i can think of one game in all the tournaments i have watched that went this late and was then decided by malay fish traps (infinite food at the time)
it’s incredibly rare situation on water maps too. this feels like you are trying to solve a problem that doesnt exist
I’ll be honest. I have no hard data for this. I don’t think this kind of data even exists. I suspect it happens significantly more often on water maps, still not super often, but perhaps that is not the case.
Also I suspect whatever percentage it does happen on both land and water maps, it’s at least 10x rarer for pros. Still the majority of players aren’t pros.
Call me crazy, but I don’t think the right path is to add a bunch more complexity like this. It makes ships way too much like land units, which seems wrong to me.
I would be more intrigued if they actually went the opposite direction and added some new wonder-like ships, each one capable of singlehandedly obliterating navies of galleons and the like. In late imperial, that would mean sea combat would largely be a sort of 1v1 duel, where high-intensity micro becomes very important, and repairs become more valid.
Each different cultural area could have their own unique flagship, with different abilities, strengths and weaknesses.
For example, the western european ones could have a Ship of the Line, a massive ship-based organ gun, that fires sprays of small cannonballs capable of destroying multiple galleons in a single shot. It would be highly effective at close range, but relatively ineffective at longer ranges.
The nice thing about this would be, it would become much more viable to get back onto the water, since you’d only need to build one ship, and it would allow most of your pop cap to be used on land. It would also dramatically set water battles apart.
A+ for creativity, I’ve never heard anyone suggest something like this, but unfortunately I’m not really a fan of the idea.
I like the dock it currently is, complement land maps or land/water hybrid maps. dont feel the need for change, especially not 2 docks
I only tried destroying bridges via triggers not repairing them, good to know.
They could change how the game works.
The hacky solution would be to make shallow water walkable but add an invisible building onto each tile.
yeah, making them navigable by ships would look stupid.
Shallows exist from Dark Age and can’t be destroyed.
Bridges would be a Castle/Imperial Age thing that needs time and resources (probably including Stone) to construct and can easily be destroyed.
An alternative would be to add “repairable” bridges.
So the player can invest resources (Stone) to repair the bridge but it can be broken again.
It would probably be the best to add the “fast” water as a new water type instead of modifying the existing deep water.
I think a lot of changes should be tested in isolation in general-
I suggest 3 packs of changes:
Plus a few additional changes like giving Siege more bonus damage against ships or adding builder ships that can build on water.
Those changes could be tested in isolation.
Especially the first set which just adds new options for map creators and you can just play an old map if you don’t like them.
Always though it was strange that land and water units can navigate shallows at full speed. It would be interesting if both were slowed down.
It would make fighting over shallows more interesting.
But why is Gold infinite then?
And you can play on Dark Forest were Wood is practically infinite.
I think adding a neutral Wood trader would enable map creators to make interesting new maps and could open up some new map types that are currently impossible because you gotta have to have enough trees to make it playable.
I’m not advocating for changing existing maps.
They should test any such change long enough to be confident that the majority of people likes it, not just force it onto people over night.
So this situation won’t happen.
You need to remember that not every game is a professional 1v1 game.
There are a lot of people playing casual team games.
Those very often get into the late game stages.
Maps like Team Islands are pretty defensive and can relatively easily get into a stalemate because neither side can afford ships anymore.
Adding a neutral market that allows you to trade for wood would be a balanced and easy to add feature for map creators.
Unlike janky things like respawning trees or whatever other methods map/scenario creators use to make games last longer.
I think AoE2 is the wrong game for something like that.
AoE1/2 decided on making ships “small” and the engines and maps are not well suited to the movement of giant units.
That’s like 2 centuries too modern for AoE2.
Well, if there’s any place it would work, it would be on water! That said, I’m not talking about a truly enormous ship, just maybe 4 times the size of a Thirisadai.
Galleons were invented in the 16th century, Ships of the Line were a 17th century thing, so it’s a matter of a few years either way tbh.
We have 3 different water though. Darkest deep sea water can work as hill equivalent.
Another unpopular idea, is to make galley-line and cannon galleon 3 pop space, fireship 2 pop space and others generic ships remain in 1 pop space.
This whay, galleon snowball is less oppresive,because in a normal game, easly you can stock 60 galleons, with which you can block almost any attempt to retake water.
If you limit the number of galleons by increasing its pop space to 3, then it is harder to block new docks because you have less ships to cover oponent’s shore. Which force the player with water control to land quickly if he wants to keep the advantage.
You mean something like an attack (speed) boost or defensive boost for being on certain types of water?
Maybe:
or something like that.
Hot take:
Water and Land population should be independent from each other.
Only Fishing Boats and Trade Cogs should count to land population.
Don’t think this would be necessary. Only with more pop for galleon and similars UU it would be enough.
Plus, the different water terrain effects and maybe an improve in landing mechanism.
Talking about this, if galleon would be the only ship with garrison capacity and taking 3 pop space, easly we could remove transport ship and give galleon a great carrying capacity.
Another idea is, asuming galleons would be garrisonable, they could recieve different boost depending of the unit garrisoned, making them super customizable. Attack type should be changed to only arrows instead of bolts.
For example:
-Infantry boost speed movements.
-Archers, boost number of arrows.
-Scorpions, add a bolt proyectile.
-Mangonels, add a stone shot, like dromon but with less damage and range.
-Vils, add regen ability.
I mean exact same as hill : +25% damage dealt and -25% damage taken.
I think coastal fortifications should at least appear in campaign scenarios.
But what would be the logic behind that?
Just copying something 1 to 1 from land seems kinda strange.
Like towers that can only fire in an arch?
Like only 180° coverage or something?
Could be a cool buildings for scenarios.
Water Walls Gates and Towers 
But they already appear sometimes.
Sea Towers are kinda bad though.
Sea defenses sounds terrible for me. Ausence of walls is something that makes water gameplay unique and different of land gameplay. It would just take off the little fun that water gamplay has.
They were in scenarios since the original AoC.attila 3d scenario.
No realistic logic. I want to treat game as game firstly. And copy-pasting land mechanics will be the best way to make water gameplay more appealing.
Well, since a gameplay perspective, boost or penalty in speed fits with naval warfare. If water next to shore would make ships move slower then defense and retake water would be easier.