diarouga vs snowww

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Re: diarouga vs snowww

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Garja wrote:There is nothing subjective on delaying manor boom with coyote raids. You can't simply leave the vill building it while attacked. At best you save it and delay the manor or you sac the vill for some coyos, assuming lbows are in position. Either way it's good for Aztecs.
As for starting pike, ye that's ok to counter huss, but you sometimes you don't have info on the stable (happens quite often) and in any case if you're macroed for wood units it's not very efficient to mvoe vills to gold and make a batch of puma. Even in the best case you're gonna waste 2 WH cycles for 5 puma only which will hurt your mass later. Starting pikes also exposes you to timings with 6 musks and 6 lbows, more than starting coyotes. If you have a FB that's going to be risky. I normally start pike only if I build in base, and I normally build in base if I have enough of other advantage to back justify it (10wp or sea).

Since you delay your warhut you actually have the info on what building your opponent went for. Also you can go for 5 coyotes and then 5 pikes, and the 5 pikes will be in time to hold the raid.
Starting coyote actually exposes you to 6 musks timings lol. And since he went for a cav start, then the 5 pikes will be useful to protect your maces anyway.
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

Post by Veni_Vidi_Vici_W »

Regarding aoe2, maybe its as you suggest, even though i said im not that familiar, i shouldnt have brought it up in this way i guess.

But Diarouga, please dont cherry-pick or use things out of context, how should we argue with you, you also did this with Garja before.
- Regarding sc2, I said "full battlecruiser etc" as in referring to really late game compositions and techs, obviously not going 100% 1 unit... Sure some games go to that stage (depends on map too), but not that many.
- Kynesie is fine, not op. This isnt about my standards, so as you like to put it "wrong". Dont change my wording by only including 'raids and micro". Its about what strategy games are as a whole. Sure he developed the water strats so credits to that, but rts is much more. If you see him playing a game without water, its not just my opinion that he is far less skilled. If you take into account strategy, decision making, micro, macro, map control, positioning, apm, etc. A good or op player has good skills in (almost all) of those aspects, not just one. If you are a one-trick-pony, because either a strat is op, people are not able to counter it yet, or something similar, that doesnt make you op in my opinion, simple. There was this guy who was really good at raiding, but not much else. Not an op player either imo.
- "We" dont have issues macroing, as we can also macro in normal late games with a lot of resources. Plus I find Kynesie's macro fine, not op. I used to play water before, in Challe's time, on maps like Yucatan. Didnt have much of an issue, just at some point decided i didnt like the crazy easy income you get. And oh really what a skill it is to quickly drag a wall layer and then use the hotkeys to auto-delete all pilar, wow... ^^
- Sure you need some experience to water boom correctly, and i'd even say that right now i wouldnt know the most ideal build. Again, that doesnt matter for the main argument of the water+wall+sitting back strat vs something else.
- "blackstar_op, who is for sure a much better than kynesie overall, was not nearly as good as kynesie at water booming. Because of his lack of experience for sure, with 500 water games he would get better"
> If you really think Blackstar needs 500 games to beat Kynesie on water, then all I can say is "really wrong". He already has won before.
- "Anyway, the only viable water boom atm is the Port water boom, so idk how you can claim that when Brit, Jap and even Russia can water boom on the RE."
> What are you saying here? RE means RE patch i assume? What words about "claiming" are you putting in my mouth this time...
I dont think you can say that a civ can or cant go water. It depends on the mu and map, but i think those civs have water options yes.

- H20 vs Blackstar. Why you only cherry pick the Sioux vs India and dont include the 2x India vs Brit where Blackstar won?? Sure everybody plays every MU wrong according to you. Fact is H20 is and was one of the best players. Also, he did practise and he knew Blackstar was going to use India and Sioux, so thats just not a valid argument from you. But this is going off-topic.

