BrookG wrote:Regarding winrates, it was an educated decision to exclude them, because the amount of matches would have been too small for providing any significant result. Any conclusion would have been biased. Consider, for example, the Spain situation. It was one of the least played civs (32 times), any winrate wouldn't be suggestive of the civ's actual status in the civ pool.
Touching upon the map issue, I will disagree on two points. Deccan was picked because of its special starting crates and its unique geography. Indians were highly chosen in LAN (8 times). In the rest of the tournament Indians were played 18 times, followed by British (17 times) and French (11 times). In my opinion, it is hard to deduce something about them just being too strong on that map. These civs were top picks in the whole tournament in the first place. Lastly, Deccan was only 6th out of 9 maps played in total and 1st in LAN. Thar Dessert, however, and New England were last, which might mean that non-TP maps aren't as popular with the players and New England honestly offers more strategic options and is a harder map for less experienced players.
Non-TP maps although unpopular are necessary because you would have to reiterate similar MUs and a tournament of such a scale requires to test the players in all possible situations and skills. And yes Indians and Russians is safer than your other options are maybe Dutch, Aztecs or Japanese among others. Is it a map's problem that they aren't picked or civ balance issue?
And about "age 3 meta" you may read again, because at least one player went to age3 in ~9/10 their games. One player staying in colonial, doesn't exclude the situation where the other aged to Fortress.
People picked brit and France because they're comfortable with these civs, however India is just better than Brit on this map.
About no TP map, they're an issue in general, because few civs are viable (Russia, India, Dutch, Brit, Japan, Aztec and India), but as you said, there's an issue with balance.
Aztec is the worst civ so can't play it. Russia beats Dutch, Brit and Japan and India beats Brit and Japan.
Futhermore, Brit, Japan and Dutch are weaker on Trash desert, so you have to play Russia/India. Trash Desert is just a bad map to be fair.
I did read the age 3 part. My point is that it's viable to play in age 2 during all the game. Having one player who ages to fortress isn't an issue at all, it's even nice. It would be boring if you had to stay age 2 all game, as you would only have one option.
At this moment, you can either age to fortress or play in colonial, and even if you age to fortress, you're going to fight a bit in colonial.