The worst Map Pool so far

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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I have to say first that im happy that AOE2DE has a map pool, because one of my biggest criticisms with Voobly/AOE2HD was how few variety of maps were populars on the lobbies. It was all around Arabia, Arena and Nomad. So having 9 maps with bans? Excellent. But i have to say that for this month, the maps are not just bad. They are terrible. Horrible.

Arabia, Arena and Golden Pit are classics so nothing much to say there. In Fact Arabia and Arena should stay forever in there.
Mountain Pass (aka Land Nomad) is just a poor’s man version of Nomad, because no having water means people will pick Mongols and Britons like ■■■■ because the herdables and hunting there is. Not to mention is much more forgiving for campers who like to wall. Nomad should also never be removed from the map pool ever.
Bog Islands is a team map. Probably the worst so far for 1vs1. Lose water and you are gg. Even worse than Islands because ships will range your whole eco.
Hill Fort is a terrible map also. Full of FC strategies and camping. Cant believe is still in the pool.
Megarandom is well know for being the most unfair map in competitive because 80% of the time is just a civ win depending on what you pick (which is probably mongols anyway)
Kilimanjaro is probably the only one that has a passing grade, but i dont find it better than Serengeti.
And continental is also a terrible map because how long these games can drag. 4 lakes is just much more fun to play than this.
And im not the only one who feels like this. Every streamer and pro-player i have seen so far today has been saying the same things. Many of them are demotivated to actually play because how bad the maps are. So please it would be nice that for the next patch and onwards, rather than just picking the maps you feel like, you could keep 4-5 static maps FOREVER, and the other half make some kind of poll in the forums. Because right now, no one wants to play like this.
AOE2 should ALWAYS have more open maps, than closed maps.

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I dislike both hill fort and megarandom. not enough bans for team games.

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I think i can enjoy the current map pool. The new maps are pretty new to me. I would see more open maps in the next pool too.

Here i made my suggestions for a next map pool.

I hope they will put more open maps in the pool next time. For sure for 1v1. I dont really care about team games. It also looks like the current opinion of pros and streamers about the team map pool is much better than the opinion about 1v1 pool.

I for example also suggested to have seperate pools for DM. I can see that some of the maps are OK-ish for RM, but really bad for DM.

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I actually love the variating map-pools with some “crazy”, not totally standard-maps! The only map, which I really don’t like in the current one (1x1 and TGs) is mountain-pass, but I can ban this

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I can understand, that someone do not like MR, but Hillfort is a great map. I like it much more than (e.g.) Arena

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I like wolf hill. Sadly, Game is full of civ pickers, and can’t go random there, since abuse of brittons/Lithuanians/aztecs

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You obviously have no clue, the first mappool with Rivers and Islands was the worst.

This one is the worst that came after the first, agreed.

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the map pool is disappointing, mostly because it’s not new

the main benefit of the way matchmaking works is that it could have provided variety. none of the maps might be people’s favorites, but it should have been an unbiased way to keep the game fresh and get people with different preferences to compromise and play new stuff

instead, the maps are almost entirely the same. having 1 new map and then people banning the 1 new map so you don’t play anything new is the worst possible outcome. that’s where we are, especially in teamgames

if i wanted to play the same maps every time, i’d rather we just go back to lobbies where players choose the map

if they stick to this forced map system, every month should be 7 new maps and 3 old maps with some bans.

instead it’s super repetitive because there are too many maps that are about the same thing. either you start with walls or you build walls, and nothing interesting happens before imperial age

that’s a fine playstyle to have in the game, but it should be in 2/9 maps instead of 7/9 maps

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Its a shame, really. They removed Serengetti, which was the 2nd most played map last rotation, to put in Kilamanjaro, which is Serengetti with even worse woodlines and hills.
They removed Islands to add Islands but with a small wall.
They removed Four Lakes (3rd most played last rotation) to add this sorry excuse of a map called Pog Whatever which will most likely be the least played.
They removed Nomad - which is considered a slow map, to add Mountainpass, which is an even slower Nomad without the water to speed things up.

And Hillfort is still a thing, for some reason.

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I agree with the original poster. I hate the new map pool, to the point where I am actually playing a lot less (maybe that is a good thing so I get more work done). Played that new Lake Map 3 times, and players just pick Lithuanians, hoard relics, and its gg. Its fairly lame honestly. All you can do is pick Lithuanians back. Even when Mongols have an advantage, you dont get like 100 boars, its just 2 or 3. So why should a map have like 100 relics on it? Why does that make sense?