Apart from all the details, my main point is that water, especially combined with the walls cost/stats as they are and the maps as they are, imo are not good. If you abuse it in a way and you find the best strat for it, sure good thinking. However, doesnt make you a really good player in my opinion. And, i think it makes the game overall worse.
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

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Post by princeofkabul »

YOU ARE WRONG
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

Post by VooDoo_BoSs »

Veni_Vidi_Vici_W wrote:@imperial_noob, I am all for different and new strategies.
"while most games still are full of battles" > isnt the case in such games, and wont be if many are going to play like that. Tbh idk if not achieving 4th age often is an issue. First of all, you got 25 cards, so you cant even have many cards in age4, perhaps this was considered during the creation of the game. Secondly, a good rts game imo is about the things ive mentioned before (map, micro, etc). Which, mostly the map control aspect, makes it logical to be over before a long 4th age game. Sc2 doesnt often reach full battlecruiser etc either, just sometimes.

@Cometk, i know aoe2 has a lot of walling yes. Im not that familar with all the game details, but i believe walls are less of an issue there since you can take them down easier? Its just a TEMPORARY delay/re-guiding, rather than something you can hide behind for long, for a very low relative cost. Also in aoe2 you have 4 resources and overall its further away from your main. You cant sit on 1x1cm terrain like in aoe3 with TCs. Making walls less of an isssue also, since you cant defend every side easily since you have to cover more.

@VooDoo_BoSs, I have seen the games. I know Erik didnt play good, bad macro, late ups etc. Doesnt change my point though.
"Werent even close" is not how i would describe sompu vs kynesie, but i understand you would like to exaggerate here. First of all, Kynesie is just a fine player, nothing op. So imagine someone with better skills abusing these things. Compare for example how Knush micros his canons as port and how Kynesie does it (or rather often doesnt). Secondly, Kynesie was surprised by the trade monopoly victory strat, a second match would be different (I believe one game he almost denied it also). Plus, if that is the only way to kind of win vs these strats, that in itself already shows that there is something wrong with the game. Also because TP victory isnt possible on every map due to TP locations.

"If it truly was broken, you would see every player taking every opportunity to do a water turtle - but this simply does not happen."
I dont know the English word, but its such a bad and faulty way of arguing. First, maybe some people just dont like to play in such a shitty way? Secondly, we already see it more and more.
Third, it reminds me of when I said that India and Sioux were really good and discussed this with Blackstar during his spring tourney some time ago. Where 99% of this community including his opponent h20 were like nah, they are not. We all know the results, because it was then played properly. Unfortunately, we just dont have enough high level players these days who can think things through AND execute them properly. Im good with the 1st, Blackstar did the 2nd (and he is also good with the 1st).

For the record, as often said, im not for 99% semi-ff games either. I am however advocating skill-based-balanced games. I did like Dia's 3 different strats and Sompu's tactics to these games.

@edeholland, same as for Voodoo. Also it didnt blow my mind as i knew about what would happen before the game started ;)

@Diarouga, sure, also im not against walls entirely. I am however against their current stats/costs for obvious reasons.


None of this is an argument why water or walls should be further nerfed. You're entire logic is resting on your completely arbitrary classification of turtling as a "shitty" way to play. This is not an objective standard.

An objective standard would be demonstrating that a particular strategy is dominant and very difficult to counter by similarly-skilled players.

At present, we have only 2-3 players who can do this strategy effectively and consistently. Making balance changes based on this would be silly at best and game-ruining at worse. The last thing this game needs is more uniformity in strategy (again, 99% of games are semi-FF with 1-2 fights - I would consider this a "shitty" strategy).
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

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Cometk wrote:
Veni_Vidi_Vici_W wrote:Sadly, this game is getting further from a real strategy game as people just wall everything like its an nr10 or w.e other game where you just sit back and do nothing. Unlike a real rts game, where you have to fight for the map and resources, think about positioning of units and groups instead of sitting between a wall and 2 buildings, or where you have to actually micro your units instead of just watching your units behind a wall while eating a snack.

have you forgotten about aoe2?

did you mean Age of Gates?
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

Post by Veni_Vidi_Vici_W »

Voodoo, I have explained before why i think the walls/water are an issue in the current state of the game. This is mostly about the cost relative to what you get, the time it takes to take it down, the amount of resources you can safely secure on current EP maps and what this will lead to regarding strategy and playstyles.

