Why is walling the meta for aoe2, and only aoe2?

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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I have played aoe2 for 4500 hours in total, in my life. So i am a rather experienced aoe2 player. Im at 1350 to 1400 elo. However, with the expansion of the series, aoe4, aoe3 de, aom, i learned some other games in this aoe series. I played aoe3 de for a long time, played some aoe4, watched aom retold, and coming back to aoe2, i found a problem that makes aoe2 boring compared to other age titles, that i can never go back to aoe2 anymore.

It seems like walling is the meta for aoe2, in 1v1 even open maps. In team games walling age 2 with palisade is the meta, then full walling your base with buildings in a row is necessary even in castle age, because any enemy units getting in your base can cause a lot of damage, even if you have army back at home, you can easily lose a lot of vills. At tournament level a hole in the wall or a few archers into woodline and end the game, right there.

So on ranked games every one just walls the base in feudal age, wall resources, wall to TC, it makes the game really long and turtle oriented. If you don’t wall and play open you are very likely to lose the game. If i wall i am at my elo but if i play open i drop 150 to 200 elo. I have seen so many wall and FC players and then if the map is semi open, stone wall the whole side of map. It guarantees resources and deprive opponent of gold. It is so much easier to build a wall than to destroy it because vills can house wall behind and repair, skirmishers can stand behind walls to fend off archers. Mangonel can defend vs rams and it takes a long time for ram to kill a tile of stone walls.

In comparison, no other age game have such a heavy focus on walling, tile by tile. In aoe1 the game is fast paced, players usually make army quickly and start fighting. In aoe3 it is not viable to wall until late game because map control is important and age 2 units are powerful enough to take down TCs, buildings also doesn’t follow tiles to prevent units from pathing through. In aoe4 map control is important too, and buildings always have gaps so units can always go through adjacent buildings, and palisade is very weak. Stone walls are very expensive. In aom the focus on early army is also impossible to wall and the game does not emphasise on wall at all, the TC/settlement mechanics prevent players from turtling in base. All other RTS games I know does not wall up your entire base every single game, people need to make army and fight to gain control and advantage, so aoe2 seems so boring in comparison. Why cannot aoe2 be more open and more fighting oriented instead of base building oriented? Like putting hunt in different locations on map so that you need to hunt instead of farm very early (like steppe / nomad map), orbjust nerf walls so that players would rather play open than walling. Or you can reduce the damage or game ending possibility if a few units get into your base.

Btw because of walling meta it is very unlikely aoe2 game ends in age 2, and most of games between close players goes to age 4, and some of them goes to trash fights. While in aoe3, aoe4, and aom, the game usually doesn’t reach the final age, especially aoe3 and aom (there are five ages). Average length of aoe2 game is 35-40 game minutes which is over 20 real minutes. While in aoe3 de and aom the game end usually in 10-15 minutes.

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I have no f*ing idea what you are talking about.
The current meta is “Hamstering” which includes walling in late feudal to secure not taking too much damage when advancing with a great timing to castle age.

The standard early walling we saw like 2-3 years ago before the big wall nerfs is completely dead. And tbh even at that time it was only one of several opening strats… and i kinda which we had more diversity like this rn.

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I think this sums up your question. I have no idea about rest of the Age Franchise. I play only Aoe2 and I like its pace. Not ultra fast nor very slow.

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Like MBL said, “I don’t sit behind walls.” I’d probably be at 1100 or maybe 1200 elo if I did, though, 11.

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Actually its secretly insanely good if you delay feudal for that (also skip loom)
I like to bait opponent that turn scout into my walls with skirm defence

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Because APM spent chasing the odd Knight/Archer running inside your base is wasted APM and you would rather divert this APM into something more useful like macroing or making army.

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Using walls was the IRL meta notably since Antiquity, all the way until artillery became so powerful it could outright blast the walls apart in the mid-to-late 19th century.

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Most players start walling way earlier than late feudal. As someone mentioned MBL, lets look at some of the latest 1v1 Arabia games on his Youtube Channel:

All of these games, he starts walling right after reaching feudal. 2 of 3 games, he was fully walled before min 15, clicking up castle age with very little army, and almost no military action until then. His opponents, as you can see, did it more or less the same way.

The last one is a rec review of 12x elo players, where one of the players even started walling in dark age, and the other one did it right after hitting feudal.
Would be nice to have an official statistic about when people actually start walling, and how it differs in terms of elo stages, but from all i have seen so far, walling is definitely meta.

