The Water Thread !

Great Britain WickedCossack
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The Water Thread !

Post by WickedCossack »

Starting this to stop the map thread being hijakced. (:))

Water play always produces heated arguments about whether it's too imba/strong/lame/weak/interesting/boring/competitive etc ... it get's called anything and everything and consequently because it's quite controversial it didn't feature heavily in the previous tournament.

Personally I think that's a shame.

My own veiws are that water maps, in moderation, are incredibly fun to watch. I saw GS saying that it promotes passive boring play, but how do you explain the masses of veiwers that will flock to watch boneng turtle up for 20 mins and not build any units ? That shit's real interesting. I can't entirely explain why but it is. If we were exposed to too much of it I could see people losing interest very fast but as it is right now I don't think there is enough ! There were only 2 games in the whole of the last tournament (streamed) that featured water play !

I think heavy water maps can and should have a place in competitive tournaments. If players know a map is comming up they can prepare for it, prepare their civs, prepare their strats and I don't see why that would be imbalanced at all. It would probably restrict the number of civs that would be viable on that map but to some extent that's the case with any map. It's a problem for quicksearch where you could load into a bad map for your civ but that can't happen in a tournament. It's not like we don't have this already for example japan mirrors on siberia. I'd much rather see a port mirror on hispan every now and again than 20x japan mirror siberia.

As to whether the water is OP or not it 100% depends on the map and the MU, there's no general rule but everyone wants to generalize it. Each sea map has a different number of fish/whales. Choke points and structure of the map is very important aswell. A lot of RE maps also have big clumps of trees on the coast compared with tournament maps that I haven't seen many people mention yet, I think that's a huge factor in determining how strong water play is.
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The Water Thread !

Post by CuCkO0 »

I think generally water is very strong (if successful). Other than that I don't see what the fuss is about. Personally I do not like playing people that tend to abuse water. Sure they're fun games to watch, however I wouldn't want to be on the end of a well-played water strat from someone that know's what they're doing.

Also, I think many people are inexperienced when it comes to knowing how to counter water properly. As that is mostly the case, people call it lame and such. (Like me for example :p)
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The Water Thread !

Post by WickedCossack »

Heh I'd agree that playing vs a water pro who knows what they are doing can be one of the most frustrating experiences in aoe3, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying watches others have to suffer, heck it probably makes it even better knowing how pissed off the land player might be. :P

Part of the frustration is down to lack of experience as you said about what to do vs heavy water play, but if people sat down and practiced playing it and playing against it you'd probably enjoy it a lot more.

Best way to know how to beat it is to try and water lame yourself and take note of the games you lose and why you lost and where the weaknesses are. I think if you haven't tried to water lame yourself it's much harder to play vs.
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The Water Thread !

Post by CuCkO0 »

I tried water a couple of times. mostly recently was around a year ago. I think some pr 25 tried to rush w/ bow/pike in a Ports mirror. It failed obviously as I went water, so I guess that's not the way to play it. I have a major lack of experience using water. XD

I personally don't find playing water fun unless it's in a tr game. Each to our own I guess. :p
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The Water Thread !

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

wickedcossack wrote:Heh I''d agree that playing vs a water pro who knows what they are doing can be one of the most frustrating experiences in aoe3, but that doesn''t stop me from enjoying watches others have to suffer, heck it probably makes it even better knowing how pissed off the land player might be. :P

Part of the frustration is down to lack of experience as you said about what to do vs heavy water play, but if people sat down and practiced playing it and playing against it you''d probably enjoy it a lot more.

