Walls/water discussion

[WickedCossack]

Ah those were the days where age 2 longer than 10mins game time was viable

Didn't age 2 knock you out the tournament?

[Goodspeed]

Ah those were the days where age 2 longer than 10mins game time was viable

Mostly due to the maps and the civ balance issues. It's also because of these things that the meta failed to move past the broken early game; people hadn't started abusing TPs to the extent they do now. I think even on ASFP, had people known how strong TPs were, there would have been many more fortress-based build orders. Near the end Samwise seemed to catch on and was stagecoaching almost every game, but the meta never got a chance to fully evolve from there as sc2 came out and the patch died.

Anyway, on many EP maps it's still viable if not forced to play colonial. Ensuring build diversity is all about finding the right balance between TP maps, no TP maps and high/low resource maps.

[Hazza54321]

Ah those were the days where age 2 longer than 10mins game time was viable

Didn't age 2 knock you out the tournament?

Poor scouting as you very well know, use that teacher nougin

[deleted_user0]

I'm not talking about EP obviously. Before EP, most civs couldn't beat an Iro rush. I know it's counterable by some, and map dependent, but the game was certainly dominated by it so it served as a good example. And that's all it was...

i wasnt talking about ep either when i said that iro bb rush is beatable. most civs couldnt beat an iro rush because they ran out of food at 6 minutes, if they had any food at all. it didnt have much to do with the strat. it had more to do with bad maps, and uncreative players not willing to adapt to beat the strat. hence the point of my post was to refute that its a good example.

im sure i can come up with a counter strat with every civ to the RE iro BB rush thats viable on EP maps. in fact, i loved playing vs iro players in qs because i knew they would BB rush me and I knew i had a counterstrat that would rek them every time if i had a normal hunt in base. iro was OP on RE, but not at all because of BB rush. and very few players played the iro style that was actually near-unbeatable on normal land maps, so again, its not a good example to say that it was dominant. cuz maybe 4-5 players played like that (goongoon, garja, nagayumi and myself is what i can think of)

[momuuu]

Show hidden quotes

Everyone complains that the game is semi ff stale, so try to learn water, it's new build orders and type of play. Its fresh, different and actually a lot of fun. It's like a new game. How dumb is it that essentially half the game has never been fully explored.

Similarly, the game has 5 ages and people complain we go to the third age too much... In AoE2, which has 4 ages, it's pretty much impossible to win in the second age because there are no siege weapons. No one's complaining that literally every game there is the equivalent of what we call a semi-FF.

Also, last I checked in the majority of high level tournament games neither player goes for a semi-FF. Only rarely are they semi-FF mirrors. The data does not support this narrative. There is more build order diversity than in any other time in AoE3 history.

And so what if semi-FF is the best build? The meta moves further and further into the late game, this is inherent in any RTS and does not mean there's a problem.

How is moving towards lategame 'inherent to RTS'. That just a load of unjustified bullshit. Just look at recent sc2 developments, where the meta of terran almost completely shifted to early game proxy aggresion and realize how full of shit you are.

Because of frequent game-changing balance and design changes, SC2's meta rarely gets a chance to evolve and settle in the way BW's, AoE2's and AoE3's did. This takes time. When it does get a chance, games get longer and longer. Remember the BL/infestor days at the end of WoL?

It's inherent in RTS because as the meta gets fleshed out, civs/races that scale well into the late game find counters for early game aggression. Those counters necessarily exist in a balanced game. If they don't, the game is dominated by said uncounterable early game aggression (looking at you Iro BB rush).

You really should work on the way you voice disagreement.

Except in the past year the only relevant changes to tvp were buffs to lategame play and nerfs to early game cheeses. Especially the buff to marauder scaling for terran, which does nothing the early game was 'big' and yet the meta still slowly turned into proxies.

Maybe you should research before making all these assumptions.

[Goodspeed]

@deleted_user I think you may remember it to be weaker than it really was because most people who played that style were bad, and followed it up poorly. A properly executed rush with a mid colonial follow-up was impossible to beat by most civs, I'm pretty sure. I recall testing this pretty extensively for PK tournament. The advantage Iro gets from the free TP and the insane age up politician snowballs.

[Goodspeed]

Show hidden quotes

Everyone complains that the game is semi ff stale, so try to learn water, it's new build orders and type of play. Its fresh, different and actually a lot of fun. It's like a new game. How dumb is it that essentially half the game has never been fully explored.

