Too much ports and sweden in tourneys

[tim_retek]

Hi,
i created this thread because i've seen a lot of sweden and ports in tourneys lately. Too much for my liking. And from what i've seen both civs do pretty much the same strategy every game. For me it would be more fun to see different civs, and different strats. And since there is obviously money on the line, the only way to encourage players to play other civs is to make some adjustments to the civ rules. In my opinion, we could see much more entertaining games if the usage of sweden and/or portugal would be limited, perhaps even banned. For example players could pick sweden and/or port only once, even if they lose with them.

What do you guys think?

I'm curious to see how many people agree, so i made a poll. Feel free to add options (idk if you can lol).

I wanna say that i'm really grateful for ESOC, EGCTV and all the casters, i've had a lot of fun watching aoe lately. <3

[Aussie_Drongo]

how can i possibly take this poll seriously without a garja option

[Lukas_L99]

In tourney most people just play what is best, it's obvious that Sweden and Ports are OP on certain maps.
Also you can't change civ rules mid tourney, so the only hope is a patch soon which balances them (and some other things).

[Peachrocks]

Portugal is more situational at least. Realistically I question some of the maps being in the pool. It just begs for Portugal picks. Sweden though? Ugh... the games I’ve seen lately are largely an exhibition of how broken that civ is.

I think you can’t change things now unless the players involved unanimously consent to it. Good luck getting aoe3 players to unanimously consent to almost anything.

[PatrickLFC]

It sucks to watch a Sweden mirror and know that it hardly matters who wins, because the loser can just win the next game with Sweden anyway. This kind of becomes a problem in a BO5 or BO7 where it's essentially reduced to a BO3/BO5, where you just need the right map for Ports/Spain Logistician or whatever to set up another almost impossible MU for the opponent. Obviously the opponent is allowed to pick those same civs but it reduces variety and interest when only the same couple of civs are viable on particular maps, and I'd argue can lead to removing the advantage of a counter pick, while simultaneously leading to a situation with more one-sided matchups and mirrors when this tournament set out to avoid that.

For example, Breeze vs Skirmy:

spoiler

Breeze lost the Swede mirror but won Ports on Alaska and Spain Logistician on Dhaka, and followed the Swede mirror loss with a Swede win. Skirmy seemed uninterested in 'abusing' the power of Port/Spain on particular maps and so Breeze only needed one other game to go right to take the series. Not trying to discredit Breeze, he played very well and all within the rules, but it was hard not to feel bad for Skirmy being in the position of having to play four games almost perfectly to have any chance of winning the series, whereas it felt like Breeze won three games just in the civ selection lobby.

[JKProwler]

Think Swedes have lost only twice to non swede. Kaiser Russia and kynesie Japan.

It's just unbelievable how broken the civ is once the meta has now been established. Svea lifeguard, infinite 6 mams shipment and spammable charging caroleans which (and this is what takes it way over the top) synergises well with the torp boom

[jesus3]

Banning them does not achieve anything. This is a balance matter and the devs screwed up big time there. That's all there really is to it.

[princeofkabul]

sweden is the new civ to inflate your elo

[harcha]

I'm fine with some civs being stronger at the moment. There have always been some outliers. I just hope that they address these things in an upcoming patch.

[Mr_Bramboy]

Banning these two civilizations would make one or two other civilizations the dominant choice, and so the cycle continues. Banning civilizations mid-tournament is unprecedented and will never happen outside of circumstances such as game-breaking exploits.

You could reverse your argument: since there is this much money on the line, should players not drop the casual approach and learn to lame the broken civilizations?

[yoqpasa]

The best opition is missing, the problem is it's out of reach for ESOC: Game balance

[Joe]

you forget the absurd brooken spanish lowgistician on water maps

[harcha]

Banning these two civilizations would make one or two other civilizations the dominant choice, and so the cycle continues. Banning civilizations mid-tournament is unprecedented and will never happen outside of circumstances such as game-breaking exploits.

You could reverse your argument: since there is this much money on the line, should players not drop the casual approach and learn to lame the broken civilizations?

Yeah I think glitches and unintended exploits would be the only good reason to ban civs.

[I_HaRRiiSoN_I]

did engelberg ironworks get rebuffed at some point or did i imagine that up,

[JKProwler]

did engelberg ironworks get rebuffed at some point or did i imagine that up,

No, it's been nerfed several times but the build order meta has been polished.

Even the patch when everyone thought Swedes was nerfed too much, with what players know now about Swedes, it would have been OP cause cheaper torps and dominion.

That's how hard it is to balance

[Peachrocks]

did engelberg ironworks get rebuffed at some point or did i imagine that up,

No, it's been nerfed several times but the build order meta has been polished.

Even the patch when everyone thought Swedes was nerfed too much, with what players know now about Swedes, it would have been OP cause cheaper torps and dominion.

That's how hard it is to balance

I personally did not believe Sweden was nerfed too much. Part of me believes they were buffed because of Drongo .

[EGCTV]

Bram basically hits this on the head. For the history of AOE3 tournaments, a few civs have dominated. Maybe some people are just upset that at the moment the pendulum hasn't swung towards France/Germany. There will ALWAYS be dominant civilisations that have strong metas putting them ahead of everything else. Do you think if you ban Sweden, Ports and Spanish Logistician you'll suddenly sit down to watch Lakota vs Aztec? Erm no... it will be completely dominated by Dutch + Japan etc. Sometimes people forget how fine these margins are, and how small a buff it would take for the 'weakest civs' (Aztec, USA etc...) before everyone would start crying over how broken they are, and that they're destroying the tournament.

