese and 2 minutes for Abbasides)
Generally I think it’s a huge improvement over the normal Conquest mode because it prevents prolonged games and it gives strategic targets for attack and defence.
Moving the capital tc with a technology sounds very interesting. Could easily be exploited though. Like falling back and constantly moving the capital tc. Would make the Abbasids THE comeback/ hard to kill civ
I don’t think we’ve played the game enough to judge how reasonable landmark victory is. If you are anyone but the Abbasids you can build monuments in your allies base to decrease the risk of being sniped. Abbasids can likewise stone wall in their house of wisdom to decrease the risk of snipes.
Let’s wait for a few months post release and see how it plays out.
I completely agree with the OP here. The mechanic is neat, but needs tweaking.
When the last landmark is destroyed, you should not immediately lose. Instead, the devs need to add a timer that counts down and a more prominent warning to the player should flash on screen along with an alarming sound:
If you just skip to towards the end (42 minute mark), you’ll notice that the player’s main army is destroying the enemy base, but then suddenly the Defeat screen shows up. Turns out, the player didn’t even notice his landmarks were all destroyed. In the post-game remarks, Spirit of the Law stated that even if he did know that was his last landmark, he would not have made it in time. In the game, he was holding his own against two opponents and razing one of the opponents. In the post-game, it was clear he had the highest military score. Imagine losing your best player on your team at a critical point due to a funky game mechanic.
This raises a few issues for when your landmarks are attacked and destroyed.
The warnings are not alarming enough: they do not capture your attention and can easily get missed when managing multiple aspects of the game.
The warnings are not specific enough: you can not easily differentiate between when your allies’ landmarks are under attack vs. when your own landmark is under siege.
Even if you did know your landmarks were being destroyed - there’s no way to respond in time.
Granted, you are responsible for protecting your base. Period. However, I suspect the gameplay mechanic for destroying landmarks was more to prevent defeated players from scattering across the map with a few units to spite the victor. Here, if a weaker player is able to focus an attack on all the landmarks and destroy them, they would instantly win. It’s smart and devious if you know the mechanic, but is this really the mechanic that the devs intended? I suspect even previous Age players may be confused by the specifics of the new win conditions and would be baffled as to why they suddenly lost.
A timer before defeat after your last landmark gets destroyed would help with the confusion associated with how this mechanic currently works
I think team games need a different Landmark mechanic from a 1v1.
Right now destroying landmarks is technically not a victory condition it’s a lose condition.
You are kicked out when you lose all landmarks.
Maybe it should only be a victory condition. You have to destroy all landmarks to win but the individual players don’t lose when they lose all their landmarks.
The best way would be to allow that as a setting in the lobby.
They could allow as to choose that in the lobby settings in the next beta (if there is one) so they can see if that change would be good for the game.
Mongols can just move their landmarks.
My idea would be that it costs 200 Gold (maybe 100 Gold more for every time you do it again) and takes like 30 seconds (10 seconds more for each time you do it) of build time in that TC. So it damages your economy when you do it.
You can also add a spy technology to the previously suggested change, which is developed when you destroy all of your opponent’s landmarks. The price is related to the number of villagers.(like AOE2)
I think there are many changes that can be balanced. But now, this requires adjustment.
Might be unfair but was history too when armies united against one common enemy, so i don’t see anything wrong (besides unfair) for this victory condition
The House of Wisdom gets additional Hitpoints the more you upgrade it. And since you build it next to your starting TC it should be easy to protect. If you lose it, you deserve it. Besides, their opponent will still have to destroy your starting Town Center.
Only your first TC counts as a Landmark. It would be nice to have all TCs count as a Landmark, in the mean time, in team games I typically suggest to my teammates to build a few landmarks in or near other people’s bases just so they can stay alive if their base gets invaded.
I like this alternative as well. Until your entire team has their landmarks destroyed, you can still stay in the game. At the moment, the game decides for you that you have lost and automatically boots you.
