Beta Trade Route and Trading Post Discussion

[Peachrocks]

Not a huge fan of the church xp, native tp xp and other ideias to create alternative xp on no tp maps.

Imo, just like only a few civs are viable at water maps, only a few are good on 5tp maps, it is ok to have only a few civs favored at no tp maps. What I do think is that we have to increase the amount of viable civs on each kind of map.

All this discussion sounds like "I want to play german on all maps."
But what are we doing in favor of Sioux in indonesia? Dutch in Klondike? Those are even bigger issues than German on thar desert.

Just adjust map pool to have less no tp maps if less civs are viable there.

Eh it’s really Ottoman I mostly think about but Germany sort of too. I think the plan for the long haul though is to try and balance around the existence of TPs thus alternatives were needed for non TP maps. So it’s less about what we do for Sioux on Indonesia and Dutch on Klondike but streamlining the game across all maps rather than having balance radically change based on map. A little change is fine but tp vs non tp is so drastic for some civs, it makes balance difficult.

Upon reflection native tps giving exp might not be the best. I did mean it only as an isolated change well away from everything else I was proposing in my separate native threads. That obviously wasn’t clear. What should have been clear was that I was okay with going ahead with the church xp.

My reasoning was ‘Well nobody uses these things most of the time anyway right? They exist in similar ways to TPs’ and of course I know most of the units aren’t worth using and the techs are dicey in some cases but some people don’t know that.

In any case if I want to move to make them sometimes worth building, a passive benefit like this now isn’t the right way to go about it even if it is a good balance call because they’d always get built, which defeats the purpose of what I’m trying to achieve... even though some might accuse me of other things .

[Mitoe]

My only problem with making the church more expensive and granting it an xp trickle is that it's not easy to balance in relation to TWC and TAD civs, and it does affect a couple of other civs builds. Okay mostly just Dutch, since they actually use their church card a fair amount of the time.

But for TAD civs you'd have to increase the cost of the monastery quite a bit (because it doubles as a saloon), or else find some other alternative. Granted, the TAD civs don't really need xp as badly as other civs, but it would still be difficult to balance around this.

For TWC civs it's a little bit easier (increase xp dance rate for villagers from 0.5 to 0.6 or something).


Interjection and I had a fair bit of discussion about xp alternatives for non-TP maps because he wanted to implement something like that in Smackdown Patch, but in the end we never went through with it. The biggest thing though was that the alternative had to be good enough to help when you don't have a TP, but poor enough that it's not really worth it if you already have a TP. Here's a couple of the ideas we came up with:

- Religious buildings (Church / Monastery) grant 100-200 xp upon construction, and cannot be deleted (firepit xp dance would be buffed as well). This gives civs a small boost in xp to help speed up their builds--especially for civs that need to get to Fortress--but is certainly underwhelming compared to a Trading Post, and not really worth the cost if you do have a TP. However, it does give you an option to get a lot of xp quickly on TP maps if you need to get an important shipment in right away, and we were unsure about this change as a result of that.
- Creating a new tech at the church that would increase the build / training xp bounties of units and buildings, similar to Torii Gates though not quite the same. Interjection's biggest concern here was no existing artwork for such a tech, as well as feeling out of place in the game.
- Changing Mercantilism from a big one-time 1500g to 2000xp buy to a "tree" of techs you can purchase to grant you experience, getting more and more inefficient the more you do it until reaching the final tech, which would be the same as the current one. Would be a bit similar to how the Iroquois / Aztec TC Big Buttons function.


I don't think any of these is really the perfect solution, but they're ideas, at least.

[deleted_user0]

- Religious buildings (Church / Monastery) grant 100-200 xp upon construction, and cannot be deleted (firepit xp dance would be buffed as well). This gives civs a small boost in xp to help speed up their builds--especially for civs that need to get to Fortress--but is certainly underwhelming compared to a Trading Post, and not really worth the cost if you do have a TP. However, it does give you an option to get a lot of xp quickly on TP maps if you need to get an important shipment in right away, and we were unsure about this change as a result of that.

I like this one more than an xp trickle in a church or a torii gate type tech.

- Changing Mercantilism from a big one-time 1500g to 2000xp buy to a "tree" of techs you can purchase to grant you experience, getting more and more inefficient the more you do it until reaching the final tech, which would be the same as the current one. Would be a bit similar to how the Iroquois / Aztec TC Big Buttons function.

This could be ok, but it needs to be really well balanced.

Alternatively, we could explore the idea of an XP trickle type building which gets unlocked when you ally with a minor native tribe, kinda like a sacred cow sort of thing. You can build one which trickles TP. Could be like a Totem pole or other holy object. It's true that you can build this on TP maps as well, but if it's made weaker than a TP, there usually wouldn't be incentive to make it when you're going TP unless you're going full greed. It could be made so that either the minor nat tp needs to be up in order to have the benefit from the building, or at least that if you lose the minor nat tp, and then also lose the totem, you can't rebuild it unless you rebuild the nat tp.

