Why semi-FF? Truth is that the Commerce Age is boring

[Mitoe]

Let's be honest. The Commerce Age is just not very interesting to watch overall.

No one likes musket wars: it's all positioning and invisible micro. Fortress Age is when unit compositions and micro start to get more interesting.

Many civs don't start to fully realize their bonuses until age 3 anyway.

Fortress Age is when players start to get access to more options: better/cooler shipments, TC boom, etc.


The game technically starts in the Exploration Age, but we all know it actually starts in the Commerce Age. Why should it end there?

[WickedCossack]

How do we know that you @Mitoe are not a bot account created by the semi-FF lobby? I've had my doubts for a while now.

I thought ESOC was a safe space but I think some of the twitch bots might be now posting here too.

More concerning is that the semi-FF lobby may have hacked the results of the recent balance patch. I hope we can have a proper investigation into this at some stage.

They obviously have some serious financial backing, I suspect EGCTV might have a hand in this as the lobby gained prominence about the time he hit the scene. Coincidence?

I reccomend we ban @Mitoe until he releases his last 10 years worth of recorded games for the public to see. I suspect he's hiding a numerous semi-FF's!

[Mitoe]

@WickedCossack SEMI-FI ALL THE WAY BABY

[somp]

aging up should be a heavy investment that can be punished if scouted well but this is not the case in many MUs. but if it gets more expensive and shit, then some colo civs get too strong and everything is balanced around semi-ff meta so its hard to change. it should be a rock-paper-scissors between aging up/pushing/not pushing but its mostly a rock-rock-rock.

this works usually better going industrial. i.e in otto mirror FI beats passive FF but aggressive FF beats FI.

musket wars are boring but skirm wars are just the same.

[Mitoe]

I agree about the rock-paper-scissors.

I don't think skirm wars are very common these days. Maybe between a few of the classic euro civs--Fre/Dutch/Port. Otherwise most civs don't go skirm/goon.

[harcha]

yeah it can't be punished in many MUs but that's due to the diversity inherently built in a game with 17 distinct civs. making III harder to reach would reduce that diversity but not necessarily improve the balance.

[Hazza54321]

truth is the number of semi ffs on DE is vastly exaggerated

[Garja]

I like commerce age and I like musket wars too.

[Mitoe]

I like commerce age and I like musket wars too.

...I do too, actually. But the majority of viewers hate musket wars

[Jaeger]

I think lots of semi ff's is good. Why would you want to lock away so much of the game's content?

[_NT_sven]

I feel like the majority of games now are like Semi-FF vs. some colonial timing to punish that and then going Age 3. If we define the latter behaviour also as Semi-FF, the definition would inflate too much; but if we don't, then Semi-FF isn't even the dominant strategy in many cases, coz sometimes the one who is supposed to go Semi-FF would change the strategy to steady Age 2 play if they were afraid of a colonial timing.

[kevinitalien]

let's be honest, we're all waiting for breeze's comments

[Garja]

let's be honest, we're all waiting for breeze's comments

exactly ahahahah

[helln00]

I like commerce age and I like musket wars too.

...I do too, actually. But the majority of viewers hate musket wars

I think musket wars would be a lot less boring if grens were a decent unit to mix in, explosions sells and just 5 grens can lead to lots of explosions

[Jets]

Make grens viable again and we will have more much fun.

Edit: I will elaborate furthermore on what I said. It would be a more interesting and diverse game if more types of units were on the battlefield. Not only skirms & goons on age3, and definitely not just musk's & huss on age2.

The most complex and fun match ups I've seen being played on age2, were between civs that don't have musketeers on their rostee.

Even priests are fun to watch on the field from time to time.

[harcha]

you mean like making them trainable from rax? that would be stupid

[samwise12]

@deleted_user5 educate these fools PLEASE

[helln00]

you mean like making them trainable from rax? that would be stupid

I think a 4-5 gren shipment age 2 is enough tbh, it makes it easier to get them to that critical mass that allows them to snowball. If you can just build an artillery foundry, train 5 and ship 5, you have a mass of 10 and I think thats enough for them to be a threat

[Jets]

you mean like making them trainable from rax? that would be stupid

Not quite, perhaps the solution revolves around the resources and what costs to add grenadiers to your composition.

Since falconets are the key piece of artillery on age3, there should be an equivalent for artillery on age2. It's very rare to see grenadiers being trained on a competitive and even a casual game.

Perhaps reducing the costs of grens, or buffing their range, heck even removing their HI tag would be such a nice buff since they can die pretty easily to bowmen and crossbows. You can also think of reducing the cost of the artillery foundry to 200w.

All of this would lead to more grenadier presence on age3, and maybe some strats involving the grenade launcher card.

Edit: historically speaking, grenades were used as an anti infantry weapon, rather than a siege one.

[don_artie]

Mitoe trying to get a higher seat on the semi ff gang council by advertising their agenda on the forums

[Mitoe]

Brah, why you gotta expose me like that

[deleted_user]

Let's be honest. The Fortress Age is just not very interesting to watch overall.

No one likes skirm wars: it's all positioning and so on. Imperial Age is when unit compositions and micro start to get more interesting.

Many civs don't start to fully realize their bonuses until age 4 anyway.

Indrustrial Age is when players start to get access to more options: better/cooler shipments,


The game technically starts in the Exploration Age, but we all know it actually doesn't start in the fortress Age. Why should it end there?

[helln00]

I feel like this is dividing the community, we should be working together so that all Ages can be played and not fall to the tyranny of the Ages Lobbies, be it the Commerce Lobby, Fortress Lobby, Industrial Lobby, the Imperial Lobby or the Exploration CBD pioneer rush Lobby.

[scarm]

tbqh mega-campaigns are where its at. We need file transfer to Victoria thr...... two. Let's break the arbitrary boundaries imposed on us by the microsoft bourgeoisie and go even beyond imperial age.

[lordraphael]

wow insanely weak reply by breeze. Ill hand the win to mitoe and the semi ff Gang. Well played.