Modular Build Order

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Modular Build Order

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Post by Hipokondriako »

Hello community!

I wanted to ask about a concept that I learnt about when playing AoE2 that I don't see discussed anywhere in the forums: Modular Build Order.

The concept is very simple. Expert players always balance out the amount of gatherers per resource using shear practice. They know the flow of the game at every stage and they have practiced and adapted their builds so many times that it becomes second nature. For newcomers it is tough to get to that level, and impossible if the time we can invest into the game is limited. We end up floating resources because we lack military buildings to consume them or we overbuild military buildings and then we lack the economy to sustain them.

The point of modular build is to memorize the amount of gatherers per resource needed to keep a constant pumping of a certain unit, "modules" of settlers that pump a certain unit. This helps to transition from one unit to another or to know when our economy can sustain a second barracks or stable.

I can't find any information about the matter, so I wanted to confirm that anybody has posted anything. If no one has, I can make a spreadsheet with the info today or tomorrow. Hopefully this will contribute to close the gap between average and pro players and make the game more enjoyable for everyone! :biggrin:

EDIT:
I have finished a first version of the excel file.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

It includes:
- All european civs, one on each tab
- Villager and military unit production
- Fishing boats, with and without schooners
- Coureur des Bois, fishing boats and villager costs in both TAD and EP versions
- European market, mill, plantation, capitol, dock, and factory upgrades included. Replace 0 by 1 in the "active" column (P) to select the desired upgrades
- Available in both .xlsx (excel) and .ods (openoffice) format

Enjoy!
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Re: Modular Build Order

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Post by momuuu »

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=1778
I think this one is pretty modular, all things considered.

Tbh, aoe3 is much less messy and chaotic than aoe2 is, and you actually can turn on gatherers per resource in the menu. You hardly have to develope much of an instinct for how to allocate villagers, it required only a bit of practise to glance over at the gatherers per resource, look at the stuff you're producing (food heavy or coin heavy), take note that food gathers quite a bit faster and then just intuitively allocate villagers. As india for example, if you're going gurkha/zamb you'll simply want to have about a 50/50 spread on food and coin (its a bit more food heavy, however food gathers faster, you probably want 1-3 extra villagers on coin) and that's just really easy to manage. I think that's why these modular BO's aren't as much of a thing for aoe3.

There's other things, for example the fact that you don't need gathering camps means you don't have to have a great timing for switching vills onto a resource or anything (obviously in aoe2, getting a gathering camp too early or too many of them would slow you down a bit). So it's all a bit more freestyle.
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Re: Modular Build Order

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Post by deleted_user0 »

the way it kinda works in my head, i know what i need for constant vil + house production with each civ.

for example, india I need trickle + 8v on wood for house + vil production from 1 tc. If I send the big trickle, I can take 3v off wood. If i am fighting and losing units, I can take all off, the 2 trickles will provide enough for vil production. The rest of my vils I allocate according to my unit composition. India is pretty easy for that, as it's kinda 50/50 gold food for most units. you need food for many good shipments, but considering food gathers faster, it balances out.

But with ports, I'd keep tp's or 5 vils on wood after I've used my wood shipments, then I need like 15v on food to spam from 3 tc, and the rest I balance according to what units i make. etc etc for each civ.
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Re: Modular Build Order

Post by _H2O »

The issue with these approaches is that there are many factors that set you off balance. For example, missing units, changing compositions, Villager walking time. Also with Aoe3 you have crates coming in which shuffles things. The goal is to chop as little wood as possible and then mine as little gold as possible as a secondary goal. On ports for example if I can get stagecoach Iā€™ll only hunt for the first 25+ vils while using crates and stagecoach for the rest.

The best way to macro is to develop a solid feeling for the timing you are trying to reach and macroing to it. Iā€™m sure some day9 tutorial on macro for sc2 would apply here. He usually captures the theory quite well.
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Re: Modular Build Order

Post by momuuu »

_H2O wrote:The issue with these approaches is that there are many factors that set you off balance. For example, missing units, changing compositions, Villager walking time. Also with Aoe3 you have crates coming in which shuffles things. The goal is to chop as little wood as possible and then mine as little gold as possible as a secondary goal. On ports for example if I can get stagecoach Iā€™ll only hunt for the first 25+ vils while using crates and stagecoach for the rest.

