"Don't Cry for me Argentina!"
- Thread starter Birdjaguar
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It looks super awesome but the DLC hasn't gone on sale yet.
Then get better m8
I've been playing RTSes for 10 years and I still suck at MP. I can't even beat some "medium" AIs. I attribute this to my genuinely terrible memory. Stop making fun of my self-diagnosed disability.
Immaculate
unerring
- Joined
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Snort Adderall?
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
Omega:
EDIT: Eh, dunno.
I'm not sure the mechanics are as terrible as you make it. I usually play quite large games. I don't find much fun in 1v1. Just going 2v2 already makes the game more interesting. It's very rare to me that the game is settled after 40 minutes.
Also I don't find that the most problematic unit is the pikeman. To me the skirmisher is the problem unit, if any units are a problem.
And healing is def. worth it. Saves lots of resources.
EDIT: Eh, dunno.
I'm not sure the mechanics are as terrible as you make it. I usually play quite large games. I don't find much fun in 1v1. Just going 2v2 already makes the game more interesting. It's very rare to me that the game is settled after 40 minutes.
Also I don't find that the most problematic unit is the pikeman. To me the skirmisher is the problem unit, if any units are a problem.
And healing is def. worth it. Saves lots of resources.
gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
With all that said, Rise of Nations is still one of my favourite RTS games.
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
I love Rise of Nations' province map, seeing your color sprawl across the map in real time is wonderful.
gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
Thorvald of Lym
A Little Sketchy
CoH2 has Elefants AND General Winter...
gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
AoE3 has cannons. Proper cannons. And Musketeers.
Omega124
Challenging Fate
As a game of skill, 1v1 is the only mode that matters. team games invariably turn into stupid spamfests where micro skill gets replaced by ability to flood the map with units. No matter the rts in question, that is the end result in at least 3v3, if not even 2v2.
If you play more 1v1 you'll see how stupid the fighting mechanics actually are.
As per skirms, they are an issue too. However I think halberdiers are a bigger issue since the cost disparity is larger, and archers can at least theoretically kite if you're skilled enough, or have a shield of melee units so the skirms can't get in range while archers pounce on them. There's comparatively nothing mounted units can do to counter halberdiers; at best they can bait them to go out of position but they can't safely engage ever.
And no healing is not worth it. It's a combination of various factors why healing is so terrible which I will outline below:
Monks are bloody expensive, and will be targeted first simply because of conversion even if you're not using them for that purpose. That 100 gold has far better uses overall.
Monks are also pretty slow. Especially for civs that rely on calvary or eagle warriors, they will only slow down advances
Even if built and you're ok with shoot the medic on steroids, Monks also can only heal one unit at a time, and take forever doing so. They're just bad healers overall.
The only other way to heal units is to stick them inside town halls. Again, the rate of healing is too damn slow, and you have the bonus penalty of them not being able to do anything.
There's a great chance you'll forget units are even in a building because theres no graphic saying units are inside besides an easy to miss flag. At least make the flag more distinctive looking. Also buildings only have so much space iirc.
Like my god play something like Starcraft ii with the medivacs and come back to me telling healing is good in this game. Medivacs are an example of how a good medic unit works: fast healing and movement, and utility that is useful but doesn't make it priority number one.
Or add a building, we could call it the apothecary, that emits an aura that heals all units around it. Make it cost gold, idc, I just want something not stupid.
Ailedhoo
wonderer
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- 7,809
Age of Wonders has those too and its has good campaigns.
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
I have played Starcraft 2, and like many other strategy games multiplayer wasn't as interesting to me because there was no real city building component.
I don't know about spearmen. Of course they are good against cavalry but why doesn't the cavalry player just up his army composition..? Spearmen also attack really badly which is a reason not to build them early if you want to rush. EDIT I know that the game has counters but many of them are just soft. I can understand going all cavalry is a problem, but it's also a problem going all infantry or all archers... Or all siege. If you pick and choose from different segments of your tech tree you'll succeed over people that spam one thing. Unless it's post imperial britons
I always get a couple of monks, two or three - first used to pick up relics, and then to heal. (I rarely miss or forget my garrisoned units.) I rarely upgrade them however. I know there's an opportunity cost in getting the monks but there are always off periods between battles where they have plenty of time to ready your forces up to when the next wave comes. Again, I mostly win through good positioning or superior resource management. But I also tend to be more defensive, building trash units, so the gold cost of monks is way less important for me than for someone who wants to attack with paladins.
Mindlessly spamming units until you win requires a very good economy to do. Which requires that you manage well until then. If we say that all players turtle up in order to unit spam late game, the best army compositions still beat worse army compositions, and the best troop movement and positioning still beats worse troop movement and positioning...