Similarly, the game has 5 ages and people complain we go to the third age too much... In AoE2, which has 4 ages, it's pretty much impossible to win in the second age because there are no siege weapons. No one's complaining that literally every game there is the equivalent of what we call a semi-FF.

Also, last I checked in the majority of high level tournament games neither player goes for a semi-FF. Only rarely are they semi-FF mirrors. The data does not support this narrative. There is more build order diversity than in any other time in AoE3 history.

And so what if semi-FF is the best build? The meta moves further and further into the late game, this is inherent in any RTS and does not mean there's a problem.

How is moving towards lategame 'inherent to RTS'. That just a load of unjustified bullshit. Just look at recent sc2 developments, where the meta of terran almost completely shifted to early game proxy aggresion and realize how full of shit you are.

Because of frequent game-changing balance and design changes, SC2's meta rarely gets a chance to evolve and settle in the way BW's, AoE2's and AoE3's did. This takes time. When it does get a chance, games get longer and longer. Remember the BL/infestor days at the end of WoL?

It's inherent in RTS because as the meta gets fleshed out, civs/races that scale well into the late game find counters for early game aggression. Those counters necessarily exist in a balanced game. If they don't, the game is dominated by said uncounterable early game aggression (looking at you Iro BB rush).

You really should work on the way you voice disagreement.

Except in the past year the only relevant changes to tvp were buffs to lategame play and nerfs to early game cheeses. Especially the buff to marauder scaling for terran, which does nothing the early game was 'big' and yet the meta still slowly turned into proxies.

A year is nothing. The point is Blizzard frequently releases large patches that have a way of resetting the meta. And in SC2, much like in our game, the maps are a very significant factor and ever-changing as well.

Proxies are commonly meant for eco harassment. What you really need to be looking at is around what game time, # of bases and tech level people are hitting timings designed to end the game. If that doesn't slowly (and I mean slowly, spanning years) move later and later without any changes being made to the game, it points to balance issues.

[Atomiswave]

I think sc2 is not good example. Its much different rts mechanics wise, abilities play much larger role, backbone of good eco is to have multiple bases, tech have larger role.... AOE III is much different game in almost every regard.

[Mitoe]

So I decided to go through all of the games this tournament from the Round of 16 and onwards, and look at whether Colonial or Fortress was favoured.

C = Games where both players stayed Colonial for longer than 11 minutes.
F = Games where Fortress was reached by 1 or more players before 11 minutes.
I = Games where Industrial was reached by 1 or more players before 15 minutes.




--Gran Chaco/Alaska-- (Basically non-TP maps; I really should have kept these ones separate though because I think Gran Chaco featured a lot more Fortress games than Alaska did but I'm too lazy to go look through all of the games again.)
CCCCCCCCC
FFFFFFF


--Tibet-- (I believe Tibet and Alaska have the highest veto rates of the tournament, but I haven't confirmed this)
CCCC
I

--Manchuria--
CCC
FFFFF
I

--Hudson--
CCC
FFFFFFF

--High Plains--
CCCC
FFFF
I

--Kamchatka--
C
FFFF
I

--Baja California--
C



So it seems like Fortress age play is definitely favoured on maps like Manchuria / Hudson / Kamchatka, where it's easy to grab a safe TP, you have plenty of resources in your base for 10-12+ minutes of the game, and your opponent grabbing the TP line is not a huge threat.

However, on maps like Alaska and Tibet, where you do not have a lot of resources in your base, Colonial play is preferable in order to retain control over resources on the map and deny your opponent gather time.

Even on High Plains, a map that is arguably similar to the 3 Fortress favoured maps, actually has a relatively balanced number of games in different ages. This is likely because although both players have a lot of resources--arguably more than the Fortress favoured maps--control over the TP line is important enough to incentivize aggressive play or fights to contest control over the TPs.

Gran Chaco I believe is very slightly favoured in Fortress play from what I remember; this is most likely because there are plenty of resources and Dutch is pretty meta on that map. Even controlling the middle of the map doesn't ensure that your opponent won't be gathering resources relatively safely on one or both sides of the map without even needing to contest your forward base.



