Rewarding Aggressive Play

[Garja]

I was just adding to your point that the depth of the game is low. It is true, but I'd say it's because of the lack of more units and because of the winning condition which requires to kill units instead of buildings.
I made a comparison with other games, where numbers are not so important and there is more room to outplay. Especially eco numbers are not that relevant.
So yes, by definition any lead increases the odds to win. However, in practice in aoe3 (you can't factor in by definition in "equal factors") a non decisive army lead is not going to be that useful after a while, while an eco lead never cease to be useful because it carries on forever even tho its impact decreases over time. In sc2 the unit lost count can be a big deal because resources are in finite number. In aoe3 if you lose units but trade for eco you are ok because eco can always rebuild other units.
The infinite resource mechanic is relevant to the discussion because you only need to control enough natural resources to grow your eco enough to do the mill/plant transition. And on EP it is easier to control more resources with less map. At one point the trade off between walking vills on farther resources and gathering wood for mills /plants becomes in favor of the latter, at least for some civs and in combination with other factors.
My point on splitting the cost of mills and plants wouldn't obviously solve the problem by itself but it would help in combination with a drastic reduction of natural resources. But I'm not saying we should do that, I agree the game is more or less fine as it is. Just need to reduce safe resources and rebalance toward colonial play.

[momuuu]

I was just adding to your point that the depth of the game is low. It is true, but I'd say it's because of the lack of more units and because of the winning condition which requires to kill units instead of buildings.
I made a comparison with other games, where numbers are not so important and there is more room to outplay. Especially eco numbers are not that relevant.
So yes, by definition any lead increases the odds to win. However, in practice in aoe3 (you can't factor in by definition in "equal factors") a non decisive army lead is not going to be that useful after a while, while an eco lead never cease to be useful because it carries on forever even tho its impact decreases over time. In sc2 the unit lost count can be a big deal because resources are in finite number. In aoe3 if you lose units but trade for eco you are ok because eco can always rebuild other units.
The infinite resource mechanic is relevant to the discussion because you only need to control enough natural resources to grow your eco enough to do the mill/plant transition. And on EP it is easier to control more resources with less map. At one point the trade off between walking vills on farther resources and gathering wood for mills /plants becomes in favor of the latter, at least for some civs and in combination with other factors.
My point on splitting the cost of mills and plants wouldn't obviously solve the problem by itself but it would help in combination with a drastic reduction of natural resources. But I'm not saying we should do that, I agree the game is more or less fine as it is. Just need to reduce safe resources and rebalance toward colonial play.

Theoretically you're not wrong. Although I still do not understand what 'problem' there is. You forgot to specify this in your post I think.

Though in practise aoe3 plays a lot like sc2, where it's as if resources completely run out. That last hunt is like the last base in lategame sc2 that both players are fighting for. In a small percentage of games its possible to be so far ahead in eco that you can survive the transition to mills/plantations where you otherwise would lose, but realistically this doesn't really happen.

[Garja]

The problem is that EP meta is too passive, I think that was implicit in the thread title.
And my point specifically is that the last hunt thing is often not relevant on EP, as you can often totally ignore the last 25% of hunts and go for mills in stead. Considering that the remainig 75% is split between the players that's not many hunts you need to control in the end.

[momuuu]

I'd need to see games where this actually happens. I've never seen it tbh. I can't even recall games where one player transitioned to mills and survived while the other player was still hunting.

[Garja]

With Ports and India it happens all the time. Brits also have rather easy time dropping mills when they run out of hunts.

[momuuu]

Any tournament games in mind where that happened??

[Garja]

Somppu games with India often go paddies before hunts run out. And in general Ports usually give up on the hunt race at some point and build mills in base.

[deleted_user0]

It's indeed very match up dependant whether mill based strats work or not.

Let's assume we are playing an india mirror. The point of turtle in this MU is that due to defenders advantage you are able to pull super greedy strats because you have multiple mm's, agras and defender's advantage in general. For example, pulling a fast IV same time pumping vills with 3 TCs. Of course, super greedy build with map > super greedy turtle. However, if you are doing a super greedy build with map control and "turtle player" makes a timing push, you are going to be in big trouble your vills all around map and no military power. It's kind of a rock-paper-scissors.