The best way to macro is to develop a solid feeling for the timing you are trying to reach and macroing to it. Iā€™m sure some day9 tutorial on macro for sc2 would apply here. He usually captures the theory quite well.

Sc2 macro is too different. For aoe3 its simply learning what good villager allocations are like. Sc2 macro is more about remembering to even produce units at all without queuing up a shitload of them.
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Re: Modular Build Order

Post by Kaiserklein »

Honestly it's mostly a feeling. Like H2O said, there's too many factors that fuck up the vil distribution.
It's good to have some basic numbers in your brain, for example "I need 5v on food for constant vil production, or 4v with steel traps", or "as russia in early colonial 4-5v on gold are what you need for vil + musks production", or "settler wagons on coin and vils on food to train uhlans in early colonial", or "you need 10v on coin with placer mines to prod double rax musks"...

But let's say you got a 90g treasure in age 1, then you will probably have 1 less vil on coin as russia. Depending on how well you herded your fod, you might or might not need to send more vils on hunts to get a full batch of musks. If you got raided/had to idle your tc, you also need to take that into account, and maybe switch 1-2 vils between food and coin.
So at the end of the day, you just roughly split your vils, and then adjust if needed. Typically I like to have a couple dead animals next to a goldmine, so that I can quickly switch vils between food and coin if a remacro is needed. This kind of remacro happens almost every game to me (and I think to everyone else as well), which shows that you most of the time can't have a perfect split of your vils, though you can have a decent idea, and that adaptation is always needed.

I like the spreadsheets though, nice work there. A guy called cyclohexane also made a ton of these (can someone link them?), I think you would enjoy them @Hipokondriako
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Re: Modular Build Order

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Post by _H2O »

momuuu wrote:
_H2O wrote:The issue with these approaches is that there are many factors that set you off balance. For example, missing units, changing compositions, Villager walking time. Also with Aoe3 you have crates coming in which shuffles things. The goal is to chop as little wood as possible and then mine as little gold as possible as a secondary goal. On ports for example if I can get stagecoach Iā€™ll only hunt for the first 25+ vils while using crates and stagecoach for the rest.

The best way to macro is to develop a solid feeling for the timing you are trying to reach and macroing to it. Iā€™m sure some day9 tutorial on macro for sc2 would apply here. He usually captures the theory quite well.

Sc2 macro is too different. For aoe3 its simply learning what good villager allocations are like. Sc2 macro is more about remembering to even produce units at all without queuing up a shitload of them.


Yeah honestly aoe3 is really just a simple game, it should be on mobile
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Re: Modular Build Order

Post by deleted_user »

I'm trying to think if I could micro on mobile better than gibson on PC.
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Re: Modular Build Order

Post by deleted_user0 »

_H2O wrote:The issue with these approaches is that there are many factors that set you off balance. For example, missing units, changing compositions, Villager walking time. Also with Aoe3 you have crates coming in which shuffles things. The goal is to chop as little wood as possible and then mine as little gold as possible as a secondary goal. On ports for example if I can get stagecoach Iā€™ll only hunt for the first 25+ vils while using crates and stagecoach for the rest.

The best way to macro is to develop a solid feeling for the timing you are trying to reach and macroing to it. Iā€™m sure some day9 tutorial on macro for sc2 would apply here. He usually captures the theory quite well.


Yeah of course. Its theory and practice is often different. In game macro is more fluent and it also depends om circumstances of the map and how the game plays out. But those general tips might still be useful as a starting point for beginners. Imo the best way to learn the game is to learn the standard/average first and once you have it down, start deviating from it.
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Re: Modular Build Order

Post by momuuu »

_H2O wrote:
momuuu wrote:
_H2O wrote:The issue with these approaches is that there are many factors that set you off balance. For example, missing units, changing compositions, Villager walking time. Also with Aoe3 you have crates coming in which shuffles things. The goal is to chop as little wood as possible and then mine as little gold as possible as a secondary goal. On ports for example if I can get stagecoach Iā€™ll only hunt for the first 25+ vils while using crates and stagecoach for the rest.

