[Armag] diarouga wrote:1) Yep. With food crates for everybody the game would be balanced. Food start has always been the reference, coin start fucks the game because it slows down some civs by a fair margin, and wood start allows age 1 TP which is a huge issue.
Whatever lol. It would buff civs like dutch, russia, aztecs, sioux, iro and so on, and nerf for example brits fr ger etc. But since you're so much smarter than everyone you already know it would result in a more balanced game. Not worth discussing with you here.
2) Because they have bad macro? But that's regardless of the crate start. Some guys just fuck their macro, that's it, crate wouldn't change that.
I've literally casted lordraphael failing his macro vs erik as ger in age 1. But yeah he has bad macro you're right. And that's just one example.
Obviously doing always the same start over and over again doesn't take less skill than adapting to the crates start! Good argument.
3) The difference is that you can easily fix crates, while there's no good way to fix treasures (and in general, they are less game breaking). Also the difference is that treasures are "random", the expectation is zero, you can have more treasures, less treasures or the same treasures, so in the end it's fair.
This is so wrong. I'd rather have 300f 100w + a 50w treasure in base than 200f 200w + a 30f treasure in base as germany. That's one example of treasures being more impactful than starting crates already... And btw, at least when it's 200f 200w, opponent also gets the extra 100w, while when you get 50w in base it's just purely unfair. And i'm not even talking about stuff like a free monkey in your base or 130f, or getting an xp treasure before shipping your 3v lol.
Treasures would be rather fair if the reward/risk ratio would be roughly equal for all treasures. That means the time, hp and crackshot you invest into a treasure pay off with an appropriate amount of resources. Go spawn wadmalaw, you'll see that treasures are quite balanced in that regard... That proves there's a good way to fix treasures lol. It's not like playing on Baja, finding 10g 20g, a tamed wolf 2 sheep and 30% hp on your explo, while opponent finds 120xp 60w 60f or something... Why do I even need to explain that?? It's so obvious.
With crates it is different when you play vs France/Germany. If you get coin or food start, the MU is even, if you get wood start you're fucked. The frustration comes from the fact that random crate advantages France and Germany. If you think that crate start is ugly, then we could nerf France and Germany so that they're slightly worse on food/coin start, and better on wood start, but it's not going to happen.
In many MUs against Germany, it's 50/50 on food/coin start and 40/60 on wood start, how is that acceptable? Before the game starts, you're basically praying not to get a wood start.
Yes so we're back to what I was saying..? Instead of being lazy and fixing crates, we could try to make sure the extra wood crate is also useful for the opponent... And nerf the age 1 TP. I'm not sure what's hard to understand. It's not black or white, there are solutions in between, we don't have to remove an entire game feature and make the patch even more different from RE.
Btw you overestimate the impact of early TP. Sure it's very good, but you're acting like it doesn't have any drawbacks. While you in fact auto lose the age 1 (opponent can literally come to snare your explo while you build the tp... Or just pick up a big treasure meanwhile), get weaker first batches (cause you don't have market ups in), delay your age up on most maps, and opponent also still gets the extra 100w.
4) Yea, 3SW/700c ff on TP start but that's totally broken, and it shouldn't be a thing because it's op. Brit has TP with 3v/VC but it's also op (almost Germany level).
Nobody goes India gfa, and it's almost the same as standard build. Dutch market is also just the same build order as Dutch without market...
So you decided these builds are broken and shouldn't exist, ok... Either way, that just shows I'm right and we see diverse builds on various crates starts. And no GFA india is really not the same as standard india lol, wtf.
What about iro fast aging? Or getting a farm? What about otto going silk road after 3v with a mosque? Or building a dock in age 1 and training 7 fishing boats or w/e it was? You're right, removing the wood start would not kill some builds at all! Great idea!
5) So what's your solution to fix wood start laming? You're saying that fixed crate is a bad change, but you don't suggest solutions.
Well for one thing I'd nerf TPs a bit. I think it's obvious TPs are too strong overall in current meta, and not only in age 1. That would be a big change, but it has to be done imo.
Then we could maybe let russia overqueue to 11/10 in age 1 somehow, like china does. That buff could have probably replaced the rusket discount, if we applied it to ruskets and strelets as well. That would probably let russia get a market on wood or coin starts.
You can find other similar buffs for other civs. For example give warrior priests a multiplier vs treasure guardians, so that on wood start aztecs can go for a TP without a firepit, and use the wp to take treasures more easily. That's just an example, I didn't think through all the buffs we could apply because I know it's not gonna happen anyway.