EP9: More details on fixed crates

[Garja]

Also starting crates interact with treasures. Sometimes you start market and find enough gold to buy wood. Sometimes a civ starts with 100w and can make use 1 it in age1 because it finds a wood treasure. All this stuff is clearly removed/reduced with fixed crates, especially those suggested here.

I don't see how fixed crates won't interact with treasures.

Starting default crates may interact with treasures which I guess it's ok. But if you give each civ literally the most efficient option (100f 100w) then it's gonna be TP most of times and only very rarely treasures will interact with the leftover wood bank (e.g after a manor or a shrine).

[Garja]

Making civs significantly stronger/weaker based on a random starting setup is just stupid isn't it?

It's not, it is exactly one of the purpose of random crates and why this game has a unique age1 compared to other static RTS games.

If all crate starts would be about equally good that would be fine i guess but they are not, aren't they?!

Define fine. Sure it's not a problem, but we could also just remove crates and give each civ a certain amount of resources directly in the bank, wouldn't it be fine? It's not about being fine or not, it's about preserving something unique to this game which may have some downsides in terms of balance but it has so many more pros that it's not worth touching.

Germany on a wood start getting a free tp vs Germany without the tp early on can almost feel like two different civs. I remember several tournament games where people pretty much said gg (as in complaining) after getting the crate start they didn't want.

Ye classic exaggeration.

Having something random have this big of an impact in an rts game feels so obviously wrong that this has to addressed. I find it really hard to come up with valid arguments against PLAYTESTING a solution for such this obvious flaw...

The main argument is that randomness is an asset of this game, not a liability.

[[Armag] diarouga]

I remember practicing Aztec vs Germany with nagayumi for Winter 2015. We played more than 10 games, I lost all the games on a wood start, and won all the games on a no wood start, that's how big wood start is for Germany.
It's fine in casual games, but if you lose a tournament game because of the random crate start (and it can happen with Germany), it's definitely a big issue.

[Garja]

Eh, there so many things that could be tested in that MU that simply reducing the solution to the starting crate is not only pretentious but also dumb.
Just for the record Aztecs can build a TP too with extra wood. And even just sparing extra wood is huge for any aggressive build.

[Kaiserklein]

It's fine, he totally lost to H2O only because of the crates start

[kevinitalien]

I remember practicing Aztec vs Germany with nagayumi for Winter 2015. We played more than 10 games, I lost all the games on a wood start, and won all the games on a no wood start, that's how big wood start is for Germany.
It's fine in casual games, but if you lose a tournament game because of the random crate start (and it can happen with Germany), it's definitely a big issue.

now its looking for all the excuses to say "ger start wood too strong, put start gold because i lost match against nagayumi it 5 years", of course we don't look at the map, we don't look at the treasures, we do not look at the micro etc, please do not say useless things like its to say that the fixed crates are good, at worst we remove all the treasures also from this game as its there no random and its looks like starcraft2 for you...

[[Armag] diarouga]

Eh, there so many things that could be tested in that MU that simply reducing the solution to the starting crate is not only pretentious but also dumb.
Just for the record Aztecs can build a TP too with extra wood. And even just sparing extra wood is huge for any aggressive build.

I didn't play perfectly in the games I lost, that's obvious. Still, I won every game on no wood start, and lost every game on wood start, and it had something to do with the crate start.

Aztec can build a TP on wood start, but then you either have to skip the firepit (and since firepit=TP, it doesn't help you), or age 25 sec later which totally negates the advantage of the TP since you actually get your shipments later lol (since you send your first one 25 sec later).
Saving 100w for your warhut is another option, and it will allow you to get +1 coyote for your timing, meanwhile Germany will have +8bows +2uhlans to hold your timing, and as far as I know 8bows/2uhlans>1coyote.

[chronique]

Eh, there so many things that could be tested in that MU that simply reducing the solution to the starting crate is not only pretentious but also dumb.

When you said "china 200w100g is basicly the same as china 300w", or when you said "fr with no tp is viable vs fr with tp" i don't trust so much on your theory crafting.

[[Armag] diarouga]

It's fine, he totally lost to H2O only because of the crates start

I might have lost on another start because H2O is better than nagayumi, but that's not the point. The point is that I didn't get a chance to win because he got a wood start, which is unlucky.

It was the same in the monociv cup against you. We got close games on no wood start, while I got smashed in the game where we got a wood start.
You should really try playing that MU as Aztec, and you'll see how much of a difference the crate start makes. When I was practicing for the mono civ cup, I lost to pr35 guys on a wood start because the different is insane, Germany gets one extra shipment (ie +10 military pop) to defend the timing.

