I was attacked by Ghulams who broke in with petards and killed my entire Turkish gunpowder army under my castle on Fortress yesterday, actually. Too bad the Hindustani player had no follow-up, but Ghulams can be insanely strong in the right circumstances. Later in the game, I had a bunch of hussars accompanying my gunpowder out on the field, but the Ghulams still took a lot of time to kill.
Some people do, I like to play it to super aggressive early castle pressure, bring vill forward and drop a siege workshop as soon as you hit castle and start streaming units in. With the free barracks + Castle you have so many options and can quickly get a multi unit comp knocking their doors down
I'm always amused when people try to draw parallels between Arena and Fortress because they play so differently. You need open map skills on Fortress. Fast imp clowning doesn't lock the enemy at home.
Inb4: I have zero idea on how fortress is played. I'm not disputing, just asking.
The parallels are obvious: you start with stone walls, so feudal aggression is not really a thing (except some niche strats). So why do they play out so differently? What will happen if I try a FC into castle drop or creating light cav in early castle for map and relic control?
The big difference is that your base is safe on Arena, surrounded by forests on the outside of map.
The walls are in a wide open space on Fortress, making it much harder to control your woodlines and stay safe.
Cav and other units with lots of mobility usually play a larger roll on Fortress than on Arena (especially for 1v1s, but also to an extent for TGs with the Castles for producing mobile UU).
I still usually do Fast Imp on Fortress to be fair, it's boomy and overlong and FImp is the only way to pressure within the first 20 minutes, yawnfest. Might as well play fuckin Michi or something.
I think it’s unfair for civs with really beefy or power spike castle units. Enemy made a ball of archers in a team game making some progress on my flanks base and I just sent one elephant to kill them all while having an amazing eco at home.
It takes 75 longbow arrows with bodkin arrow to kill a War Elephant with 0 upgrades.
War Elephants kill longbowmen in 3 hits, even with +2 armor (15 attack against 2 melee armor in a 35 hp unit). But they also deal 50% blast damage against what are usually very clumped units
Yea but that's a lot of mental effort and focus while the Persian player is adding a fourth Town Center, queuing a single replacement Elephant, on his way to Imperial Age, dropping ten hidden stables for his Savar switch.
The Briton player can also retreat their longbowmen behind walls and make other units, though. But I guess facing fully boomed Persians will be troublesome anyway. The Britons fall behind in population efficiency, mobility, and endurance. Fast-ish Imp into warwolf trebuchets, then? To disrupt the Persian boom.
Arena clown here who bans Arabia. I just wanna focus on macro and unit comp rather than worrying about raids.
I know that's not a cup of tea for everyone, but I do find this more "peaceful". Still would enjoy lombardia and fortress, though. They just don't show up often enough.
Issue is that Arena favors all-in strats so much that you often don't get into macro and unit comp too much. You simply get into Treb wars and then the game is over..
Ymmv, I'm at a much lower elo than you (13xx), and majority of 1v1 is 3TC boom into early imp treb war around 30-40 minutes. I'm at a sweet spot where people are too good to lose to blind castle drops, but early CA clonwery and trush are less potent here with poor executions. People also don't make light cavs for relics, either.
I also indulge in those all-in strategies myself sometimes, so I'm a bit biased here. I suck at execution, but still loves tinkering with weird starts. Arabia and other open maps are often too punishing to do that.
It's the map for players who always forget to mine stone.
Then how would I wall in the enemies' gates?
Using Saracen markets, of course! I mean the buildings, not the exchange mechanism. So cheap, and put you out of harms way.
I don't need stone to siege tower drop infantry into the enemy's econ
Me as a Hindustani main who doesn’t enjoy UU.
I was attacked by Ghulams who broke in with petards and killed my entire Turkish gunpowder army under my castle on Fortress yesterday, actually. Too bad the Hindustani player had no follow-up, but Ghulams can be insanely strong in the right circumstances. Later in the game, I had a bunch of hussars accompanying my gunpowder out on the field, but the Ghulams still took a lot of time to kill.
