Yeah but now defensive playing or early walling became harder without doing early rushes, so anyway the game will go aggressive which is like the defensive playing style almost gone, and maybe some of you will say ok don’t play Arabia, well i am not talking about making the game 2 parts, full aggression or full defense, i am talking about the balance of defense and offense at any map, and there are many deadly fully quick wall strats in Arabia can make a big surprise to your enemy and the fast castle strat almost disapeared from Arabia especially there are many civs are good only by going fast castle
and? earlier it was way to easy, and now aggressive play actually has a chance to counter wallers. so what’s the issue? that wallers can’t just wall and win? seems fine to me.
bullcrap - i still see walling in almost every game, and like it or not but team games are still very common and pockets almost always wall and go castle.
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Yeah but the fast castle strat almost gone and there are many civs don’t have the advantage except going FC
not what i’m seeing, still see a lot of very early castle ages.
Really? Because almost i don’t see anyone going FC especially in 1v1.
if walling isn’t effective why is it still used in almost every game?
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What’s good for realism might be detrimental to gameplay. If passive defense becomes a valid stragy, many games will result in a stalemate, where both players stay at their base, because attacking doesn’t pay off.
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There is a difference between hard and not used, and the FC strat almost gone by that
that’s not what i’m seeing.
Defense, done properly, is far easier than offense. One of the hardest things to do in the game is apply lethal pressure to a competent enemy. What the game actually rewards is activity, not aggression. If your idea of defense is to sit at home with your scout and prepare nothing, you will die.
That’s why all the counter units cost no gold, and are extremely efficient against their generalist counterparts, with the downside of lacking real offensive capability. As long as you keep your scout active and you keep an eye open for what your opponent is preparing, defense shouldn’t be hard. Seeing the number of villagers on gold and/or a Stable/Range is information enough in most cases.
Once you count quickwalling and rewalling behind, getting really effective damage that compensates for the initial investment in military (plus the potential idle you cause yourself with the micromanagement of military) is not a simple task unless your opponent has simply failed to take the proper steps to defend it.
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Play Europe Diplomacy/michi with infinite resources if you want that. There you can bombard tower spam.
Yeah, that’s true. I don’t think there could be any one ‘fundamental flaw’ of the game, with so many moving parts.
I always enjoyed the strength of walls and was going to say that unless the devs changed things, the OP’s comment seemed a little odd. And then I saw this comment by @Equalizer938341…
They seriously nerfed walls in a recent/latest patch?? Ugh. Should I start worrying that they’re trying to make AoE2:DE like AoE3? First with ‘all-in’ civs forthcoming in January, and now nerfing walls?
Dear devs, please don’t make AoE2:DE all about the Call of Duty’esque non-stop action frag-fests… nowhere to run, nowhere to hide… just pure adrenaline offensive rush rush rush. Keep all that in AoE3 where it belongs; where you have a faithful fanbase who enjoys that sort of thing and enjoys having only that option. Walls and forts in AoE3 tumble by just looking at them the wrong way. Please re-increase wall HP for AoE2:DE, and I’d argue to actually give them a little more HP. Or if you insist upon nerfing defenses, only do so for online multiplayer ranked matches where you can host your tournaments and have the non-stop adrenaline rush. Leave single-player and unranked multiplayer matches with friends out of this ‘everyone must play all aggro’ movement. In fact, for single-player/unranked multiplayer games, why not give players the option to choose datasets to choose from when you implement patches that drastically alter the way people wish to play and force them to play you want them to play (i.e., offensive strats vs. defensive)? Nerfing defensive strategies, or never lifting them up… always favoring offense, offense, offense… with walls and towers going down something akin to AoE3… will mean less and less AoE2 for me. As someone who enjoys playing defensive strategies, having nerfed walls, towers, and/or castles by way of patches won’t do much to attract me. I just prefer one of my favorite games of all time (AoE2) not be taken over by Call of Duty and Fortnite philosophies, where we need to drink a 6-pack of Red Bull before any and all matches, even unranked games.
So, yeah, maybe nerfing walls is a fundamental flaw. Guess I talked myself into agreeing with OP, thanks to Equalizer938341’s post 
they nerfed walls by making it take a whole 1 second longer to build. that’s literally it. people are still walling, it just takes longer.
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Wow, thank goodness. Thanks MatCauthon3!
oh and foundation armor got nerfed, but frankly thats a good thing. no more quick walling to save your villager.
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Perfect! Yeah, I was never a fan of seeing that strategy (i.e., I wish it wasn’t possible). I mean, I have great respect for players, like Viper and them, who could do that so well – including, I’m sure, players here in the community – it was impressive to see in action when done well … but it always seemed a little cheesy (for lack of better word)
The actual cost of the wall has gone up though given that a longer build time means more villager idle time not gathering resources. And when that 1 second represents more than 15% of the total build time of the structure, that adds up quickly when you need to lay 20 or 30 of them.
It was a pretty serious nerf, it has made early pressure far easier, but it wasn’t too harsh. Which is good, because I was very concerned about changing the build time for all the reasons above (I’d much rather have them up the cost a fair bit, but if it works, it works) and it seems alright.
Dude, spamming houses and walls is so easy people will know how to do it perfectly before even knowing that frank xbow+pike isn’t a viable strat. And if you want no agression in your lobby games, that’s easy, use treaty or agree with other players to not attack too much (I’m not even mentioning AI game cuz one random blacksmith outside of ur base is a good enough defense).
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Seems like i have a different opinion than @VibrantBoot6207. The current walling meta makes games already much more boring. Luckily the devs nerfed walls a bit in the latest patch, so we can see some more aggression. I really would like to see more full feudal wars. The full feudal wars have died in the past. No one seems to go full feudal anymore. This is the result of the power of walling.
the game has too much emphasis on offense. defense has no value.
increase tactics, strategies, defensive masterpiece more. --> more balanced and realistic.
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