Too much ports and sweden in tourneys

[RefluxSemantic]

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.

Having had Dutch, Germany and France as some of your best civs, I'd maybe argue you've had above average luck with the meta for most of the duration of aoe3. Now other players get to be lucky with the meta, that's just how things go.

[Kaiserklein]

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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.

Yeah ok I was talking about esoc tourneys, I guess I forgot to type it, my bad.

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

It's not even close

[Timurid]

swe zombies (mams+carols) taking shots to face and still marching in breeze vs skirmy was painful to watch honestly..

[_H2O]

It’s almost like the original civ rules were made that way for a reason! :) win or lose you get to use the civ once. This game is not balanced enough to allow other rules to happen. It’s impossible to achieve too with so many unique civs and map conditions.

[Hazza54321]

People talk like fre ger brit were unbeatable. This is different because theres little counter plays to swe on a land map likewise with ports and spain on sea.

[Mr_Bramboy]

It’s almost like the original civ rules were made that way for a reason! :) win or lose you get to use the civ once. This game is not balanced enough to allow other rules to happen. It’s impossible to achieve too with so many unique civs and map conditions.

I would say the NWC rules work fine in the prior EP situation where every civilization was more or less balanced. The flaws of NWC rules are highlighted when there are one or two dominant civilizations. Perhaps we should return to the old civilization rules for future DE tournaments.

[Mitoe]

People talk like fre ger brit were unbeatable. This is different because theres little counter plays to swe on a land map likewise with ports and spain on sea.

Does anyone have a link to that thread with tournament statistics? I think BrookG made it. It would be interesting to see the win rates there.

[Kaiserklein]

People talk like fre ger brit were unbeatable. This is different because theres little counter plays to swe on a land map likewise with ports and spain on sea.

Yeah just people who don't play the game don't realize the difference between the current balance and what we used to have. So many poor comparisons in this thread.
Meanwhile you Mitoe and me all see to think the balance is in a ridiculous state but you know, they know what they're talking about after all.

[Mr_Bramboy]

People talk like fre ger brit were unbeatable. This is different because theres little counter plays to swe on a land map likewise with ports and spain on sea.

Does anyone have a link to that thread with tournament statistics? I think BrookG made it. It would be interesting to see the win rates there.

Trying to find the thread too but I did stumble upon the raw data from EPL1, September 2019

[EGCTV]

I love how this is a three page debate whereas all we really need to see is:

Take mams from Sweden and slightly nerf Svea
Slightly nerf Spanish log resource crates
Nerf CM for Ports

And like.... we chill.

[RefluxSemantic]

People talk like fre ger brit were unbeatable. This is different because theres little counter plays to swe on a land map likewise with ports and spain on sea.

Idk if they were unbeatable, but I strongly remember just about every series having both players play france and germany at least once.

I just wonder how the actual facts are. What is the pick rate for these civs and how do they compare to ep1.2 tournaments.

[CR_Joops]

I think the thing about Sweden on land is that you HAVE to play to counter Sweden. It's your only strat. They are the only civ where you can't decide on a strat as Sweden's one strat beats every other apart from maybe Ports/Spain on water.

That's how powerful it is.

Having said that I don't mind playing against Swe, I like beating them more than any other civ. That Svea card is stupid though. Don't even nerf it just get rid.

[Timurid]

I love how this is a three page debate whereas all we really need to see is:

Take mams from Sweden and slightly nerf Svea
Slightly nerf Spanish log resource crates
Nerf CM for Ports

And like.... we chill.

make this happen pls.

[Mitoe]

People talk like fre ger brit were unbeatable. This is different because theres little counter plays to swe on a land map likewise with ports and spain on sea.

Idk if they were unbeatable, but I strongly remember just about every series having both players play france and germany twice.

I’m not going to disagree with you about France and Germany being good, they certainly were (although I think it would be stretching the truth to argue that it was the same level as Port/Sweden), but I’m quite certain France was not nearly played as consistently as you say. There are some players who can really make the civ work, but there are also a lot who cannot.

[RefluxSemantic]

People talk like fre ger brit were unbeatable. This is different because theres little counter plays to swe on a land map likewise with ports and spain on sea.

Idk if they were unbeatable, but I strongly remember just about every series having both players play france and germany twice.

I’m not going to disagree with you about France and Germany being good, they certainly were (although I think it would be stretching the truth to argue that it was the same level as Port/Sweden), but I’m quite certain France was not nearly played as consistently as you say. There are some players who can really make the civ work, but there are also a lot who cannot.

