the new AoE3

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the new AoE3

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Post by Squamiger »

All this talk about semi-ff gang and whatever, kind of misses the point which that there's a new meta in aoe3. It's something that Khorix and Kynesie understood from day 1 in DE, but which has taken other top players a while to reckon with, which is that the most optimized strats are maximized around booming and walling as hard as you can, no matter what the map. This was sort of the case in EP, but in EP there were also balanced ways of countering this play. Falconet timings or rushes could break water or eco play. It doesn't seem like this is the case anymore at the highest levels, where the playstyle for water and walling has been super refined. It used to be that Kynesie seemed to have a magical way to surviving with walls and water, but now it feels almost standard to play this way when there is the opportunity to do so.

Kaiser losing to Don Artie really kind drove this home to me. Kaiser is an insane player but he just hasn't really adapted to the new meta, maybe just out of pride. This is unlike Don Artie who it seems like has put a lot of time into training these new builds that take full advantage of water, walls, and OP lategame techs. All the new up and coming players who have risen in ELO seem to also be players that take full advantage of this new way of playing.

I feel like the more this meta is adopted and accepted, the more civ balance will change. Some traditionally mid to high tier civs like haud, lakota, france, germany or china might fall lower and lower on the tier list, since they have fewer options to play this way, whereas even a civ like russia, which is normally considered bottom tier, might be considered higher since they have the capacity to play this way.

inb4 bramboy responds with a snarky comment telling me to gitgud and play the game more instead of posting about it. i am not a coward, i will never stop posting. what do people think, am I off the mark here? have all you pro players already guessed this ages ago in your top secret discord chats?
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Re: the new AoE3

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Post by callentournies »

khorixt turtles with no eco. don turtles less hard with more eco
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Re: the new AoE3

Post by Challenger_Marco »

#illegal strats gang
:nwc:
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Re: the new AoE3

Post by Squamiger »

it just seems like any exceptions you see to the wall/eco/water meta is because top players just dont find it fun and basically agree to not do it to eachother, and just sort of have a gentlemans agreement to play in the old EP style. cant blame them, but i think if aoe3 were to grow more and get more competitive with bigger prizepools, the winners would tend to be people playing in this style
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Re: the new AoE3

Post by Snuden »

Any link to a stream with Don A beating Kaiser.
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Re: the new AoE3

Post by Astaroth »

I feel it is wrong to use a couple of games as evidence of any sort of new meta or trend. People like Lecastate said that Kaiser didn't play this series the best, so I feel we should take the result and strats with a grain of salt (not taking anything away from Don who played amazingly).

How often do we really see a really boomy, wall-y, defensive play (=/= greedy semi FF)? Rarely. Sometimes players go for it, but it is only really very effective on a couple of maps. Which is fine IMO. There are other maps where specific strategies are more effective than on others (e.g. boat in pond on NE or dhaka, nat rush on some maps etc).

Also, there are good counter plays to water. Hazza demonstrated this amazingly against Kynesie not too long ago. The only "new" thing I might be able to see is that builds, counter builds and strategy are becoming a bit more important than just straight out apm/speed/micro/unit control: e.g. when your success vs water doesn't depend as much on the better micro but largely on having a really solid counter build (e.g. as Hazza did). But IMO, this is a good thing. If every game was just some variation of age2 pressure/raid/timing push and age3 skirm poking and 2 falc micro, it would be incredibly boring.
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Re: the new AoE3

Post by Garja »

callentournies wrote:khorixt turtles with no eco. don turtles less hard with more eco
kynesie turtles.
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Re: the new AoE3

Post by Mr_Bramboy »

I am not snarky :(

The revolutionary conspiracy theory is that the devs are making this game more like aoe2 so it appeals to aoe2 players, which is not that revolutionary from a shareholder's perspective.

Traditionally, the meta in RTS rotates between the rock-paper-scissors game of rushing, booming, and turtling. Turtling is traditionally countered by booming, which is in turn countered by rushing. In AoE3, we don't see many rushes anymore, because booming players have gotten extremely good at defending rushes. Similarly, we don't see much turtling because map control is extremely important in this game, and the booming player will be able to build up their economy much faster to overwhelm the turtling player. That is also the reason why Japan is the exception to this rule. Therefore, the AoE3 meta has developed towards booming in the past years. There are many nuances and additional arguments explaining this theory but this is the gist of it.

