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idk its just an idea.. i have no say in how aoe3 is balanced, all im saying is that it would be interesting if there was an alternative to 3 vils that was aggressive as opposed to eco-related. again, kind of like a "drush" in aoe2. i feel like some players would forego the 3 vils if this strategy was available to them.

hmm no I don't think I want that

Garja wrote: ↑

23 May 2022, 23:47

hmm no I don't think I want that

i think having a alternative to 3v card sounds exciting

the game with 130+ cards for each of the now... 19(?) civs with a huge range of units, build orders, ageups and techs does not need even more strategies added for the sake of more strategy. especially not with the existing, well balanced civs that desperately cling to their former EP glory.

dansil92 wrote: ↑

24 May 2022, 01:26

the game with 130+ cards for each of the now... 19(?) civs with a huge range of units, build orders, ageups and techs does not need even more strategies added for the sake of more strategy. especially not with the existing, well balanced civs that desperately cling to their former EP glory.

there isn't a shortage of strategies in the game. there is a shortage of strategies in age 1. because no card is as good as 3 villagers.

as OP said there are one or two exceptions, but nothing really compares to 3vils. And as Kaislerklein said, messing with or removing 3 vils cards would affect everything too much.. so, it seems the way to approach it is to add an equally enticing strategy.. and the only thing more enticing to me than getting my own vils is to have the opportunity to kill enemy vils. so that's my idea. an aggressive age1 unit shipment.

not one decent aoe3 player wants to deal with age 1 raids. nootka treasures were oppressive enough.

i mean nobody wants to deal with raids in any age.. the question is whether or not having the option available would make people not always use the 3v card.

but yeah idk it was just a idea.

Would you ever send a age1 unit shipment over 3 vils? If the units had a decent chance of killing enemy vils? I would definitely, especially against certain civs. Sometimes i wouldn't.. but yeah that's the point. meaningful decisions.

there are many meaningful decisions throughout the course of the game. age 1 is stupidly macro intensive and timing of ageups is incredibly important. Age 1 raids would be really quite stupid and would overly favour fast aging civs and punish slower aging civs, just exaggerating the existing discrepancy. Furthermore, civs could never safely fb making actual rushes almost dead. As some civs have age 1 military units available already (euros and asians can get their levied units) they could hypothetically defend with that, while civs like aztec dont have access to the alarm dance until they've aged up, skewing balance even further

Another important issue with 3Vil is the fact that almost all other cards in age1 see no use. And those that do are only such because they have no 3v, or are so exceptionally synergistic with one particular civ that they only see use there.

Regarding Age 1 rushes, given the speed of the game and much smaller maps, it is frankly a silly idea, but one which could be fun to play around in, if say converted treasure guardians weren't gimped when fighting vils as well, and ofc player's own units.

ShinkuroYukinari wrote: ↑

24 May 2022, 07:58

Another important issue with 3Vil is the fact that almost all other cards in age1 see no use. And those that do are only such because they have no 3v, or are so exceptionally synergistic with one particular civ that they only see use there.

I mean... that's the issue that everyone is talking about. And the counter arguments are somewhat silly. Yeah let's keep the card that kills strategic diversity right at the beginning of the game to preserve the perfect balance the game has achieved.

There is plenty of diversity left in aoe3 by leaving 3v intact.

duckzilla wrote: ↑

24 May 2022, 08:21

ShinkuroYukinari wrote: ↑

24 May 2022, 07:58

Another important issue with 3Vil is the fact that almost all other cards in age1 see no use. And those that do are only such because they have no 3v, or are so exceptionally synergistic with one particular civ that they only see use there.

I mean... that's the issue that everyone is talking about. And the counter arguments are somewhat silly. Yeah let's keep the card that kills strategic diversity right at the beginning of the game to preserve the perfect balance the game has achieved.

How is it silly

It's no perfect balance anyway and it gets worse with every expansion

No one said it's perfect to begin with.
Also balance gets worse because they keep adding retarded civs. But in fact the legacy civs in a vacuum are somewhat balanced, so if you wanna ruin that, go ahead and change 3v

they could increase 300 resource crates to 400, otherwise 3v=300 foods, but saves train time and vils pay dividends.

I would rather have 3 vils than 400 food. The only thing I'd rather have than 3 vils is a raiding party. Idk why age1 fighting is considered "silly". Someone said it would be annoying, but thats only if you are on the receiving end of it.

And you really should be attacked for mindlessly choosing 3vil card every game. It's basically booming with zero consequences. There should be a consequence for choosing the 3vil (greed) card.

I agree with Kaisreklein that deleting the 3v card is out of the question.. I just say add a counter to it.. remember: by choosing the raid card, you are not getting the 3vils so its a huge risk to do so, and if the person can defend, you are at a huge disadvantage.

How about we just create an entirely new game

Kaiserklein wrote: ↑

24 May 2022, 17:44

How about we just create an entirely new game

That would be too much effort imo.

The best thing to do in my opinion would be to create something like a "reduced version" of AOE3 DE.

Reduce complexity and several things that break the game and are not necessary for haveing a good and balanced strategy game. Revolts for example. It is not good to have such things in the game. One player clicks the revolt button, other player has to run away or immediately has lost a game which he tried to win and worked for for 20 minutes. Or in the end it turns out that the revolt player didnt calculate well enough and didnt realize it is a dumb mistake to revolt. No Civ needs a revolt as a nessecary option to win the game. It s worse to have them in the game than to not have them in the game. Thats just an example, there are many more. Just remove them and the game gets better.

A problem is, that some guys just put new stuff into the game (new ideas), like for example you could put an age I raid card into the game, but then cant take back what they did. Even if it was like an experiment. It stays in the game, just gets nerfed maybe, but stays. That way you get a gg (gimmick game). In order to derive a good strategy game, you first would have to define, what you consider a "strategy". You can call random card orders a strategy and a strategy game the better, the more strategies exist. There are different models to evaluate the "quality" of a strategy game, based on different sets of axioms and in many of them, the beforementioned statement wouldnt be true. "Strategy" imo should also have something to do with scouting and having plans ready, which base on the scouted information (if-then-else). How can you scout a card, that a player is sending, while you decide which card you send? At the same time i mean.

Anyways, out.

yeah i agree. in the new game you get 3v automatically at 1:30 game time by default. and there aren't any age1 cards. and there's a treaty for the first 5 minutes so that neither player gets annoyed by stupid age1 fighting.

tbh that would save some time in a lot of cases

Best idea would've been just replacing the 3/4 vills cards by vil+ something (building, perk, crate, unit).

That way you would make everything nearly equal to everyone and not run away far too much from where we are now. Plus we would be able to kill several useless age 1 cards (that would be nerfed, adapted and absorbed into those "vil+" cards) and leave the age 1 slots more clean.

That bad side is that you'd have to create a few if them for every civ and some would need to be exclusive for some civilizations, what would lead (perhaps) to the same issue of diversity you are worried.

Leave it

For civs with 3v as their shipment, I wonder if giving them an extra vil at the expense of the shipment would balance out the power and opportunity cost, while also providing more options in age1.

This excludes civs with alternate vils and Lakota, given how the opportunity cost needs to differently evaluated there.

A better way is to strengthen the other cards because now the 3vil card worth more than most of the other cards in age1 unless in some special maps.