Its not about this one match of diarouga vs snowww, where ofc as i already said snowww didnt play well. Its also not that 'my entire logic' is based on 'me not liking' it. It comes from my experience of playing, casting and discussing. I dont like it, because i find it too good for its cost, and because it eliminates a lot of the good rts aspects. Making counter strategies very limited, allowing far less 'mistakes'. There are other things in this game im not particularly fond of, but that doesnt mean i automatically dont like it or call it imbalanced or bad. One is a cause, the other is the result, you mix them up as far as my opinions go. You can wait for more games to go in a similar way, well see ^^
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

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Post by Mitoe »

I haven't really read this thread super closely (just skimmed it, really), but I don't really think walls/water should be a big balance concern at the moment. The fact of the matter is that when it works it is only because the opposing player doesn't understand how best to deal with it. That isn't to say that there are no balance issues here--Bastion might be a bit too strong, for example--but for the most part, in the current map pool at least, it is not particularly strong in my experience.

Most maps don't even have enough whales to carry over into the late-game effectively, and water players invest A LOT of cards into making those 12 - 20 boats worth holding onto in the lategame--often at the expense of the rest of their 80 - 99 villager economy.

One of the main reasons players who abuse this playstyle win games is because it forces the game to last longer. This much at least is true--it does kind of eliminate the option to end the game early with rushes or early timings if it's executed well, although which civilizations have been chosen is a bit of a factor here as well. This doesn't really grant a big advantage though, most civs can deal with this just fine, even civs that don't scale particularly well into the later stages of the game will do fine because they have map control, and don't have to invest into a costly mill/plantation switch as early into the game as the defensive player. The reason this works is because so many players right now have no clue how to play out the lategame. Look at Snowww's games vs Kynesie, and maybe even his game vs Diarouga on Hudson recently. He got lots of advantages against this kind of playstyle, but it seems as though he's just uncertain exactly how to play it out beyond the mid-game--there are many things he could have done differently to win these games.

You can see the same errors in other series, like LordRaphael vs Kynesie--here Raphael just let's Kynesie play his game or tries to fight Kynesie where he's strongest? Doesn't really make the most sense. We've seen plenty of players who are arguably worse than Raphael beat Kynesie in these situations just fine--sometimes just outright dismantling it piece by piece so that there's no room to ever fall behind, all because they actually have a good sense of how to play against it.

I also find it interesting that even though games are going longer nowadays than in the past, we actually see LESS late-game eco cards and other upgrades in players' decks (sometimes none at all, aside from factories). Perhaps it's because ESOC maps have more resources than RE maps, so you don't have to transition to mills/plants until very late, but not having those late-game cards definitely limits your options vs this type of playstyle. I've seen lots of players say Colonial is not even viable, but still they load up their Colonial slots with military shipments and crates, instead of throwing in some upgrades or Industrial Age shipments.

If any changes need to be made, it's to make water more accessible to more civs, instead of a select few that win water fights no matter what.


From my point of view, having both played and watched many games where this playstyle is incorporated, is that players just don't know what to do when they're pushed outside of their comfort zone--which is exactly what this playstyle does.

Its strength seems to be more a result of its novelty, rather than in-game numbers/imbalances.
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Veni_Vidi_Vici_W wrote:Regarding aoe2, maybe its as you suggest, even though i said im not that familiar, i shouldnt have brought it up in this way i guess.

But Diarouga, please dont cherry-pick or use things out of context, how should we argue with you, you also did this with Garja before.
- Regarding sc2, I said "full battlecruiser etc" as in referring to really late game compositions and techs, obviously not going 100% 1 unit... Sure some games go to that stage (depends on map too), but not that many.

My point is that in sc2, late game scenarios happen quite often. As I said, in tvz it's like 1 game out of 3, and overall probably something like 1 game out of 5. In aoe3 it's 1 game out of 30 lol.

- Kynesie is fine, not op. This isnt about my standards, so as you like to put it "wrong". Dont change my wording by only including 'raids and micro". Its about what strategy games are as a whole. Sure he developed the water strats so credits to that, but rts is much more. If you see him playing a game without water, its not just my opinion that he is far less skilled. If you take into account strategy, decision making, micro, macro, map control, positioning, apm, etc. A good or op player has good skills in (almost all) of those aspects, not just one. If you are a one-trick-pony, because either a strat is op, people are not able to counter it yet, or something similar, that doesnt make you op in my opinion, simple. There was this guy who was really good at raiding, but not much else. Not an op player either imo.