Ultimately, turtling isn't a proactive tactic. With proper scouting, detecting a rush, boom, or turtle is only going to tell the player what tactic to employ to defeat their opponent. A turtling player is unable to do this and will therefore always be one step behind. It is possible that the current state of balance favors a turtle meta, especially if you believe the conspiracy. However, it is my humble opinion that Kaiser has not optimally adapted to the new DE features, such as the Spanish logistician and Sweden. This is understandable, seeing as Kaiser is not even close to his old form when he was winning every tournament. But it's not the end of the world. Kaiser has deserved his break and I hope we see him back in the future on a proper laptop to dominate the competition once again. I do not think we can conclude that the turtle is the way forward from one unfortunate series, but we can talk again when Don wins the tournament.
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Re: the new AoE3

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Post by callentournies »

ive said this in a lot of twitch chats lately but it really, really rings true: the best indicator I can point to, to explain the change in Legacy --> DE meta, is average TCs per game. Basically no one built TCs on RE and EP, now you see 8-12 TCs every other game.
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Re: the new AoE3

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Post by lordraphael »

im eternally grateful im not playing DE. THis game seems so dumb, but hey people apparently like it. A game where most made units is mms is not a good game to me. Not as a viewer and certainly not as a player
breeze wrote: they cant even guess how much f***ing piece of stupid retarded they look they are trying to give lesson to people who are over pr35 and know the best mu. im pretty sure that we need a page that only pr30+ post and then we could have a nice discussins.
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Re: the new AoE3

Post by callentournies »

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Re: the new AoE3

Post by lordraphael »

callentournies wrote:viewtopic.php?p=514474
the foresight by this deleted user.
breeze wrote: they cant even guess how much f***ing piece of stupid retarded they look they are trying to give lesson to people who are over pr35 and know the best mu. im pretty sure that we need a page that only pr30+ post and then we could have a nice discussins.
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Re: the new AoE3

Post by Squamiger »

lordraphael wrote:im eternally grateful im not playing DE. THis game seems so dumb, but hey people apparently like it. A game where most made units is mms is not a good game to me. Not as a viewer and certainly not as a player
well its still pretty fun at my level around 1400 elo, because none of this high level meta matters. just get bad tbh
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Re: the new AoE3

Post by Mr_Bramboy »

callentournies wrote:viewtopic.php?p=514474
Our lord and savior princeofcarthage with the DE foresight.
princeofcarthage wrote:Rushing used to be a problem early, so EP killed that. Water used to be a problem early, so EP killed that.
Now lategame is a problem, so let's kill that.
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Re: the new AoE3

Post by JKProwler »

lordraphael wrote:im eternally grateful im not playing DE. THis game seems so dumb, but hey people apparently like it. A game where most made units is mms is not a good game to me. Not as a viewer and certainly not as a player
Please explain how the saguanay game was DE specific? That could have easily been on the EP version.
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Re: the new AoE3

Post by lordraphael »

JKProwler wrote:
lordraphael wrote:im eternally grateful im not playing DE. THis game seems so dumb, but hey people apparently like it. A game where most made units is mms is not a good game to me. Not as a viewer and certainly not as a player
Please explain how the saguanay game was DE specific? That could have easily been on the EP version.
well i guess DE ports have some buffs. for example the ability to build tcs with vills is not to be underestimated. makes rebuilding tcs that much easier
breeze wrote: they cant even guess how much f***ing piece of stupid retarded they look they are trying to give lesson to people who are over pr35 and know the best mu. im pretty sure that we need a page that only pr30+ post and then we could have a nice discussins.
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Re: the new AoE3

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Post by don_artie »

alright so i'm gonna comment on this I guess. Kaiser is a way better player than me, me winning this series hasn't changed that fact. If you think otherwise I would say that's a bit delusional. Right before we played this series kaiser just went 3-0 vs iamturk in the round1 match and i imagine he went into this series thinking 'alright i'm gonna play a shitter now, easy 3-0' Where as I prepared plans and strategies, trying to find an advantage elsewhere. It's pretty obvious to me that if i'm gonna give kaiser a fair fight with equal numbers on goon/skirms/cav etc he'll just win easily with his skill advantage. Some of you might feel like playing these 'fair' fights is the only right way to play the game, but I personally think the things I used in this series are an important part of the game. After all we're playing a strategy game, not a mechanic check game. And the thing with the strats I used, is that all of them can be countered. But kaiser just did his standard stuff, which can fall short. For example I prepared that dhaka strat a lot and I know what can counter it, but kaiser's plan doesnt counter it at all. To now instantly resort to 'oh this is lame, this should be nerfed' or whatever else, imo, just explore into counter-strats first instead of being so short minded. that's my 2 cents on this
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Re: the new AoE3

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Post by dansil92 »

"After all we're playing a strategy game, not a mechanic check game"

thank you. been binge watching the age of mythology voobly tournament and its reminded me of how little strategy seems to go into aoe3 games comparatively. mythology has a ridiculous number of broken mechanics but the players all know what counterplay to use. eg. ceasefire - flaming weapons or how to build buildings to stop an earthquake from dropping a tc, etc.
all in all i enjoy playing aoe3 more, but from a viewership perspective i have all but lost interest in aoe3 and much prefer the strategic depth of mythology. aoe2 is boring for both, idk how that game keeps so much activity
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Re: the new AoE3

Post by Astaroth »

don_artie wrote: It's pretty obvious to me that if i'm gonna give kaiser a fair fight with equal numbers on goon/skirms/cav etc he'll just win easily with his skill advantage. Some of you might feel like playing these 'fair' fights is the only right way to play the game, but I personally think the things I used in this series are an important part of the game. After all we're playing a strategy game, not a mechanic check game. And the thing with the strats I used, is that all of them can be countered. But kaiser just did his standard stuff, which can fall short. For example I prepared that dhaka strat a lot and I know what can counter it, but kaiser's plan doesnt counter it at all. To now instantly resort to 'oh this is lame, this should be nerfed' or whatever else, imo, just explore into counter-strats first instead of being so short minded. that's my 2 cents on this
This is soooo true tbh.