Now, it definitely seems to be true that in general we are seeing more Fortress-oriented games in total, but I don't understand how everyone can complain about it so much. Like GoodSpeed mentioned, AoE3's meta is heavily affected by its maps. More resources in your base means you have more time to dedicate to developing your tech and massing stronger units before you need to think about securing control over other resources. What I find mind boggling is how it seems like the same players who are complaining about Colonial not being super viable, are also the same players who call maps with less resources "shit" or even "unplayable." I believe Tibet and Alaska were the most frequently vetoed maps this tournament (I don't know for sure), because even though people complain about Fortress being strong, they don't really seem to like playing Colonial slug-fest games either?

Even maps like High Plains, I can recall just the other day in the match between Raphael and Hazza, the twitch chat was crying about how no map should ever be allowed to have 5 or more TPs, despite the fact that it seems to provide the most balanced approach, and the most player interaction.

If you want Colonial games to be more viable then you need only lower the number of safe resources available to each player and you will inevitably see more conflicts in the Colonial age.

I've said all of this before but no one seems to believe me?

Of course, the alternative to playing on different styles of maps is to nerf Fortress play, in which case on non-TP maps and maps with lower resources will completely force Colonial play.

[lordraphael]

Show hidden quotes

Everyone complains that the game is semi ff stale, so try to learn water, it's new build orders and type of play. Its fresh, different and actually a lot of fun. It's like a new game. How dumb is it that essentially half the game has never been fully explored.

Similarly, the game has 5 ages and people complain we go to the third age too much... In AoE2, which has 4 ages, it's pretty much impossible to win in the second age because there are no siege weapons. No one's complaining that literally every game there is the equivalent of what we call a semi-FF.

Also, last I checked in the majority of high level tournament games neither player goes for a semi-FF. Only rarely are they semi-FF mirrors. The data does not support this narrative. There is more build order diversity than in any other time in AoE3 history.

And so what if semi-FF is the best build? The meta moves further and further into the late game, this is inherent in any RTS and does not mean there's a problem.

How is moving towards lategame 'inherent to RTS'. That just a load of unjustified bullshit. Just look at recent sc2 developments, where the meta of terran almost completely shifted to early game proxy aggresion and realize how full of shit you are.

Because of frequent game-changing balance and design changes, SC2's meta rarely gets a chance to evolve and settle in the way BW's, AoE2's and AoE3's did. This takes time. When it does get a chance, games get longer and longer. Remember the BL/infestor days at the end of WoL?

It's inherent in RTS because as the meta gets fleshed out, civs/races that scale well into the late game find counters for early game aggression. Those counters necessarily exist in a balanced game. If they don't, the game is dominated by said uncounterable early game aggression (looking at you Iro BB rush).

You really should work on the way you voice disagreement.

how the hell would blord infestor be a argumnet for your claim. Did it lead players into lategame? yes, it did, but it also made viewers, players and literally everyone doubting blizzards ability to properly balance the game.
For your information because you seem to have forgotten it; blord infestor was probably the most broken unit combo in the games history, followed by swarmhosts.Both units that reached its full potential with heavy turtle/ lategame play. ALso blord infestor totally killed the sc2 hype, sc2 had easily 100000+ viewers for every major tourney until the end of 2011 and 2012 was the era of blord infestor where numbers plummeted and sc2 never recovered from it. So yeah if you really wanna argue for walls and water with references to sc2 blord infestor youre fucking delusional as it was the worst era of whole sc2 and i would know i played the game at high masters back then and also watched the tourneys.

[Mitoe]

Another thing I've also suggested in the past to tackle this issue is to adjust Fortress politician research times.

Fast age is too difficult to punish and gives you access to Fortress age shipments and units too quickly. It takes 40 seconds to research.

On the other hand, slow age is far too slow and is very difficult to get away with in many situations. You get access to your Fortress shipments and units significantly later, and in return you receive a handful of units (sometimes very undesirable units). You clearly need to think about investing into more Colonial units while you're aging if you want to survive. Slow age takes 110 seconds to research, a whole 70 seconds longer than fast age.


I think that increasing the fast age to 50 seconds and decreasing the slow age to 100 seconds would go a long time to making the game easier to balance and also making people think twice about how they approach each situation. This gives more room for civs to punish Fortress age ups, and because slow age is more appealing than before by a factor of 20 seconds, a lot of players will inevitably pick it in situations where they shouldn't and get punished for it. Slow age also gives more options to a lot of civs who like to stay Colonial; civs like Iro and Aztec who like to use fast age to Colonial, or British, who don't have fast age, or even civs like Russia who don't really have any shadow-teching units and would continue training units in transition to Fortress anyway would like a slower politician so that they have more units overall once they are Fortress.