Well he isn't good at making decisions in games without walls, he doesn't have a great micro, nor positioning, which is why he isn't the best player in the game. Still, he is the best water player in the game because he has a lot of experience, and as you said, "credits to that". As a consequence, you can't claim that if a better player tried to go for water strats he would be better. kynesie is really great at using water.

- "We" dont have issues macroing, as we can also macro in normal late games with a lot of resources. Plus I find Kynesie's macro fine, not op. I used to play water before, in Challe's time, on maps like Yucatan. Didnt have much of an issue, just at some point decided i didnt like the crazy easy income you get. And oh really what a skill it is to quickly drag a wall layer and then use the hotkeys to auto-delete all pilar, wow... ^^

Again, I'm not saying that kynesie is the greatest player of all time, I'm just saying that he's the best water boom player, which is a fact.

- Sure you need some experience to water boom correctly, and i'd even say that right now i wouldnt know the most ideal build. Again, that doesnt matter for the main argument of the water+wall+sitting back strat vs something else.
- "blackstar_op, who is for sure a much better than kynesie overall, was not nearly as good as kynesie at water booming. Because of his lack of experience for sure, with 500 water games he would get better"
> If you really think Blackstar needs 500 games to beat Kynesie on water, then all I can say is "really wrong". He already has won before.

You can win some games from time to time, but he would need hundreds of games to become better than kynesie. He won against kynesie while using anti water strats, and anti water strats are, by definition, better than water strats (that's why water isn't op actually). My point is that it would take him a lot of time to become as good as kynesie against anti water strats.

- "Anyway, the only viable water boom atm is the Port water boom, so idk how you can claim that when Brit, Jap and even Russia can water boom on the RE."
> What are you saying here? RE means RE patch i assume? What words about "claiming" are you putting in my mouth this time...
I dont think you can say that a civ can or cant go water. It depends on the mu and map, but i think those civs have water options yes.

You claimed that water strats were used more often, which is not true. In fact, Port water boom is the only water boom.

- H20 vs Blackstar. Why you only cherry pick the Sioux vs India and dont include the 2x India vs Brit where Blackstar won?? Sure everybody plays every MU wrong according to you. Fact is H20 is and was one of the best players. Also, he did practise and he knew Blackstar was going to use India and Sioux, so thats just not a valid argument from you. But this is going off-topic.

H2O didn't know blackstar was going to play Sioux and India lol. Brit vs India is also a fine MU, but while H2O has by far the best micro in the game, he doesn't know the MUs very well (and he even admits it), so he just played this MU the wrong way.

Apart from all the details, my main point is that water, especially combined with the walls cost/stats as they are and the maps as they are, imo are not good. If you abuse it in a way and you find the best strat for it, sure good thinking. However, doesnt make you a really good player in my opinion. And, i think it makes the game overall worse.

As I said, abusing water and walls doesn't make you a good mechanical player, and it's surely not enjoyable for the opponent, but it's definitely not op, and you can counter it.
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

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Would you say H2O still has by far the greatest micro :O?
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

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ovi12 wrote:Would you say H2O still has by far the greatest micro :O?

He does. See his farewell series vs Mitoe
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

Post by Garja »

You guys have to keep in mind this game has two (three) modes, supremacy and deathmatch (and treaty). Some features/cards/ages aren't supposed to happen that frequently in 1v1 sup.
Meta already shifted from 60% colonial, 30% fortress, 10% industrial+ on RE to 30% colonial, 50% fortress, 20% industrial+ on EP. I don't think we should push this any further.
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

Post by Mitoe »

Sorry, but I don't really see how that's a real argument towards anything. Either it's balanced or it isn't.

Whether or not some people consider Supremacy to be a game mode where you just rush vs rush every game in the Colonial age until someone is dead is a matter of opinion.
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Post by VooDoo_BoSs »

Mitoe wrote:I haven't really read this thread super closely (just skimmed it, really), but I don't really think walls/water should be a big balance concern at the moment. The fact of the matter is that when it works it is only because the opposing player doesn't understand how best to deal with it. That isn't to say that there are no balance issues here--Bastion might be a bit too strong, for example--but for the most part, in the current map pool at least, it is not particularly strong in my experience.