[[Armag] diarouga]

I remember practicing Aztec vs Germany with nagayumi for Winter 2015. We played more than 10 games, I lost all the games on a wood start, and won all the games on a no wood start, that's how big wood start is for Germany.
It's fine in casual games, but if you lose a tournament game because of the random crate start (and it can happen with Germany), it's definitely a big issue.

now its looking for all the excuses to say "ger start wood too strong, put start gold because i lost match against nagayumi it 5 years", of course we don't look at the map, we don't look at the treasures, we do not look at the micro etc, please do not say useless things like its to say that the fixed crates are good, at worst we remove all the treasures also from this game as its there no random and its looks like starcraft2 for you...

Man, who cares about a series I lost 5 years ago against H2O ? I'm not trying to make excuses, I'm just making a point.
And fixed crates wouldn't really be a nerf to Germany anyway, since some other nerfs would be reverted.

[kevinitalien]

I remember practicing Aztec vs Germany with nagayumi for Winter 2015. We played more than 10 games, I lost all the games on a wood start, and won all the games on a no wood start, that's how big wood start is for Germany.
It's fine in casual games, but if you lose a tournament game because of the random crate start (and it can happen with Germany), it's definitely a big issue.

now its looking for all the excuses to say "ger start wood too strong, put start gold because i lost match against nagayumi it 5 years", of course we don't look at the map, we don't look at the treasures, we do not look at the micro etc, please do not say useless things like its to say that the fixed crates are good, at worst we remove all the treasures also from this game as its there no random and its looks like starcraft2 for you...

Man, who cares about a series I lost 5 years ago against H2O ? I'm not trying to make excuses, I'm just making a point.
And fixed crates wouldn't really be a nerf to Germany anyway, since some other nerfs would be reverted.

no you take stock of something that happened 5 years ago (or the balance was not at all like today) to bring a conclusion which says that germany is just terribly strong because it has a start wood, it's really anything, who cares about the reverse nerf when germany has a start gold, germany will always lose out now

[chronique]

no you take stock of something that happened 5 years ago (or the balance was not at all like today) to bring a conclusion which says that germany is just terribly strong because it has a start wood, it's really anything, who cares about the reverse nerf when germany has a start gold, germany will always lose out now

He took one exemple of something which make consensus lol. Do you think german with 200w is equaly strong as german with 100w 100g? And do you think kaiser are not good enough to do some lobby on his main civ? are you realy scary about that?

There are a lot of way to make german strong enough, we can revert uhlan nerf, we can balance the xp maluce, we can revert jaeger!!! you know we will make german much closer to RE?

[Garja]

Eh, there so many things that could be tested in that MU that simply reducing the solution to the starting crate is not only pretentious but also dumb.

When you said "china 200w100g is basicly the same as china 300w", or when you said "fr with no tp is viable vs fr with tp" i don't trust so much on your theory crafting.

Feel free to disagree, that's how it is tho (btw I didnt mean fre mirror in the french example).
Ah it is 100f 100g vs 100w btw, this kinda shows how much you know of the subject.

[[Armag] diarouga]

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I remember practicing Aztec vs Germany with nagayumi for Winter 2015. We played more than 10 games, I lost all the games on a wood start, and won all the games on a no wood start, that's how big wood start is for Germany.
It's fine in casual games, but if you lose a tournament game because of the random crate start (and it can happen with Germany), it's definitely a big issue.

now its looking for all the excuses to say "ger start wood too strong, put start gold because i lost match against nagayumi it 5 years", of course we don't look at the map, we don't look at the treasures, we do not look at the micro etc, please do not say useless things like its to say that the fixed crates are good, at worst we remove all the treasures also from this game as its there no random and its looks like starcraft2 for you...

Man, who cares about a series I lost 5 years ago against H2O ? I'm not trying to make excuses, I'm just making a point.
And fixed crates wouldn't really be a nerf to Germany anyway, since some other nerfs would be reverted.

no you take stock of something that happened 5 years ago (or the balance was not at all like today) to bring a conclusion which says that germany is just terribly strong because it has a start wood, it's really anything, who cares about the reverse nerf when germany has a start gold, germany will always lose out now

With Mitoe being the EP leader and kaiser being in the team, you can be sure that Germany won't get overnerfed.
My point wasn't even about the balance of this particular MU, it was about the difference between a wood start and a no wood start for Germany.