I don't know about spearmen. Of course they are good against cavalry but why doesn't the cavalry player just up his army composition..? Spearmen also attack really badly which is a reason not to build them early if you want to rush. EDIT I know that the game has counters but many of them are just soft. I can understand going all cavalry is a problem, but it's also a problem going all infantry or all archers... Or all siege. If you pick and choose from different segments of your tech tree you'll succeed over people that spam one thing. Unless it's post imperial britons
I always get a couple of monks, two or three - first used to pick up relics, and then to heal. (I rarely miss or forget my garrisoned units.) I rarely upgrade them however. I know there's an opportunity cost in getting the monks but there are always off periods between battles where they have plenty of time to ready your forces up to when the next wave comes. Again, I mostly win through good positioning or superior resource management. But I also tend to be more defensive, building trash units, so the gold cost of monks is way less important for me than for someone who wants to attack with paladins.
Mindlessly spamming units until you win requires a very good economy to do. Which requires that you manage well until then. If we say that all players turtle up in order to unit spam late game, the best army compositions still beat worse army compositions, and the best troop movement and positioning still beats worse troop movement and positioning...
Omega124
Challenging Fate
The problem with halberdiers is that they make any form of calvary irrelevant just by existing. Calvary units just cannot work around them like archers theoretically could vs skirmishes. There's actually no point whatsoever to ever building stables because halberdiers will just eat stable units alive. You're better off just build more archery ranges, because that's imo the most useful of the three productions.
A good late game army will have halberdiers, arblests (I play China mostly so I'd later replace them with the cho ku nu) elite skirmishes, and either trebuchets or onagers to deal with buildings. You don't need champions or any stable units; they're just waste of resources. The skirms are really just there to deter other skirms; I find regular archers way more useful overall but spamming them exclusively encourages skirm counter play.
Gold can be better spent thank monks. Tech, for instance, lets your trash army have a quality and quantity advantage. First thing age 2 I build is a blacksmith. Getting relics is good I agree but each monk you build makes it that longer for the relic to actually turn a profit. Get one or two monks max, don't rebuild them since not worth it.
You know what would monks actually worth building, besides just actually making their healing not suck? Split monks to a monk and a faith healer, and reduce both units cost to compensate. Now players like NC won't freak the frack out when hey see a healer and ignore my entire army to deal with them first.
Positioning is stupid on this game because as said before terrain doesn't matter. Maps are flat and devoid of meaningful features; your only options are basiclly lots of forests or no forests or anything in between. This doesn't actually change the theory of combat in this game as much as people think it does, because ranged units are already better than melee units (except huscarls, which actually goths in general are just stupidly designed. Champion spam transition to huscarl spam don't even need siege since arson and goth bonus makes melee siege. If the only counter to an age iv goth player is to prevent them from getting to that point in the first place, you should probably go back to the drawing board on faction design).
Finally I just want to address this Starcraft point because a. I only brought it up for medivacs and you completely ignored that and b. WTH are you on about Starcraft not having city builder elements. Ok, maybe you're not building a literal city, fair, but the base building mechanics are way more deep than AoE offers. walling is nowhere as tedious as it is in AoE because the maps are just better designed (hey, maybe relying on rng to build fun maps is actually stupid af), you can expand at any point of the game rather than arbitrarily being forced to wait until age 3, supply depots provide more utility than houses since you can make them go underground when needed, pylons give teleportation and Protoss ability to build and forget means you can do serious cheese buildings with them, and creep spread is what makes Zerg so terrifying. Not for a second can you tell me AoE has better base building mechanics than Starcraft does.
And if it has to be a literal city, why not just get rid of the actual rts and just play skylines? You'd probably have more fun with that game
A good late game army will have halberdiers, arblests (I play China mostly so I'd later replace them with the cho ku nu) elite skirmishes, and either trebuchets or onagers to deal with buildings. You don't need champions or any stable units; they're just waste of resources. The skirms are really just there to deter other skirms; I find regular archers way more useful overall but spamming them exclusively encourages skirm counter play.
Gold can be better spent thank monks. Tech, for instance, lets your trash army have a quality and quantity advantage. First thing age 2 I build is a blacksmith. Getting relics is good I agree but each monk you build makes it that longer for the relic to actually turn a profit. Get one or two monks max, don't rebuild them since not worth it.
You know what would monks actually worth building, besides just actually making their healing not suck? Split monks to a monk and a faith healer, and reduce both units cost to compensate. Now players like NC won't freak the frack out when hey see a healer and ignore my entire army to deal with them first.
Positioning is stupid on this game because as said before terrain doesn't matter. Maps are flat and devoid of meaningful features; your only options are basiclly lots of forests or no forests or anything in between. This doesn't actually change the theory of combat in this game as much as people think it does, because ranged units are already better than melee units (except huscarls, which actually goths in general are just stupidly designed. Champion spam transition to huscarl spam don't even need siege since arson and goth bonus makes melee siege. If the only counter to an age iv goth player is to prevent them from getting to that point in the first place, you should probably go back to the drawing board on faction design).
Finally I just want to address this Starcraft point because a. I only brought it up for medivacs and you completely ignored that and b. WTH are you on about Starcraft not having city builder elements. Ok, maybe you're not building a literal city, fair, but the base building mechanics are way more deep than AoE offers. walling is nowhere as tedious as it is in AoE because the maps are just better designed (hey, maybe relying on rng to build fun maps is actually stupid af), you can expand at any point of the game rather than arbitrarily being forced to wait until age 3, supply depots provide more utility than houses since you can make them go underground when needed, pylons give teleportation and Protoss ability to build and forget means you can do serious cheese buildings with them, and creep spread is what makes Zerg so terrifying. Not for a second can you tell me AoE has better base building mechanics than Starcraft does.