Best way to know how to beat it is to try and water lame yourself and take note of the games you lose and why you lost and where the weaknesses are. I think if you haven''t tried to water lame yourself it''s much harder to play vs.
Well, there are only few players that know how to take the sea: boneng, kynesie and nayuki. Why? Because it needs an op macrogestion, you have to be very reactive and do the right choices.
As you said, it is very fun to play and to watch, that would be sad to not allow it.
As garja said in the other topic, water is beatable. A pike/tower/caravel rush is very hard to deal with, it should win.
Finally, GS said that water is a no micro play but actually, when you look nayuki''s Stream, you see that he has a very good water micro and that he can win with 5caravels vs 5 caravels without loosing any boats^^.
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The Water Thread !

Post by CuCkO0 »

diarouga wrote:
wickedcossack wrote:Heh Id agree that playing vs a water pro who knows what they are doing can be one of the most frustrating experiences in aoe3, but that doesnt stop me from enjoying watches others have to suffer, heck it probably makes it even better knowing how pissed off the land player might be. :P

Part of the frustration is down to lack of experience as you said about what to do vs heavy water play, but if people sat down and practiced playing it and playing against it youd probably enjoy it a lot more.

Best way to know how to beat it is to try and water lame yourself and take note of the games you lose and why you lost and where the weaknesses are. I think if you havent tried to water lame yourself its much harder to play vs.
Well, there are only few players that know how to take the sea: boneng, kynesie and nayuki. Why? Because it needs an op macrogestion, you have to be very reactive and do the right choices.
As you said, it is very fun to play and to watch, that would be sad to not allow it.
As garja said in the other topic, water is beatable. A pike/tower/caravel rush is very hard to deal with, it should win.
Finally, GS said that water is a no micro play but actually, when you look nayukis Stream, you see that he has a very good water micro and that he can win with 5caravels vs 5 caravels without loosing any boats^^.


I remember Nayuki from TAD QS from a long time ago. It would be interesting to see his stream, do you have a link please? :-)
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The Water Thread !

Post by [hope]Xiphos »

Its another dimension to the game. These days I see 0 people play water decks or even 2 caravels in ponds etc. Seems weird to me
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The Water Thread !

Post by Mr_Bramboy »

Boring to play against, fun to watch. I'd like some water maps in the next tournament for sure, like that Indonesia map Garja was talking about.
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Post by Veni_Vidi_Vici_W »

Its another dimension to the game. These days I see 0 people play water decks or even 2 caravels in ponds etc. Seems weird to me

I think Musket and I have outlined it in the other thread. Water if well played is too strong and makes for bad games. That said, i do agree some water is ok and even using 2 caravels in a pond could make for interesting changes perhaps. Just not the too big water food/whale stuff.
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The Water Thread !

Post by Goodspeed »

but how do you explain the masses of veiwers that will flock to watch boneng turtle up for 20 mins and not build any units ? That shit's real interesting. I can't entirely explain why but it is. If we were exposed to too much of it I could see people losing interest very fast but as it is right now I don't think there is enough ! There were only 2 games in the whole of the last tournament (streamed) that featured water play!
It's different, so it's interesting. But like musketjr mentioned in the other thread, "promoting unbalanced stuff to amuse viewers is the wrong priority". I think he's spot on with that.

Because yes, water is broken. Mind you by "broken" I don't mean too strong, I mean flawed in its design. Yes it is too strong in some match ups, and too weak in most. What it should be is a viable way to supplement your land economy if you get in a situation where you can afford it, instead of a replacement for your land economy. Water replacing land is a design flaw in that it literally seperates the players and promotes non-interactive play. Any RTS designer would immediately see the red flag in this.

The reason are whales. Whales allow you to gather all the resources you need for military production as well as age ups just from water. Red flag.
Whales need to be either removed or there should be at max 2 or 3 whales per water map. That way water becomes a supplement to your land economy instead of a replacement. The next step is buffing it so that it actually becomes a viable way to play, note that we can do that only after nerfing whales because otherwise water would become way too strong. Anyway of course the only way to do that would be a new patch.

Without a new patch, I would still push for whales to be reduced. Perhaps in order to make water viable we can make it cover a larger part of the map so that controlling it becomes important.