[iNcog]

lol

[aaryngend]

This whole debate reminds me of StarCraft 2 in early WoL, when TvZ on Metalapolis was heavily favoured for Terran when both players spawn in close position and the reverse if they spawned far away from each other, heavily favouring Zerg. The spawns were chosen by random at the start of every game.
The upshot was that they removed close position for pretty much every map from that point on.

Would it be possible for aoe3 to have different crate starts (per civ) on different maps? Maybe have No-TP maps grant civs different crates altogether. Or even TP maps having different crates based on the map. Just food for thought (and testing wacky stuff).

[Mitoe]

I don't really like different crate starts on different maps. I don't really see what it accomplishes better than fixed crates, and it's more complicated & confusing of a change than simply fixing the crate starts.

[aaryngend]

I don't really like different crate starts on different maps. I don't really see what it accomplishes better than fixed crates, and it's more complicated & confusing of a change than simply fixing the crate starts.

It was just an idea and would be a mix between random & fixed crates, if you think about it. But I guess that is too hard to implement correctly.

[RefluxSemantic]

people complaining about lack of variety, its ok i understand you, so do the developers, thats why there are 14 civs to play with!

We dont know until testing, if we dont test then there will be plenty of arguments relating to this topic in the future. we would probably need a lot of testing though to get this call right (accept or scrap) and i urge all to the support the testing of this.

This. As much as RE sucks, they did a great job at making 14 super diverse civs. There are civs for almost every playstyle. From boomy civs to turtle civs to aggressive civs. From civs that start slow but scale well to civs that need to make stuff happen to not get outscaled. We have civs with strong technical military and civs with weak swarms of units. We have colonial focused civs and fortress focused civs too. Theres a bit of everything really.

[reuehcS]

As @Diarouga said, Germany with 200w start is totally different and as @Kaiserklein said giving 200w is the same as forcing Germany to go TP every game, and when there is no TP it will be weak.
Making fixed crates is the starting point for balance, that is, civilizations will be observed and then balance accordingly.

The treasures scattered across the map, the type of map, the different types of civilizations that are facing each other, each player's profile, and infinite types of deck already provide enough randomness.
If all confrontations start to be identical, then it means that there are cards that need to be polished to increase the diversity of strategies

[helln00]

Eh, there so many things that could be tested in that MU that simply reducing the solution to the starting crate is not only pretentious but also dumb.

When you said "china 200w100g is basicly the same as china 300w", or when you said "fr with no tp is viable vs fr with tp" i don't trust so much on your theory crafting.

Feel free to disagree, that's how it is tho (btw I didnt mean fre mirror in the french example).
Ah it is 100f 100g vs 100w btw, this kinda shows how much you know of the subject.

So I just decided to see what kind of age up time you can get and it does seem comparable between the different crate starts, especially since for the coin start you can chop for 115 wood to get the market upgrades and by putting 2 vils on the wonder you can mine the 300 coins so much faster as well.

Im pretty sure if you get the coin start you may be able to do the greed china option of putting no vil on the age 2 wonder to mine the 900 coin and age up with an extra shipment if you dont go for the tp.

Mind you im just a 2nd lt so my china age up times arent great but atleast it seems to be 7:30 to age 3 somewhat consistently.

[[Armag] diarouga]

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Eh, there so many things that could be tested in that MU that simply reducing the solution to the starting crate is not only pretentious but also dumb.

When you said "china 200w100g is basicly the same as china 300w", or when you said "fr with no tp is viable vs fr with tp" i don't trust so much on your theory crafting.

Feel free to disagree, that's how it is tho (btw I didnt mean fre mirror in the french example).
Ah it is 100f 100g vs 100w btw, this kinda shows how much you know of the subject.

So I just decided to see what kind of age up time you can get and it does seem comparable between the different crate starts, especially since for the coin start you can chop for 115 wood to get the market upgrades and by putting 2 vils on the wonder you can mine the 300 coins so much faster as well.

Im pretty sure if you get the coin start you may be able to do the greed china option of putting no vil on the age 2 wonder to mine the 900 coin and age up with an extra shipment if you dont go for the tp.

Mind you im just a 2nd lt so my china age up times arent great but atleast it seems to be 7:30 to age 3 somewhat consistently.

It's not about age up time, because 2 village ages at the same time as village+TP to fortress. The issue is that you can't do the 700c/700w/unit shipment ff and can't send CM, so you die to agressive play.

[edeholland]

I don't really like different crate starts on different maps. I don't really see what it accomplishes better than fixed crates, and it's more complicated & confusing of a change than simply fixing the crate starts.

I don't like that either, but I like bonus crates on certain maps. It gives the build variety people crave without the imbalance.