Most maps don't even have enough whales to carry over into the late-game effectively, and water players invest A LOT of cards into making those 12 - 20 boats worth holding onto in the lategame--often at the expense of the rest of their 80 - 99 villager economy.

One of the main reasons players who abuse this playstyle win games is because it forces the game to last longer. This much at least is true--it does kind of eliminate the option to end the game early with rushes or early timings if it's executed well, although which civilizations have been chosen is a bit of a factor here as well. This doesn't really grant a big advantage though, most civs can deal with this just fine, even civs that don't scale particularly well into the later stages of the game will do fine because they have map control, and don't have to invest into a costly mill/plantation switch as early into the game as the defensive player. The reason this works is because so many players right now have no clue how to play out the lategame. Look at Snowww's games vs Kynesie, and maybe even his game vs Diarouga on Hudson recently. He got lots of advantages against this kind of playstyle, but it seems as though he's just uncertain exactly how to play it out beyond the mid-game--there are many things he could have done differently to win these games.

You can see the same errors in other series, like LordRaphael vs Kynesie--here Raphael just let's Kynesie play his game or tries to fight Kynesie where he's strongest? Doesn't really make the most sense. We've seen plenty of players who are arguably worse than Raphael beat Kynesie in these situations just fine--sometimes just outright dismantling it piece by piece so that there's no room to ever fall behind, all because they actually have a good sense of how to play against it.

I also find it interesting that even though games are going longer nowadays than in the past, we actually see LESS late-game eco cards and other upgrades in players' decks (sometimes none at all, aside from factories). Perhaps it's because ESOC maps have more resources than RE maps, so you don't have to transition to mills/plants until very late, but not having those late-game cards definitely limits your options vs this type of playstyle. I've seen lots of players say Colonial is not even viable, but still they load up their Colonial slots with military shipments and crates, instead of throwing in some upgrades or Industrial Age shipments.

If any changes need to be made, it's to make water more accessible to more civs, instead of a select few that win water fights no matter what.


From my point of view, having both played and watched many games where this playstyle is incorporated, is that players just don't know what to do when they're pushed outside of their comfort zone--which is exactly what this playstyle does.

Its strength seems to be more a result of its novelty, rather than in-game numbers/imbalances.


Couldn't agree more.

I remember when I picked up this game ~13 years ago, there was often talk that Rush beat Boom, Boom beat Turtle, and Turtle beat Rush.

This basic strategic cycle is absolutely broken, where Rush pretty much beats both Turtle and Boom. This is particularly true with some civilisations, where rush will almost always win no matter what the opponent does (eg: Aztec, Iro, India).

There is absolutely no strategy to this style of play. In most games we see, there are zero decisions made by either player in consideration with what the other is doing. Everybody does the same damn strategy and Veni wants to nerf anything new because it breaks this never-ending cycle of Rush / Semi-FF.
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

ovi12 wrote:Would you say H2O still has by far the greatest micro :O?

Yes
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

VooDoo_BoSs wrote:
Mitoe wrote:I haven't really read this thread super closely (just skimmed it, really), but I don't really think walls/water should be a big balance concern at the moment. The fact of the matter is that when it works it is only because the opposing player doesn't understand how best to deal with it. That isn't to say that there are no balance issues here--Bastion might be a bit too strong, for example--but for the most part, in the current map pool at least, it is not particularly strong in my experience.

Most maps don't even have enough whales to carry over into the late-game effectively, and water players invest A LOT of cards into making those 12 - 20 boats worth holding onto in the lategame--often at the expense of the rest of their 80 - 99 villager economy.

One of the main reasons players who abuse this playstyle win games is because it forces the game to last longer. This much at least is true--it does kind of eliminate the option to end the game early with rushes or early timings if it's executed well, although which civilizations have been chosen is a bit of a factor here as well. This doesn't really grant a big advantage though, most civs can deal with this just fine, even civs that don't scale particularly well into the later stages of the game will do fine because they have map control, and don't have to invest into a costly mill/plantation switch as early into the game as the defensive player. The reason this works is because so many players right now have no clue how to play out the lategame. Look at Snowww's games vs Kynesie, and maybe even his game vs Diarouga on Hudson recently. He got lots of advantages against this kind of playstyle, but it seems as though he's just uncertain exactly how to play it out beyond the mid-game--there are many things he could have done differently to win these games.