Aoe3 is about so much more than having slight variations on standard builds and winning with superior unit control. It's amazing to see these strategies and counter builds.
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Re: the new AoE3

Post by Squamiger »

don_artie wrote:alright so i'm gonna comment on this I guess. Kaiser is a way better player than me, me winning this series hasn't changed that fact. If you think otherwise I would say that's a bit delusional. Right before we played this series kaiser just went 3-0 vs iamturk in the round1 match and i imagine he went into this series thinking 'alright i'm gonna play a shitter now, easy 3-0' Where as I prepared plans and strategies, trying to find an advantage elsewhere. It's pretty obvious to me that if i'm gonna give kaiser a fair fight with equal numbers on goon/skirms/cav etc he'll just win easily with his skill advantage. Some of you might feel like playing these 'fair' fights is the only right way to play the game, but I personally think the things I used in this series are an important part of the game. After all we're playing a strategy game, not a mechanic check game. And the thing with the strats I used, is that all of them can be countered. But kaiser just did his standard stuff, which can fall short. For example I prepared that dhaka strat a lot and I know what can counter it, but kaiser's plan doesnt counter it at all. To now instantly resort to 'oh this is lame, this should be nerfed' or whatever else, imo, just explore into counter-strats first instead of being so short minded. that's my 2 cents on this
I'm not saying it should be nerfed. You played really well. I'm just saying that I think we can definitely say the game has changed a lot, meta wise, and you played to the new meta while Kaiser played to the old meta. Back on EP I'm not sure you would have won, but you prepared well for DE as it is, rather than as some people think it should be. Things like ports getting 100 xp for TCs and letting vills build them, for instance, really makes a difference so that old strats for punishing water turtling just don't work anymore

I really tried hard to avoid using the word "lame" in my post, if you look closely. The point of the post is to try to get away from the "lame strat vs semi-ff" argument and just reflect on how the game is qualitatively different from what we played on EP.
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Re: the new AoE3

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Post by don_artie »

Squamiger wrote:/quote]
I'm not saying it should be nerfed. You played really well. I'm just saying that I think we can definitely say the game has changed a lot, meta wise, and you played to the new meta while Kaiser played to the old meta. Back on EP I'm not sure you would have won, but you prepared well for DE as it is, rather than as some people think it should be. Things like ports getting 100 xp for TCs and letting vills build them, for instance, really makes a difference so that old strats for punishing water turtling just don't work anymore
I'm not sure, I wasn't around on ep playing 1v1. But i'm fairly confident a lot of people were just not willing to think outside of the box or play different ways or whatever. Don't think it's strictly a DE thing

Also since you just edited your post, yea you didn't say lame or anything like that. I just wrote that part for the people that do feel that way
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Re: the new AoE3

Post by Squamiger »

don_artie wrote:
Squamiger wrote:/quote]
I'm not saying it should be nerfed. You played really well. I'm just saying that I think we can definitely say the game has changed a lot, meta wise, and you played to the new meta while Kaiser played to the old meta. Back on EP I'm not sure you would have won, but you prepared well for DE as it is, rather than as some people think it should be. Things like ports getting 100 xp for TCs and letting vills build them, for instance, really makes a difference so that old strats for punishing water turtling just don't work anymore
I'm not sure, I wasn't around on ep playing 1v1. But i'm fairly confident a lot of people were just not willing to think outside of the box or play different ways or whatever. Don't think it's strictly a DE thing

Also since you just edited your post, yea you didn't say lame or anything like that. I just wrote that part for the people that do feel that way
that could also be the case. kynesie was winning with this playstyle for a long time. It could just be that with the larger playerbase of DE, strategy has just become more refined in general, and the game was always heading in this direction
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Re: the new AoE3

Post by Astaroth »

We constantly see all kinds of strategies. Yes, the game has become more macro based overall, but that is often just a second TC or so.

This kind of defensive or water boom type of, defensive play is by no means the dominant or even most common build. You see all kinds of strategies, notably still a lot of semi FFs, stagecoach builds, even age2 harassment and timings, eg by Mitoe.

We see water booms on some maps and turtle play every now and then, but it is by no means the most common meta.
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Re: the new AoE3

Post by dansil92 »

i believe a fast industrial meta is the next step in aoe3. the defense capabilities of players are incredible now and 1600+ res shipments are hard to ignore. mitoe demonstrated this with france vs brits and i think its the way forward
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Re: the new AoE3

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Post by musketeer925 »

I really like the new meta as a viewer. Way more exciting and interesting than EP meta (though some of the age IV stuff started developing on EP, with france china FI's)

Longer games going to Age IV more often and utilizing more of the game's content adds a lot more variety.

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