Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

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South Africa mGravitus
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Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by mGravitus »

Team game: 3v3
Late fortress age, gold mines are running out. Your French, you still need to keep pumping out goons and cuirassers.
What are you supposed to do? - just pull out 1.6k wood from your ass?
Meanwhile your opponent slaps down a few paddies.

To balance it further, they don't have to worry about vills bumping into each other.

Can someone explain to me how this is balanced?
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by Aykin Haraka »

Don't do cuir age 3
And if plantation = 400w
Asian civ still 400w or ?
400w for plantation and gold mine in middle are useless
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by Rikikipu »

mGravitus wrote:Team game: 3v3
Late fortress age, gold mines are running out. Your French, you still need to keep pumping out goons and cuirassers.
What are you supposed to do? - just pull out 1.6k wood from your ass?
Meanwhile your opponent slaps down a few paddies.

To balance it further, they don't have to worry about vills bumping into each other.

Can someone explain to me how this is balanced?

it's not the same gathering rate
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by leaf4 »

https://docs.zoho.com/sheet/published/e ... ring+Times

Managed to find that 0.34 seems so slow. Thats half the speed of a goldmine
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by britishmusketeer »

Both plantations are rice paddies gather at an effective rate of 0.34.
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by leaf4 »

@britishmusketeer are you sure? I found 3 sources saying they gather at 0.34
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by gibson »

yea I think plantation gather at 0.5, rice paddies gather at .34. But since settler walk around on plantation actual gather rate is also .34
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by britishmusketeer »

leaf4 wrote:@britishmusketeer are you sure? I found 3 sources saying they gather at 0.34

Ah yea edited. I was thinking of mills.
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by _H2O »

Rice paddies were designed by a completely different game designer. That's why they are so different. They are good for two reasons:

1. They have the same gather rate in lag or no lag because Vils don't walk between gathering.

2. The original building costs and tech availability (plantations cannot be made in age 3 at all because you can't tech them) is just garbage. I literally will save to go 4 no matter what if I anticipate having to plantation.
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by Jaeger »

_H2O wrote:Rice paddies were designed by a completely different game designer. That's why they are so different. They are good for two reasons:

1. They have the same gather rate in lag or no lag because Vils don't walk between gathering.

2. The original building costs and tech availability (plantations cannot be made in age 3 at all because you can't tech them) is just garbage. I literally will save to go 4 no matter what if I anticipate having to plantation.

Yeah I mean it's also suuuper much better to go to age 4 first anyway because if you don't go to age 4 off your gold mines you will go like 5 minutes later off your plantations and you'll lose a lot of factory time.
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by pecelot »

So can we actually do anything like it? Perhaps decrease the cost of plantations to 700 or ideally 600 wood? It's really annoying in comparison with Asian rice paddies, since you can build the latter in age 2, easily switch from food to gold in a matter of seconds and vice versa and are 50% cheaper, goddammit!
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by Goodspeed »

It's not balanced. Either paddies should be more expensive or plants cheaper.
You could argue paddies are better design, especially with the vills staying put instead of moving around, but what I like about plants is that they are a late game building which doesn't affect your typical game. Coin mine control is important because of this, which makes for more interesting games. In AoE2 there is not even a way to gather gold in 1v1 after the mines run out, which isn't necessarily a problem.
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by P i k i l i c »

Personally, I find it as an advantage Asian civs have among others and make them more unique. I never found this difference game-changing either, but I'm barely a 2nd lieut.
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by Jaeger »

Goodspeed wrote:It's not balanced. Either paddies should be more expensive or plants cheaper.
You could argue paddies are better design, especially with the vills staying put instead of moving around, but what I like about plants is that they are a late game building which doesn't affect your typical game. Coin mine control is important because of this, which makes for more interesting games. In AoE2 there is not even a way to gather gold in 1v1 after the mines run out, which isn't necessarily a problem.

It's nice to see fights for map control but I am also sad that games never go to age 4. It would be really interesting to watch and it would allow players to train and use new skillset.