It is what it is. Some civs are stronger. They'll get nerfed eventually. Then other civs will get stronger. Then those are the civs everyone will play in the tournaments. In the meantime the deeper the tournament goes and the longer the series' get, and more varied the map pools get, the more strategic depth will hopefully be rewarded.

[Kaiserklein]

Well it's always the same story, they decided to add shit maps like Dhaka or Vietnam to the map pool, so of course you get broken games. They like to say they have no control over balance and this it's the game fault, which is true, but they just make it worse with this map pool and draft rules.
Ports wouldn't need to be banned if the maps were reasonable. Now sweden should have been banned yeah, but can't ban it mid tourney obviously.

[Astaroth]

Bram basically hits this on the head. For the history of AOE3 tournaments, a few civs have dominated. Maybe some people are just upset that at the moment the pendulum hasn't swung towards France/Germany. There will ALWAYS be dominant civilisations that have strong metas putting them ahead of everything else. Do you think if you ban Sweden, Ports and Spanish Logistician you'll suddenly sit down to watch Lakota vs Aztec? Erm no... it will be completely dominated by Dutch + Japan etc. Sometimes people forget how fine these margins are, and how small a buff it would take for the 'weakest civs' (Aztec, USA etc...) before everyone would start crying over how broken they are, and that they're destroying the tournament.

It is what it is. Some civs are stronger. They'll get nerfed eventually. Then other civs will get stronger. Then those are the civs everyone will play in the tournaments. In the meantime the deeper the tournament goes and the longer the series' get, and more varied the map pools get, the more strategic depth will hopefully be rewarded.

So true. Perfect balance is impossible in AoE3. If you nerf the current S-tier, the A-tier will become the top choice, if you nerf it too, the B tier.

Nerf Swe/Spain/Port and get Dutch/Japan. Nerf them as well and get like France/India/Germany etc.

[Kaiserklein]

Bram basically hits this on the head. For the history of AOE3 tournaments, a few civs have dominated. Maybe some people are just upset that at the moment the pendulum hasn't swung towards France/Germany. There will ALWAYS be dominant civilisations that have strong metas putting them ahead of everything else. Do you think if you ban Sweden, Ports and Spanish Logistician you'll suddenly sit down to watch Lakota vs Aztec? Erm no... it will be completely dominated by Dutch + Japan etc. Sometimes people forget how fine these margins are, and how small a buff it would take for the 'weakest civs' (Aztec, USA etc...) before everyone would start crying over how broken they are, and that they're destroying the tournament.

It is what it is. Some civs are stronger. They'll get nerfed eventually. Then other civs will get stronger. Then those are the civs everyone will play in the tournaments. In the meantime the deeper the tournament goes and the longer the series' get, and more varied the map pools get, the more strategic depth will hopefully be rewarded.

There was absolutely no point in this game where you'd see that amount of domination by a few civs in tournaments. France / ger didn't autowin games. The amount of lame we're witnessing atm isn't even close to anything we've seen in ESOC tourneys before, this is RE iro level of shit. I mean even people who really didn't play ports or sweden just pick them in tourney anyway, because if you don't you straight up lose. You can watch older tourney games, you'll see you didn't "need" fr / ger to win. They're just common civs a lot of people can play, and yeah they were too strong.

For the record, if you banned the 3 lame civs you mentioned, you wouldn't have japan / dutch "completely dominating" the tournament. They'd be some of the strongest picks for sure, along with like iro. But people would be able to pick a variety of civs and be able to win, you wouldn't just see sweden mirrors on land and port / spain on water because that's the only viable picks. You could see some brits, france, ger, otto, china, india, russia on no TP...

[harcha]

There was absolutely no point in this game where you'd see that amount of domination by a few civs in tournaments.
... The amount of lame we're witnessing atm isn't even close to anything we've seen in ESOC tourneys before, this is RE iro level of shit.

You're contradicting yourself two sentences later. I think this is exactly what EGCTV meant by what he said, that this is not unprecedented.

I do agree that map pool is partly to blame.

[EGCTV]

Honestly more than anything, I find the whole debate the be rather mute. Even if Kaiserklein is correct that this is unprecedented lame, it's still impossible to do much about. It's not like it's even just Ports and Sweden. As noted, the Spanish logistician on water is probably even stronger than both (how many times has it actually been beaten this tournament?). On the issue of maps I think there's at least a more legitimate debate on whether practical improvements can be made in the future.

[deleted_user]

There was absolutely no point in this game where you'd see that amount of domination by a few civs in tournaments.
... The amount of lame we're witnessing atm isn't even close to anything we've seen in ESOC tourneys before, this is RE iro level of shit.

You're contradicting yourself two sentences later. I think this is exactly what EGCTV meant by what he said, that this is not unprecedented.

I do agree that map pool is partly to blame.

nice catch, haha.

[Kaiserklein]

There was absolutely no point in this game where you'd see that amount of domination by a few civs in tournaments.
... The amount of lame we're witnessing atm isn't even close to anything we've seen in ESOC tourneys before, this is RE iro level of shit.

You're contradicting yourself two sentences later. I think this is exactly what EGCTV meant by what he said, that this is not unprecedented.

I do agree that map pool is partly to blame.

No? Iro and otto were banned, and then nerfed on EP. What are you talking about?

[Kaiserklein]

Honestly more than anything, I find the whole debate the be rather mute. Even if Kaiserklein is correct that this is unprecedented lame, it's still impossible to do much about. It's not like it's even just Ports and Sweden. As noted, the Spanish logistician on water is probably even stronger than both (how many times has it actually been beaten this tournament?). On the issue of maps I think there's at least a more legitimate debate on whether practical improvements can be made in the future.

Much could have been done by having good rules and maps and possibly banning one civ or two.