The problem with walls

[supahons]

The problem is there are no real defensive structures in the game only tcs, relatively weak towers, walls and your building placement. You can't build a Fort without a card, but they usually aren't a viable option. Compare this to the star-shaped fortesses of this time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastion_fort)

If you remove the walls what is left? I'm also one of the players that is too lazy to wall, but this isn't an argument to remove them completely. You can argue that the walls are too strong in late game and too cheap early, or that the mortars are too expensive, but this can be changed.
Age IV or V is always treaty like, you can add more late game cards to your deck, but you only really need them in 3v3+ most of the times.

[bwinner]

200-300w is really a shit ton of walls if you delete pillars. Most of the maps, you can wall entirely for 100w and instantly almost.

[gibson]

Lol I didn't expect people to actually take this seriously, so let me provide a little context for this thread. 3v3 Siberia, 30 minutes into the game, I'm pushing breeze hard and he has lost his army and doesn't have the ability to remass quickly enough to deal with it, so ofc he makes 10-15 layers of wall behind the 1-2 he already had of which I destroy at least 5-6. My team has one layer of wall. Like 10 minutes later one of breezes teammates destroys our one layer of wall and starts streaming units into our base. As soon as I see this I resign and complain that their team only won cause they made more walls, which mitoe and breeze vehemently disagree with. I can't be assed to argue with them cause I'm pissed, and anyone can tell that if we reversed positions and they had one layer of wall the game would have been over 10 minutes ago when I right clicked breeze. So no it has nothing to do with " not being able to adapt" or any of that horseshit. The only adaption that is being refused is making 15 layers of wall myself, cause it a boring low skill way to play the gamw and turns every game into a treaty game. And basically every "high level" team game player has complained about it when playing vs breeze as well.

[Gendarme]

This is why I lose all FFA games too.

[Mitoe]

200-300w is really a shit ton of walls if you delete pillars. Most of the maps, you can wall entirely for 100w and instantly almost.

I was including the cost of idling a vill to construct the walls as well.

[Mitoe]

Lol I didn't expect people to actually take this seriously, so let me provide a little context for this thread. 3v3 Siberia, 30 minutes into the game, I'm pushing breeze hard and he has lost his army and doesn't have the ability to remass quickly enough to deal with it, so ofc he makes 10-15 layers of wall behind the 1-2 he already had of which I destroy at least 5-6. My team has one layer of wall. Like 10 minutes later one of breezes teammates destroys our one layer of wall and starts streaming units into our base. As soon as I see this I resign and complain that their team only won cause they made more walls, which mitoe and breeze vehemently disagree with. I can't be assed to argue with them cause I'm pissed, and anyone can tell that if we reversed positions and they had one layer of wall the game would have been over 10 minutes ago when I right clicked breeze. So no it has nothing to do with " not being able to adapt" or any of that horseshit. The only adaption that is being refused is making 15 layers of wall myself, cause it a boring low skill way to play the gamw and turns every game into a treaty game. And basically every "high level" team game player has complained about it when playing vs breeze as well.

To be honest you lost because Nerpio had a 1v1 deck with no eco cards. He never really got going in the lategame aside from a few small pushes, and then failed to deal with 2 stables on the side of your base. You also never restarted the Trade Monopoly that very nearly won you guys the game, it was like 20 seconds away from winning, and you definitely could've restarted it. It would've been very difficult for us to deal with with the way your fb was positioned. We even talked about resigning 2 or 3 times that game. You had plenty of opportunities to win.

[pecelot]

Funny how you need zero adaptation and zero defense skills when you wall up your base, yet people doing that say that we complain about it because we don't know how to adapt... Honestly it's just useless to discuss this, just nerf walls without taking the opinion of people like breeze in consideration

well, you have to adapt, to, like, not having a full map of resources? it's not like you wall up and win instantly

[deleted_user0]

Right now 3v3 options:

1. Pick russia, aztec and iro and rush the shit out of em "lol so lame omg noob rush no skill"
2. Don't all in rush and game turns into 60 mins shitgame with 10 layers of wall and every single player z-moving their most upgraded unit everywhere. Big skill.

