Treaty, Naval Maps and Nomad Age

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
1

Good day everyone, I hope all is well.

I have been playing the game for years, I never complained about any changes made to the game, nor I ever imposed on others the way they should play or what rules to follow, everyone has his own strategy and ways to win. Some ways don’t work on certain maps so players are forced to adapt to different kinds of gameplays/scenarios.

I only made this account on the forum for this post, because I’ve been hearing a lot of judgement and prejudice inside the game and I wanted to address that. I am a slow paced guy in the game, I mostly play 40/60 minute treaties on either half water/land or water maps with nomad age start. These settings are considered by many “Big Brain Time” individuals to be noob settings, I see it the opposite way in treaty.

Our planet is covered 71% covered in water, with rivers flowing through the land everywhere, there isn’t a single war in history when sea battles weren’t a thing. Massive funds had to be allocated to make these fleets and transport armies from one place to another. Ignoring this and playing the game without the aspect of water is in my opinion sorry for the word “Stupid”. I don’t expect people to understand this, especially Japan, Lakota and Aztec players. These kinds of people except you to play on a full land map, spam you with absolutely OP units and pretend to be pros at the game. Sorry guys spamming stacks of Hatamoto Samurais with 4 daimyos, stacks of Tashunke Prowlers and Tokala Soldiers, or stacks of Legendary Skull knights on a land map in a straight line to the enemies’ eco without the enemy having an option to deal with them is not a strategy. Hens comes the aspect of water.

Personally, I like controlling more than 3 types of units (Infantry, Cav and Artillery). Idk I’m not saying I’m a smart person but my IQ is definitely above room temperature, I can handle controlling ships at the same time plus they give a lot of maneuverability around the map. If your pc can’t handle a map with water and battleships just don’t play them. Don’t come into lobbies asking to change the maps/settings and calling people noobs for preferring them over land maps. But unfortunately most people complain because they can’t spam their OP unit in a straight line not because of the lag.

About nomad age, again, if you understand anything about warfare, you will never find 2 or 3 or 4 allies stacking their bases beside each other with 700 layers of walls, starting at exploration age eliminates the need for recon, you just know where your enemy is and on top of that you can’t get a strategic position depending on the map of course yourself, that might benefit your game. Battles weren’t fought always on open planes. Wars were won despite sever disadvantages. Winning most of the time is not about having the stronger army. It involves most of the time choosing a strategic position. Plus with treaty it gives you more than enough time to react and think of a strategy to mitigate your opponents advantage if he has any.

About this myth that I hear called “Farming only your half of the map”. Are you guys actually serious? Every once in a while I get these players who want you to farm only on your half of the map. This is absurd for a couple of reasons:

  1. Resources aren’t evenly spread out in real life, nations fight over them all the time, countries get destabilized because of there abundance. Thus they should be naturally, contested in the game too.(Food, Wood, Gold mines, Fish, Whales)

  2. Some Civs in the game are exceptionally good at eating everything on the map, this “rule” makes them a disadvantage on their own teammates as they are now taking from their resources instead of taking the enemies’.

I would really like to hear what you guys have to say about these points, I’m new to the forum so I don’t know how things go around here, but I believe I stated my points as clearly as possible. Thank you for the attention.

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There are a decent amount of water maps. AoE III also has bigger ship selection to AoE I and II (although they have build limits)

The thing is a lot of people find water boring and not fun in general. I personally share this opinion as water means monitors and I dont like the fact some ship can bombard my town from the other side of the map. Also it makes for certain civs to be OP who are focused on water like Portugueze.

Another thing is that as soon as you lose your docks its basically impossible to reestablish a navy. Maybe you manage to get a dock up again but as soon as you make one ship its getting bombared again. Its pretty easy to get stalemates based on map features not player choices. And I understand historically water played big roles but its also a game and has to follow gameplay above accuracy when necissary. And the option for you to play on water maps is there, no one minds if you play it its just generally people dont like water maps.

Then lastly about your nomad point. It doesnt really matter. You would optimally place your tc in a place that it provides save resources near it. You will see in nomad everyone will basically place the tc were it would have spawned in exploration age. Ofcourse you know where enemy tc is in exploration age, but how are you else going to do it? You dont want players next to eachother and you dont want a tc with only wood and nothing else close to you. Its just part of the game, and the reason most people pick exploration starting instead of nomad is therefor the fact that in nomad you would also place it in the same place making it kind of pointless.

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The monitor long range bombard attack already got pretty nerfed, and it can no longer snipe your buildings from across the map unless they are right on the shore.

Also, sniping docks is almost impossible with monitors since TAD (they do really low damage to docks), so that leaves caravels and frigates to seal the deal.

IMO, the arsenal upgrade that improves anti ship attack needs to be buffed, so that towers represent a danger to ships.

Re-establishing a dock shouldn’t be much of a hustle, you just need heavy artillery or culverins to clear the shoreline a bit. Setting a blockade in aoe3 is pretty difficult.

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Thank you for your comment,

However, I see multiple flaws in your logic.
Responding to your first point, some Civs in the game excel on water maps yes, but that severely puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to land battles, especially vs Civs with bad fleets who crush on land. Plus the resources in the sea are quite finite and sea farming is unsustainable once the fighting starts. (When u play vs Ports just rush docks and take a bunch of whales, if everyone did that which is almost the case every time you will cripple his advantage.

Losing docks is a problem yes, but easily prevented with towers and forts, place your dock in protected spots because they need to be covered from enemy fire. Monitors had been severely nerfed, they can’t destroy docks anymore, their range has been decreased and for them to be effective they have to be almost at the shoreline where they get shot at by your defenses and easily killed, get some culverins in the mix and you will have an easy time defending vs ships.

About your third point with the nomad age, I personally never put my base where it spawns and I don’t understand why people can’t wait 2 mins to find a better position, specially in a 40 or 60 min treaty. If you want to put in place it take 50 secs to build so I don’t look at it as this major setback plus it gives you exp when built and you have time to pickup a couple of treasures with your explorer for additional exp for a potential card as soon as you start. I play on Exploration age too but find those games to be all the same with difference just in player layouts.

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Players spamming one unit arent good and you shouldnt have issues with that. I want see you playing against aztecs and incas on water, you will change your mind about water maps. They are unfair.
About nomad, like others are saying, I think is a waste of time, you spend time searching other position where you could havent hunts or mines near and dont train villagers. If you do it on orinoco your economy will be nearer to the enemy.
HM is made for avoid armies next to your walls like samurais, opris or skull knights. Also it avoids civs like Germany or China of taking every tree on the map, too much needed for some civs like natives.
You can play with that settings of course but people will be saying the same to you repeatedly.

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Often the civs who have bonusses on sea are still good and decent on land. Portugal is still a good civ. Their organ gundoes very well against mass infantry and they have a very good skirmisher.

Dutch are also very good on water and are also good on land. I think also that you underestimate the value of water. I had a great lakes map were I went on water with swedes and at like 20-30 minute mark I already had like 22000 food purely from water. This gives an huge advantage throughout the game.

And about nomad age like the user above me also stated. The 2 minutes arent worth it to seek for a “better” place as first it can become longer then that and second your starting position is already the best position as their spawns 2 gold and 2 hunts near you automatically. The 2-6 minutes you take to find a worse sport resource wise gives your opponents a huge advantage. Heck some nations can have advanced to the next age by that time. You will always have a resource disadvantage unless the opponents missplay. And you can always build a second or third towncenter in the “beter” spot. And if its treaty you shouldnt worry as your settlers can safely gather there anyway.

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