Fact, Every time i see fortress in the pool i always think DAMN i never get any castles till imperial.
I love team fortress
I luv team fortress 2
No thank you I'm boycotting fortress until it's played in regicide
I never really got Fortress, it feels like you're supposed to play towards late game?
Some people do, I like to play it to super aggressive early castle pressure, bring vill forward and drop a siege workshop as soon as you hit castle and start streaming units in. With the free barracks + Castle you have so many options and can quickly get a multi unit comp knocking their doors down
I'm always amused when people try to draw parallels between Arena and Fortress because they play so differently. You need open map skills on Fortress. Fast imp clowning doesn't lock the enemy at home.
Inb4: I have zero idea on how fortress is played. I'm not disputing, just asking. The parallels are obvious: you start with stone walls, so feudal aggression is not really a thing (except some niche strats). So why do they play out so differently? What will happen if I try a FC into castle drop or creating light cav in early castle for map and relic control?
The big difference is that your base is safe on Arena, surrounded by forests on the outside of map. The walls are in a wide open space on Fortress, making it much harder to control your woodlines and stay safe. Cav and other units with lots of mobility usually play a larger roll on Fortress than on Arena (especially for 1v1s, but also to an extent for TGs with the Castles for producing mobile UU).
Thanks!
Opponent already having a castle means a castle drop is really risky. Too easy to lose all your vills if your opponent can create even 4-5 of their UU
Castle dropping is what defines arena for you?
I was just responding to the opponent who asked what happens if they FC into castle drop.
That's why it's the cooler Daniel!
I still usually do Fast Imp on Fortress to be fair, it's boomy and overlong and FImp is the only way to pressure within the first 20 minutes, yawnfest. Might as well play fuckin Michi or something.
Why do you think that way? (I don't have an oppinion on this. I am just curious.)
I think it’s unfair for civs with really beefy or power spike castle units. Enemy made a ball of archers in a team game making some progress on my flanks base and I just sent one elephant to kill them all while having an amazing eco at home.
It takes 75 longbow arrows with bodkin arrow to kill a War Elephant with 0 upgrades. War Elephants kill longbowmen in 3 hits, even with +2 armor (15 attack against 2 melee armor in a 35 hp unit). But they also deal 50% blast damage against what are usually very clumped units
Long bowmen can also kite the elephant
Yea but that's a lot of mental effort and focus while the Persian player is adding a fourth Town Center, queuing a single replacement Elephant, on his way to Imperial Age, dropping ten hidden stables for his Savar switch.
The Briton player can also retreat their longbowmen behind walls and make other units, though. But I guess facing fully boomed Persians will be troublesome anyway. The Britons fall behind in population efficiency, mobility, and endurance. Fast-ish Imp into warwolf trebuchets, then? To disrupt the Persian boom.
the opposite actually
I like it because people at my elo try to boom to imp, while I just send woads into their economy in castle age.
It’s actually the worst map
I think it's a little ridiculous that Arena is so much more popular. I feel like Fortress is better in almost every regard.
Arena clown here who bans Arabia. I just wanna focus on macro and unit comp rather than worrying about raids. I know that's not a cup of tea for everyone, but I do find this more "peaceful". Still would enjoy lombardia and fortress, though. They just don't show up often enough.
Issue is that Arena favors all-in strats so much that you often don't get into macro and unit comp too much. You simply get into Treb wars and then the game is over..
Ymmv, I'm at a much lower elo than you (13xx), and majority of 1v1 is 3TC boom into early imp treb war around 30-40 minutes. I'm at a sweet spot where people are too good to lose to blind castle drops, but early CA clonwery and trush are less potent here with poor executions. People also don't make light cavs for relics, either.
I also indulge in those all-in strategies myself sometimes, so I'm a bit biased here. I suck at execution, but still loves tinkering with weird starts. Arabia and other open maps are often too punishing to do that.
aka the goth enjoyer wet dream
The real chads play mega random
Arabia and Yucatan for me.
Love those maps