N3O Age Of Empires and Starcraft 2 Clan

Their is nothing as awesome as a mirroir.

But i honestly also think it's because i'm not a supremacy player. I don't know the civics or the civic-strategies. I only can counteract ingame.

It's way more enjoyable to do a mirroir for me because i can save my eas with better army positioning, map control and economy.

I like german mirrors. Doppels can play a strong role there, or maybe a FF? Or Double rax Xbow push? Or Xbow /Uhlans? I love to play them

[quote=""wicked_assassin""]Their is nothing as awesome as a mirroir.

But i honestly also think it's because i'm not a supremacy player. I don't know the civics or the civic-strategies. I only can counteract ingame.

It's way more enjoyable to do a mirroir for me because i can save my eas with better army positioning, map control and economy.[/quote]

I actually enjoy playing mirrors too, makes it more about skill and less about counter-civ'ing.

Well when Es decided to give some top players like nature phoenix the carte blanche in the first TAD patch, they took the game into a certain direction: More tactical gameplay and less strategic decisions.
These experts didnt want a game where 1 or 2 decisions - choosing a deck and an initial strategy - determined a lot on the outcome of the game.
They wanted a game where your tactical and micro skills where tested a lot.

So ever since its been very conservative strategies, a bit of military and a bit of economy on the start, because they nerfed all the alternatives.

Going natives, mercs, FI, all out rush,... is just so dangerous so players take the safe route.

Games are decided on a few micro mistakes, or tactical mistakes, making the wrong unit, choosing the wrong time or place of battle and this makes boring recordings.

[quote=""luukje""]
Going natives, mercs, FI, all out rush,... is just so dangerous so players take the safe route.[/quote]

iro bb rush? aztecs rush? india 10/10 sepoy rush? the fp made it even worse if u think 1.01a was bad if it comes to entertaining recs.
arent there better recs if there isnt that civ a counters civ b thing anymore? (well not as much as before)

[quote=""luukje""]Well when Es decided to give some top players like nature phoenix the carte blanche in the first TAD patch, they took the game into a certain direction: More tactical gameplay and less strategic decisions.
These experts didnt want a game where 1 or 2 decisions - choosing a deck and an initial strategy - determined a lot on the outcome of the game.
They wanted a game where your tactical and micro skills where tested a lot.

So ever since its been very conservative strategies, a bit of military and a bit of economy on the start, because they nerfed all the alternatives.

Going natives, mercs, FI, all out rush,... is just so dangerous so players take the safe route.

Games are decided on a few micro mistakes, or tactical mistakes, making the wrong unit, choosing the wrong time or place of battle and this makes boring recordings.[/quote] going natives costed me quite a few matches back on 1.01a.

wow luukje, a very good point man! post of the month =)
that's why i dislike the fp (even though i play on it all the time)

Luukje I'll have to disagree with you there. The balance line has always been the same, and following your way of thinking the game would have been perfect in twc.

Let's remember how twc was:

Spain had crazy good FF

Ottos had rush, FF, FI, revolt

Germans had good FF

Dutch had insane 4 bank FF

Ports had sea nuclear boom, okish FF and FI

Russians had broken Suvorov reforms FF

French had ok FF, double rax xbow spam

Brits didn't have much

Iros had lightning speed rush, prowler FF, gh FI

Sioux had club rush in your face, wankina spam FF

Aztecs had ERK spam in your face and rush

IMO this was when the game was the most fun, either this or tad pre-RI nerf. Now you got 2 dominant strats: rush or semi-ff. hf. Still, you easily notice that most of the civs I said only have a single viable strat. Does it take a lot of strategic decisions to pick a strat out of two or no choices at all? :p

Still, most people prefer balance over "fun" because being on the UP side can be quite annoying. We've lost several fun factors but the game is balanced atm.

What I feel atm is that it is harder to play several civs but it's easier to stick to a single one since they're all rather versatile. I can sea boom with iros now on indochina and kick ports out of the sea

I agree with sportings post.

I agree with you almost 99 % Sporting. As it is now, in TWC, most civs had one dominant strat, but between civs, these strats involved more different ages, more different units,... And there were some pretty annoying balance issues. For instance Otto on tp/ non tp maps, almost impossible to balance.

It's just that on my level - PR20-23 - fun is just as important as balance.
And the twc/early TAD version was just a bit more fun.

I can understand why, as a better player, you prefer a better general balance: you put a lot of effort, a lot of pride into this game, and it sucks when you loose because someone is laming.

But I just feel it would have been better for the game if they would have kept a bit more of each civ uniqeness - the TWC balance version.

I dont know if ES ever had a balance line. The ES8 had a pretty strong vision, and that's being continued on the fan patch.
It is a real time strategy game.

The current balance line is going more for the real time aspect - the twc design had a bit more strategic implications.

Now everybody just plays likes Grunt and Phoenix and to be honest, they never had interesting recordings. Impressive yes, but surprising, No. Even in TWC i found their gameplay boring.
But I loved the scenarioJosh recordings, or Sepiroth, or other players, who kept finding new ways to counter those very strong strategies, or abusing a card, just great.

Interesting points luke. At a certain level you do get punished for being creative and innovative -- and just outright playing for fun.

It's part of my problem actually. I still like doing risky strategies like naked FF's, even though they aren't really in my best interest.

Great discussion here, fellas. I agree with almost everything that has been said about the fun/balance issues. What amazes me is how much the game has changed since 2005. I would like to see a chart detailing every unit and the way their stats have changed with every progressive patch. I think there have been something like 18 total updates since the game's release. It's just incredible.

On the "inventive strat" issue, I couldn't agree more. The tendency these days is to play boring strats that usually win. In some sense, it has taken my interest away from the game. If it weren't for N3O clan games, I would have lost all interest in 2008.

I like to complain about micro because I'm not good at it! One thing that always annoys me about this game is the fact that you can have all the right units and make all the right moves, but if you misclick something, or if your eye drifts for one second, you lose. If you've been playing 40 minutes at that point, it's like: "Jeez, what a waste of time and energy!" That is not only not fun; it is downright maddening.

Thank goodness we play for fun.

Nah, micro is fun. I don't like control groups but I have a lot of fun kiting pikes with cav, i.e. Mouse misclicks from dragging squares are rarer than with control groups imo. And I just love clicking around with a small army. When it gets to 40~ ish units it's just attack move all the way

[quote=""Sporting_Lisbon""]... When it gets to 40~ ish units it's just attack move all the way[/quote]

Amen 2 that

out

[quote=""LaZy""][quote=""Sporting_Lisbon""]... When it gets to 40~ ish units it's just attack move all the way[/quote]

Amen 2 that

out[/quote]

i even do that with 5 units ops: