Hey, i haven't been a member for that long, but was wondering if rasteve ever logs on here or more importantly, how serious he was about patching aoe?
I wanted to send him a email but it is listed as private.
Ive seen his threads and it looks like some of you guys may have tested his stuff. I would like to have an input, if of course this will be released.
I see that some of the suggestions point towards his experience, and no disrespect, some are a little wide of the mark.
I think the question that needs to be asked is...if i am up against[this unit] or [this civ] how can i beat them?
So, as i have already mentioned in another thread: persians
RM - no wheel, but big deal if you pull off a tool rush, or even chase his woodies with a cav or 2. if your rush fails then you are history (lol). it is like assy or shang - you aim to hurt the player in bronze (in these 2 cases you can do it earlier than other civs, and with persian you have no choice but to do it before the wheel difference really takes effect).
DM - no probs here, probably one of the best civs (ele rush with fastest eles in the game).
greeks... when in dm nothing really to discuss, but in rm you have a problem with archer armies. you can try and play defensive (wall and tower) early bronze and then go iron, but that wont stop a player from destroying your wall and flooding with CA/compies. Choson are similar but they get 2 bonuses, super towers and super iron sword (plus priests are good for defensive strats). Greeks can try and hold sea but this will burn through the players wood. this is why i say adding a slinger bonus, something just to get the player through the bronze age.
hittites are said to be overpowered, and i can really see the point if looking at the manual (navy + siege looks dominant). in fact, many will choose hittite (even in rm). but i think that many hittite players struggle with the choices they have. too many choices, and some players will spend vast amounts of wood building new forward buildings because they can change their mind (archery range to stable etc). hittite have a strong iron, no doubt, but who says that a hittite will get that far? their navy bonus is gone in a iron naval war, and siege is hard to mass in rm. ive played in 3v3 where you have choson or hittite only players. hittite are meant to provide the answers to everything whilst the choson sit behind a wall of towers getting ready to flood the map with crappy swordsmen. why have a team of 3 when 2 are not going to bother playing until the final 10 minutes? you have the hittite player trying to take out as many towers as possible whilst battling against the opposite hittite.
assy - no need to discuss rm (hillz?) i can remember them getting toned down a little in ror. dm - possibly HA rush followed by heavy cats. However, you miss the HHA upgrade and hcat range upgrade, so more likely than not you will lose. tweaking of the cataphract (which i do see as a good thing) could make assy dm games cataphract then heavy cats. not sure what this would mean vs eles but gives them a better start.
bab - rm i have no probs here. try pulling off a tool rush then quickly walling, towering as much as you can. after a few minutes your enemy will soon realise nothing is coming, stops playing so defensive and then trys to hit you back, only to find damn super walls and towers all over the place. you get everything in tool and bronze, so what can you moan about here? dm - scythe + heavy cats backed by super ballista towers. priests for anti-ele strats. persia and babylon are 2 of my favs.
carth - you have impies but no need to try out a bronze archer war. better off trying a bronze cav/cam rush. dm - eles all the way. you could try helepolis too but as far as i can remember i used to face armored eles only, backed by ballista towers. could always chuck a few ele archers in for pesky hha civs
egyptian - rm no need to pick probs here. compies, priests, chariots... i usually go with CA then switch to compies as the gold comes in, backed by 1/2 stone throwers and priests, walling and towering resources. dm - scythe flooding, you can go on forever. if facing a good ele civ mix in your own as a meat shield, and send the scythe to flank and hit the player in their own town. take out as many buildings as you can (wipe out all the queued resources).
mace - cav/hop + stone thrower strat? or go compie, using cheap stone throwers as back up in a bronze archer war. DM - armored eles (priests will struggle!)
Minoan - compies! dm - ouch!! ive tried compies + hcats but never got to the hcat part!! ive tried centies + hcats but you are fighting a losing battle. you have a chance at sea, but you really need to have a luck and skill advantage over the other player to pull this off. not sure what could be done to improve this, as i gave up on minoan a long time ago.
Palm - rm games require a specialist strat approach. you have a slow start, but by pulling off a boom strat you will eventually stockpile huge amounts in no time. i have only seen camel "rushes" in mp games. dm - scythe/armored eles will need to do most of the work, and probably the best example of a jihad+siegecraft villager you will find (forever planting ballista towers). i know they get hcats but you lack range, and will probably need your super villies taking the offensive with towers and destruction rather than building siege workshops!
phoenician - rm no real probs here, simply go chariot archer or compie, possibly adding a few ele archers if you get to iron. dm - i would recommend a stable only dm, hitting with a scythe rush followed by armored eles. siege is worthless so keep churning out scythes and armored eles.
