The most part of time I see on forums that the actual Arabia is not the original or the real Arabia, a question comes to me: What do you consider the real one, or at least the most playable one?
That thread would serve to devs in order to change the map and set with the desirable characteristics for the community.
Love to see your opinions and comments.
You can check two posts of mine (photos included):
You can tell just by looking at the pictures I uploaded there- how different the current map we have is from the map we used to play for 20 mins that was called Arabia, the original one.
Well the original one is not necessary the playable one.
For the playable one - the current is fine, as well as the previous ones, in the sense that at least one strategy is viable. I am also convinced that there are no maps that serves a lot of strategy (yes including old / original Arabia)
Okay, I mean, I cant argue with your intuition/feelings, AOC Arabia offered much more strategies, you can read my posts.
Even Hoang lines up with the current Skirms meta and no longer goes for a smooth radical FC. MBL goes for the same Archery meta rather than his famous Pike+Siege push, Chinese players no longer Trush, even TheViper no longer goes for Unique Units rush.
Palaside Arena walls and defensive Archery range, you call this strategy.
(followed by boom of course, everyone mass TCs these days)
I recommend you to watch recorded games on Youtube from 2019-2018. 
I really miss the old arabia : ( Used to be my favorite map, now gets a ban almost every time i play. ;_; i can’t stand the thin woodlines.
I think the current Arabia offers a few more strategy, but I will claim here that the 2020-Arabia only offered full wall as only strategy.
(I read your post, I dont intend to argue that current Arabia is good (which you claimed to be false in your post) but rather AOC arabia is equally bad)
Like seriously, are there any tournament game (after er 2018 / before 2021) that does not involve drush Fc or flush FC?
Btw I just got destroyed by hoang market-FC a few days ago, dont feel like hoang style is outdated in these days (rather I think hoang refined his strategy), as I dont think hoang walls a lot previously anyway.
Hoang didn’t refine his strategy, he was forced to adapt, or else he wont be able to survive feudal archer attack on his woodline (4-5 trees thickness on top of a huge distance from the TC). So he just kept up with the meta rather than maintaining his innovative style.
I wrote about this elaborately before.
The original Arabia may not be perfect, at times even unbalanced, yet its core served a solid strategic environment. And that’s what kept the game alive for so long, the ability to maintain a high degree of competitiveness via strategy. These days the game is dying in this exact aspect, you watch Teutons vs. Celts and all you get is Skirmishers wars into 3TC boom party. Every game no matter the match up, survivability has taken over actual strategy. This sucks, game used to be so enjoyable to watch. People used to legitimately go for so many diverse tactics.
I even suggested a solution, a mid-ground, somewhere between AOC Arabia and the Desert we got today. (*again, I’m not talking about the openess of the map, AOC Arabia was as open at times, it had less woodlines)
I think the hills hurt hoang, but otherwise hoang never full walls so both arabia is the same anyway? Would be nice if you can provide link to your elaboration(archers can shoot through walls so thicker woodline does not help)
I think less woodlines are not what prevent people from full-walling - people will full wall even if there is no woodline, as proved in land madness.
The issue with full walling right now is that the woodline will be exposed so you cannot always full wall now. With your change, I think that helps too much for people to full wall.
The issue imo is that walls are too cheap and too fragile. I suggested to widen the woodline, increase wall cost and hp dramatically (talking about on scale of 500hp 6W previously in some of my post) for some true meta change.
Tldr: reverting to AOC arabia alone just reverts every problem, while aggressive play may be too strong nowadays (which is not the point so no argument), previously fedual aggressive play is too weak in AOC arabia because walls op.
The new Arabia made Hoang so much more frustrated, it’s less about walls and more about how little of an investment needed by his opponents to completely delay his Castle Age time, by forcing him to go defensive Archery Range. Thicker woodlines mean that his opponent isn’t able to just send a spear and 2 archers and shut down a whole woodline from the other/outer side of the woodline.