[Goodspeed]

Wait so what is actually wrong with @Peachrocks' native TP XP trickle idea? That sounds great to me.

[deleted_user0]

I think its fine. But imo it should still be a tech, maybe available at every to, at a small cost. Maybe that's too complicated.

[Peachrocks]

Wait so what is actually wrong with @Peachrocks' native TP XP trickle idea? That sounds great to me.

There’s a few things and I was aware of these when I suggested it but I figured tweaking the numbers might help since I never gave a definitive figure. I was trying to let this go but since you asked...

1. Players of some civs will get natives every game on non TP.
Admittedly this might be my bias working the other way in the fact my ‘vision’ or ‘lobbying’ would be having natives be situational but I don’t think this is a good idea. If people conclude this is best for balance I’ll settle for it, but I have doubts...

2. If the natives are actually useful on a given map this might be an arbitrary advantage
I would need to firmly look at the ESOC map pool and see which natives appear on non TP but off the top of my head we’ve got Nootka, Tupi, Sufi, Jesuits and Udasi. Of those Nootka could be problematic and shoehorn Ottoman into rushing with them and they’d get the EXP on top of that. Two of the Tupi techs are decent, Sufis techs aren’t bad and Jesuit conquistadors can be useful for some civs.

Granted this game is full of such arbitrary advantages and it might be worth the risk/testing but well... considering the extreme negative response. I’m kinda sick of fighting that particular battle alone.

[[Armag] diarouga]

My only problem with making the church more expensive and granting it an xp trickle is that it's not easy to balance in relation to TWC and TAD civs, and it does affect a couple of other civs builds. Okay mostly just Dutch, since they actually use their church card a fair amount of the time.

But for TAD civs you'd have to increase the cost of the monastery quite a bit (because it doubles as a saloon), or else find some other alternative. Granted, the TAD civs don't really need xp as badly as other civs, but it would still be difficult to balance around this.

For TWC civs it's a little bit easier (increase xp dance rate for villagers from 0.5 to 0.6 or something).


Interjection and I had a fair bit of discussion about xp alternatives for non-TP maps because he wanted to implement something like that in Smackdown Patch, but in the end we never went through with it. The biggest thing though was that the alternative had to be good enough to help when you don't have a TP, but poor enough that it's not really worth it if you already have a TP. Here's a couple of the ideas we came up with:

- Religious buildings (Church / Monastery) grant 100-200 xp upon construction, and cannot be deleted (firepit xp dance would be buffed as well). This gives civs a small boost in xp to help speed up their builds--especially for civs that need to get to Fortress--but is certainly underwhelming compared to a Trading Post, and not really worth the cost if you do have a TP. However, it does give you an option to get a lot of xp quickly on TP maps if you need to get an important shipment in right away, and we were unsure about this change as a result of that.
- Creating a new tech at the church that would increase the build / training xp bounties of units and buildings, similar to Torii Gates though not quite the same. Interjection's biggest concern here was no existing artwork for such a tech, as well as feeling out of place in the game.
- Changing Mercantilism from a big one-time 1500g to 2000xp buy to a "tree" of techs you can purchase to grant you experience, getting more and more inefficient the more you do it until reaching the final tech, which would be the same as the current one. Would be a bit similar to how the Iroquois / Aztec TC Big Buttons function.


I don't think any of these is really the perfect solution, but they're ideas, at least.

The TAD civs really don't need that exp bonus though, just the nilla civs. And yea, Dutch church would be the only side effect.

[Garja]

I don't see why we are trying to push aoe3 to be even more of a card game than it already is. You know, you can also just train units and get xp from that...

[Peachrocks]

I don't see why we are trying to push aoe3 to be even more of a card game than it already is. You know, you can also just train units and get xp from that...

Unfortunately it’s the way it is. Also trade posts are used because they give an income of exp, not just a one time thing like training units.

I don’t like the robotic, card clicking nature of this game sometimes either but TP maps force the issue. The only way you could change it is by making trade posts on travois routes give food/wood/coin and no exp and rebalance the whole game around that. That would be a lot of work and really deviate from the base of Aoe3.

[Garja]

I agree, just don't push it even further toward experience and cards.

[Peachrocks]

I agree, just don't push it even further toward experience and cards.

Again though because the balance is so drastically different on non tp vs tp it should be addressed.

I mean I guess in a way I understand how some people like the fact no TP plays differently to TP but if we are looking at it purely from a balance perspective, it shouldn’t stay the way it is.

The difference from tp to no tp is just far too great and trying to change xp civs to be less dependant on xp is far more difficult then making xp civs being able to function on non TP.