Roman - rm again needs a specialised strat. you can pull off a tool rush, even double tower the enemy!!! the bronze isnt as bad as people say. if it goes down to a archer war i would probably try a impie + slinger combo, and keep towering. okay, slingers are crap in mid-late bronze but mixing with impies can help your gold requirement, and buy some time before the iron age upgrade followed by flooding of scythe!! hey, if you havent faced any stone throwers or cats you could even add a few ballista behind your front line. im not sure on using rax units in rm, you still get mowed down in iron unless you blow masses of resources on legion upgrade (which could be spent earlier on more missile units). dm - scythe + hcats (okay, you lack a good tower but you do have all that stone doing nothing...flood the map with towers!!!)
Shang - rm...any need to say anything? dm - hha and scythe combo? i dont mind shang in iron for rm but dm seems to suck!! gov center techs are missing, which would help in a dm game. if facing eles i would go for scythes, trying to get behind as much as possible. in fact, that is all hha are good for. but a nice cataphract change could make shange stronger in dm
Sumerian - rm: CA/camel/chariot rush or even combo works well. Nothing special but if you have skill you should be okay. dm - scythe and hcats easily!
yammy - rm: axe + scout rush, or cav rush? archer wars are very hard vs chariot. you will always struggle to beat a wood + food eco. of course, if you can hold a few gold mines then push back with compies then ha. if you cant hold the gold mines, bye bye! dm - hha only!!!! not that bad if you can get into the other player's town asap. again, another civ that would benefit from a cataphract change.
so to sum it all up:
greek slinger bonus (to help archer bronze war in rm)
minoan dm strat consideration (speculate, +2 compie range bonus applied to all missile units...ie ballista/helepolis)
cataphract change (various civs could do with this to help in dm)
other than that, any other changes would have to be very small. i noticed your stuff on real vs actual values, which got me thinking about the old gx website. i did some digging but couldnt find what i thought would be useful (basically some stuff was done when the game was first released, with all kinds of stats etc, fully tested to show they were not as written in black and white).
hopefully such changes are possible and achieved.
I wanted to send him a email but it is listed as private.
Ive seen his threads and it looks like some of you guys may have tested his stuff. I would like to have an input, if of course this will be released.
I see that some of the suggestions point towards his experience, and no disrespect, some are a little wide of the mark.
I think the question that needs to be asked is...if i am up against
So, as i have already mentioned in another thread: persians
RM - no wheel, but big deal if you pull off a tool rush, or even chase his woodies with a cav or 2. if your rush fails then you are history (lol). it is like assy or shang - you aim to hurt the player in bronze (in these 2 cases you can do it earlier than other civs, and with persian you have no choice but to do it before the wheel difference really takes effect).
DM - no probs here, probably one of the best civs (ele rush with fastest eles in the game).
greeks... when in dm nothing really to discuss, but in rm you have a problem with archer armies. you can try and play defensive (wall and tower) early bronze and then go iron, but that wont stop a player from destroying your wall and flooding with CA/compies. Choson are similar but they get 2 bonuses, super towers and super iron sword (plus priests are good for defensive strats). Greeks can try and hold sea but this will burn through the players wood. this is why i say adding a slinger bonus, something just to get the player through the bronze age.
hittites are said to be overpowered, and i can really see the point if looking at the manual (navy + siege looks dominant). in fact, many will choose hittite (even in rm). but i think that many hittite players struggle with the choices they have. too many choices, and some players will spend vast amounts of wood building new forward buildings because they can change their mind (archery range to stable etc). hittite have a strong iron, no doubt, but who says that a hittite will get that far? their navy bonus is gone in a iron naval war, and siege is hard to mass in rm. ive played in 3v3 where you have choson or hittite only players. hittite are meant to provide the answers to everything whilst the choson sit behind a wall of towers getting ready to flood the map with crappy swordsmen. why have a team of 3 when 2 are not going to bother playing until the final 10 minutes? you have the hittite player trying to take out as many towers as possible whilst battling against the opposite hittite.