Plus it's also really cool to see how different civs deal with each other in lategame.
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

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Post by Goodspeed »

Yeah it would make for some great games. I think that is something we should solve with maps though, not by changing plantations/mills, because we don't want it to become too common. I've been trying to argue for the inclusion of at least one very high resource map (like ASFP Great Plains) because it promotes late game. Just have a map with a "ridiculous" amount of hunts and mines. We'd see some interesting builds. FI's or semi-FI's might actually be viable that way. Artillery play would be stronger. Etc.

Just the one map, maybe not even in the standard pool but occasionally used in tournaments. We have maps like Indonesia which forces water, maps like Cascade Range which force early map control, but no land map that promotes late game. People don't want it for some reason, and seem to write it off as me promoting my own play style.
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by Jaeger »

Goodspeed wrote:Yeah it would make for some great games. I think that is something we should solve with maps though, not by changing plantations/mills, because we don't want it to become too common. I've been trying to argue for the inclusion of at least one very high resource map (like ASFP Great Plains) because it promotes late game. Just have a map with a "ridiculous" amount of hunts and mines. We'd see some interesting builds. FI's or semi-FI's might actually be viable that way. Artillery play would be stronger. Etc.

Just the one map, maybe not even in the standard pool but occasionally used in tournaments. We have maps like Indonesia which forces water, maps like Cascade Range which force early map control, but no land map that promotes late game. People don't seem to want it for some reason, and seem to write it off as me promoting my own play style which, I don't even play the game any more.

Yes if people are currently against it we don't have to start including it in a tournament right away, hopefully if it's just available people will start to play on it.
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by Goodspeed »

Sure, I guess. Thing is ESOC has always made it a point to have great map variety in tournaments. This would be a great addition. Note nobody really plays on Indonesia, but the map is included in tournaments.

Somewhat related: In Sc2 the earliest maps were tiny, but to support a meta moving more and more into late game (which is a typical evolution in any RTS including AoE3) the maps were made bigger and bigger and pocket natural expansions were added as well as generally more accessible early expansions. So not only larger rush distances, but also more natural resources which are relatively safe to gather.
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by WickedCossack »

Well RE made it a point to have great map variety too, it's part of Aoe3. Texas was an interesting design for a later game map, though they did it with low resources. Either way a late game map would be a good addition.

Also I disagree no one plays on Indonesia, I've hosted games on cascade, indo and even honshu in the past 2 days and got games. Ok maybe it's not as common as Arkansas but they're fun maps and keep the game fresh. :lol:
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by Jaeger »

Goodspeed wrote:Yeah it would make for some great games. I think that is something we should solve with maps though, not by changing plantations/mills, because we don't want it to become too common. I've been trying to argue for the inclusion of at least one very high resource map (like ASFP Great Plains) because it promotes late game. Just have a map with a "ridiculous" amount of hunts and mines. We'd see some interesting builds. FI's or semi-FI's might actually be viable that way. Artillery play would be stronger. Etc.

Just the one map, maybe not even in the standard pool but occasionally used in tournaments. We have maps like Indonesia which forces water, maps like Cascade Range which force early map control, but no land map that promotes late game. People don't want it for some reason, and seem to write it off as me promoting my own play style.

@Rikikipu @Durokan @Garja please? :love:
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by lordraphael »

WickedCossack wrote:Well RE made it a point to have great map variety too, it's part of Aoe3. Texas was an interesting design for a later game map, though they did it with low resources. Either way a late game map would be a good addition.

Also I disagree no one plays on Indonesia, I've hosted games on cascade, indo and even honshu in the past 2 days and got games. Ok maybe it's not as common as Arkansas but they're fun maps and keep the game fresh. :lol:

you actually play ? I thought youre busy dodging all day :O
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by aligator92 »

Can't we at least discuss 600w plantations? It is still far away from being as good as paddies and makes them a bit more bareable
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by lordraphael »

Goodspeed wrote:Sure, I guess. Thing is ESOC has always made it a point to have great map variety in tournaments. This would be a great addition. Note nobody really plays on Indonesia, but the map is included in tournaments.