You can see the same errors in other series, like LordRaphael vs Kynesie--here Raphael just let's Kynesie play his game or tries to fight Kynesie where he's strongest? Doesn't really make the most sense. We've seen plenty of players who are arguably worse than Raphael beat Kynesie in these situations just fine--sometimes just outright dismantling it piece by piece so that there's no room to ever fall behind, all because they actually have a good sense of how to play against it.

I also find it interesting that even though games are going longer nowadays than in the past, we actually see LESS late-game eco cards and other upgrades in players' decks (sometimes none at all, aside from factories). Perhaps it's because ESOC maps have more resources than RE maps, so you don't have to transition to mills/plants until very late, but not having those late-game cards definitely limits your options vs this type of playstyle. I've seen lots of players say Colonial is not even viable, but still they load up their Colonial slots with military shipments and crates, instead of throwing in some upgrades or Industrial Age shipments.

If any changes need to be made, it's to make water more accessible to more civs, instead of a select few that win water fights no matter what.


From my point of view, having both played and watched many games where this playstyle is incorporated, is that players just don't know what to do when they're pushed outside of their comfort zone--which is exactly what this playstyle does.

Its strength seems to be more a result of its novelty, rather than in-game numbers/imbalances.


Couldn't agree more.

I remember when I picked up this game ~13 years ago, there was often talk that Rush beat Boom, Boom beat Turtle, and Turtle beat Rush.

This basic strategic cycle is absolutely broken, where Rush pretty much beats both Turtle and Boom. This is particularly true with some civilisations, where rush will almost always win no matter what the opponent does (eg: Aztec, Iro, India).

There is absolutely no strategy to this style of play. In most games we see, there are zero decisions made by either player in consideration with what the other is doing. Everybody does the same damn strategy and Veni wants to nerf anything new because it breaks this never-ending cycle of Rush / Semi-FF.

Yes, on the RE rush used to beat every other strat.
Atm I feel that you have this cycle again. Like if you go VC with brit and boom too much, you'll die too much. If you don't boom enough however, you might lose in late age 3 against a strong semi ff. Also you always have to contest the TP line, which means that you can't turtle forever as you have to timing and get the TP line at some point.
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

Post by VooDoo_BoSs »

[Armag] diarouga wrote:
VooDoo_BoSs wrote:
Mitoe wrote:I haven't really read this thread super closely (just skimmed it, really), but I don't really think walls/water should be a big balance concern at the moment. The fact of the matter is that when it works it is only because the opposing player doesn't understand how best to deal with it. That isn't to say that there are no balance issues here--Bastion might be a bit too strong, for example--but for the most part, in the current map pool at least, it is not particularly strong in my experience.

Most maps don't even have enough whales to carry over into the late-game effectively, and water players invest A LOT of cards into making those 12 - 20 boats worth holding onto in the lategame--often at the expense of the rest of their 80 - 99 villager economy.

One of the main reasons players who abuse this playstyle win games is because it forces the game to last longer. This much at least is true--it does kind of eliminate the option to end the game early with rushes or early timings if it's executed well, although which civilizations have been chosen is a bit of a factor here as well. This doesn't really grant a big advantage though, most civs can deal with this just fine, even civs that don't scale particularly well into the later stages of the game will do fine because they have map control, and don't have to invest into a costly mill/plantation switch as early into the game as the defensive player. The reason this works is because so many players right now have no clue how to play out the lategame. Look at Snowww's games vs Kynesie, and maybe even his game vs Diarouga on Hudson recently. He got lots of advantages against this kind of playstyle, but it seems as though he's just uncertain exactly how to play it out beyond the mid-game--there are many things he could have done differently to win these games.

You can see the same errors in other series, like LordRaphael vs Kynesie--here Raphael just let's Kynesie play his game or tries to fight Kynesie where he's strongest? Doesn't really make the most sense. We've seen plenty of players who are arguably worse than Raphael beat Kynesie in these situations just fine--sometimes just outright dismantling it piece by piece so that there's no room to ever fall behind, all because they actually have a good sense of how to play against it.

