So which one was the versatile one? Btw it is true that most of the time arabia was super aggressive. It was only in DE that open arabia changed into semiclosed arabia aka runestones. And I dont think runestones is more versatille than kotd arabia. As mentioned the only thing which might not be great from balance perspective is too many hils.
Basically you criticize the aggressive arabia narrative in favor of a semiclosed one. That’s fine but you argue that this is grounded in the games history (clearly false statement) and in the claim of versatility (imo false as well, at least highly contestable).
Everyone can have their opinion about hard or easy to wall arabia. Personally I also prefer the more defensive ones as that fits my playstyle better. But giving that opinion and claiming the runestones one would be long established and allows more variety is two different things.
Tbh I’m pretty annoyed by these kinds of posts people give their personal preference and try to disguise it as an argument for whats right or wrong.
Share your preference, yes pls. But don’t claim this is how the game should be played.
Funny, but it’s right the opposite.
I react to the devs listening to people making these kind of false claims how the game should be played. They claimed that it needs to be more agressive. Not me.
I try to defend the game from the takeover of the “only agression” mindset of some people who are extremely penetrant in proclaiming there own subjective perception of the game.
And yes I see the game in great danger of losing a majority of the playerbase that loves it because of it’s strategic diversity.
Edit: Or a strog divison of the playerbase into “offensively” and “defensively” minded players. We already see this in the slow climb of arena players. that can’t appreciate the gearing of arabia towards more and more agression anymore. If the second most played map is clearly more defensive than agressive this should be a strong indicator for the devs that the most played map everybody could agree on before has already become “too agressive” for a lot of players. They just don’t complain as loud, they just chose a more defensive map where they aren’t forced to play a playstyle they can’t appreciate.
Ah yes, the game that survived for years off Huns wars (ie.featured a grand total of 0 houses) is totally going to die because houses can’t keep armies out forever anymore. Sure thing.
Also the whole stitch about going against the common bias and how arena players hate agression is funny, care to tell what you said when arena players complained about war wagons agression mhhh?
Ofc defensive minded players can also be biased. Totally agree.
You see, I try to keep the objective view and also criticize if defensively minded players demand to shift the game towards more “turtling”.
My greatest concern is indeed that because of this arabia changes we will divide the playerbase and everybody needs to take a side then cause players can’t agree on a versatile map anymore.
If agressively minded people can’t appreciate arabia anymore that’s fine. Give them their “alternative” desertificated arabia. But please don’t change the map 80 % of the playerbase formerly could agree on playing on.
There is absolutely no need to change arabia for that. If arabia would indeed be too “defensive” the playerbase could slowly shift to the new, more agressive deviation from arabia. But please don’t force the players to play a more agressive arabia only because a small amount of very demanding players want arabia to be changed and force other players to comply to their subjective very agressive perception of the game.
Please devs, allow the playerbase to decide themselves what kind of map they want to play. That measn if there is a Map that is played by 80% of the players there can’t be much bad about that map. If you think that there might be optimisation potential for that map, create a new version that you give as playable alternative. Don’t replace the most liked map of all.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
Generally I don’t understand why these agressive minded people always demand changes to arabia. Can’t they just propose an alternative map design as an alternative? Why do they want to force everybody else to comply to their subjective perception of the game?
I’m sorry but it sounds like you didn’t read Davyman’s post explaining that semi open Arabia isn’t what arabia was for most of its history and that Runestones is a semi closed arabia substitute. Also since runestones is mentioned, it’s right there for people who prefer it over opened Arabia variants.
You spoke about openness and ofc more woodlines mean less open.
Sorry but that narrative that arabia was more open/agressive is just wrong. The stats just show that undeniably.
And also we know that formerly arabia was played way more defensively outside of huns war.
I don’t know why you even try to claim the opposite. Often it was a stone walling feast with chinese stone walls.
Ofc this was way to defensive for our current standards, but the narrative it would have been more agressive is just wrong.
But isn’t this statement already increadibly biased? Like where is that takeover? I mean isnt what happened that the meta became increadibly defensive and there basically was no feudal age aggression except for making couple of scouts or drush. I mean so many people complained that arabia as an open map became full walls vs full walls. And from the games I played and saw in tourneys or on ladder I share that perception.
So where is that takeover? So the patch was rather a reaction to very defensive meta. And kotd ara was added bc of tourney. Might be changed soon again. Although I think it’s a pretty good arabia.