assy - no need to discuss rm (hillz?) i can remember them getting toned down a little in ror. dm - possibly HA rush followed by heavy cats. However, you miss the HHA upgrade and hcat range upgrade, so more likely than not you will lose. tweaking of the cataphract (which i do see as a good thing) could make assy dm games cataphract then heavy cats. not sure what this would mean vs eles but gives them a better start.
bab - rm i have no probs here. try pulling off a tool rush then quickly walling, towering as much as you can. after a few minutes your enemy will soon realise nothing is coming, stops playing so defensive and then trys to hit you back, only to find damn super walls and towers all over the place. you get everything in tool and bronze, so what can you moan about here? dm - scythe + heavy cats backed by super ballista towers. priests for anti-ele strats. persia and babylon are 2 of my favs.
carth - you have impies but no need to try out a bronze archer war. better off trying a bronze cav/cam rush. dm - eles all the way. you could try helepolis too but as far as i can remember i used to face armored eles only, backed by ballista towers. could always chuck a few ele archers in for pesky hha civs
egyptian - rm no need to pick probs here. compies, priests, chariots... i usually go with CA then switch to compies as the gold comes in, backed by 1/2 stone throwers and priests, walling and towering resources. dm - scythe flooding, you can go on forever. if facing a good ele civ mix in your own as a meat shield, and send the scythe to flank and hit the player in their own town. take out as many buildings as you can (wipe out all the queued resources).
mace - cav/hop + stone thrower strat? or go compie, using cheap stone throwers as back up in a bronze archer war. DM - armored eles (priests will struggle!)
Minoan - compies! dm - ouch!! ive tried compies + hcats but never got to the hcat part!! ive tried centies + hcats but you are fighting a losing battle. you have a chance at sea, but you really need to have a luck and skill advantage over the other player to pull this off. not sure what could be done to improve this, as i gave up on minoan a long time ago.
Palm - rm games require a specialist strat approach. you have a slow start, but by pulling off a boom strat you will eventually stockpile huge amounts in no time. i have only seen camel "rushes" in mp games. dm - scythe/armored eles will need to do most of the work, and probably the best example of a jihad+siegecraft villager you will find (forever planting ballista towers). i know they get hcats but you lack range, and will probably need your super villies taking the offensive with towers and destruction rather than building siege workshops!
phoenician - rm no real probs here, simply go chariot archer or compie, possibly adding a few ele archers if you get to iron. dm - i would recommend a stable only dm, hitting with a scythe rush followed by armored eles. siege is worthless so keep churning out scythes and armored eles.
Roman - rm again needs a specialised strat. you can pull off a tool rush, even double tower the enemy!!! the bronze isnt as bad as people say. if it goes down to a archer war i would probably try a impie + slinger combo, and keep towering. okay, slingers are crap in mid-late bronze but mixing with impies can help your gold requirement, and buy some time before the iron age upgrade followed by flooding of scythe!! hey, if you havent faced any stone throwers or cats you could even add a few ballista behind your front line. im not sure on using rax units in rm, you still get mowed down in iron unless you blow masses of resources on legion upgrade (which could be spent earlier on more missile units). dm - scythe + hcats (okay, you lack a good tower but you do have all that stone doing nothing...flood the map with towers!!!)
Shang - rm...any need to say anything? dm - hha and scythe combo? i dont mind shang in iron for rm but dm seems to suck!! gov center techs are missing, which would help in a dm game. if facing eles i would go for scythes, trying to get behind as much as possible. in fact, that is all hha are good for. but a nice cataphract change could make shange stronger in dm
Sumerian - rm: CA/camel/chariot rush or even combo works well. Nothing special but if you have skill you should be okay. dm - scythe and hcats easily!
yammy - rm: axe + scout rush, or cav rush? archer wars are very hard vs chariot. you will always struggle to beat a wood + food eco. of course, if you can hold a few gold mines then push back with compies then ha. if you cant hold the gold mines, bye bye! dm - hha only!!!! not that bad if you can get into the other player's town asap. again, another civ that would benefit from a cataphract change.
greek slinger bonus (to help archer bronze war in rm)
minoan dm strat consideration (speculate, +2 compie range bonus applied to all missile units...ie ballista/helepolis)
cataphract change (various civs could do with this to help in dm)
other than that, any other changes would have to be very small. i noticed your stuff on real vs actual values, which got me thinking about the old gx website. i did some digging but couldnt find what i thought would be useful (basically some stuff was done when the game was first released, with all kinds of stats etc, fully tested to show they were not as written in black and white).
hopefully such changes are possible and achieved.