All of these civs would have more follow ups after initially applying Colonial pressure if they so desire. At the moment part of the reason Colonial isn't preferable is because it just doesn't have a good follow up, and this helps address that issue a little bit.

[deleted_user0]

@deleted_user I think you may remember it to be weaker than it really was because most people who played that style were bad, and followed it up poorly. A properly executed rush with a mid colonial follow-up was impossible to beat by most civs, I'm pretty sure. I recall testing this pretty extensively for PK tournament. The advantage Iro gets from the free TP and the insane age up politician snowballs.

it does snowball, but not because you go 4 kanya 5 BB toma 7 aenna etc. that rush was never iros best strat. and on maps of the quality that we have now, it doesnt work as well as youre making it out to be. its still strong, especially vs ppl who cant defend. but as i said, im confident that i can make a strat with every civ which can beat iro 4 kanya 5 BB + 2-3 unit shipments in a row rush. Ofcourse, as long as the maps are good.

[Mitoe]

Ofcourse, as long as the maps are good.

Thanks for helping prove my point earlier.

[Gendarme]

...and with time ESOC slowly realized that Vane's patch had been the perfect patch all along.

[Goodspeed]

@deleted_user I think you may remember it to be weaker than it really was because most people who played that style were bad, and followed it up poorly. A properly executed rush with a mid colonial follow-up was impossible to beat by most civs, I'm pretty sure. I recall testing this pretty extensively for PK tournament. The advantage Iro gets from the free TP and the insane age up politician snowballs.

it does snowball, but not because you go 4 kanya 5 BB toma 7 aenna etc. that rush was never iros best strat. and on maps of the quality that we have now, it doesnt work as well as youre making it out to be. its still strong, especially vs ppl who cant defend. but as i said, im confident that i can make a strat with every civ which can beat iro 4 kanya 5 BB + 2-3 unit shipments in a row rush. Ofcourse, as long as the maps are good.

I'm sure you're well aware of this but you don't have to send 2 unit shipments in a row to rush with Iro. Your 4 min age up and 4 kanya, unit batch and BB make for plenty of mass. The fact that Iro sacrifices almost no eco potential to do this (600w and 5v can come right after) yet it's very scary and fast pressure is what makes it so strong. I never said anything about sending unit shipment after unit shipment and trying to actually kill them at 6 minutes.

[Goodspeed]

Show hidden quotes

Everyone complains that the game is semi ff stale, so try to learn water, it's new build orders and type of play. Its fresh, different and actually a lot of fun. It's like a new game. How dumb is it that essentially half the game has never been fully explored.

Similarly, the game has 5 ages and people complain we go to the third age too much... In AoE2, which has 4 ages, it's pretty much impossible to win in the second age because there are no siege weapons. No one's complaining that literally every game there is the equivalent of what we call a semi-FF.

Also, last I checked in the majority of high level tournament games neither player goes for a semi-FF. Only rarely are they semi-FF mirrors. The data does not support this narrative. There is more build order diversity than in any other time in AoE3 history.

And so what if semi-FF is the best build? The meta moves further and further into the late game, this is inherent in any RTS and does not mean there's a problem.

How is moving towards lategame 'inherent to RTS'. That just a load of unjustified bullshit. Just look at recent sc2 developments, where the meta of terran almost completely shifted to early game proxy aggresion and realize how full of shit you are.

Because of frequent game-changing balance and design changes, SC2's meta rarely gets a chance to evolve and settle in the way BW's, AoE2's and AoE3's did. This takes time. When it does get a chance, games get longer and longer. Remember the BL/infestor days at the end of WoL?

It's inherent in RTS because as the meta gets fleshed out, civs/races that scale well into the late game find counters for early game aggression. Those counters necessarily exist in a balanced game. If they don't, the game is dominated by said uncounterable early game aggression (looking at you Iro BB rush).

You really should work on the way you voice disagreement.

how the hell would blord infestor be a argumnet for your claim.

What claim, exactly? Answer this if nothing else.

Did it lead players into lategame? yes, it did, but it also made viewers, players and literally everyone doubting blizzards ability to properly balance the game.