The best way to macro is to develop a solid feeling for the timing you are trying to reach and macroing to it. Iā€™m sure some day9 tutorial on macro for sc2 would apply here. He usually captures the theory quite well.

Sc2 macro is too different. For aoe3 its simply learning what good villager allocations are like. Sc2 macro is more about remembering to even produce units at all without queuing up a shitload of them.


Yeah honestly aoe3 is really just a simple game, it should be on mobile

Assuming this is all sarcasm, you are really giving an unfair representation of my argument. Aoe3 macro doesn't require you to have crazy apm or multitasking abilities or just the internal clock (/constant checking) of when a production cycle ends. In sc2, learning how to macro is just having a high apm to be able to micro and multitask at the same time, to go back to base and slam down additional production buildings/supplydepots and to constantly produce workers/units without knowing when the last production cycle of units ends. Meanwhile, in aoe3 you're producing ~10 units every minute in 2 batches with a UI that shows you a production queue. In terms of sc2 skills, aoe3 is simply looking at the production queue occasionally and then pressing the barracks hotkey + shift (unit hotkey). It's really simple, and you actually see that even 'slow' people will end up having close to perfect macro. In aoe3 I've ended action packed games with less than 150 unspend resources, in sc2 I'd be happy if I'm not floating 1000's of resources in an actionpacked game.

There is skill in aoe3, it's simply knowing/feeling what a good villager allocation is like. And then that's when freestyling. I tend to practise new BO's that I want to use in tournaments against the AI to feel out the perfect villager allocation. It takes about ~2 practise games to get it down almost perfectly. Granted, I've played aoe3 for more than half of my life, but still the macro just isn't hard. It's just not. Doesn't mean the game is ezpz, but it does mean that the macro isn't that hard.
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Re: Modular Build Order

Post by Kaiserklein »

Macro is not just about splitting vils...
For one thing, in a lot of cases, you have other resources income than just vils. Banks, shrines, stagecoach TPs, fishing boats, wood trickles... Which makes it a little bit more complicated. You also have some different kind of vils (cdbs/SWs), and several market upgrades.
For another, macro isn't only about managing your resources income anyway. There's of course the shipment system, for example if you ship wood crates you need to take that into account in your macro. Not floating useless wood is a skill tbh, and a lot of players have a problem with it. Managing the pop space is a skill too, for example when you want to hit a timing you ideally have just enough pop space, without any extra useless houses. Then there's also the whole herding mechanic, which is arguably a mix of micro and macro. And a lot of other examples like that, which makes macro more complicated than just villager allocations.
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Re: Modular Build Order

Post by Garja »

I find aoe3 production cycle type more complex than sc2 type. In aoe3 early on you really struggle for res (at least with some civs) and you have to sync villager and military unit production very carefully. Especially because the latter train in batches you need to check when the batch is about to pop out and queue up the remaining units.
In sc2 and games with similar production mechanics you just constantly spam the production keys without even watching the queue (if it is present at all). You will simply always have enough resources to queue up the units so it's just a matter of being fast and consistent enough with your key spamming. On top of that in sc2 and in aoe2 to basically the same extent, you barely have idle time with villagers whereas in aoe3 it's common to have villagers takes to hunt being idle. This requires you to constantly look back at your vills to retask or pretask them to other resources. Inevitably this also causes income deficit despite perfect villager allocation which is another reason why you can't simply spam production keys until at least mid game or whenever you know you're on a lasting consistent flow of resources.
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Re: Modular Build Order

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Kaiserklein wrote:Macro is not just about splitting vils...
For one thing, in a lot of cases, you have other resources income than just vils. Banks, shrines, stagecoach TPs, fishing boats, wood trickles... Which makes it a little bit more complicated. You also have some different kind of vils (cdbs/SWs), and several market upgrades.
For another, macro isn't only about managing your resources income anyway. There's of course the shipment system, for example if you ship wood crates you need to take that into account in your macro. Not floating useless wood is a skill tbh, and a lot of players have a problem with it. Managing the pop space is a skill too, for example when you want to hit a timing you ideally have just enough pop space, without any extra useless houses. Then there's also the whole herding mechanic, which is arguably a mix of micro and macro. And a lot of other examples like that, which makes macro more complicated than just villager allocations.