I also think warships and their random fire rate are poorly designed. They need to be smaller and fire at a fixed rate (yes I know it averages out in the long run but as is they are not microable).
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The Water Thread !

Post by CuCkO0 »

bramboy wrote:Boring to play against, fun to watch. I''d like some water maps in the next tournament for sure, like that Indonesia map Garja was talking about.

nah! Boreno more interesting! :D
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Post by Mimsy for President »

@WickedCossack Beyond this point, I really appreciate your uprightness.
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Post by deleted_user0 »

If we see watermaps i would like to see it possible to build on the shore, possibly near base, but for the rest of the shore, res should not be in range of the ships. So more like carolina and less like yucatan
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Post by Goodspeed »

umeu wrote:If we see watermaps i would like to see it possible to build on the shore, possibly near base, but for the rest of the shore, res should not be in range of the ships. So more like carolina and less like yucatan
This is a great idea. No wood on shore would actually accomplish the same thing as lack of whales on water, and I prefer it as a way to deal with water replacing land eco.
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Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Garja won very easily vs boneng on hudson, play on sag wouldn't have changed the result, that's not because people don't know how to play against water that it is too op. It makes me think about noobs who say that japan is the best civ by far because they didn't understand that they can't play like vs an euro civ.

And even if it was a bit unfair, I don't think people want to see a perfectly fair tournament, that would be boring. Only 1 viable option/civ, treasures forbiden (most unfair thing in the game), only mirror allowed etc...
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The Water Thread !

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

umeu wrote:If we see watermaps i would like to see it possible to build on the shore, possibly near base, but for the rest of the shore, res should not be in range of the ships. So more like carolina and less like yucatan
That kills the water play, nobody would take the sea then.
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Post by Goodspeed »

It's not the unfairness that's the problem, water is not even that good in most match ups. It's the separation of the players and the non-interactive play it promotes. In other words balance is not the problem, design is. Compare it to force fields in sc2.
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Post by Kynesie »

wickedcossack wrote:If players know a map is comming up they can prepare for it, prepare their civs, prepare their strats and I don''t see why that would be imbalanced at all.
+1 , it s not unbalanced like in QS..

And both players can use water. it can t be unfair ^^
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Post by [Armag] diarouga »

calmyourtits wrote:It''s not the unfairness that''s the problem, water is not even that good in most match ups. It''s the separation of the players and the non-interactive play it promotes. In other words balance is not the problem, design is. Compare it to force fields in sc2.
Ok, so water is fair, your problem is to play against, I understand, but people said that even if they hate playing against it they want to see it.

What we can maybe do is a "serious" tournament with price etc... and before or after, a funny tournament without price with just sag, borneo, yucatan, indochina, carolina, hispaniola etc... It would give some nice recs!
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Post by Kynesie »

calmyourtits wrote:It''s not the unfairness that''s the problem, water is not even that good in most match ups. It''s the separation of the players and the non-interactive play it promotes. In other words balance is not the problem, design is. Compare it to force fields in sc2.
U said whales are op and water promotes the non-interactive play . If whales are op, players have to fight for control whales. So it s just a different way of playing...
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The Water Thread !

Post by CuCkO0 »

kynesie wrote:
calmyourtits wrote:Its not the unfairness thats the problem, water is not even that good in most match ups. Its the separation of the players and the non-interactive play it promotes. In other words balance is not the problem, design is. Compare it to force fields in sc2.
U said whales are op and water promotes the non-interactive play . If whales are op, players have to fight for control whales. So it s just a different way of playing...
Stop trying to validate the water playstyle just because that+walls is all you seem to know :P
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The Water Thread !

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

kynesie wrote:
calmyourtits wrote:Its not the unfairness thats the problem, water is not even that good in most match ups. Its the separation of the players and the non-interactive play it promotes. In other words balance is not the problem, design is. Compare it to force fields in sc2.
U said whales are op and water promotes the non-interactive play . If whales are op, players have to fight for control whales. So it s just a different way of playing...
Also, I think that it is stupid to call op something we cant do. Therere max 5 players that can win games vs a good player with a 100% water build.
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The Water Thread !