I also find it interesting that even though games are going longer nowadays than in the past, we actually see LESS late-game eco cards and other upgrades in players' decks (sometimes none at all, aside from factories). Perhaps it's because ESOC maps have more resources than RE maps, so you don't have to transition to mills/plants until very late, but not having those late-game cards definitely limits your options vs this type of playstyle. I've seen lots of players say Colonial is not even viable, but still they load up their Colonial slots with military shipments and crates, instead of throwing in some upgrades or Industrial Age shipments.

If any changes need to be made, it's to make water more accessible to more civs, instead of a select few that win water fights no matter what.


From my point of view, having both played and watched many games where this playstyle is incorporated, is that players just don't know what to do when they're pushed outside of their comfort zone--which is exactly what this playstyle does.

Its strength seems to be more a result of its novelty, rather than in-game numbers/imbalances.


Couldn't agree more.

I remember when I picked up this game ~13 years ago, there was often talk that Rush beat Boom, Boom beat Turtle, and Turtle beat Rush.

This basic strategic cycle is absolutely broken, where Rush pretty much beats both Turtle and Boom. This is particularly true with some civilisations, where rush will almost always win no matter what the opponent does (eg: Aztec, Iro, India).

There is absolutely no strategy to this style of play. In most games we see, there are zero decisions made by either player in consideration with what the other is doing. Everybody does the same damn strategy and Veni wants to nerf anything new because it breaks this never-ending cycle of Rush / Semi-FF.

Yes, on the RE rush used to beat every other strat.
Atm I feel that you have this cycle again. Like if you go VC with brit and boom too much, you'll die too much. If you don't boom enough however, you might lose in late age 3 against a strong semi ff. Also you always have to contest the TP line, which means that you can't turtle forever as you have to timing and get the TP line at some point.


Agreed, but I feel this is broken for Rush.

I'm not sure if there's any strategy that hard-counters a rush from many aggressive civs (eg: Aztec rush can be used against any civ and any strategy with a reasonable chance of success - even India agra fort turtle or Port CM turtle).
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

No way an Aztec rush works against Port CM. Also most of the time it isn't really a "rush", ie 700w/10maces/9maces/6pikes, but rather a colonial timing, which is different.
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

Post by Goodspeed »

VooDoo_BoSs wrote:
[Armag] diarouga wrote:
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Yes, on the RE rush used to beat every other strat.
Atm I feel that you have this cycle again. Like if you go VC with brit and boom too much, you'll die too much. If you don't boom enough however, you might lose in late age 3 against a strong semi ff. Also you always have to contest the TP line, which means that you can't turtle forever as you have to timing and get the TP line at some point.


Agreed, but I feel this is broken for Rush.

I'm not sure if there's any strategy that hard-counters a rush from many aggressive civs (eg: Aztec rush can be used against any civ and any strategy with a reasonable chance of success - even India agra fort turtle or Port CM turtle).
The fact that it is so easy to scout in this game is a problem here. You can't make it so that every civ has a hard counter to every rush, because it's too easy to see a rush coming. The result is that a rush is never viable.
Ideally you would find a balance where there are no hard counters, but rushing also doesn't win outright. In other words it should be a risky build to go for, but also shouldn't be too easy to beat.
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

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Post by Goodspeed »

And I've said this before but I think the changes in the state of high level play aren't a result of our balance changes, but more a result of the ESOC maps and a maturing meta. Given enough resources to work with, fortress-based strategies are simply better and they always were, even on RE. And there's nothing wrong with this. It's only the third age out of 5. From a game design point of view it makes total sense for the second age to be the age where eco harassment happens, where the occasional rush happens, where players sometimes fight for map control (when the map doesn't contain a lot of resources or when there's a trade route) and where they set up their economy and base for the long term, but not the age where the game ends. In the third age out of 5, you would expect one player to get decisively ahead and in the 4th age you'd expect the game to be finished.