It's indeed not as easy as some people might think, but honestly macroing in aoe3 is just super easy if you compare it to macroing on aoe2 or sc2.
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Re: Modular Build Order

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Garja wrote:I find aoe3 production cycle type more complex than sc2 type. In aoe3 early on you really struggle for res (at least with some civs) and you have to sync villager and military unit production very carefully. Especially because the latter train in batches you need to check when the batch is about to pop out and queue up the remaining units.
In sc2 and games with similar production mechanics you just constantly spam the production keys without even watching the queue (if it is present at all).

You can't do that. As terran, if you do that you'll end up having 3 units in queue in each building while you could have had 2 more raxes in order to get more units. There's a reason why InNoVation can get more units than any other top player in Korea, and these guys are pro-gamer, so it's definitely not just "spamming" lol.

You will simply always have enough resources to queue up the units so it's just a matter of being fast and consistent enough with your key spamming. On top of that in sc2 and in aoe2 to basically the same extent, you barely have idle time with villagers whereas in aoe3 it's common to have villagers takes to hunt being idle.

That's not true lol. Even though your vills don't get "idled", on sc2 you have to make sure you don't have more than 16 mineral gatherers on each base, and you have to remove some after you deplete a pack of minerals. In addition you need to split 3 vills on each gas which can be hard when you get raided again and again.
Still, sc2 is mostly about APM but training vills constantly, not missing unit batches, not getting housed, and not having 5 units in queue in each building is already a biggest challenge that anything you can do in aoe.
And well, aoe2 is even harder. First, the herding there is much harder than in aoe3. Furthermore, you have to make sure you don't have too many vills on berries/wood, you need to rebuild the farms, the mills, the camps etc. Honestly macro in aoe3 is no challenge for someone who spends a lot of time working on it, while in aoe2/sc2 even pro gamers can't macro anywhere near perfectly.


This requires you to constantly look back at your vills to retask or pretask them to other resources. Inevitably this also causes income deficit despite perfect villager allocation which is another reason why you can't simply spam production keys until at least mid game or whenever you know you're on a lasting consistent flow of resources.
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Re: Modular Build Order

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Well said diarouga teach that dirty garja something.
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Re: Modular Build Order

Post by Garja »

Aoe3 is defo easier on mechanics than aoe2, overall. It's also easier than sc2 I guess because of the faster pace of the latter.
Here I'm just discussing the producing cycle. And sc2 is easier on that part. if it wasn't, it would be unplayable at that pace. It would be close to aoe3 on fast mode which is basically unplayable due to all the idleness an shit of this game.
For the record, the extra barrack thing is very true for aoe3 too when you rush, except for sc2 you only have 2 resources and basic infrastructure/units only cost one. The expansion saturation management is less confusing than aoe hunting, especially if you have a tooltip on number of workers per base (dunno if that's only an obs thing honestly). Simply put, sc2 macro is less complex and because of that you can play it a faster speed. This doesn't change the fact that you don't have to think much about what you're doing but rather just keep the spam going, which is something rather straightforward to practice.
In general both sc2 and aoe2 work more in tiles. It's easier to find room to place buildings in a split second and workers generally stay on the same resource for longer. You do have to drop more houses but again it's about spam really, especially since your pop is supposed to grow no matter what. In aoe3 your pop stalls after the big unit spike so you stop housing. Contestually you have to remove vills from wood. Again, in sc2 everything is done with one resource.
The replacing farm in aoe2 is very annoying ye, but still when it becomes problematic to handle you generally have such an income that it is never going to cap you. All you have to do is keep cycling around those things, so again it is mostly about spamming. I'm talking about the struggle vs the game here, not about margins to outperform your opponent but being more consistent or quick. In AOE3 you purposedly have to wait till queining units which can be very annoying for a several reasons.
First, because you can't spend the spare apm when you have it but need to wait till the batch is about to conclude. This often coincides with unit control tasks and no matter how much apm you have, you can't simply do both because real multitask doesn't exist.
Second, because in aoe3 you can't just go at full apm from the start but you have to adapt it to the context, while in sc2 and aoe2 you just go max apm basically from the very start.
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Re: Modular Build Order