[gibson]

Lol I didn't expect people to actually take this seriously, so let me provide a little context for this thread. 3v3 Siberia, 30 minutes into the game, I'm pushing breeze hard and he has lost his army and doesn't have the ability to remass quickly enough to deal with it, so ofc he makes 10-15 layers of wall behind the 1-2 he already had of which I destroy at least 5-6. My team has one layer of wall. Like 10 minutes later one of breezes teammates destroys our one layer of wall and starts streaming units into our base. As soon as I see this I resign and complain that their team only won cause they made more walls, which mitoe and breeze vehemently disagree with. I can't be assed to argue with them cause I'm pissed, and anyone can tell that if we reversed positions and they had one layer of wall the game would have been over 10 minutes ago when I right clicked breeze. So no it has nothing to do with " not being able to adapt" or any of that horseshit. The only adaption that is being refused is making 15 layers of wall myself, cause it a boring low skill way to play the gamw and turns every game into a treaty game. And basically every "high level" team game player has complained about it when playing vs breeze as well.

To be honest you lost because Nerpio had a 1v1 deck with no eco cards. He never really got going in the lategame aside from a few small pushes, and then failed to deal with 2 stables on the side of your base. You also never restarted the Trade Monopoly that very nearly won you guys the game, it was like 20 seconds away from winning, and you definitely could've restarted it. It would've been very difficult for us to deal with with the way your fb was positioned. We even talked about resigning 2 or 3 times that game. You had plenty of opportunities to win.

I'm not saying thats the only reason we lost lol, I'm simply saying that wall were the reason you won.

[Papist]

Also, in a lot of team games they seem straight up broken. Broken meaning here that if one team has walls and the other team doesn't, the team that doesn't have them is on a disadvantage and should build them as well.

I would hope they would give you an advantage -- if they didn't, why would you build them? It's true that having walls when your opponent doesn't gives you an advantage, but I don't see why that's a bad thing. The best "argument" people have come up with against walls is because they personally don't enjoy playing games with them.

Let's not forget the context in which this thread was made: Gibson played a 3v3 (on Siberia, which is a mistake if you don't like walls, but okay) that went all the way to age 4/5. The other team made 10 layers of walls and kept building them even during the attack of Gibsons team. Gibsons teams only had max 3 layers, and after a long while of being ahead, attacking the other team and having map control, Gibsons team was trashed. You can't say to Gibson "He doesn't know how to beat it" because that has nothing to do with it in the context of this game and of this thread.

Gibson himself acknowledged that they lost because they didn't have adequate walling themselves. He went on to say that he didn't make more than 1-2 layers of wall because he doesn't enjoy that kind of game. That opinion is perfectly valid (and I happen to share it), but you can;t say there's something wrong with walls when you yourself acknowledge that you lost because you didn't do what it took to win.

[Gendarme]

Also, in a lot of team games the new EP mechanic that grants you 50 food for pausing the game and writing "Vane for President" in the chat seems straight up broken. Broken meaning here that if one team does it and the other team doesn't, the team that doesn't do it is at a disadvantage and should do it as well.

I would hope that they give you an advantage -- if they didn't, why would you do it? It's true that pausing the game and writing "Vane for President" when your opponent doesn't gives you an advantage, but I don't see why that's a bad thing. The best "argument" people have come up with against pausing the game and writing "Vane for President" is because they personally don't playing games where people use this mechanic.

[pecelot]

Also, in a lot of team games they seem straight up broken. Broken meaning here that if one team has walls and the other team doesn't, the team that doesn't have them is on a disadvantage and should build them as well.

no, it's not broken, because the other team can wall as well; herding hunts has its advantages, too, right? players who don't do that get behind, but it's not like it's not their fault
unless we're talking about 3 Sioux players in one team

[edeholland]

Also, in a lot of team games they seem straight up broken. Broken meaning here that if one team has walls and the other team doesn't, the team that doesn't have them is on a disadvantage and should build them as well.

I would hope they would give you an advantage -- if they didn't, why would you build them? It's true that having walls when your opponent doesn't gives you an advantage, but I don't see why that's a bad thing. The best "argument" people have come up with against walls is because they personally don't enjoy playing games with them.

That makes no sense. No building should always give a straight up advantage. Whether you make a building/unit should be a consideration, a choice. Building a barracks doesn't always give you an advantage, but only if you are able to produce good units from it. Building 50 barracks isn't useful for that reason. Walls always give you an advantage because it's only the 200-300 resources like Mitoe mentioned, which is nothing. The bad thing here is that it's necessary to build walls which breaks any logic and removes skill from the game.
Also, to me it feels like you think that disliking walls isn't a good argument against them. I think that's a great argument. Walls are not only broken, they are also completely not fun and take skill out of of the game.

