Mitoe wrote:That's just asking to turn the game back into a giant flowchart of matchup counters. Civs need to be stronger at different stages of the game, but I don't think the gap should be so massive that you're left with civs who must play a specific way or lose. There needs to be room to adapt your build a bit, or at least so that if you fail your timing you have room to outplay later in the game despite being weaker at that stage; or, conversely, you shouldn't have to just sit there and get shit on by an all in rush or timing just because you got counter picked, or something similar.
It's a game with 14 civs and thus 91 unique match ups. You can't not have match up counters and one should simply accept that. The only way to mitigate that is to heavily standardize all civs in some way which makes the gameplay stale and boring.
I don't want the game to be primarily about civilizations, it should be about builds, mechanics, scouting, macro, etc. Everything that can set you apart from other players. Ideally the game is something more along the lines of Boom > Turtle > Rush > Boom etc. etc. regardless of civilization. This means that you need to be aware of what your opponent is doing at all times, and be mindful of your own strategy relative to what they are doing. This opens up room for deception and wacky adaptations or surprises. Your civilization should enhance your preferred playstyle, or give you a minor edge in a matchup or against a certain type of player, on a certain type of map, but it shouldn't limit you to that one specific style of play. Limit a civs options or strengthen one option to the point where it is something a civilization must do, and instead of scouting and interacting with your opponent, you sit in the lobby of the game and dance through civs until someone gives in and plays a disadvantageous matchup or mirrors: Boom (Brit) > Turtle (Port) > Rush (Iro) > Boom (Japan) > Turtle (Dutch) > Rush (Otto), etc.
What you want is to play a different RTS game called starcraft 2, where all three civs are designed to be very interesting and flexible. Aoe3's diversity is in the different civs you can pick which play out differently. If you are feeling like playing aggressively, you pick an aggressive civ, and if you are feeling like playing defensively you can pick a defensive civ. I would agree that it's probably better to have a handful of flexible civs than a bunch of more one dimensional civs, but that's not what aoe3 is. Aoe3 was designed around having a variety of very diverse civs. If you try to reduce this diversity because it polarizes match ups, then you will be standardizing civs. You yourself say that ideally you want something more along the lines of all civs being able to boom and rush, but on EP (maps) I feel like rushing never even is a possibility with the majority of civs. On RE I don't think many civs are forced into doing a certain strategy. Many civs are forced to be defensive or aggressive depending on the match up. For example, Otto is generally forced to be reasonably aggressive, but they have 4-5 different adaptations of their aggression from double rax jan to jan huss/abus to a very aggressive 2 falc FF timing to the slightly later mam timing. It's all reasonably aggressive, but it isn't boring from a strategic point of view at all; the build order really does matter.
What is funny is that your ideal scenario, where civs can do whatever they want to do, is present in aoe3: There are 14 mirror match ups where the civs have exactly the same strengths and thus realistically aren't forced to be aggressive or defensive. Yet, those are usually the most one dimensional match ups and also generally the most hated match ups.
Also, the Boom > Turtle > Rush > Boom thing is purely a theoretical thing. Turtling doesn't even really exist in aoe3 and that becomes pretty clear from your example where you said Japan is a boom civ that beats a turtle civ, while if there's one 'turtle civ' it's Japan.
I think it is good that different civs are better at different strategies than other civs: this creates diversity and forces you to interact with your opponent. However if you want a balanced game where you don't feel forced to mirror or to pick counters to everything then the gap between civs at these different stages of the game needs to be apparent but not large enough that it's unwinnable, so that you have room to outplay.
This would be ideal. But it's easily achieved by deleting 12 of the 14 civs and then balancing the remaining 2. There's a reason why this hasn't been done yet: the amount of diverse civs offer something enjoyable to aoe3. Standardizing to achieve less polarizing match ups will lead to a more stale and boring meta and really only matters if all people would endlessly counterpick eachother (which quite frankly, is not something that happens much at all). Besides, all civs can play at almost all different stages of the game, some just need to put on some pressure and prevent the opponent from doing a full boom unpunished. I already linked an awesome Dutch vs Russia here, where indeed Russia is 'forced' to punish the dutch player for going for 4 banks without eco. He does punish the dutch player and then remains competitive until the very late stages of the game. There was plenty of room for both players to outplay.