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Garja wrote:Aoe3 is defo easier on mechanics than aoe2, overall. It's also easier than sc2 I guess because of the faster pace of the latter.

Is it? On sc2 as terran you have 3 unit buildings (while most of the time on aoe3 you play with only 2), and you can't make more than one unit/building, and the unit queue isn't shown, while on aoe2 you can just start one unit on each building and finish the batch 30 sec later.

Here I'm just discussing the producing cycle. And sc2 is easier on that part. if it wasn't, it would be unplayable at that pace. It would be close to aoe3 on fast mode which is basically unplayable due to all the idleness an shit of this game.

sc2 is faster than aoe3 on fast mode. I've played some aoe3 games in fast mode online and even though it's hard, it's totally playable.

For the record, the extra barrack thing is very true for aoe3 too when you rush, except for sc2 you only have 2 resources and basic infrastructure/units only cost one. The expansion saturation management is less confusing than aoe hunting, especially if you have a tooltip on number of workers per base (dunno if that's only an obs thing honestly). Simply put, sc2 macro is less complex and because of that you can play it a faster speed. This doesn't change the fact that you don't have to think much about what you're doing but rather just keep the spam going, which is something rather straightforward to practice.

No, as I said, you have to know when to add an extra rax, which is something you never have to do on aoe3 since you basically keep the same amount of military building during all the game. Thus, if you consider this, aoe3 is actually the no-brainer since you just send 700w and make all the buildings/houses you need while on sc2 you need to build houses and extra military buildings.

In general both sc2 and aoe2 work more in tiles. It's easier to find room to place buildings in a split second and workers generally stay on the same resource for longer. You do have to drop more houses but again it's about spam really, especially since your pop is supposed to grow no matter what. In aoe3 your pop stalls after the big unit spike so you stop housing. Contestually you have to remove vills from wood. Again, in sc2 everything is done with one resource.
The replacing farm in aoe2 is very annoying ye, but still when it becomes problematic to handle you generally have such an income that it is never going to cap you. All you have to do is keep cycling around those things, so again it is mostly about spamming. I'm talking about the struggle vs the game here, not about margins to outperform your opponent but being more consistent or quick. In AOE3 you purposedly have to wait till queining units which can be very annoying for a several reasons.

No, you don't really have to wait till queuing units lol. We do that because it saves some APM and you only need 2 actions to make a 10 unit batch, but if you want you can spam the unit hotkey and train a unit every second, it's just uneffective.

First, because you can't spend the spare apm when you have it but need to wait till the batch is about to conclude. This often coincides with unit control tasks and no matter how much apm you have, you can't simply do both because real multitask doesn't exist.
Second, because in aoe3 you can't just go at full apm from the start but you have to adapt it to the context, while in sc2 and aoe2 you just go max apm basically from the very start.
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Re: Modular Build Order

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Sigh, you post is an insult to intelligence. You both didn't take the time to read and also just state some false things.
First of all, I'm agreeing that sc2 and aoe2 are harder. L2read please.
Second, I don't know if sc2 is faster than aoe3 on fast mode. I only tried sc2 a bit back then and it didn't feel as fast. Regardless, my point is that aoe3 is not playable on such speed because of the continuous idleness of vills, plus the lack of space to place buildings, plus the snaring mechanic which forces you to watch units all the time, etc.
And don't tell me you tried and it is playable because it is not. If it were, we would be using that game speed. But we are not, because it's simply crap.

