n0el wrote:@
Goodspeed what about strategic depth in a bo5 given map diversity? Does aoe3 not offer enough choice to see different builds or does the current system devolve to a set of builds per civ. Sc2 offers a significant amount of diversity within a matchup, we donāt see that in aoe3.
That's not an easy question.
Within a match up there is indeed much less depth in AoE3. There are simply less choices, or less viable choices at least. SC2 made it a point to have a large unit selection, and all units have a specific scenario in which they are viable. In AoE3 you don't have this; you have to pick between at most 3 viable unit compositions that are available to your civ.
As for the build order, as far as that doesn't relate directly to unit comp, there is also much less variety in AoE3. The main reason is balance. Starcraft is carefully balanced around timings and they have tried their best to give every race aggressive as well as defensive options at every possible game time. In AoE3, for every match up there is one civ that outscales the other, so the latter has to go for a timing at minute X. The former often has no viable aggressive options at all. This obviously limits options significantly.
SC2 is also much more dynamic in nature due to the strength of harassment, which is not at all viable in AoE3. Also, in AoE3 you tech by aging up which means there aren't as many different tech paths.
AoE3 features more economic choices, but that's really all it has on Starcraft when it comes to build order variety. There are the cards of course, but because card balance is so poor your card order is effectively decided for you. As for economic options, most civs don't have all that many. Strategically interesting are the economic civs which have to make choices about when to boom and when not to, think Brit/Japan/India, etc. For most civs the options end with a villager card here and there, a market and a couple of TPs. Starcraft may have less economic options, but their expansion system is well-designed. The strength of your economy is directly related to how much of it you want to expose to harassment, which is a great way to balance it. It also allows them to directly influence the viability of expansions and boom/turtle styles using maps alone.
In short, SC is a much more well-designed RTS from the perspective of single match ups (and in general, really). So is AoE2. Looking at the way economic expansion works, you will see more similarities between SC2 and AoE2 than between AoE2 and AoE3. AoE2 doesn't need to insist on match-up variety, the games are plenty interesting with 100% mirrors.
But balance isn't everything. We have found that in AoE3 the skill cap is plenty high to make for interesting high level games. And, of course, there is a lot of strategic depth in understanding inter-civ balance and match ups, which is what makes this game so damn interesting to study. If you incorporate that in tournaments, which we have done, you can still have a competitively interesting game. Just in a different way.
It says a lot about this game that the meta is still evolving after all these years. That, I think, is a great way to recognize a good RTS.