For example in fre mirror it doesn't work because there are no efficient greedy builds (you can build your TC's much slower and IV is worse) so you are kind of forced to follow meta. I think the biggest factor is indeed how many "safe" resources there are at the TC (1 or 2 gold mines, 1 or 3 hunts) and that pretty much decides if there is going to be mostly colonial or fortress action.

Even tho, I still think that even with low res maps many of the match ups remain the same. Mostly those which have 40 sec age up. That's why I think 50 seconds fast age could make things more interesting.

[Kaiserklein]

I'd need to see games where this actually happens. I've never seen it tbh. I can't even recall games where one player transitioned to mills and survived while the other player was still hunting.

It happens quite a lot. People like Jabba or breeze, or Kynesie obviously, like to just make walls and sit in base till super late game. And they get their hunts denied obviously. And sometimes they win

[momuuu]

I'd need to see games where this actually happens. I've never seen it tbh. I can't even recall games where one player transitioned to mills and survived while the other player was still hunting.

It happens quite a lot. People like Jabba or breeze, or Kynesie obviously, like to just make walls and sit in base till super late game. And they get their hunts denied obviously. And sometimes they win

Ah yeah I meant to imply somewhere that I was ignoring the super turtle wall style (it might have been too many posts ago). I'm ignoring it because the case I made is about how aoe3 is stale due to the reliance on natural resources. Of course there is this wall + turtle + waterboom style where you do go to mills/lategame pretty frequently, but that style is inherently stale and uninteractive (and in my opinion terrible gamedesign).

But I should have made this more clear in the latest few posts.

[Garja]

Do you think it would be less or more stale if players were to switch to mills and plants?

[[Armag] diarouga]

I haven't read the discussion but agressive play shouldn't be rewarded, else everybody would play agressively as it is just easier.

That's how it works in strategy games, people are agressive at first because it's the most straightforward way to play, but as the time goes, they learn how to outplay rushes, and the games last longer and strategy becomes more important.
It's simply better, who wants to see jan rush, sepoy rush or 5/4/13 every games?

[Garja]

It's not easier it's harder. What's easy is to sit in your base booming. I'd rather prefer a low eco high action game everyday over a boomy game with nr10 type of interaction.

[Goodspeed]

The meta does naturally evolve into longer and longer games, and that would be fine (it has been for AoE2) if this game was anywhere close to balanced in late game. Thing is there are such massive differences in scaling between the civs that it takes a large skill gap to overcome these. I don't think we have any hope of fixing this because of some design choices that were made in AoE3, so our best bet is indeed to make sure games are decided early on.

The way to do this, however, is imo not by making changes to the civs. Differences in scaling will always be there and we need to accept them. The way to deal with it is maps.

[momuuu]

The meta does naturally evolve into longer and longer games, and that would be fine (it has been for AoE2) if this game was anywhere close to balanced in late game. Thing is there are such massive differences in scaling between the civs that it takes a large skill gap to overcome these. I don't think we have any hope of fixing this because of some design choices that were made in AoE3, so our best bet is indeed to make sure games are decided early on.

The way to do this, however, is imo not by making changes to the civs. Differences in scaling will always be there and we need to accept them. The way to deal with it is maps.

The meta evolves into whatever works best. This 'the meta naturally evolves into longer and longer games' is a terrible statement to try to justify extremely passive play. You don't even provide any reasoning for this statement and never have.

[[Armag] diarouga]

The meta does naturally evolve into longer and longer games, and that would be fine (it has been for AoE2) if this game was anywhere close to balanced in late game. Thing is there are such massive differences in scaling between the civs that it takes a large skill gap to overcome these. I don't think we have any hope of fixing this because of some design choices that were made in AoE3, so our best bet is indeed to make sure games are decided early on.

The way to do this, however, is imo not by making changes to the civs. Differences in scaling will always be there and we need to accept them. The way to deal with it is maps.

The meta evolves into whatever works best. This 'the meta naturally evolves into longer and longer games' is a terrible statement to try to justify extremely passive play. You don't even provide any reasoning for this statement and never have.

