DotW: If you could add one RTS thing

[EAGLEMUT]

I would probably make villagers to carry resources.

This was the first thing that came to mind when I read the post.
I remember it was quite shocking when I first played aoe3 that the vills would gather where they were... I did like the mechanic, I was never a big fan of delivering res but it was kinda weird at first

I believe when you get the AoE1 HD mod, the one which uses aoe3 as a base, then your villagers deliver resources

This is correct.

[pecelot]

mortars unable to hit moving ships

You know it doesn't happen already, right?

It does though. I watched a group of 5+ Mortars fire off 3+ volleys vs ships the guy micro'd back and forth and watched as they did a collective zero damage before a single monitor one shot them all. I resigned.

I thought booming superiority on land, reaching IV faster, and investing into the supposed most anti ship unit in the entire game would counter water but it did not.

Oh, right, I thought you had thought that this was impossible. Indeed, you can easily dodge mortar shots — which is fine realism-wise, right?

Demolition Ships like in aoe2.

https://ageofempires.wikia.com/wiki/Fire_Junk


but I guess you meant it should be accessible for more civs

investing into the supposed most anti ship unit in the entire game would counter water but it did not.

Isn't Culv the best anti ship unit? I believe they have 10x vs ships.

They indeed are, though the range is what makes them slightly inferior to mortars.


My idea would be to take some interesting features from Age of Empires 3. River shallows accessible to ships and land units, the aforementioned conversion thing, perhaps mortars stylised after trebuchets — firing smaller but more accurate shots, possible to miss, possible to kill land units; attack ground for cannons, advanced formations and so on.

Cossacks have that interesting maintaining characteristic where you constantly needed resources to feed your troops. Not only do they cost regular resources, but also take a lot to sustain. Some units cost a lot initially but later on you don't have to pay for them much, whereas others are relatively cheap, while you need to spend a lot on them to extend their existence.
Another thing I'd be curious to check out in Age of Empires 3 would be buildings' increasing cost — basically the more buildings of a certain type you have, the more the next ones cost (with the exception of houses and such). Your first barracks cost 200 wood, later 400 wood, 600 wood and more. That said, in Cossacks you really need artillery to deal with infrastructure — most likely ripped off of AoE2

[JakeyBoyTH]

This is correct.

The Age Of Empires HD mod shouldn't be confused with the Age Of Empires HD mod

[Snuden]

More randomness so I finally can become a conscript.

[guyshir]

Demolition Ships like in aoe2.

https://ageofempires.wikia.com/wiki/Fire_Junk


but I guess you meant it should be accessible for more civs

investing into the supposed most anti ship unit in the entire game would counter water but it did not.

Isn't Culv the best anti ship unit? I believe they have 10x vs ships.

They indeed are, though the range is what makes them slightly inferior to mortars.

Haha, yeah, those ship.
Damn, I miss those games.

Agreed, mortar have 40 range to culv's 34. Also, mortar have 0.5x vs ships, making attack to be ~250hp. Both are viable units.

[Lukas_L99]

Yes. A culverin does 400 base damage vs ships (40*10) and a mortar does 250 (500*0.5)

Well after that arsenal upgrade mortars should do more damage and also have more range. But culvs dont miss shots as easily as mortars I guess. But they get outranged by frigates after that card which gives them 35 range lol

[pecelot]

And by Monitors even without the Offshore Support card

[Lunatic_Fringe]

Also I would enable Arsenal in age 2, so you can get improvements in early game like in AOE2 or SC2.

true, a cheap arsenal with usefull age2 upgrades would add a whole new dimension to the game.

Then civs who are age 2 oriented like Russia would be unbeatable in the mid/late game. They wouldn't even bother to age up and the game would be unfair.

[pecelot]

I'm sure it would be balanced around that, if it was implemented

[lemmings121]

Also I would enable Arsenal in age 2, so you can get improvements in early game like in AOE2 or SC2.

true, a cheap arsenal with usefull age2 upgrades would add a whole new dimension to the game.

Then civs who are age 2 oriented like Russia would be unbeatable in the mid/late game. They wouldn't even bother to age up and the game would be unfair.

tbf, it would be totally another game, balance would change a lot and would have to be tought from scratch again, but I dont think it would break everything, aoe2 arsenal doest make fast castles impossible to do.

I might say the current colonial age is "eco, mass or age up", you would also add "tech" to the options.. could be interesting.

[pecelot]

Indeed, that's something I wanted to point out initially but missed it — despite the fact that the Blacksmith upgrades are viable in Age of Empires 2, it doesn't prevent civs weaker in the Feudal Age from advancing to the next one. All nations have access to that then. In AoE3 it could surely be adjusted.