And if it has to be a literal city, why not just get rid of the actual rts and just play skylines? You'd probably have more fun with that game
Thorvald of Lym
A Little Sketchy
Gotta admit, cannon physics pleasantly surprised me.
Fegel-Alert has/will have campaigns starring Dolfy and Tukhachevsky.
> whatever you say when you win GO.
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
You talked about Starcraft being better because of a certain mechanic - at least in that mechanical regard - but I don't think the two games are that comparable, because of some fundamental design differences in the two games. I noted I prefered AoE's city component, that was why I wrote what I wrote; noting that Medivacs are helpful means little to me when the base game isn't as interesting. Starcraft base construction doesn't actually amount to much, no. Of course there's skill in it, and there are plenty of things you can do with the buildings, but the base citybuilding ideal is nowhere what AoE tries to do, and it's a thing very few games try to do, which is sad to me. The best example here of what citybuilding can amount to isn't AoE either, it's Stronghold. But Stronghold's military component is so dull it's completely anticlimactic when fighting happens. And I've tried Skylines. It's fine. But the cool thing about AoE2 and Stronghold is that you're doing this whole social management while also managing a military component. I don't understand how you find building walls tedious either. They're very easy to put up...
Knights or light cavalry are plenty fine in large scale combat and managed well makes for easy raiding. I'm not sure I agree that much with the late game army composition. I think it varies by the civ.
And positioning does matter. You don't need a height map in order for positioning to matter. (although AoE does use simple height and cliffs but that's beside the point) DotA positioning doesn't magically become a thing because of cliff miss chances and vision - that factor is already there.
EDIT: Now I think about it the 1492 series may have good citybuilding. I haven't tried them.
Knights or light cavalry are plenty fine in large scale combat and managed well makes for easy raiding. I'm not sure I agree that much with the late game army composition. I think it varies by the civ.
And positioning does matter. You don't need a height map in order for positioning to matter. (although AoE does use simple height and cliffs but that's beside the point) DotA positioning doesn't magically become a thing because of cliff miss chances and vision - that factor is already there.
EDIT: Now I think about it the 1492 series may have good citybuilding. I haven't tried them.
I know I mentioned this about a week ago, but if you've been considering my game at all, now is a perfect time to join - I just finished starting off the second cycle, and there's plenty going on with probably about three weeks worth of time for you to post in. We have 10 players already and almost every one of them is doing something completely different, so plenty of freedom to choose from.
Links are in my sig if you want to check it out, always happy to answer questions.
Links are in my sig if you want to check it out, always happy to answer questions.
Omega124
Challenging Fate
See, though, when the conversation is about why monks fail as a healing unit, it is good argumental skills to bring forth an example of a healing unit done right. However, when you try to dismiss my anagolgy because it doesn't do something you like in a completely different area, that's called a "non sequitur", which I'm guessing you don't know means an argument which does not follow the preceding conversation and its context. Non sequiturs are bad, bad form, because it shows contempt for the persons initial argument. Which I am more than willing to admit I share for yours
And again, you overestimate AoE base building simply because it abitrairily gives its buildings the appearance of a city. But you're not actually doing any real urban planning within the city. building houses near town centers doesn't give extra population. Building farms near rivers doesn't increase their food base. There's no sanitation, no need to keep citizens happy, no police force foo deter citizens from crime, no supply chains n, nothing which remotely gives any actual substance to the idea that you're in anybway building an actual metropolis. You're building supply depots shaped like a house, built by workers from a central command themed as a town center. In turn, your units are built from spawning pools themed as barracks, upgraded by an upgrade station as a blacksmith, and a super upgrade station themed as a university, etc etc etc. Especially non Terran bases in Starcraft show more actual urban planning than anything in AoE because for Protoss you need to account for pylon ranges and for Zerg you need to account for creep.
As for walls, they are tedious because maps are random and usually bases have too many exposed flanks to effectively wall. The end result is tediously scouting every avenue so that no one just walks in from behind, except suprise they did anyways because the unjust able camera didn't show you that you left a one tile gap. Compared to... basically any other rts with defined maps where you know exactly where defensive structures need to go.
I want you to try raiding a foe who gets spears before you can build cavarly. It's not fun for the raider. Stables have no place in this meta. Nor do advanced tactics because no unit abilities, no reward for good micro, no benefit for unit preservation besides the material cost of the unit, no reward for catching an enemy force off guard since terrain is so unimportant, etc, etc, etc.
AoE 2 is a great game... for 1997. But there's a point where it's just silly to assume it's the gold standard now when so many other rtses do other aspects much better. It's like me saying goldeneye is still the pinnacle fps; it even came out the same year and the wii got a nostalgia remake for it a la the new expansion packs. Sure goldeneye was fun for its time but there's far better fps games that does everything it tried to do better.
In other words if I made this game in 2016 I'd get shat on.
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