Well, one can argue that the game is too passive, but GS' statement is true.
At first, people play agressively, and that's true for every strategy game I know. I guess it's more natural to make units because you are safe on the one hand, and you can put pressure on your opponent on the other.
With time though, people learn to react, and can hold these early agressions while getting an advantage since they invested more in eco, and so on.

[momuuu]

The meta does naturally evolve into longer and longer games, and that would be fine (it has been for AoE2) if this game was anywhere close to balanced in late game. Thing is there are such massive differences in scaling between the civs that it takes a large skill gap to overcome these. I don't think we have any hope of fixing this because of some design choices that were made in AoE3, so our best bet is indeed to make sure games are decided early on.

The way to do this, however, is imo not by making changes to the civs. Differences in scaling will always be there and we need to accept them. The way to deal with it is maps.

The meta evolves into whatever works best. This 'the meta naturally evolves into longer and longer games' is a terrible statement to try to justify extremely passive play. You don't even provide any reasoning for this statement and never have.

Well, one can argue that the game is too passive, but GS' statement is true.
At first, people play agressively, and that's true for every strategy game I know. I guess it's more natural to make units because you are safe on the one hand, and you can put pressure on your opponent on the other.
With time though, people learn to react, and can hold these early agressions while getting an advantage since they invested more in eco, and so on.

This is not actually factual. Imagine a game where aggression is just way more rewarding than being passive? People will never 'learn to defend' if defending is straight up worse. In the end, the only way the meta moves is in whatever works best. In aoe3, due to EP maps and EP what works best is passivity, so the meta moved in that direction, and not the other way around.

To actually make this case of you and goodspeed strong/factual, you need to come up with logic that explains why in every scenario defensive play beats aggressive play.

[Mitoe]

I don't see what other reasons GS can really give you @momuuu.

It's a logical progression.

You could try to argue that there are situations in the game where this isn't true, maybe? Such as on maps like Cascade Range, or Klondike, etc. Except, even if aggression is a lot stronger because of the lack of natural resources, I think if you were to play those maps a lot the meta would naturally evolve into slower play. Not as slow as on a higher resource map, surely, but even if you can't age to Fortress, it would likely evolve into getting a small advantage out of the resources in your base and converting it into an army lead that eventually gets you back map control.

The meta should always evolve to get the maximum value out of the number of resources you have access to, which will naturally make aggressively play worse. Not all types of aggression, mind you, but definitely the all-in sort of aggression. Containment can still be good because you can take control of those resources while also doing the same thing as your opponent.

e.g. A Russian or Aztec mirror, maybe aggressive play seems like the correct option at first, and then after a few games one player decides to stay in base instead of building an fb, and go for something a bit more eco-heavy, and abuse the defender's advantage to make up for the difference in army values. The aggressive player starts losing, but then he just builds a forward base and does the same thing as his opponent, so he gets the same eco advantage, but also has the map, and his access to additional resources puts his opponent on the clock instead of himself.

The only way to change this meta-progression would be to eliminate the defender's advantage: remove the ability to garrison vills, remove the ability for villagers to fight or tank (0 attack 1hp), remove building damage, lower building hp, and suddenly aggressive play is almost impossible to beat.

You can reach a point maybe where you get a strategy-triangle (in a manner of speaking), where one build order beats another.

Contain > Defensive > Rush > Contain > Defensive > etc.

This is fine because it incentivizes scouting and mindgames, but it's very difficult to reach a point where rush outright beats defensive play (plus that would break the game and the only option would be to rush), so the meta will naturally progress towards rushes being on the weaker side of things. This is partially because rushes don't actually beat contains by that much; they're easier to scout and react to, especially if you are also forward basing, then your opponent knows that they can also just rush.

And, if you mess up and fail to rush a contain when you didn't fb yourself, you just instantly-lose. This is not always the case for the defensive player, cause the defensive player can often mix in tech advantages that are harder to mix in if you're doing a rush or contain strategy, and that can often be enough of an advantage that even without resources you can still win.