[gibson]

Thats the reason most team players dont like walls, they slow the game down, lower the skill ceiling, and make games boring for most people

[edeholland]

Don't get me wrong, I don't want walls removed. I just want them to be have the function in AoE2 or other games, where you have to choose whether it's worth it, instead of just spamming 7500hp stone walls everywhere for 5 wood and no kill xp. I would be fine with sieging down one or two layers to get into a base and it would probably satisfy me when I broke it. But repairing and building them so quickly for so little resources, even during fights is just discouraging.

[Mitoe]

200-300 resources is not nothing, and I definitely don't think that wooden walls "always" give you an advantage. On RE, maybe, but this is definitely not the case on EP.

Bastioned walls might be a problem in that regard, though.

[gibson]

Pretty sure in a game where people are gathering 200k res 200-300 res is nothing.

[Papist]

That makes no sense. No building should always give a straight up advantage. Whether you make a building/unit should be a consideration, a choice. Building a barracks doesn't always give you an advantage, but only if you are able to produce good units from it. Building 50 barracks isn't useful for that reason. Walls always give you an advantage because it's only the 200-300 resources like Mitoe mentioned, which is nothing. The bad thing here is that it's necessary to build walls which breaks any logic and removes skill from the game.
Also, to me it feels like you think that disliking walls isn't a good argument against them. I think that's a great argument. Walls are not only broken, they are also completely not fun and take skill out of of the game.

It's necessary to do a lot of things in this game in order to win. And no, I don't think a couple guys disliking walls is a good argument for nerfing/removing them, especially when that disdain is 100% rooted in those guys not wanting to adapt. Instead of altering the game to fit your playstyle, alter your playstyle to fit the game.

[gibson]

If by a couple guys you mean basically every top level team player but kynesie and breeze and if by "those guys not wanting to adapt" you mean most players refuse to make 15 layers of wall and turn every team game into a 45 minutes plus affair than yes your statement is completely accurate.

[Mitoe]

I agree that in team games they might be a bit much. In 1v1 they're not much of a problem though, IMO.

I do feel like without walls, though, I would start hearing complaints about how the team that raids or cav boxes the most always wins.

[Gendarme]

You know you're on ESOC when you and two dozen others criticize walls for turning the game into a non-interactive grindfest as opposed to a high-action RTS where scouting and adaptation is key, and your points are refuted because you're a couple of guys who don't want to adapt.

[Mitoe]

You know you're on ESOC when you and two dozen others criticize walls for turning the game into a non-interactive grindfest as opposed to a high-action RTS where scouting and adaptation is key, and your points are refuted because you're a couple of guys who don't want to adapt.

If anything scouting and adaptation is more important in a game where your opponent is walled up than when they are not. Let's be honest, even many high level players don't even bother scouting in normal Supremacy games. It's not like what they scout will usually change their build order anyway (which is pathetic, btw, for any RTS game).

I'll say it again, but it's just frustrating that so many people complain that their options in this game are limited--especially on EP (???)--and at the same time want to limit or remove many other options.

I agree that walls being strong is not exactly healthy for the game, but I also don't think they're as much of a problem as many people have been claiming them to be in recent weeks.

Maybe they are a problem in team games. I honestly don't play enough team games to comment.

[Gendarme]

I am not sure if the people complaining about limited options are the same people who want to "remove/limit options". Even if they are, it's not hypocrisy anyway; they are two separate issues (i.e. semi-FFs being too strong and walls being too strong). I don't know if walls are too strong in either 1v1 or team. I've personally never had any problems with them, but Papists posts today have been quite logically incoherent. I mostly argue against the flawed reasoning rather than making a balance statement.

[gibson]

I agree that in team games they might be a bit much. In 1v1 they're not much of a problem though, IMO.

I do feel like without walls, though, I would start hearing complaints about how the team that raids or cav boxes the most always wins.

yea theres no real way to fix it imo

[Mitoe]

Yeah. Maybe just make them slightly weaker after the upgrade or something. Dunno. Maybe add multipliers to walls onto specific siege units like cannons/mortars? That way you still need siege to deal with it.