[Garja]

But it's not drastically different. I mean sure some civs are better on TP maps. Others are on no TP maps. Just consider the 2 things together and that's the balance. As long as the difference isn't extreme it's fine.

[Peachrocks]

It kinda is though. Sure the two together are mostly fine but wouldn’t it be better if all civs were viable everywhere?

As far as I’m concerned it’d make the game slightly less stale.

[deleted_user0]

It would be better yes, but it's impossible. Even on sc2, with just 3 civs, there were maps which quite clearly favored one civ over the other. And they didnt even have things like tp's and res far etc.

[Peachrocks]

It would be better yes, but it's impossible. Even on sc2, with just 3 civs, there were maps which quite clearly favored one civ over the other. And they didnt even have things like tp's and res far etc.

I don't buy impossible in this game. Especially not with how relatively close the balance is on TP maps. So I'd say it's difficult but not impossible. Also at the very least the gap can be lessened. Say we do 250w Church gives 0.8x exp as an example, non TP would still sting civs like German and Ottoman but not as badly as they do now.

Having said that, in case it wasn't obvious I'm for trying mild changes and reverting if it doesn't work out.

[deleted_user0]

Dunno. 250w church fucks up builds like 13 halb 7m ff or the french grenadier ff or the russian fast kalmuk ff, i dont think thats a good idea.

[Peachrocks]

Those things can be adapted if need be and it was just an example of how a bridge can be built.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Dunno. 250w church fucks up builds like 13 halb 7m ff or the french grenadier ff or the russian fast kalmuk ff, i dont think thats a good idea.

If that's the only concern, make church cost 100w once church card is sent.

[deleted_user0]

It's not the only concern. If we go for this route, I prefer the nat tp xp idea more.

[zoom]

I would not touch TPs. Quote from an earlier thread:

Currently, civs are already balanced around TPs. Nerfing them would require a lot of tweaks to current TP civs. It is, essentially, changing your mind on a past EP policy which is the basis of many decisions made along the way.

You say TPs are causing balance issues, I only see an issue in China match ups and that's because they don't get the same crate start as other civs. And the only reason vills or the market aren't causing balance issues is because the civs are balanced around them. For example, vills don't help Japan as much but Japan has compensation. And if Japan is weak, you would never consider nerfing vills to buff them. The same could be, and is, true for TPs right now.

TPs make this game great. They emphasize the shipment mechanic which increases strategic depth, and they encourage interaction between players in an RTS that is otherwise not very interactive.

If TP civs are too strong, you should nerf the civs.

The difference between Germans on a 200w start vs Germans on a 100w start, considering their opponent also gets the extra wood, is vastly overstated imo. Why is that suddenly such a problem when it wasn't in the past 5 years, during all of which Germans have been using TPs? And why is this a game breaking issue and not China's crate start? It's just bandwagon nonsense. And if it's really that bad you could actually fix the problem for every civ and get rid of random crates.

Right, an opportunity to revert superfluous changes, then. You shouldn't pretend that a moderate Discovery TP nerf even warranted many of them, though. Your point would carry more weight if the suggestion were to remove TPs, or significantly nerf them, throughout the game.

I don't disagree with your quote, but the idea were that such a change would benefit balance, both between and within civilizations.

[Goodspeed]

I'm confused, I argued we shouldn't touch TPs and you're saying my point would carry more weight if I suggested to remove them or significantly nerf them?

[zoom]

The civ in general, yes, which if you want to talk about nerfing them you should do it in the German discussion thread. What wasn't complained about in 2015 (rather from 2010-2018) is specifically the difference between a 200w start and 100w start. (Almost) all civs are much better with the extra wood crate. I know Germans are "more better" than other civs, but my point is it's way overstated; the difference is not as big as people seem to think. The fact that people talk about this as if it breaks the game and not about China's crate situation clearly shows the bias.

Agreed.

[zoom]

I'm confused, I argued we shouldn't touch TPs and you're saying my point would carry more weight if I suggested to remove them or significantly nerf them?

No. I am saying it would, if that what the suggestion you were arguing against.

[zoom]

250 wood TP? That should stop ger getting tp in first minute.

Good luck getting that through Goodspeed. I'm unsure whether to do anything about TPs, personally, though.

[zoom]

I remember proposing like 4 years ago to give germans a special TP, call it a rugged tp to go along with the rugged houses and just make it cost 250wd, maybe give it some extra hp for style.

All other civs can still do TP stuff at normal cost, ger can still be ok on non-tp without getting hit by other nerfs and they got a unique thingy.

Wasn't very popular idea though.

I mean we change the cost of vils for ports and ruski, houses for india and brit etc, why not tps for ger?

Obviously because Portuguese cheaper Settlers is bad, and British and Indians already have unique houses.

The idea might be good for balance, but it's quite ugly, I think. The question is whether there are better options.