If you want to emphasize each civs strengths so heavily, you turn each game into rock paper scissors--not even with build orders but with entire civilizations. Scouting becomes unimportant, as you know exactly what your opponent needs to do to win: they don't have a choice, and the game becomes entirely about whose power spike comes sooner, and if it fails, then they lose. If it works, then they win. Does that sound very interactive? Does that really sound like there's a lot of room for skill expression in here? Or is it about how well your civilizations do against your opponents civilizations?
Ideally the game is like a dance, where you lead until you are forced to follow (or vise versa), and need to outplay if you don't want to lose when the other civ is stronger, rather than automatically losing.
This is such an extreme exaggeration. I don't think the civs strengths should be emphasized so heavily. I think the patch shouldn't actively be removing traits that civs have that allow them to play aggressively or anything that isn't semi FF nr10. It's also bothersome to state that scouting becomes unimportant just because you know that your opponent needs to be aggressive to win; I clearly remember you training me to face somppu's india in the tournament, you then only teaching me about the slow sepoy rush and me beating your slow sepoy rush succesfully, to then die to a consulate rush without standing a chance. India had to do damage in that match up and had two different styles in that match up that could work out. I didn't scout and lost. Yet you're saying that if you know a civ has to do damage you don't have to scout and the game is decided when you select civs. You are also still ignoring the possibility that a civ can reliably do enough damage to put the game back on equal footing. I remember back on RE patch with RE maps, France vs Dutch was usually France trying to musk huss. They'd do at least some economic damage or prevent the full greed from Dutch, but then the Dutch would defend reasonably well and just barely stay in the game, after which it'd usually end up in fortress vs fortress age. But instead of doing a boring hussar semi FF, the game was really interactive and entertaining, with for example a very important strategic decision of when France would actually age and also earlier in the game for Dutch if they could get away with aging. This was extremely interactive and there was way more room for skill expression than just doing a hussar semi FF and then poking at eachother with skirms.
So, your argument that leaving civs to sometimes be forced to be a bit aggressive (to the extend that it is in RE) makes the game revolve around counter picks where you can't outplay is one big bad assumption and a big exaggeration. The design of RE isn't nearly as black and white as you make it out to be. The idea that one civ needs to do a bit of damage, or at least prevent the other civ from doing a big boom, doesn't simplify the game like you claim at all. India and Otto had very diverse and distinct ways to be aggressive that one definitely needed to scout for and play around strategically for example. I think the Dutch vs Russia game that I linked shows exactly why aggressive gameplay like that is fun, and that game didn't at all seem a one-dimensional "Dutch won because Dutch is a turtle civ and Russia a rush civ and turtle civs beat rush civs". That game seemed like "BSOP did a good build order, Raphael did good damage but then was slightly outplayed in the mid and lategame". If balancing had anything to do with it, it was that Dutch was maybe slightly on the strong end of the spectrum in that patch while russia was a bit on the weak end of the spectrum. Nothing of that match up had anything to do with "Russia can't go eco so this match up is boring".
Also, there are 14 civs. Whats the harm if a handful of them are really unique and thus can only be aggressive (Russia, Otto, Sioux) or can only be defensive (Dutch, Portuguese, Japan)? You still get to play civs that are very diverse (India on RE, France, British) and then some people that love playing aggressively and love the feeling of being on a clock can play like that, while players that love the feeling that they will win if they just survive long enough can play like that, and then people like you that love the feeling of being able to do any strategy that feels good for the situation can also play like that. This falls in the category of
if everyone likes your game, but nobody loves it, it will fail. Maybe you dislike the rush civs, but that's fine! There are still plenty of civs that you get to enjoy. But what if someone loves the rush civs? Well, he will get something to enjoy on RE indeed. However, on EP he will feel limited. He may still like it, but he won't
love it. And that's poor game design.