Somewhat related: In Sc2 the earliest maps were tiny, but to support a meta moving more and more into late game (which is a typical evolution in any RTS including AoE3) the maps were made bigger and bigger and pocket natural expansions were added as well as generally more accessible early expansions. So not only larger rush distances, but also more natural resources which are relatively safe to gather.

to be fair. Early sc2 maps were just copies of BW maps. But since BW plays out very differently than sc2 maps had to be altered. So it wasnt purely the focus on getting more macro games, early Sc2 maps were just bad. Ive recently played a bit of sc2 again and i noticed that the amount of macro maps have infact decreased compared to 2 years ago when i last played. I played like 20 games and in very few games have I used up more than 3 bases. WHich is not much considering Hots decreased the amount of gas and min per base and increased the worker at start.
breeze wrote: they cant even guess how much f***ing piece of stupid retarded they look they are trying to give lesson to people who are over pr35 and know the best mu. im pretty sure that we need a page that only pr30+ post and then we could have a nice discussins.
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by WickedCossack »

lordraphael wrote:
WickedCossack wrote:Well RE made it a point to have great map variety too, it's part of Aoe3. Texas was an interesting design for a later game map, though they did it with low resources. Either way a late game map would be a good addition.

Also I disagree no one plays on Indonesia, I've hosted games on cascade, indo and even honshu in the past 2 days and got games. Ok maybe it's not as common as Arkansas but they're fun maps and keep the game fresh. :lol:

you actually play ? I thought youre busy dodging all day :O


Now and again.
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by lordraphael »

WickedCossack wrote:
lordraphael wrote:
WickedCossack wrote:Well RE made it a point to have great map variety too, it's part of Aoe3. Texas was an interesting design for a later game map, though they did it with low resources. Either way a late game map would be a good addition.

Also I disagree no one plays on Indonesia, I've hosted games on cascade, indo and even honshu in the past 2 days and got games. Ok maybe it's not as common as Arkansas but they're fun maps and keep the game fresh. :lol:

you actually play ? I thought youre busy dodging all day :O


Now and again.

play now ?
breeze wrote: they cant even guess how much f***ing piece of stupid retarded they look they are trying to give lesson to people who are over pr35 and know the best mu. im pretty sure that we need a page that only pr30+ post and then we could have a nice discussins.
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Re: Balance - 400 wood [TOGGLEABLE] plantations

Post by Garja »

_H2O wrote:Rice paddies were designed by a completely different game designer. That's why they are so different. They are good for two reasons:

1. They have the same gather rate in lag or no lag because Vils don't walk between gathering.

2. The original building costs and tech availability (plantations cannot be made in age 3 at all because you can't tech them) is just garbage. I literally will save to go 4 no matter what if I anticipate having to plantation.

True that they are different mainly because TAD in general is just a different game from TWC and Nilla. Actually more expansion is balanced within itself, but TWC is definitely more comparable to Nilla.
The lag thing is good.
The original building cost and availability has complete sense in TWC and vanilla. Gold is an important resource and there are other means of infinite income (TP, whales).
Plantation (800w) is one of the elements that justify the 3rd wood up. 3rd wood up and mill/plant switch add to macro which I'd say is a good thing.
Also because of gold shortage you have to make a choice: switch to plants, switch to wood costing units or try an age up in advance for factories and age4 cards. Paddies kinda eliminate that element.
The toggle button is even worse in that sense, and make it even more unbalanced with euro/twc civs.

Now, 600w plants or paddies can be an interesting idea. 600w paddies seems more appropriate to me and the reasons are:
- it makes sense that mills cost 400w, paddies 600w (combine both mills and plants so they're better than mills), plantations 800w
- TAD civs already have survival tools that delay mill/plant switch, plus they all have a solid wood unit (even rajputs are not that bad in starving situations).

Goodspeed wrote:It's not balanced. Either paddies should be more expensive or plants cheaper.
You could argue paddies are better design, especially with the vills staying put instead of moving around, but what I like about plants is that they are a late game building which doesn't affect your typical game. Coin mine control is important because of this, which makes for more interesting games. In AoE2 there is not even a way to gather gold in 1v1 after the mines run out, which isn't necessarily a problem.

Ye I fully agree.