Maybe people like arena bc its a good map? And even if it’s bc of people being tired of aggressive maps that’s totally fine. At least here you don’t pretend you play an open map just too wall everything and go castle age.
I agree that drush FC was too strong. But that’s only one single strat. Also it mostly was to set up for later agression with xbows or knights.
I think if only one strat becomes too strong in the meta this doesn’t justify for a major change that affects so many other strats.
Also the change isn’t well targeted as the new design actually favors militia line openers even more.
Lastly it’s not true we didn’t saw feudal play. It maybe wasn’t as much as we probably would like, but there was feudal play and it was important.
It’s a heavy exaggeration to claim that there was no feudal agression - and btw it was way more archer play than scout play…
And in the current kotd we saw a lot of full feudal actually. Is this the goal we are aiming for? Most games decided in feudal already? Where half of the unit variety isn’t even available? Where you can’t even get greedy with your TC addition?
And whoever gets the advantage in feudal can then snowball the game out of control with adding then the right amount of TCs while continueing being agressive?
I liked it the way it was before that the more “defensive/greedy” player in feudal was forced to take the initiative to have a comeback. With the new heavy feudal play that’s not longer possible cause the one who got the advantage in feudal can add eco behind his agression and there is basically no comeback potential for the one who is behind.
It’s better we had it the way before, where the military snowball wasn’t as strong and the best way to snowball was to be greedy, this lead to very exciting games as it allowed for comebacks
Also interesting thing that this lead to a constant adaption to the current game situation, as the way to snowball was inversed to the way to get a lead or come back into the game. I think this was one of the key ingredients of the game being exciting. You needed to adapt all the time to the situation.
That’s what a strategy game should be about, constant adaption. That’s what makes it so exciting.
No, the meta was very agressive. At least in high elo (not pro, pro games usually are much longer than 1800-2000). Many games not even reaching imp.
Who said that? I think it’s a totally acceptable strategy. Ofc it shouldn’t be meta in arabia, but it also was never meta. It was more exception, just be fair here. We saw it, but it was never meta.
More often we saw drush FC which was a bit too strong, I agree there. But that can’t be an excuse to destroy the whole stratgic variety the map offered before. That’s hypocrit.
EDIT: I also don’t want to be all “negative” here. I already proposed a smooth solution that would encourage more feudal play and nerf drush fc: Just let castle age take 20 seconds longer to research. Easy solution that wouldn’t reduce the strategic diversity but smoothly give the right little tweak into a bit more feudal play.
Well MbL just tower rushed bruh’s woodlines yesterday in KOTD 4, but not as soon as feudal age started, obviously. I’m not familiar with pre-DE tower rush but I assume it was way faster than the one performed in MbL vs bruh’s game.
He was Incas vs Sicilians. Donjons really are too wood heavy to counter tower rushes, and eagles make short work of any archer/skirm combo.
Yeah, let’s keep the same speed they have now, what could go wrong? oh yeah, they are useless and a meme. I don’t care if they nerf the base stat to compensate or whatever, but in a game like aoe2 ,slow speed melee unit = useless unit. Siege units like Ram is an exception because it has huge hp pool and p armor to compensate.
That’s fair, but I have better raiding options as Malian, why would I want to build gbeto? it’s a redundant unit.
That’s false advertisement in a lot of cases. If they face against range UU, they are goners. They are only useful against melee UU. But then why would I wanna build them while champ + pike are cheaper and far easier to train?
That’s another topic for another day. Why do I want to complain about that in this thread? And yes I do have complains about that too.
Pre-DE Trush started as soon as reaching Feudal, with 4-5 forward Vills and maybe 3 M@A. MBL seems to prefer making a few Archers before going forward with 2 - 3 Villagers. It’s not as aggressive as it was, but I’m pleased to see it working at the tourney level anyway. And I hope it catches on more during and after the tourney.
honestly they could easily raise the wood costs for palisade walls by another 1 or 2 lumber.
heck, add 1 stone to it for all i care. palisade walls are a cheese tool in its current form and needs to be addressed.
when i think of medieval pitched battles between nations i get pictures of epic clashes of armies, not peasants juggling stick walls to juke access to a particular area or blocking building foundations.
Interestingly you get this more in game when people have walls to protect the eco. If you can’t raid the eco you’re much more likely to take a fight against the army. Less walls means more mobile raiding than pitched battles.
If you want actual pitched battles something like Medieval Total War is perfect for that.