Post by Goodspeed »

diarouga wrote:
calmyourtits wrote:Its not the unfairness thats the problem, water is not even that good in most match ups. Its the separation of the players and the non-interactive play it promotes. In other words balance is not the problem, design is. Compare it to force fields in sc2.
Ok, so water is fair, your problem is to play against, I understand, but people said that even if they hate playing against it they want to see it.
No? My problem with it is the flaws in its design. Plenty of styles are boring to play against without being flawed at the core.
I know people want to see it, thats why I want to make it viable. In order to do that however, we need to do something about its ability to replace land first. Otherwise we cant make it viable without breaking the game.

Looks like youre reading what you want to read but not actually getting the point of my posts. I never called whales or water OP, Im saying its poorly designed. Do you not know the difference?
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Post by blasdg »

Water is broken. Full stop.

1st argument: Some civs have schooners, others dont. Wait, what? Water boom without schooners is NEVER viable unless you are so far ahead of your opponent that it doenst matter what you do. Strictly speaking: Some civs are just infinitely stronger on water maps as others - which is a complete flaw.

2nd argument: Ships are WAY too good vs land units and vs their counters. Especially when you consider monitors SLAUGHTERING cannons and buildings.

3rd argument: Water gives you food AND gold which is completely crazy, because you dont need a land economy then. Either remove whales and increase the gathering rate for normal fish or simply make whales give food - infinitely! That way water still makes sense in the late game!

4th argument: Some civs have BETTER upgrades than others, and by better I mean SO MUCH BETTER. Aztec water dance is just INSANE! Sioux Siege dance also affects boats and their dmg - wtf? Japan water, ever seen that? Now compare that to say Russia on water. Hahaha ... :/

5th argument: Ship micro is insanely stupid. Who the hell had the idea that ships have to stand still for shooting? Much micro, so skill, many shoots - WOW! Then the random fire rate - what a design flaw AGAIN!

6th argument: The playstyle is incredibly boring. Sure, its something different, but we shouldnt emphasize boring playstyles just because they are different. Non-interactive gameplay ist something that should not be viable.

7th argument: Its SO frustrating to play against. Let me tell you something: I was playing on great Lakes and played vs Ottoman fish boom from as early as age 1, I was Russia. I rushed him, killed his TC, had all 6 TPs and still couldnt finish the game because his explorer had built a TC on the island, he was age 3 and had MAX amounts of ships. I had to go to age 5 (!!!) to build frigging IMPERIAL HOWITZERS to deal with this bullshit. I saw a stream of Soldier like 4 weeks ago vs some idiot who played Japan and was PURELY on water on Patagonia, walled the entire map and did NOTHING except for shooting stuff with ships! Twitch chat was like "what a parasite play style", I couldnt have said it better.


tl'dr:
I will surrender every single time when I see a water map and I dont use QS cause you cant surrender there without taking a loss. Thats how pissed I am.

EDIT: One funny game vs Samwise12 (Like 5 years ago, rec should be somewhere on ageS): He was portugese, I was dutch. Map was Saguenay. He played schooners age 1 and wanted to build docks with his villagers. I had my Envoy sitting there with my explorer and had my minutemand ready (on 1 HP). Killed 3 vills total and delayed his docks, forced a TC next to his 1st TC, all out pike rushed him and won under 6 minutes. Man I was so proud, haha 111
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The Water Thread !

Post by _H2O »

I think if there wasn't solid command lag in those games it would be easy 15 minute wins every single game vs that style of water. It's just not good. It's super annoying when person is laggy too so it takes forever. Just like that Silk Road wall in game. It was laggy as shit so I played Like shit and it took like 25 minutes to win.

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