The current situation of dark age is far from ideal. It is basically an age where people try go get over with as fast as possible, even militia rushes got extremly rare. It goes so far that pros even suggest to shorten the dark age by half by only starting with 9 vils in the future.
I would regret this. It is an elementary part of the game, and we should, if at all, make it more than less viable.
My simple suggestion would be: give it 1 or 2 more units, not strong ones, weak ones, but to give more options. There should be a case for more than 1 in 100 games where a player decides for a dark age rush.
Better aoe2 experts can suggest the nature of these new units, my simple proposals at this point would be:
Hammer-warrior: warrior with extra 1 or 2 pierce armor and +8 bonus against buildings → killing a TC is still unlikely, but not impossible anymore
Something around the idea of a stone thrower. Or maybe just give the vils the option to use their bows ALSO against humans.
And we also need to remove villager war in dark age, giving 2 or 3 weaker units to fight is good, player cannot focus on collecting resources or making war with villagers.Like which villagers on dark age fight for one boar in a vast country with another country or civilization. Cheaper and weaker units should defend resources till feudal.
The game has become so complex it’s no longer a healthy RTS, the requirements to play it online is too high, I’m sure new players playing offline enjoy it more than experienced ones in multiplayer. It’s no longer a strategy game, it’s an apm war
Agreed. I think they should add special abilities like in AoM. It was originally planned for the game in the beta, and that was over 20 years ago, but clearly micromanagement is too common these days.
LimitedViper climbed to 1600 elo so this is a strategy game until 1600 elo at least. I’ve been defeated by low apm players in 1200 elo 1v1 many times. They have resources enough to counter.
When looking at the thread topic I would actually conclude to different strategical options in dark age.
Imo it’s ok if there is only one military option, but it needs to be usedul, a valid option to go for.
Lastly there is one concept that would “spice things up” a bit . If there was a way to increase the economy in dark age (for example if you were able to build a “Hut” or similar building as it exists in one of the WDC2 Maps. Where you could train vills, but slower than in the regular TC. This could be interesting, as it would allow to strategically delay feudal to get that eco rolling. Ofc as the game is rn it would be almost impossible to defend against the current feudal rushes. But with some adaptations it could possibly lead to a very early strategic decision to take between early aggression, getting the feudal timing (possibly with the risk of pushing deer early and not seeing what the opponent does) and adding eco (or ofc going for something completely different like a fc)
I think this could make the dark age way more appealing than it is atm where everybody jsut tries to outrun each other to the feudal scout rush.
I think the problems are, as you say, the lack of a good military option in dark age. Militia is too expensive for dark age. I would add a really cheap trash infantry unit, or split militia-line as I proposed several times.
Others problems I see is the huge amount of free food available close to TC and the high wood cost of gathering buildings (this adds a new layer in militia problem, because you must spend 100w in a mining camp). Nothing promote players to give an step further from TC until late feudal age.
My suggestion, reduce free food close to the TC and add more spreaded in the map. This way players are forced to look for more free food, which give militia more oportunity to make damage, or stay safe in home farming, but with a worse eco.
I’d be open to making the Dark Age a fuller part of the game, instead of a nuisance step to boom through. Perhaps more objectives need to be met before ageing up is possible. Eg. explore 20% of the map, or kill 5 enemy units, or gather 15 herdables, in addition to the existing food and building requirements. Things that would force you out of your micromanaging boom, and force you to interact with the map and your neighbours more, using just the militia.
I’m also in favour of the suggestion to spread free food further from the starting TC.
Perhaps also, all players start as neutral, and you can’t leave the Dark Age until you’ve established enemy or ally status with the other players? This obviously wouldn’t work for multiplayer, but I don’t play multiplayer…
Sometime ago I wrote about a potential overhaul, where Spearman and Skirmisher are moved to the Dark Ages, and the Militia unit is removed (so the swordsman line starts in the Feudal Age). I think it might be appropriate to re-share it here, as I think adding Spearman and Skirmisher could liven-up the Dark Age meta.
I disagree with adding more combat to the Dark Age. The Dark Age primarily exists for a slow start with scouting and building up your economy. Adding complex combat to it takes away from that purpose and makes it hard to actually build up any momentum. It’s the same reason I don’t play Empire Wars, because it’s hard to get the ball rolling immediately in Feudal.
I like start the game slow with a little warm up routine like the dark age. I want to have as little fighting as possible during this phase and use the time to check my suroundings, plan my bae layout, and decide of a strategy to go for. I have a thrill whenever I or my opponent reaches Feudal age like the start of the battles.
I do not want to skip this somewhat peaceful time, and do not enjoy Empire wars that much for this reason.
I am fine with milicia rush because milicia trade poorly against villagers and is a big investment making it not the go-to strategy.
I wouldnt mind much a 9 villagers start even though I like 3 villagers start much more as a player.
As a watcher, I am fine with any of these 3 settings, for me it is a up ti the players, casters, and organisers to decide.
I am not bored by the slow start.
I am fine when the casters talk about the civ bonuses, it is good for more casual fans who didnt have the dedication to learn them.
I am happy when the caster talk about some specificities of the matchup, which I do not understand well at high level.
And I hope that players who want fight from the start of the game will enjoy Empire Wars.
if you stop playing maps with nothing on them (eg. arabia) and completely artificial/predictable maps (eg. arena), 3 villager start is fine and dark age is paced perfectly
the problem is that the devs keep forcing everyone to play the worst possible map pool. even beyond arabia/arena, there are so many garbage maps and things like pre-explored settings that they keep filling ladder with.
FE made empire wars, axed death match in favor of it, runs their main tournament in it, and people will still complain about Dark Age. Some people just like being naggers.
Precisely this. The dark age is designed to give you a chance to plan your game, setup your base, and setup your economy for your chosen strategy, any fighting in Dark Age is incidental. Anyone who doesn’t want to go through the first stage of the game can just play Empire Wars.