You have to do that in aoe3 too, just perhaps not in the current meta. It's not like aoe3 has always been played in the lowbob way it is now, where rushing is not a thing basically and where most of games are nr10 or similar with all the build order part coming from res crates. In the same way, it's not like aoe3 isn't supposed to ever reach the point where you have to add more raxes or stables and then also replace them on the map for strategic purposes. It's just the lowbob current meta that forces games on 2 raxes and 1 stable 90% of times.

And sigh, you do have to wait to queue units because if you queue in the middle you won't have resources for villagers. It's just that you play mostly lowbob civs in term of producing cycle mechanics. I agree that with Dutch or Brits or Japan or French after the initial BO you can almost queue all 5 units right from the start. But try that with Aztecs or Iro in the first minutes of colonial and you will have idle either from TC or army unless you sync things perfectly. That's way less straightforward to train than simple consistent producing spam.
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Re: Modular Build Order

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Garja wrote:Sigh, you post is an insult to intelligence. You both didn't take the time to read and also just state some false things.
First of all, I'm agreeing that sc2 and aoe2 are harder. L2read please.
Second, I don't know if sc2 is faster than aoe3 on fast mode. I only tried sc2 a bit back then and it didn't feel as fast.

That's because WOL wasn't that fast. The game speed has always been increasing, and now it's really fast.

Regardless, my point is that aoe3 is not playable on such speed because of the continuous idleness of vills, plus the lack of space to place buildings, plus the snaring mechanic which forces you to watch units all the time, etc.

Well, I guess you don't know sc2 very well... On sc2, even at the highest level, players don't use shift after sending workers to build buildings because it takes too much time. Also, sc2 bases are arguably as small, if not smaller than aoe3 bases so the lack of space to place building isn't a thing.
Finally, this snaring argument is bs, since on sc2 you have to use attack move to move your army because most of the time you'll only watch the fight a few seconds after it started because the game is too fast (at least at master level, maybe it's different at pro level).


And don't tell me you tried and it is playable because it is not. If it were, we would be using that game speed. But we are not, because it's simply crap.

It is playable lol. I'm not saying that it is possible to have perfect macro like in normal speed, it would only be possible with a lot of practice, and microing/dealing with raids is super hard, but it is definitely playable.

You have to do that in aoe3 too, just perhaps not in the current meta. It's not like aoe3 has always been played in the lowbob way it is now, where rushing is not a thing basically and where most of games are nr10 or similar with all the build order part coming from res crates. In the same way, it's not like aoe3 isn't supposed to ever reach the point where you have to add more raxes or stables and then also replace them on the map for strategic purposes. It's just the lowbob current meta that forces games on 2 raxes and 1 stable 90% of times.

And sigh, you do have to wait to queue units because if you queue in the middle you won't have resources for villagers.

Lol, so you're saying that you can't queue units in aoe3 because else you don't have resources for vills, but what about sc2? If you queue too many units it will simply slow your build order because your buildings will be late etc. That's why macro is so hard there, because missing a batch is huge on the one hand, but on the other you don't want to queue too many units else it slows you.

It's just that you play mostly lowbob civs in term of producing cycle mechanics. I agree that with Dutch or Brits or Japan or French after the initial BO you can almost queue all 5 units right from the start. But try that with Aztecs or Iro in the first minutes of colonial and you will have idle either from TC or army unless you sync things perfectly. That's way less straightforward to train than simple consistent producing spam.
Lol, "you play mostly lowbob civs", "try that with Aztecs". Considering I'm the best Aztec player in the game, I think I know my shit ;)
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Re: Modular Build Order

Post by Garja »

Man, I'm making a simple point and you're bringing all the stuff possible just to have a discussion with me. Most of the things you're saying are unrelated to what I'm saying.
SC2 is faster now, ok. As I said it's not even my point. But you might as well ask why that's the case. Maybe because the game wasn't challenging enough for the top players? Maybe because if you remove the crazy speed from sc2 the game itself is pretty straightforward?