(not really sure how coherent this explanation/argument was, I wrote it while tabbing in and out of this tab pretty frequently so some of my thoughts may be a bit disconnected)

[momuuu]

I don't get it. If you buff russia's no vill rush and remove all eco options, the meta should still naturally evolve towards passive gameplay? If you make units that are very sturdy and can always escape and easily kill villagers, then how will the meta ever evolve to be passive? I can't even see how being passive would be rewarding. Hell, even when it comes to semi FF it has turned out that being aggressive with your cav and aggressively making extra cav is better than trying to defensively make musks/pikes because there is no downside to being proactive with cav. Even in aoe3 but also in many other RTS games there are countless examples where the meta evolves to be much more aggressive. And even more so, it's possible to come up with theoretical game designs where the meta will never be passive; if the statement of GS would be true then those theoretical game designs shouldn't exist.

[Mitoe]

That's not what I said at all really (maybe I'm missing some context, I only read the last few posts prior to that one?).

My point is that the meta will always naturally evolve to playing more passive than your opponent to abuse defender's advantage and squeeze out an advantage later for some kind of timing to acquire additional resources. The level of passivity depends on the number of resources in your base and how effective the defender's advantage is.

I did say in my post that if you completely remove defender's advantage than this becomes untrue, which seems to be what you're saying?

[momuuu]

That's not what I said at all really (maybe I'm missing some context, I only read the last few posts prior to that one?).

My point is that the meta will always naturally evolve to playing more passive than your opponent to abuse defender's advantage and squeeze out an advantage later for some kind of timing to acquire additional resources. The level of passivity depends on the number of resources in your base and how effective the defender's advantage is.

I did say in my post that if you completely remove defender's advantage than this becomes untrue, which seems to be what you're saying?

Did I say that? The defender's advantage is present in semi FF mirrors, yet players still make hussars instead of doing straight FF/musketeer semi because its simply better.

[Mitoe]

That's not what I said at all really (maybe I'm missing some context, I only read the last few posts prior to that one?).

My point is that the meta will always naturally evolve to playing more passive than your opponent to abuse defender's advantage and squeeze out an advantage later for some kind of timing to acquire additional resources. The level of passivity depends on the number of resources in your base and how effective the defender's advantage is.

I did say in my post that if you completely remove defender's advantage than this becomes untrue, which seems to be what you're saying?

Did I say that? The defender's advantage is present in semi FF mirrors, yet players still make hussars instead of doing straight FF/musketeer semi because its simply better.

You said this:

If you buff russia's no vill rush and remove all eco options

Which I guess is not quite the same, but it kind of follows the same principle. Defender's advantage / defending in general is pointless if you can't invest those resources into anything other than units anyway.

[momuuu]

That's not what I said at all really (maybe I'm missing some context, I only read the last few posts prior to that one?).

My point is that the meta will always naturally evolve to playing more passive than your opponent to abuse defender's advantage and squeeze out an advantage later for some kind of timing to acquire additional resources. The level of passivity depends on the number of resources in your base and how effective the defender's advantage is.

I did say in my post that if you completely remove defender's advantage than this becomes untrue, which seems to be what you're saying?

Did I say that? The defender's advantage is present in semi FF mirrors, yet players still make hussars instead of doing straight FF/musketeer semi because its simply better.

You said this:

If you buff russia's no vill rush and remove all eco options

Which I guess is not quite the same, but it kind of follows the same principle. Defender's advantage / defending in general is pointless if you can't invest those resources into anything other than units anyway.

I didn't say remove defenders advantage though. I just said make russia fucking OP and let rush be the only thing they can do. That shouldn't lead to a passive meta should it?

I feel like you kinda agree that aoe3 has gotten passive because of all the details of how the game currently works. That's entirely different from saying RTS games get more passive because thats how all RTS games always work no matter the design.

[Mitoe]

So even if the other civ has eco options you mean?

In that case I think the meta would definitely result in a passive playstyle for Russia's opponent?

[momuuu]

So even if the other civ has eco options you mean?

In that case I think the meta would definitely result in a passive playstyle for Russia's opponent?

Because obviously that's what works best for them right? But Russia would be aggressive clearly.

My point is that the meta will evolve towards whatever works best, and there are game designs possibly where aggression is the best. That means that stating that ep meta became passive because thats just what happens is faulty. It became passive because of how the civs and maps are currently designed.