See my edited post.

[Mitoe]

Fair enough

[_H2O]

Much better to have fair civ rules for any balance. It just removes a key variable from the equation. If we had those rules now then after the Sweden mirror we would move on. Instead someone just gets countered later for example. It’s just not a fair approach. It also opens up the potential civ pool in a series and makes it difficult to plan.

[_H2O]

If you want to see the drastic improvements we made during the first 3 years of events and the creation of EP this document has the data.

Fun fact: in 2017 france was one of the most picked civs but had a 40% win rate over 67 tournament games.

In particular page 7 shows the civ usages. Brits, France, Germans were used 17,14,13% respectively. The main under representation came from native civs which have had a fair bit of work in later EP versions.

The appendix has detailed win rates for all civs. The data pool is not massive but its only tournament games which captures the civ rules + balance + map pool combined.

PDF Report: download/file.php?id=9264

[gibson]

People talk like fre ger brit were unbeatable. This is different because theres little counter plays to swe on a land map likewise with ports and spain on sea.

Idk if they were unbeatable, but I strongly remember just about every series having both players play france and germany at least once.

I just wonder how the actual facts are. What is the pick rate for these civs and how do they compare to ep1.2 tournaments.

Obviously sweden aren't unbeatable, but I wouldn't be surprised if at the end of this event swe has like a 75-80% win rate which is way too high imo.

[kaister]

I’m not going to disagree with you about France and Germany being good, they certainly were (although I think it would be stretching the truth to argue that it was the same level as Port/Sweden), but I’m quite certain France was not nearly played as consistently as you say. There are some players who can really make the civ work, but there are also a lot who cannot.

If you look at the NWC play in round, which is as close as you get to the RO16 here, the most commonly won with civ was India, which won 6/46 games. Meanwhile Ports are likely to win 7 or 8 of the 8 games on Alaska. Sure Germany was picked a lot then, but it wasn't like they ALWAYS won on Kamchatka (7 Kamchatka Games, 8 different Civs picked, 6 different Civs won on the map). Now we have maps like Alaska and Dhaka where 1 Civ isn't just "good" but overwhelmingly better than every other civ

[kaister]

Its at the point where in the Civ draft for the ro8 on, Id power pick Ports (a civ ive played for ~3 weeks) over Lakota (Main Squeeze)

[n0el]

Its at the point where in the Civ draft for the ro8 on, Id power pick Ports (a civ ive played for ~3 weeks) over Lakota (Main Squeeze)

you'd pick ports over lakota on a non water map?

[Kaiserklein]

If you want to see the drastic improvements we made during the first 3 years of events and the creation of EP this document has the data.

Fun fact: in 2017 france was one of the most picked civs but had a 40% win rate over 67 tournament games.

In particular page 7 shows the civ usages. Brits, France, Germans were used 17,14,13% respectively. The main under representation came from native civs which have had a fair bit of work in later EP versions.

The appendix has detailed win rates for all civs. The data pool is not massive but its only tournament games which captures the civ rules + balance + map pool combined.

PDF Report: download/file.php?id=9264

Thanks a lot for that link. It's clear evidence that the current situation is nowhere near what we used to have.

Its at the point where in the Civ draft for the ro8 on, Id power pick Ports (a civ ive played for ~3 weeks) over Lakota (Main Squeeze)

you'd pick ports over lakota on a non water map?

Nah then he'd just pick sweden :/

[JKProwler]

I love how this is a three page debate whereas all we really need to see is:

Take mams from Sweden and slightly nerf Svea
Slightly nerf Spanish log resource crates
Nerf CM for Ports

And like.... we chill.

How do u feel about the age 2 leather cannon shipment being replaced by 9xbow.

I feel that leather cannon card is the driver of Sweden being able to go full torp boom and get away with it almost all the time

[Miyawaki Sakura]

I love how this is a three page debate whereas all we really need to see is:

Take mams from Sweden and slightly nerf Svea
Slightly nerf Spanish log resource crates
Nerf CM for Ports

And like.... we chill.

How do u feel about the age 2 leather cannon shipment being replaced by 9xbow.

I feel that leather cannon card is the driver of Sweden being able to go full torp boom and get away with it almost all the time

Eliminating the exiled prince will make Sweden a slightly stronger civilization than Brit