For sure it was an issue. My point is that it took the meta some time to evolve to a place where that build was common. But yet again, this was only an example that you're getting hung up over.

For your information because you seem to have forgotten it; blord infestor was probably the most broken unit combo in the games history, followed by swarmhosts. Both units that reached its full potential with heavy turtle/ lategame play. ALso blord infestor totally killed the sc2 hype, sc2 had easily 100000+ viewers for every major tourney until the end of 2011 and 2012 was the era of blord infestor where numbers plummeted and sc2 never recovered from it.

Haven't forgotten. It was pretty stupid, yeah.

So yeah if you really wanna argue for walls and water with references to sc2 blord infestor youre fucking delusional as it was the worst era of whole sc2 and i would know i played the game at high masters back then and also watched the tourneys.

How you can think I'm arguing for walls and water by referencing BL/infestor I don't understand. Maybe you haven't had time to read the rest of the thread or something, but you misunderstood my post. Read my earlier posts, at least, if you plan to join this particular discussion.

[deleted_user0]

if u do it properly ur up by 3.45. 3.35 if you have luck with tres. obviously you don't need to send 2-3 unit shipments in a row. even 4 kanya 5v/600w variation, though stronger, is still beatable on good maps. also, if you play vs water and walls, even if its a tp map, youre 100% gonna lose by opening 4kanya BB. so that im just no sure why youre claiming that it was super dominant and OP when its just pretty clear that the dominance was a side effect from another factor, namely maps predominantly, and poor adaptation by players. even just dropping a tower in base is very effective to midgitating the 4 kanya 5 toma rush. as well as just placing a few well placed walls to block off chokes. sioux and aztecs can also kill the warhut with explorer + converts

[deleted_user0]

Ofcourse, as long as the maps are good.

Thanks for helping prove my point earlier.

what are u talking about?

[Mitoe]

@deleted_user wasn't the reason the all in rush was OP was because if you don't prepare for it you lose if they do it and if you do prepare for it and they don't do it then your answers to Iro's other options also lose?

Also I'm talking about how the maps affect how effective aggression is, which I referenced in my post earlier than everyone has ignored so far.

[Goodspeed]

if u do it properly ur up by 3.45. 3.35 if you have luck with tres. obviously you don't need to send 2-3 unit shipments in a row. even 4 kanya 5v/600w variation, though stronger, is still beatable on good maps. also, if you play vs water and walls, even if its a tp map, youre 100% gonna lose by opening 4kanya BB. so that im just no sure why youre claiming that it was super dominant and OP when its just pretty clear that the dominance was a side effect from another factor, namely maps predominantly, and poor adaptation by players. even just dropping a tower in base is very effective to midgitating the 4 kanya 5 toma rush. as well as just placing a few well placed walls to block off chokes. sioux and aztecs can also kill the warhut with explorer + converts

I think the reason it was so strong is the fact that the opponent pretty much always has to invest more into the defense than Iro did into the offense. It also gives the Iro player a lot of control and sets the game up perfectly for their mid-late colonial plan, involving all those crazy unit upgrades. But yes, the maps were certainly a factor.

[deleted_user0]

@deleted_user wasn't the reason the all in rush was OP was because if you don't prepare for it you lose if they do it and if you do prepare for it and they don't do it then your answers to Iro's other options also lose?

Also I'm talking about how the maps affect how effective aggression is, which I referenced in my post earlier than everyone has ignored so far.

well thats part of it, yes, but you can scout whether they do it or not, and adapt. so i wouldnt say u will lose if they dont do it. but that said, re iro had much more op strats that would win anyway.

as for maps, been saying that we should use maps to balance way more since EP started... also been ignored.

[Garja]

if u do it properly ur up by 3.45. 3.35 if you have luck with tres. obviously you don't need to send 2-3 unit shipments in a row. even 4 kanya 5v/600w variation, though stronger, is still beatable on good maps. also, if you play vs water and walls, even if its a tp map, youre 100% gonna lose by opening 4kanya BB. so that im just no sure why youre claiming that it was super dominant and OP when its just pretty clear that the dominance was a side effect from another factor, namely maps predominantly, and poor adaptation by players. even just dropping a tower in base is very effective to midgitating the 4 kanya 5 toma rush. as well as just placing a few well placed walls to block off chokes. sioux and aztecs can also kill the warhut with explorer + converts

you an open 4 kanya BB and go indus even. I used to do that vs ports. 4 kanya 5v 4v. Can always play fortress if needed but goes to show that iro really can do anything because of the early advantage.

