Silver

My view is - Population limit means more strategy, requires more mobility in armies, requires you to micro and spread out villagers so you can't just have them all gathering in one place protect by an army. To me it just means I have to play a much smarter game, if I have an army of 500 the only thing I have to do is get them to stand and fight another army, nothing else is required, in a small skirmish, I have to micro them and make sure my village isn't being raided at the same time.

A boomer can just save a shipment, use it on infantry or cavalry to counter the rush and then micro villagers in and out of town center to kill off what's left of your army. It can slow it down, and if the player you play is experienced enough, they can completely stop the rush. There are advantages to having shipments as a rusher, but they are easily countered by opposing home shipments and it's extremely frustrating. Plus it takes no time to get to the second age and build a barracks for every civilization. It hurts more then it helps.

If you play AoE III you get home shipments , it helps rushers and hurts them at the same time (hurts a little more in my opinion.)

I like Pop limits but not building limits. I wouldn't mind the territory addition that much.

So it's like a Team/Clan game where there are borders and you try to conquer? This sounds more like an idea for a board game like Risk rather then an online game type. What if you are the leader or someone in the center of the 'clan'? Then all you can do is support with troops and that would be a little too easy.

This quote pretty much sums it up, I have almost always rushed, it's just extremely effective and causes the opponent to resign or slowly die, if the rush fails, you will have at the very least hurt their economy.

This sounds a little complicated to be implemented. I read through it and like most of the ideas, I just think they would be pretty hard to make and would cause some people to lose interest. I dislike the Home City and Exp. leveling idea, I never have liked it because it gives advantages to people who play more games more often.

Here's a bad example of what this will create: GunZ is really micro intensive. It is all about microing and never standing still. 99% of the game you would be maintain a butterfly style of combat. Which is where you block, dash, shoot, switch from sword to gun and back, and jump in the span of a second, and you keep that up for minutes at a time. Not only that, but you have to move forward left right or wherever you have to go. It's a bad example, but that is a game where 1 guy takes an insane amount of micro, imagine microing armies, types of units, formations, ore, food, wood, trade, scouting and then having the added worry about horses being dismounted in combat potentially blocking other hand to hand units from attacking the enemy. (I personally am always clicking or doing something, I never sit around and wait for anything in any game, having dismounted cavalry in a battlefield would be one thing I would hate when microing in battle.) I just think this idea and others like it meant to create realism (over complicate the game.) are going to make the game harder for everyone and less interesting, I know lots of top end players who quit games because of patches and expansions that do these things.

Yep, most game makers want a wide audience. Making simple things even more complicated is a step backwards.

I'm pretty sure if there were slaves in the game they would be gathering resources and would never fight.

I can't wait. Are there any estimates as to how long a game would last? Will there be changeable game speeds?

Fun, it will make the game really defensive and make matches more interesting.

I like red hair on women, just throwing it out there.

Scores are usually overrated Also - I like some blood, but too much distracts and I like to count troop losses and troop count and a few other things. So as previously mentioned - too much blood could be distracting.

So basically a male villager can become any kind of fighter? Or just a hoplite and you have to train other type of fighters? Or are there no male villagers in the game? Only military units that can gather as villagers?

So true. AI is one of the hardest if not the hardest part in the making of a game. Multiplayer is much easier and it's much more fun (usually.).

As is suggested, a gay man with someone he loves in the phalanx could potentially be more dangerous and much stronger because he fights out of love for another. Just a thought - There probably were many homosexuals in the armies of each city state. Remember, the older men were usually at the front, with the young men and adolescents in the back. A simple theory could be that the younger hoplites in the back would never run because of the older lovers in the front, and the ones in the front would also fight harder to protect their lovers in the back rows. I believe that the all homosexual unit was actually from the city state of Thebes. Formed by Gorgidas and called "The Sacred Band". With that unit, Thebes became a very strong and powerful city state. I guess the unit worked for them. The city state and the acceptance of homosexuals may be slightly off base, but in general what he has said is fairly accurate.

Will Farming be slower then hunting/gathering as it usually is? Awesome idea. Would there be any possible way to upgrade them to say a hoplite unit from Citizen Soldiers for a small expense? I'm a little confused on that wording. How much will XP affect performance? Is it a fairly big deal, or is it negligable if you have a larger army/better upgrades? Sorry for ambushing you with questions, just some very interesting ideas and thoughts being brought up.

I'd think you'd be suprised at how similar the units of siege and infantry in the AoEs can be Scipii. Infantry with guns have to be the most overrated unit in AoE III + Expansions. The only gun wielding unit that I would make would be Strelets for the Russians. Because they move fast and have good offensive damage against musketeers and are decent at razing buildings. In a game I rely on Cavalry, Siege and Light Infantry (usually after I capture an outpost to build Native Americans.) The real problem is some overpowered siege weapons. Even then in the earlier games there were some strong/over powered siege units for some civilizations. And the siege units that are overpowered come very late on in the game. Portugese are amazing at it.

Thanks, a quick paint job because I have no photoshop or anything else on my laptop. But I'm sure you and almost everyone else noticed the poor job I did.

It was, I could post an AoM or AoE III strategy, but I would have to go play it because it's been such a long time. And AoE doesn't take as much strategy because of lack of formation if you played it casually or were never really that good at it, but when you're playing at a top level in Random Map against other top players, I felt that the lack of formation increased the skill and time needed to win a battle. You had to move troops and try to get the hills, you had to divide troops, try to kill off villagers, protect your own, micro manage them to get them all together. I really like the addition of formations because it really took a big part out of the game (for me personally).

My guess would be because they can't be on the walls? It could be made different from real siege towers by allowing siege towers to help troops cross over to the other side of a wall.

Yes, I'm referring to AoE II or Age of Kings when I say AoK. And the posted strategy I gave was for the original Age of Empires. It's a classic Random Map strategy, some consider it rush because it's faster and much more powerful, it's why almost everyone played Assyrian in Random Map.

That's in a death match right?

Actually a rusher will almost always have some cheap but effective troops to attack early on in the game. Quantity and how early you get them is the key here. Personally, I would never use strong troops in a raid, they are just too important if I were to go head to head with someone. A boomer will most likely have what you said though, they will have cheaper troops early to raid or defend depending on the situation and then get their real army and defense later on in the game.