What has shift to do with my point? Again, bases are small but what does it have with my point? My point - I thought it was clear enough - is that maps in aoe3 are not static, let alone tailored to fit exact number of buildings or to be vulnerable in specific spots. On SC2 those things are known before the game (so you end up placing stuff in the same spot on the same map for the same build) and also the game is more geometric (it works perfectly in tiles) while on AOE3 you have stuff like forests occupying tiles in a non consistent way. Same thing for cliffs, etc.

As for the snaring thing, in aoe3 if you get snared you are fucked. Yes in sc2 you might lose a fight hard because units basically evaporate when they fight against each other, but at least during your BO you can multitask your scout or aggressive unit much better while you macro your base and that's in part due to fixed bases and no snaring.

Aoe3 in fast mode is utter shit. Sure, if you practice enough you might be able to make it work to some extent, but still because of the aforementioned things the game is so scrappy that won't be playable. You can basically win or lose upon the tiniest distraction or, alternatively, you have to play super defensive because you can't watch in two places simultaneously.

The point is - and seemingly you're missing it - that things are so fast and consistent in sc2 that once you're somehow used to the game clock (duration of production cycles) it just becomes automatic to queue up stuff on time. I'm not saying you just queue multiple units. I'm rather saying that you just keep cycling through your production and queue stuff non stop. The income is enough quite soon in the game and also very consistent, so if anything there is more the problem of spending your income than saving your resources. And even if you desync for like 1 batch it's not going to be that much of a problem because it's just one unit per cycle.

Best Aztec player in the game :uglylol:
You don't even play Aztecs in the way they are supposed to be played.
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Re: Modular Build Order

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Garja wrote:Man, I'm making a simple point and you're bringing all the stuff possible just to have a discussion with me. Most of the things you're saying are unrelated to what I'm saying.
SC2 is faster now, ok. As I said it's not even my point. But you might as well ask why that's the case. Maybe because the game wasn't challenging enough for the top players? Maybe because if you remove the crazy speed from sc2 the game itself is pretty straightforward?

What has shift to do with my point? Again, bases are small but what does it have with my point? My point - I thought it was clear enough - is that maps in aoe3 are not static, let alone tailored to fit exact number of buildings or to be vulnerable in specific spots. On SC2 those things are known before the game (so you end up placing stuff in the same spot on the same map for the same build) and also the game is more geometric (it works perfectly in tiles) while on AOE3 you have stuff like forests occupying tiles in a non consistent way. Same thing for cliffs, etc.

Yea maps are better on sc2.

As for the snaring thing, in aoe3 if you get snared you are fucked. Yes in sc2 you might lose a fight hard because units basically evaporate when they fight against each other, but at least during your BO you can multitask your scout or aggressive unit much better while you macro your base and that's in part due to fixed bases and no snaring.

Units are faster on sc2 and can surround, that's almost the same as getting snared tbh. Also, if you don't pay attention banes can kill your army in 3sec which is a lot worse than just getting snared, so no I don't think that aoe "needs" to be slower.

Aoe3 in fast mode is utter shit. Sure, if you practice enough you might be able to make it work to some extent, but still because of the aforementioned things the game is so scrappy that won't be playable. You can basically win or lose upon the tiniest distraction or, alternatively, you have to play super defensive because you can't watch in two places simultaneously.

Yes you can win or lose upon the tiniest distraction but it's exactly the same on sc2 lol.

The point is - and seemingly you're missing it - that things are so fast and consistent in sc2 that once you're somehow used to the game clock (duration of production cycles) it just becomes automatic to queue up stuff on time.

I'm sure you're talking from experience lol :P
My point is that it's simply not that easy, and that it wouldn't be too hard to play with a clock if macroing was the only thing to do, but you have to control your units (more than in aoe3), which means that on top of spending more actions in the micro, you have to produce units, and it needs more APM since it's not only SHIFT+hotkey, and it's more often than on aoe3, and there's no queue UI.
So yea my point is that macro on sc2 is much harder than on aoe3, and not only because the game is faster.


I'm not saying you just queue multiple units. I'm rather saying that you just keep cycling through your production and queue stuff non stop. The income is enough quite soon in the game and also very consistent, so if anything there is more the problem of spending your income than saving your resources. And even if you desync for like 1 batch it's not going to be that much of a problem because it's just one unit per cycle.

