Too much ports and sweden in tourneys

[edeholland]

I am interested in the statistics of civ diversity in the later rounds of the tournament. I think they are always a good indication of balance and civ pick rules.

[RefluxSemantic]

It kinda ruins the competitive integrity of a tournament to ban civs in the middle of the tournament. I'm sure the actual competitive players that took this seriously recognized these civs would be OP and practiced them a lot/prepared counterstrategies. It'd be bullshit to punish these players for that just because some scrubs refuse to actually take a tournament seriously and just want to play their fun civs.

[Kaiserklein]

No one will ban any civs mid tourney lol. Now regardless, pretending that 3 civs being spammed again and again is fine in tourneys of a game with 17 civs is alright is pretty weird.

[JKProwler]

Hindsight is everything.

Tbf just before the start of the tourneys, I don't even think many ppl knew about spain logistitian on water was a thing or that Sweden was this broken (after receiving nerfs in 2 previous patches) and one can say the profile of ports has risen due to some of the tourney games and has only validated what some of the ppl thought about Port.

This tourney is part of the process of balancing. Any new civs, change of maps, resource spawn changes or any significant change for that matter will need to go through the painful process of trial and error.

Who is going expect aoe4 going be balance in the 1st year?

[JKProwler]

With the upcoming African civ dlc, I hope they go the USA route and make them underwhelming but fun to play to start with

[Javon]

Spain lowgistician abuse potential really wasn't well known, but we all knew Sweden was broken, why it wasn't fixed is beyond me, maybe the devs are afraid of angering the playerbase around 1400-1800 ELO which uses this civ a lot it feels. This tournament just shows us in a crude way that it allows for sloppy gameplay. In a way it's better that it's not banned in the tournament because maybe then a dev will open the stream and see that nerfs need to be done.

[look]

its simple.. nerf and thats it.

[look]

would it be possible to make some balance through the mod option in game?

doing something like that for a tournament just to correct disproportionate balances would be ideal.

it wouldn't be something like EP, just small swings to ensure that tournaments aren't played around 3 civs while we have 17.

[n0el]

good thing is that the rules are changing in a way that should allow for some more diversity. for sure we will still see ports and sweden, but likely only in one players hands and if they are truly so OP, only in 1 game.

[EGCTV]

possibly banning one civ or two.

Therein lies my point.

Ban Sweden: 'But wtf, Portugal is just as OP.'
K, Ban Sweden and Portugal: 'But wtf, neither of these are anything compared to Spanish Log on water'.
K, Ban Sweden, Portugal and Spain: Okay but then nothing comes close to Haud on a water map....

Ad infinitum.

[bsound7]

there are worlds between haud water and ports/spain logi water, or am i missing something? i will happily counterpick haud water where i dont even want to click into ports/spain water regardless of my civ pick

[Kaiserklein]

Therein lies my point.

Ban Sweden: 'But wtf, Portugal is just as OP.'
K, Ban Sweden and Portugal: 'But wtf, neither of these are anything compared to Spanish Log on water'.
K, Ban Sweden, Portugal and Spain: Okay but then nothing comes close to Haud on a water map....

Ad infinitum.

I got your point, I just don't think I agree. To me it should look more like this.

Ban Sweden: suddenly you see a lot more civ diversity on land, as Portugal isn't problematic there on most maps. You can now play a lot of civs and have a solid shot at winning most MUs. Say at least dutch, france, ger, brit, actual spain, actual ports, china, japan, india, iro, are all realistic picks in a tourney setting. And tbh almost any other civ can win by outplaying a bit as well. In short, you wouldn't just play sweden mirror.

Then remove dhaka because it simply sucks, force sag to be winter version (because the islands are known to be broken). All of a sudden ports / spain logistician become acceptable because you can use them only on Manchuria and Florida (unless I missed some map which is very possible, but you get the point). And I believe on these maps it's much more beatable by e.g india, iro, japan, china, maybe brits? Even france can do a lot more if you don't have those islands / ponds.


So yeah only need to ban 1 civ and 1/2 maps actually. Ah and don't lock people into playing 5 civs of course...

[deleted_user]

tbh, if we didn't have dhaka or saguenay with islands, we wouldnt even see ports or spain logi picked that much, the map pool also rewards some civs more but sweden is another story, it's just so good atm.

[edeholland]

possibly banning one civ or two.

Therein lies my point.

Ban Sweden: 'But wtf, Portugal is just as OP.'
K, Ban Sweden and Portugal: 'But wtf, neither of these are anything compared to Spanish Log on water'.
K, Ban Sweden, Portugal and Spain: Okay but then nothing comes close to Haud on a water map....

Ad infinitum.

This didn't really happen in ASC Spring 2015 when we banned Otto and Iro. Aztecs, India, Germany, Brits, France, China, Sioux and Japan were all played without too many complaints. Dutch, Ports and Spain were trash though. In DE the balance is much closer so there really shouldn't always be a civ that gets picked 90% of the time.

[Kaiserklein]

Yeah exactly.

Also people used to often go for comfort picks in tourneys. Like you could take a slightly unfavourable MU, or generally speaking play a slightly weaker civ, just because you're better at it so you'd still be able to win. That ensured some civ variety at least, instead of everyone playing the clear top civs

[EGCTV]

Therein lies my point.