Goodspeed wrote:Yeah it would make for some great games. I think that is something we should solve with maps though, not by changing plantations/mills, because we don't want it to become too common. I've been trying to argue for the inclusion of at least one very high resource map (like ASFP Great Plains) because it promotes late game. Just have a map with a "ridiculous" amount of hunts and mines. We'd see some interesting builds. FI's or semi-FI's might actually be viable that way. Artillery play would be stronger. Etc.

Just the one map, maybe not even in the standard pool but occasionally used in tournaments. We have maps like Indonesia which forces water, maps like Cascade Range which force early map control, but no land map that promotes late game. People don't want it for some reason, and seem to write it off as me promoting my own play style.

Adirondacks is like that. Currently you can bring 3 herds to the TC on good spawns (2 herds in the average spawn). That's either 30 or 20 elks, plus the starting hunt. An elk is 500f just like a bison. (Adirondacks hunts will be changed tho to reflect the fact that the map will be a bit more water oriented).

But to be fair, in the current meta, maps with too many hunts/mines just lead to one big battle shit fest, with players not moving out from their bases at all. It changes a bit if it is a high but exposed resource map. There are already several ESOC maps with this theme (actually half of them).
High and safe resource maps are only good for colonial MUs. In other MUs one or both players age up and start using unit cards which virtually add 4-5k more resources to the map. This makes all the up-to-contention resources redundant.
Low res maps tend to bring more action regardless of the MU. Because of that, colo unit cards, map control, defensive structures and in general survival mechanics (e.g nat techs) become relatively more important. This adds a lot to the gameplay especially in the current meta, dominated by FF strats and crate spam.
Goodspeed wrote:Sure, I guess. Thing is ESOC has always made it a point to have great map variety in tournaments. This would be a great addition. Note nobody really plays on Indonesia, but the map is included in tournaments.

Somewhat related: In Sc2 the earliest maps were tiny, but to support a meta moving more and more into late game (which is a typical evolution in any RTS including AoE3) the maps were made bigger and bigger and pocket natural expansions were added as well as generally more accessible early expansions. So not only larger rush distances, but also more natural resources which are relatively safe to gather.

SC2 meta is garbage tho. Most of games I remember from any expansion featured players half splitting the map for the whole game and atleast in HOTS it seems they hardly use all the expansions. If it wasn't for the fact that you have hard counters and relatively fast teching SC2 would be incredibly dull. The fact that games are longer doesn't necessarily means they're more interesting. Sure, on one hand there is more room for mistakes so higher skill ceiling, but on the other it is simply more of the same. That has a lot to do with the very straightforward macro of the game. AOE3 is just different, luckily.
BW is different. From what I've seen there is almost always a constant flow of units across the map and it seems to me that players take hidden expansions more often, breaking the half map split. There is just more action with not necessarily big armies and you can set defensive points that hard to break which create stales and make games more interesting.
To make a simple yet decent comparison, SC2 is more like classic prolonged musk wars or skirm/goon FFs in AOE3, while BW is more like a proper game that start from colonial action and leads to late game, seasoned with different units, techs and some unusual elements brought to the table (outposts, eco ups, water play, etc.).
WickedCossack wrote:Well RE made it a point to have great map variety too, it's part of Aoe3. Texas was an interesting design for a later game map, though they did it with low resources. Either way a late game map would be a good addition.

Also I disagree no one plays on Indonesia, I've hosted games on cascade, indo and even honshu in the past 2 days and got games. Ok maybe it's not as common as Arkansas but they're fun maps and keep the game fresh. :lol:

Indonesia is objectively not a "standard" map. It was created with the main purpose of forcing water in tourney. The fact that the map has no american natives (canoes) and has 200g+firepit start make it quite an unbalanced map in some MUs. Funny enough it is more playable in land MUs than water probably. Mirror water MUs are funny tho.

Texas has a great concept, altho it is strictly related to the vanilla meta. It still makes sense with some TWC civs but imo TAD civs just kill it, because they have too many survival tools (exports, shrines, autogathering wonders, free livestock fattening buildings, double deck, rice paddies, etc.).
There was an idea for a map like that but then it was dropped. Jebel Musa could be the next Texas map with some adaptations.
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