N3O Age Of Empires and Starcraft 2 Clan

Since I’ve been back I have been playing vanilla and having lots of fun with AOE, fun that the last 6 months with TAD took away for a bit.

So I have this question: what version of AOE3 (vanilla, TWC or TAD) did you enjoy most and why?

1. Vanilla. 8 civs. Simple strategies as rush, turtle, FF and boom. Raw version of rock, paper scissors counter system. It came as a surprise to me that the original game took the conquest of the new world as main story board, as in history conflicts over there were rather small compared to wars in Europe. But it does make sense when you start every game from scratch in some sort of colonization economic boom. And it involves the US, probably the world biggest games market? In version 1.12 it has reasonable balance, never perfect and a shame we didn’t get a “definitive” patch.

2. TWC: 3 natives civs with unique abilities as super powered warchiefs, fire pit dances,…. New cards, new tricks, new strats for the euros. More possibilities, but game play didn’t change that much. Good balance was never obtained. But it was fun as it lasted.

3. TAD: three asian civs (worlds biggest continent of game buyers) were added with tons of new options. For the Asians. A stronger counter system, that has been gaining ground ever since. Again imbalanced. For ages. And the new fanpatch is only more confusion for me and more splitting the online community.

My opinion:

1. I had most fun in vanilla as a newbie, I played the best as dutch in TWC and got bored and frustrated with TAD.
2. the asian dynasties was a big disappointement. I never liked the new options, look and feel of the civs and maps. A bridge to far for me. To much to soon. A last ditch effort to get money out of our pockets.
3. ESO balancing was slow and often uninspired. Op strats were left untouched and “hated” civs were grounded (german 1.08; otto until they were nothing; dutch 1.01). ES8 balancing was better but absolutely forgot about diversity that brings us fun and gameplay.
4. I always thought is was a big shame ESO allowed the online community to be divided. Why not create the possibility to have everybody in 1 big pool, giving the extra maps for free, and the TWC extra euro stuff to.

(not including N3O games, because they are the best)

Good question. I would have to say i enjoyed the vanilla. I was into that game the most out of all three. I enjoyed the idea of having decks and was mainly just super pumped to get it because i loved aoe 2 lots. Then twc came out i bought it straight away. I was overall disappointed with it. I didn't like the op strats that they had and i had trouble learning those civs. I lost the love for the game till tad came out. I really liked the asian civs in aoe 2 and thought that this game would be amazing also. I find that tad expansion feels more like vanilla and i enjoy playing aoe 3 once again. I hope that support for this game will still be strong and that we will get the support that we deserve. I hope that robot entertainment will make another aoe game that tops this one and that we can all enjoy that game also.

TAD, because that's what all the clan games are.
Fun does not come from the new civs or fancy new units, but the group of people I play with.

Vanilla was the best, when you had to really earn those extra cards and reaching your first level 25 HC was a major achievement. There has been no learning curve quite like it ...

I really enjoyed Vanilla, was some of the best times with it being easy to get games regardless of if clan mates were on or not. I didn't like TWC much, and only played euro civs.
I quite like TAD, but as said above, it's about who I play games with not what I am playing that makes it great for me, and at the moment I'm really enjoying it.

[quote=""I__CHAOS__I""]TAD, because that's what all the clan games are.
Fun does not come from the new civs or fancy new units, but the group of people I play with.[/quote]

What he said. That and CHINA!

I used to play for hours at a time in Vanilla.....and I was a n00b playing Ports, so you know I lost a lot. TWC was fun, but the beginning of the end for me. TWC, everyone did well with Dutch...even me. TAD, I hoped would get me back into the groove, but it didn't. Now, I rarely if ever play at all. I may go back to Vanilla if I start playing again.

In terms of gameplay, heck, TWC was a lot of fun. Broken everywhere, but so much fun. Azzie rush, erk spam? Sioux rush, wakina spam? Iro toma rush, gh FI, iro prowler spam FF? Spain FF? Otto FI with great bombard/jans/spahis tearing down dutch lamers? Port FI? German FF merc spam? German FF falc spam backed by uhlans? It all was a lot of fun. Only thing I despised was dutch.


Hm I think I might even prefer ES 1.00 if you set China aside (<3 70 atk ashis). I'm too much of an FF fan (and a lamer).

Of course I like TAD just because that's where we play in N3O. But in terms of pure game mechanics, I like vanilla. In most of our clan games, we play Euro civs anyway just because they are the most balanced. They might not be flashy with super (and imo, lame) abilities like crackshots, treasure guardian conversion, uncatchable cav, firepits, big buttons, disappearing explorers, fast OP muskets and shrines, but that's the whole point: They are straightforward and just fun. Without all the flashy stuff, you can have balanced, fun games. TAD and TWC just seem like exercises in exploiting balance problems, then complaining about them. Vanilla is simpler, easier and more fun. And with only 20 cards, you don't get overwhelmed! It is just "more of a game" with fewer possible matchups and less lamage. I lost faith in TAD just because I hated playing Japan, India and losing to Aztec/Iro rushes. I didn't like playing rated games with a stone on my back, especially before the Germans got their power back in TAD 1.1. It was like playing with only one hand against the mega-OP civs, and that just gets frustrating, old, boring and disheartening.

Then I found N3O and my faith returned!

Of course it was vanillla. I was so n00b and didnt know how to play effective way so I just did some units and improvements and played without sense. at least afterwards its the funniest thingin AOE

[quote=""luukje""]
3. ESO balancing was slow and often uninspired. Op strats were left untouched and “hated” civs were grounded (german 1.08; otto until they were nothing; dutch 1.01). ES8 balancing was better but absolutely forgot about diversity that brings us fun and gameplay. [/quote]

the ES8 balancing team was superb, it is just ES didn't allow them to make big design changes because they wanted the game to be unique

[quote=""luukje""]4. I always thought is was a big shame ESO allowed the online community to be divided. Why not create the possibility to have everybody in 1 big pool, giving the extra maps for free, and the TWC extra euro stuff to.[/quote]

that is true, i kinda liked that in 1 year intervalls there was a new addon, but the problem is even today there are too many people in vanilla...

imo they should remove the ladders and powerratings for vanilla&twc
since the games are so cheap, it's okay to get another 2 addons for your aoe 3game. there would be way more people on TAD then

as for which i game version i liked the best, i have to say i only played vanilla(latest patch there) for a few weeks then switched to TAD 1.01a, but avoiding facing native civs because i didn't know them and what their strengths/weaknesses were :?

vanilla is just classic and cool, but i wanna play the newest version of the game with much more possibilities so i play TAD. i really liked the ES 1.01a patch, it is fun to be wielding such great powers

i can't decide what was better for me, but playing vanilla back then when everything was new it was a bit of another feeling than now where you practically saw everything

vannilla ftw, recently i whant to frizbee my tad disc out the window because of the insane lake of decent dm games...

it's not fun anymore...

I liked vanilla, but damn twc was way much more fun. I still remember getting straight to captain in early twc just with toma rush!!

And yeah dm is nearly dead :\

I like Vanilla, but I was a bit too young and in tune with the complexities of the game to truly enjoy it, then when TWC brough Petards (IIRC) into the game I found it amazingly fun and I did quite a lot of Sioux/Iro play, with Chocosanta being my Aztec companion.

I have had most fun raising myself through the PRs though on TAD, it feels complete to me - with a wide range of civs to choose from, and a lot of different styles of play that are plausable.

I think TAD is the best, the diversity makes things more interesting - and once it's all balanced out by the excellent fan patch team I'll look forward to QSing with native civs allowed.