In fact, there has been a big controversy surrounding the usage of the fort strategy with Italians. Some corrupt or non-competitive mindset calls it “bug” or “abuse” which to me it’s not correct or reasonable because this is available in the game and is available for all players. Comparison to other rts games of this genre it’s the example like malian scouts previous patch on aoe 4 was quite strong but the competitive mentality player like beastqt used it in the tournament. This type of the complaint therefore it’s not a correct one or a right approach if we are trying to be constructive and promote balance instead of bias.
But in fact when we consider the fort in aoe 3 de to the other games of rts genre like aoe 4 where the fort (aka the keep) it’s much more of usage then it’s quite clear that the fort in aoe 3 is underused and aoe 3 is the outlier and strange unusual phenomenon of the rts genre. Actually, forts has been used heavily in all the age of empires frachise games and it’s quite strange to me when there is complaints about the fort in aoe 3 de?
Furthermore, forts add a new dynamic strategic type of the variety which allows games to reach a higher strategic depth in the later stages of the game than the ones which end super early. With all these benefits of the forts, I would like to ask the aoe 3 community why is the hatred of the forts? If anything, the under-usage of the forts shows of their underperforming nature currently, and if anything therefore the forts should result in a buff. Actually, it’s quite arguable that not only the Italians but several other civs should have access for the cheaper and fast-building forts. This way, there would be greater strategic rts depth in more games.
I acknolwedge there is a counter argument which is the forts combined with the walls (especially bastion walls) creates too much bias in the late-game direction. Sure, even though late stage game is better for variety and strategic depth option, it’s too easy to get there with the forts PLUS walls. That is what the critics say. But that is not a good argument imo because it’s quite easy to see that walls are UP and underperforming in the current state, but that has been demonstrated with the proof in other topics. Reasonable minded readers can seek those topic for the proof.