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Hamstering is meta.
And Hamstering includes walling at some point.
But it’s a more minor aspect of the strat which is based on timings. As usually the walls go up in the transitional phase between feudal and the Castle Age powerspike.

For me it’s really decremental to the discussion to pick out “Walling” from this meta playstyle.
Why you don’t speak of the other strategical moves? Pushing deer to get up asap, possibly skipping loom? Not getting Horsecollar to get a faster Castle Age Timing? “Hoovering” with scouts to pick off vills and sometimes even military when the opponent isn’t paying attention? Placing forward Siege any time you have the military advantage? Trying to win the game fast with using the “power units” mostly Knights? Only adding the essential counters to the opponent “power units” and having basically no other unit transitions, especially almost never using the UUs?
…

Your “walling meta” is really only one minor litle piece of that puzzle actually not really worth the attention.
Most of the time you just wall then cause there’s little you can do while waiting to get up to the next age and you usually have a lot of wood to your disposal then.

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In other age games, to deal with enemy military units you have to make counter military units. In aoe2, you make walls.

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This is why everyone walls, i already mentioned. Just a few units in your base can cause game ending damage to your eco. This is why aoe2 is turtle oriented because eco is so fragile, and easy to protect by walls/a row of buildings

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in aoe2 if you only make walls, you just get forward siege dropped and completely destroyed

Agree. Walls help defend against that. Especially the “power units” can end the game with a single raid.
And tbh… if it wasn’t for walls most games we currently have would be over by minute 20 or so because the raids would just kill one player. Fortunately we have walls so this doesn’t happen too often.

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Ending the game faster is better. The current pace is slow. Who ever that macro better, make more army and micro/control army better need to win games.in aoe3,4 aom, all plays open and you use army to defend your open vills, not walls

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I honestly have to agree with this. Walls just make things last far longer than they need to, and players can just keep reinforcing their walls and boom safely behind them. It would be nice if towers could get more attention, but that would probably lead to trushing as meta. Also, I think the biggest problem with walls is that you can’t exactly counter with rams, for they can be destroyed by mangonels quite easily.

Now, I’m not saying walls should be useless, but people who go for aggressive strategies SHOULD NOT have to wall. I really think palisades should get an increase in HP, but there should be something to offset this (like making rams destroy walls extremely fast). That way, turtling can be distinct, and not mixed in with rushing and booming.

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that is a good thing, it should be like that

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no siege in feudal age

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I think in your initial post, it was not clear that this was your main take. You should rename your topic to something like: “aoe2 walls makes the game too slow and boring”.

Many players love playing longer games going up to late imperial age, other dont.

If walling is not meta in aoe4 and makes the game more interesting for you, great ! Play aoe4 then. It is good to have diversity within RTS, so players who enjoy walling will play more of aoe2 and those who hate it play more of aoe4. No need to force other games of the franchise into a (argubly more popular) game.

For aoe1, I feel the big limitation of walls is the absence of pallissades, costing wood only and available in age1. Walls lose most of its power if you cannot delay age up to second age.
For age3, walls are very popular on treaty games, which is unpopular in aoe2. Something I hate about aoe3 walls is how hard it is for me to wall your base, especially at the edge of the maps.

If you dont play in ranked, we can make a mod disabling palissade walls.

Not necessarily. Some people like you want players with best execution to win. Some other want players with best strategy & game understanding to win. And some others want a compromise and love watching game between the micro nerd and the strategist.
If some players want to turtle behind walls, it is okay as long as it is balanced, i.e. the cost of walling is higher than the cost of noticing it and no-wall booming while applying pressure and picking relics. Just like the phosphoru strategy of naked fast castle into power UU is fine as long as it loses to an equaly skilled player playing the counter strayegy jas the upper hand.

Speaking of which, have you tried naked fast castle into UU and forward workshop ? This should work well if your opponent is turtling beind walls.

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i am also wondering why only in aoe2 walling is the meta, not other age games. why is aoe2 so special and as the result aoe2 is the most slow paced

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of course i tried all strats i have played thousands of aoe2 games. but i am not happy how aoe2 every one is just walling as it is necessary. Walling is just an essential part of the game

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Obviously. The sad thing is, that there are only wall and prewalled maps in the pool, so thats nice for the players who like to boom. But those who like to play open and agressive, what can they do? Go for Arabia or Megarandom, maybe one out of five maps you get will suit that playstyle - its like playin the lottery. And thats exactly the reason why a lot of players retired from aoe2 since they changed Arabia. I think there should be at least one very open map in the pool, where wall into boom until imp is not the most common way in order to win.

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