Since you cycle, missing one batch means missing one cycle, which can sometimes be 15-20 pop which is huge, especially since you'll be floating 1000 resources.

Best Aztec player in the game :uglylol:
You don't even play Aztecs in the way they are supposed to be played.
Yea I don't play Aztecs the way they are supposed to be played, I play them the most effective way :chinese: :chinese: :chinese:
PS: Maybe you should play some sc2, and then give your opinion, it would be more relevant I'm sure.
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Re: Modular Build Order

Post by Garja »

Hmm, you either struggle at reading comprehension or you must be just limited in comprehension in general. I mean, it could be me but it's like 3 posts that I'm trying to explain it.

You keep refering to speed and APM. If you didn't noticed it has nothing to do with my point. It's not speed that makes something hard. In fact, and this is my point, it is easier to practice a consistent game design like sc2 where basically the challenging part is just the speed, than aoe3 which has different training cycles and unconsistent resource flow. This is simply a fact.
And btw it isn't even about sc2, so stop trying to make it personal. It's the same exact thing with aoeo for example. It's a general assesment based on game design.

It's like two songs where one has odd time signatures while the other is simple but has faster tempo. Clearly it's easier to practice the latter.

Anyway, this is all irrelevant and discussing this with you is a huge waste of time.
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Re: Modular Build Order

Post by lemmings121 »

Garja wrote: Maybe because if you remove the crazy speed from sc2 the game itself is pretty straightforward?


I think I get what you are saying, but I have to disagree. Its not as trivial as "just spam shit, and be fast enough to spam more shit", if that was the case I would be able to play on slow speed and have equal macro as a progamer.. and i'm sure thats not the case.
In my diamond tier in sc2 as zerg, spamming the "build drones key" isnt a problem, the problem is build drones when i should have made army, and then die. Macro in aoe3 vs sc2 feels like oto vs brit imo, because in aoe3 you will queue a vill, and then queue another in 30 secs, no decisions to make, just remember to make vills. in sc2 (as zerg) you have to think every cycle "how many vills should i really make now, to get some eco and not die?". Other races have different mechanics ofc.

its fair to say the batch mechanic gives aoe3 a different and unique challenge, but imo, still easier then sc2 at "slow speed".



Garja wrote:You don't even play Aztecs in the way they are supposed to be played.

I had to quote this one just because I love when people say that "you are playing wrong, you just won 5-0, but you played wrong everygame!"
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Re: Modular Build Order

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Post by deleted_user0 »

i've played quite alot of games on fast speed. and it's totally possible. its even possible to have decent macro in a real game. of course one has to be prioritized over the other in such a setting. so if there is a fight and you decide to focus on micro, you are gonna end up with 1k 1k unspent (at least if not used to playing that speed all the time, and having the relevant hotkeys, which is probs the biggest issue with playing aoe on that speed. hotkeys arent good enough for it.). Or if you focus on macro instead of micro, you might find your army rekt because you didnt watch your cannons or something. However, it's totally possible to execute near perfect macro on that speed. I've done flawless 15 into 16 vil fast speed Spain FF's on fast speed, as well as the british bo I did vs kynesie, which is arguably one of the most macro intensive british builds I know about as it requires a lot of timings of sending cards and getting upgrades as well as building walls and manor houses and other stuff all over the map. Of course I didn't do that in a real game, so you have no distraction from the other player, so that helps a lot. but tbh, playing age1 and age2 vs sandbox ai is kinda similar to playing age1 and age2 vs kynesie. My time on fast speed was maybe 15 seconds off my time on normal speed, so that's not a big difference.

tbh I like playing on fast speed from time to time, its fun.

that said, its probably true that sc2 is mostly if not only challenging because of increased speed (and that's why as they continued to dumb down and simplify the game, they also increased the speed). Try playing sc2 on normal speed... that game is so easy then and boring as hell...
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Re: Modular Build Order

Post by Hazza54321 »

These bobs havent heard of the #haztecs or stanley fastecs?

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