At the past you’d have to pull a strategic card, like going Trush or heavy Archers + MAA attack, we want commitment, we want the aggressor to have the ability to invest all he got in the momentum- which is his easiest win condition.
I dont think that “aggressive play is too strong nowdays”, that’s the other way around, people dont commit, you dont see much 1TC play, unless one is forced into one (most of the time because he built a defensive tower and got no stone for TCs), you want people to choose to be aggressive, a strategic decision. People just buy time with some Skirms, wall up and go to their 3TC castle age fantasy. That’s what I call pseudo aggression.
Here are 3 examples of few of our best players play with thick woodlines, games are far more enjoyable to watch, you just dont know what to expect.
Real one? The one from the original Age of Kings. Most playable? Probably the one that DE was released with, which if I recall correctly was pretty similar, but with fairer resource distribution and sheep closer to your Town Centre.
What I don’t get is why people talk about “AOC Arabia”. Arabia was from The Age of Kings, and was not changed for The Conquerors.
(Disclaimer to deter pedantry: there was actually one change, they removed ai_info_map_type ARABIA from the script… no idea why they did that, but it only changes AI behaviour, not the map itself.)
What I don’t get is why people talk about “AOC Arabia”. Arabia was from The Age of Kings, and was not changed for The Conquerors.
You’re right regarding this one. AOK = AOC when it comes to Arabia. However when I refer to AOC Arabia I also consider the many “Dry” version we had back then which behave as the stable twin brother of the AOK Arabia.
Could enjoy some changes, though you’re right here as well.
Honestly I would prefer modern games more than voobly games.
The difference between voobly AOC and DE AOC is simply too huge, mainly because of various pathing issues and control issues that makes archer play much more relevant than before.
Also there is a huge improvement of player standard in general, like quick walls are considered extraordinary in before but basic nowadays. People will figure out how to counter off meta strategies naturally, and it will be harder to create strategy out of the box compared to games 4 years earlier.
For the hoang issue, I think two archers and one spear can always do damage? I still think it is adaption - is there any hoang game that can help from only thicker woodlines?
Just to show you how much the games are outdated - for game3, modern players will always go archers counter-attack really quickly instead of anti-tower, that will destroy Tim’s economy fairly quickly (instead of scouts), so such all-in tower rushes are rarely seen (the first tower does not do much)
In fact, I think Arabia is solved pretty much in the past two years, thats why a change was needed.
I think we can stop arguing whether current Arabia is good or not - again my point is that old Arabia is bad.
Ornlu just made a Video of how Maps have been changed since AOC.
It’s pretty clear that the current Arabia isn’t the original one.
And it’s also clear that this is a result of people claiming how “arabia should be played”, not because of people complaining about it was “figured out too much”.
Arabia for long time featured a lot of different strategies. And imo the current version of Arabia is actually one of the most “meta” versions we ever had.
IMO current Arabia is more meta than hideout.
And this development is a bit weird to me cause imo Arabia became so favourite because of it’s former versatility. Maybe it’s just how this stuff always goes. If Runestones is now the versatile Map it may become the new arabia (after some tweaks maybe), and then will be desertified aswell.
I have the theory the more agressive you play, the more agressive you also demand changes for maps in your favor.
How is that clear? char limit
the last arabia i played was before the tournament king of the desert and it has more wood than the actual one, in this one sometimes 1 or both player start with a terrible wood, but u can still play with this map, recently i am playing with france and i usually go cavalier and trowing axe man, but according the situation i can change to halbedier and siege units and save a lot of gold to finally spamm paladins
i hate this new arabia. 2x rows of woodlines in front of water? Ridiculous. Thank god for Runestones.
The real Arabia, I think, is the one how dev imagines it and a few high-elo or pro-players consider it playable.
Age of Kings, of course, though admittedly I’m biased towards what I grew up playing.
I am a little tired of every change being about more aggression. Walls at half HP in Fuedal, Towers neutered, woodlines with no depth so that you MUST go archer or skirm hunting instead of drawing them in, etc.