Look at AoE2, where it's barely even possible to siege buildings in the second age. There, the feudal age is only used to harass the opponent's economy. On many maps, it's best to simply wall off and do a straight FF (or FC, fast castle). Games are never decided in the second age and rarely even in the third age. Most high-level AoE2 games reach the imperial age. And I know AoE2 and 3 aren't identical games so this shouldn't necessarily apply to AoE3, but it does show that there is nothing inherently wrong with a fortress-based meta. It's different, that's all.

I'm glad that there are players who are exploring turtle styles. That allows us to start balancing them and making sure they find a place in the meta.

To players who want mechanics to be the only game-deciding skill: You are playing the wrong genre.
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

Post by Kaiserklein »

I don't think people mind games being played out in fortress, as long as it doesn't mean it's a skirm war so often. Colonial games are just as boring when it's musk wars lol, look at brit mirror. It's just nice when there's different kinds of unit compositions and more intense micro. Also not having goons makes multitasking/raids more viable
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Kaiserklein wrote:I don't think people mind games being played out in fortress, as long as it doesn't mean it's a skirm war so often. Colonial games are just as boring when it's musk wars lol, look at brit mirror. It's just nice when there's different kinds of unit compositions and more intense micro. Also not having goons makes multitasking/raids more viable

Then just play a civ that doesn't have skirms lol.
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

Post by Jaeger »

For me its really interesting to see when people make artillery. The reason is that in straight up fights its a no brainer that you want cannons. But having them in a real game provides some intangible negative effects, such as less mobility. I’ve always been a believer that cannons are nevertheless good, but I know many people disagree so it’s interesting to see how it turns out.
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

Post by Kaiserklein »

[Armag] diarouga wrote:
Kaiserklein wrote:I don't think people mind games being played out in fortress, as long as it doesn't mean it's a skirm war so often. Colonial games are just as boring when it's musk wars lol, look at brit mirror. It's just nice when there's different kinds of unit compositions and more intense micro. Also not having goons makes multitasking/raids more viable

Then just play a civ that doesn't have skirms lol.

Right, let's just not play half the civs because the meta is about going bot semi...
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

Post by Kaiserklein »

ovi12 wrote:For me its really interesting to see when people make artillery. The reason is that in straight up fights its a no brainer that you want cannons. But having them in a real game provides some intangible negative effects, such as less mobility. I’ve always been a believer that cannons are nevertheless good, but I know many people disagree so it’s interesting to see how it turns out.

If properly covered, cannons are usually pretty strong. The problem is that before actually having your cannons:
- you gotta pay 300w for an extra building
- that building can get easily scouted
- you gotta remacro, stack a lot of gold, and wait for your batch of cannons to pop. Kind of similar to shipping mercs for example, you're idling lots of gold for a long time
- you gotta have a large mass to cover your cannons, else they'll just die
- if the opponent pushes your art foundry before your cannons pop, you're fucked
- and yeah they're not mobile and also force the rest of your army to not be mobile to cover them

Obviously that's why the 2 falc shipment is so good, besides being worth a lot of VS. You're just getting a small mass of cannons without having most of these drawbacks
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Re: diarouga vs snowww

Post by Goodspeed »

Kaiserklein wrote:I don't think people mind games being played out in fortress, as long as it doesn't mean it's a skirm war so often. Colonial games are just as boring when it's musk wars lol, look at brit mirror. It's just nice when there's different kinds of unit compositions and more intense micro. Also not having goons makes multitasking/raids more viable
I agree that goons are an issue. We did nerf them in an earlier EP version, and they may need further nerfs. And like you pointed out, a colonial-based meta faces the same problem. In ASFP, where games were usually decided in colonial, most games ended up musk/huss wars which is just as bad as goon/skirm if not worse.

But the sooner we accept that a fortress-based meta is where the game is headed, the sooner we can start balancing it. Rather than complain about too many games reaching fortress age, people should focus on making the fortress-based meta better. Already we are seeing way more crate shipments in fortress than we did 5 years ago, people are looking towards industrial much more often, and people are building more TCs. Back in 2008, if you even reached fortress you would almost always send exclusively unit shipments.

As fortress-based styles are explored more, the issues will become more apparent. And when that happens, EP team can make changes to improve it. The goon nerf was an important first step in this, though perhaps a bit conservative. Thing is we had to be conservative at the time because we had a mandate to stay as close to RE as possible.

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