[macacoalbino]

Imo that wouldnt change the meta that much, it would just make colonial play vs fortress slighly better with more cost efficient units later in the game...
That depends of course on the strengh of the arsenal ups I guess... But it wouldnt change the fact that colonial play has no goons or cannons for example...

[_RDX_]

Ah that old times, I liked things that are insane like Trebuchets. They have a super siege attack and insane range. Indeed, they are similar to the Mortars used in aoe 3 currently. The only difference is Mortars can not fire on things rest than buildings and ships, Trebuchets can fire on everything, but they are not good at all vs other things than siege weapons and buildings. I used to troll team mates with Siege Onagers, by clicking attack ground where his troops stand, it will certainly kill/hurt his troops.

[pecelot]

There are other significant differences between Trebuchets and Mortars. The former can't be moved when set up, miss shots, even at buildings, is very unlikely to kill single units (ships) regularly, but is rather deadly, whereas the latter can always move (at different speeds), don't miss shots (unless ships are dodging) and can't attack regular units.

[gamevideo113]

The arsenal in age 2 is surely a nice idea, since right now you need a card for it and on top of that also resources to get the upgrades... Maybe with spain a shipment for advanced arsenal is not a terrible idea since military drummers is relatively cheap and makes your musks mini-ashi but tbh idk, it's probably better to just go age 3. In aoe2 the blacksmith is viable and needed in the first place because of what we discussed in a previous DotW thread (the one on armor and resistances) and in the second place because you don't have that sort of 700g shipment that lets you go quickly to the 3rd age, so it's harder to age up without being punished unless you manage to wall really well your base. Also i think that the fact that in the first 3 ages all civs play more or less the same, with just small differences between each other, makes the blacksmith more standard than it would be in aoe3 even if it was available in age2 (what i mean is that maybe in aoe3 some civs would benefit from an early armory more than others, e.g. british could have basically carded veteran musks in age 2 while germans wouldn't use the armory much except for maybe the cav cuirass upgrade, while in aoe2 early blacksmith is equally viable for all civs since they all more or less have the same options). Still an interesting idea though! It would be cool to have more arsenal technologies in general!

[Imperial Noob]

I would porbably make villagers to carry resources as in AOE2. It's not because I miss it too much, but I think many people didn't switch to AOE3 because of that.
Also I would enable Arsenal in age 2, so you can get improvements in early game like in AOE2 or SC2.

Carrying resources would mean, that you either invest in barns/warehouses wherever vills go, what would slow down the game, and create a problem of identifying whether resources can be destroyed/looted after destruction of said building, or play with mills and plantations to spare walking time, in which case the game would get very treaty-turtly.
Besides, macro would get crazier and random raids more anticlimatic.
RIP

[pecelot]

The arsenal in age 2 is surely a nice idea, since right now you need a card for it and on top of that also resources to get the upgrades... Maybe with spain a shipment for advanced arsenal is not a terrible idea since military drummers is relatively cheap and makes your musks mini-ashi but tbh idk, it's probably better to just go age 3. In aoe2 the blacksmith is viable and needed in the first place because of what we discussed in a previous DotW thread (the one on armor and resistances) and in the second place because you don't have that sort of 700g shipment that lets you go quickly to the 3rd age, so it's harder to age up without being punished unless you manage to wall really well your base. Also i think that the fact that in the first 3 ages all civs play more or less the same, with just small differences between each other, makes the blacksmith more standard than it would be in aoe3 even if it was available in age2 (what i mean is that maybe in aoe3 some civs would benefit from an early armory more than others, e.g. british could have basically carded veteran musks in age 2 while germans wouldn't use the armory much except for maybe the cav cuirass upgrade, while in aoe2 early blacksmith is equally viable for all civs since they all more or less have the same options). Still an interesting idea though! It would be cool to have more arsenal technologies in general!

The thing with Arsenal in Age of Empires 3 is that it's so, so expensive. Not only do you have to pay wood for the foundation, but for further upgrades, too — upgrades which are honestly rather mediocre and situational, without the Advanced Arsenal card, that is — especially in comparison with their AoE-2 equivalents.

@Imperial Noob, I think the point of such a suggestion was to make the macro part of the game more complex and harder. I can see the reasoning behind it, but a very major issue is that wood is the slowest resource to gather in AoE3 and actually one of the fastest in the previous game edition. It would indeed slow down the game significantly — the aforementioned base wood gather-rate could be tweaked then, though. It's pretty interesting, by the way, that getting coin from mines takes less time than wood from trees.
Destruction of such drop-off buildings wouldn't mean anything, the resources would still be saved in the bank — analogically to AoE2.