[Jaeger]

So I decided to go through all of the games this tournament from the Round of 16 and onwards, and look at whether Colonial or Fortress was favoured.

C = Games where both players stayed Colonial for longer than 11 minutes.
F = Games where Fortress was reached by 1 or more players before 11 minutes.
I = Games where Industrial was reached by 1 or more players before 15 minutes.




--Gran Chaco/Alaska-- (Basically non-TP maps; I really should have kept these ones separate though because I think Gran Chaco featured a lot more Fortress games than Alaska did but I'm too lazy to go look through all of the games again.)
CCCCCCCCC
FFFFFFF


--Tibet-- (I believe Tibet and Alaska have the highest veto rates of the tournament, but I haven't confirmed this)
CCCC
I

--Manchuria--
CCC
FFFFF
I

--Hudson--
CCC
FFFFFFF

--High Plains--
CCCC
FFFF
I

--Kamchatka--
C
FFFF
I

--Baja California--
C



So it seems like Fortress age play is definitely favoured on maps like Manchuria / Hudson / Kamchatka, where it's easy to grab a safe TP, you have plenty of resources in your base for 10-12+ minutes of the game, and your opponent grabbing the TP line is not a huge threat.

However, on maps like Alaska and Tibet, where you do not have a lot of resources in your base, Colonial play is preferable in order to retain control over resources on the map and deny your opponent gather time.

Even on High Plains, a map that is arguably similar to the 3 Fortress favoured maps, actually has a relatively balanced number of games in different ages. This is likely because although both players have a lot of resources--arguably more than the Fortress favoured maps--control over the TP line is important enough to incentivize aggressive play or fights to contest control over the TPs.

Gran Chaco I believe is very slightly favoured in Fortress play from what I remember; this is most likely because there are plenty of resources and Dutch is pretty meta on that map. Even controlling the middle of the map doesn't ensure that your opponent won't be gathering resources relatively safely on one or both sides of the map without even needing to contest your forward base.



Now, it definitely seems to be true that in general we are seeing more Fortress-oriented games in total, but I don't understand how everyone can complain about it so much. Like GoodSpeed mentioned, AoE3's meta is heavily affected by its maps. More resources in your base means you have more time to dedicate to developing your tech and massing stronger units before you need to think about securing control over other resources. What I find mind boggling is how it seems like the same players who are complaining about Colonial not being super viable, are also the same players who call maps with less resources "shit" or even "unplayable." I believe Tibet and Alaska were the most frequently vetoed maps this tournament (I don't know for sure), because even though people complain about Fortress being strong, they don't really seem to like playing Colonial slug-fest games either?

Even maps like High Plains, I can recall just the other day in the match between Raphael and Hazza, the twitch chat was crying about how no map should ever be allowed to have 5 or more TPs, despite the fact that it seems to provide the most balanced approach, and the most player interaction.

If you want Colonial games to be more viable then you need only lower the number of safe resources available to each player and you will inevitably see more conflicts in the Colonial age.

I've said all of this before but no one seems to believe me?

Of course, the alternative to playing on different styles of maps is to nerf Fortress play, in which case on non-TP maps and maps with lower resources will completely force Colonial play.

Well all of those colonial games on Alaska were india mirrors so they might as well all be F games . I guess one way to look at it is the number of games played; another is to look at what's standard to do in all the (105?) matchups. Let's see, which civs give you mostly fortress matchups? Honestly the only ones I can think of are India, Aztec, Orto, maybe Brit

[Mitoe]

Well all of those colonial games on Alaska were india mirrors so they might as well all be F games . I guess one way to look at it is the number of games played; another is to look at what's standard to do in all the (105?) matchups. Let's see, which civs give you mostly fortress matchups? Honestly the only ones I can think of are India, Aztec, Orto, maybe Brit

I don't really understand. You mean India/Aztec/Otto/Brit are more likely to create games in which 1 or more players age? I'm not sure I would agree with that, except maybe in the case of India.

There's another thread somewhere on this forum where I did a similar analysis for ESOC Spring 2017, I think? It was mostly the same conclusion as well, I believe.

[HUMMAN]

For me ideal map is where both Colonial and fortress are avaible. Not force one or other.