Ban Sweden: 'But wtf, Portugal is just as OP.'
K, Ban Sweden and Portugal: 'But wtf, neither of these are anything compared to Spanish Log on water'.
K, Ban Sweden, Portugal and Spain: Okay but then nothing comes close to Haud on a water map....

Ad infinitum.

I got your point, I just don't think I agree. To me it should look more like this.

Ban Sweden: suddenly you see a lot more civ diversity on land, as Portugal isn't problematic there on most maps. You can now play a lot of civs and have a solid shot at winning most MUs. Say at least dutch, france, ger, brit, actual spain, actual ports, china, japan, india, iro, are all realistic picks in a tourney setting. And tbh almost any other civ can win by outplaying a bit as well. In short, you wouldn't just play sweden mirror.

Then remove dhaka because it simply sucks, force sag to be winter version (because the islands are known to be broken). All of a sudden ports / spain logistician become acceptable because you can use them only on Manchuria and Florida (unless I missed some map which is very possible, but you get the point). And I believe on these maps it's much more beatable by e.g india, iro, japan, china, maybe brits? Even france can do a lot more if you don't have those islands / ponds.


So yeah only need to ban 1 civ and 1/2 maps actually. Ah and don't lock people into playing 5 civs of course...

Yeah I mean it's not like I totally disagree with all of this. There are improvements to be made. Obviously when we see basically none of traditionally playable civs like Germany and Brits it means all is not perfect. I do think some of this was difficult to avoid nonetheless. As was said, Sweden had undergone multiple nerfs and was not supposed to be quite this strong and the Spanish Log water meta really developed very close to the beginning of the tournament.

[look]

You look at don art playing, it is clear that without lammerstyle he would be no more than a lieutenant colonel..
I look like a bot having to play with this style and against this shit...

[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.

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

I remember watching events that were 100% iro and otto on GP. That is what I'm talking about. I'm not trying to convince you, it's fine if we fundamentally disagree, my opinion doesn't carry any weight anyway.

good thing is that the rules are changing in a way that should allow for some more diversity. for sure we will still see ports and sweden, but likely only in one players hands and if they are truly so OP, only in 1 game.

Let me illustrate the problem with an example...
The problem is that people who don't play ports or sweden still try to make it work, and then instead of getting 1 win with port and 1 win with sweden you get 3 sweden games in a row because the person is just trying to get to that one swe win and is stumbling along the way before he gets there. This makes it so that instead of the series being 20% sweden it's now 80% sweden.

[harcha]

You look at don art playing, it is clear that without lammerstyle he would be no more than a lieutenant colonel..
I look like a bot having to play with this style and against this shit...

I completely disagree. Just because he likes more fun stuff and hasn't grinded 100 french/german/brit mirrors like many of us have, that doesn't make him a bot. Maybe even the opposite is true.

[Astaroth]

You look at don art playing, it is clear that without lammerstyle he would be no more than a lieutenant colonel..
I look like a bot having to play with this style and against this shit...

That's not true at all. His decision making, game sense, adaptation and strategies are all absolutely top notch.

[RefluxSemantic]

You look at don art playing, it is clear that without lammerstyle he would be no more than a lieutenant colonel..
I look like a bot having to play with this style and against this shit...

I completely disagree. Just because he likes more fun stuff and hasn't grinded 100 french/german/brit mirrors like many of us have, that doesn't make him a bot. Maybe even the opposite is true.

Don just takes things more seriously by practicing the good civs instead of just playing what he enjoys. Good on him. People that are whining about it are just poor losers. If you don't have it in you to play to win, don't complain when you lose.

[RefluxSemantic]

I wonder how this dominance compares to the germany/france meta

[gibson]

You look at don art playing, it is clear that without lammerstyle he would be no more than a lieutenant colonel..
I look like a bot having to play with this style and against this shit...

I completely disagree. Just because he likes more fun stuff and hasn't grinded 100 french/german/brit mirrors like many of us have, that doesn't make him a bot. Maybe even the opposite is true.

Don just takes things more seriously by practicing the good civs instead of just playing what he enjoys. Good on him. People that are whining about it are just poor losers. If you don't have it in you to play to win, don't complain when you lose.

Yea, a large part of being good is doing the best stuff. You don't see pros in other games using under powered stuff, they all take what's best and roll with it.

[kaister]

I am interested in the statistics of civ diversity in the later rounds of the tournament. I think they are always a good indication of balance and civ pick rules.

In the ro16, through 5 series, Port has won 5/5 Alaska Games (and was picked by 8/10 players) and Spain Logistician has won 3/3 Dhaka games (picked by 3/6 players). Not sure about the Mitoe/Osmane or Perez/Lukas series, but I think its a safe bet the Ezad/Don series has a port mirror on Alaska and Someone plays Spain on Dhaka

[Mitoe]

I don’t think it’s fair to blame tournament admins or devs as heavily as some people are. This isn’t something that is easy to predict.

Other than that I don’t have much to add to the conversation, but I will say that this is the first tournament I have played in where every single map I have no clue what to play because it feels like I might lose no matter which civ I pick.

This is probably because I am really bad at Port and Spain, and really dislike the predictability of Sweden for my play style. Even after practicing these civs. But in previous tournaments if there was a top civ or two that I didn’t play I always felt like there was someway for me to pick civs I am comfortable with and good with and find some obscure counter build or just outplay them. Now I just sit in the lobby for 5-10 minutes scrolling through civs wondering which one might let me scrape by.