Byzantines with bloodlines is a massive overbuff
1 Like
May be fine if the camels are no longer cheaper.
but that’s part of the identity of the civ…
I think there are better ways, like making the trash dicount a team bonus. And byzantines also only really need help for teamgames, in 1v1 they are fine.
The cheaper spearmen and skirmishers are still the significant identity.
Always no one can ignore the spawning power of Byzantine trash.
Nvm the fact 5 m@ ain’t free, a house attacked by 5 m@a will still survive 1 m 12 s if it’s being only repaired by one villager and it will cost only 15w, that should be enough time to do something about the attack that isn’t just more turtling.
That’s still equivalent to idling 2.5 vills. You need to sum up all the costs, the building time of the house, the repair time and so on.
It’s ofc better than idling 3+ vills, but it’s not only 1 civ idled.
Ofc it’s probably not worth it for the attacker, but it’s actually not that bad of a trade for a “poor” play. If you field military you want to ask continouusly questions from the opponent, attack from different angles and hopefully even break in.
And if you get like 75 % of the value you wanna get (about 3-4 idled vills are usually a worth equivalent for 5 maa) for a poor play, that’s actually much better than taking an unfavorable fight.
Ofc this only applies if you tear the house down in the end and that’s what the play of house walling is usually all about, to buy enough time to make a proper military response. And imo it can’t be less than 1 minute for this. That’s just the time you need to rush an archery range and train an archer.
I think this is quite nicely balanced there. If you managed to ask constant questions with your maa you gain a nice net positive value. If you only hit on houses you get slightly negative value and if you are countered by the opponent military you get very negative value from that play.
That’s how it should be. If you manage to use your units well you are revarded, if you use them poorly and the opponent has good containment you receive a small disadvantage and if you use them poorly and countered by the opponent you are punished.
I just want to mention that it’s also quite close of maa getting already good value from a poor usage and that’s risky. If it is pushed only a little bit more in that direction it would be almost “guaranteed” positive value from a maa play, regardless if you are using them well. That would be terrible for the game cause then the strategic balance would be completely destroyed and houses would be basically useless for damage control against that opener, limiting the diversity of the game even more.
I actually already begun to not place any houses in my walls anymore against archer civs, cause I must expect them to open maa at some point and I don’t want to offer a cheap “weak point” in my walls.
For containment I don’t have any other options to use houses though, they are just the only affordable multi tile building (palisades are just too hard to effectively execute because of their 1x1 tile size, much too risky to make any mistake there.
I don’t understand why people don’t like behind housewalling, it’s such a hard and revarding challenge. You need to be on point to execute this flawlessly and you only get a indirect revard by delaying the opponent to get too easily in your eco. You still need to prepare a real defence.
I think a lot of people underestimate how challenging this is, much harder than offensive unit control - and every little mistake will be punished heavily.
And most people aren’t capable to do this under archer fire, really. That’s so hard to do. And I think that’s also a reason why people “complain” about this. Because it’s the exeption, not the rule. And they are upset that there are people out there with the defensive capabilities for that kind of containment. But that’s how it must work. There must be a way for defence to stop that kind of agression, that’s how the game must work. The game is about attacking vs defending and if you want to be good at the game you need to be good at both and that means that it must be possible to defend.
5 Likes
Return the old game grass, please. Weeds embedded in the ground are visibly polluting our vision. Put an option to choose which type of grass we want to add.
Returning to Age II HD (2013) is my backup plan in case Age II DE gets too wacko for my liking.
At the time I am writing this though…I think that DE is in a fine spot.
4 Likes
How can an update be great if the devs still havent fixed the rating calculation?!
I agree, this update could have been even better if they solved everything… But at least there’s one thing they adressed : the arabia.
But just listen to this : they solved it USING SOMETHING THEY DID NOT CREATE THEMSELVES.
Maybe they should listen to some other ideas… (and for the rating calculation, we provided some ideas…)
I think the arabia is fine even if it is a bit too open imo.
It’s at least not that unfair and repetitive. But it is too agressive, it’s not the “real” arabia.
Arabia was a versatile map. Yes it was considered more “open” or “agressive”, but the great thing about it was that it allowed all strategies and playstyles to be viable to some extend.
This new arabie in conjecture with the wall nerfs is way too agressive, the stratgegic balance isn’t given anymore.
Why don’t devs just add a new map that is more agressive than arabia?
Why do the agressive minded poeple always demand changes to the most played map? Why it must be changes to arabia instead of adding just a more agressive map?
Arabia is a map for the whole community not the agressively minded people only. It’s not “their” map.
I really dislike this occupation of the formerly best, most versatile map everybody liked.
Do devs really think they made something wrong with the best map everybody liked?
3 Likes
Which version are talking about at this point. I guess we all can agree that the version before kotd was crap. And the one before was pretty much runestones so it’s a rather closed arabia versions which leads to drush fc a lot.
Thing is there is not clear best way to make a map allow for versatile plays. Liike imo runestones isnt more versatile than kotd arabia. Maybe except for all that hills making adding tcs quite hard.
So it’s always a decision between different styles.
There are maps that are more aggressive but it’s not the same experience as an open arabia.
You could as well ask why not make a semi closed arabia? That’s what happened. If people don’t want an open arabia there is runestones. So I don’t see the issue with having aggressive arabia as standard as it has been the case most of the time.
2 Likes
That’s just not true. Arabia favored agression a bit. But it never was a full agression map.
And that was the reason what made it so great.
As you mention:
And the reason for that is that arabia was the most versatile map. Yes, it favored agressive play. But it was always viable to play defensively there.
That’s why the community “chose” arabia over the other “full agression” style maps, that it was so diverse and all strategies viable to some extend while it maintained still high pace of the game and slghtly favouring agressive play.
The sheer fact that the community chose Arabia over the other available more agressive maps is the clear indicator that the majority of the community values the versatilty and diversity of the map higher than the high pace and sheer agression.
It’s just a false claim that is defied by the choice of the community. If the community would prefer agression over diversity we would have chosen a differen, more agressive map. But we didn’t.
And the devs need to learn that this whole “agressive” arabia is just a wrong narrative.
Please devs, give us our versatile arabia back!
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.
5 Likes
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?
1 Like
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?
1 Like
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.
1 Like
More trees doesn’t always mean more wallable.
1 Like