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Whilst I certainly have huge respect for HuK, I feel that either his use of the categories in the article as perhaps a bit simplistic. Many of the points he men

Whilst I certainly have huge respect for HuK, I feel that either his use of the categories in the article as perhaps a bit simplistic. Many of the points he mentions are really intertwined - most importantly balance vs variety: it's very hard to score highly on both. SC2 has 3 very distinct races (he gives it a 8.8 for variety), hence there are just 6 possible matchups. AoE 2 (DE) has 35 (he gives it a 3), making over 600 possible 1v1 matchups. This creates a huge amount of extra work to ensure matchups are enjoyable - yet (at 1650+ Elo) there are just 2 races with > 55% winrate (Franks @ 56.98% & Celts @ 54.21% on random map). Despite the good balancing, tournaments also come up with rules to limit the impact of the best civs, normally with specific civ bans and limited picks in a series. It's really only because of the huge overlapping tech & unit tree that this is possible - if there were more diversity there would be too many variables to balance around. This is further compounded by the variety of maps which the game is played on - as he does mention the map does affect which of these are viable, and this makes the game even more interesting and diverse since you need to adjust to multiple types of map. SC2 on the other hand has a much smaller responsibility in this regard: provided there are interesting viable builds within each race the task to balance across-races is minimal. SC2 also only has 7 maps in the pool (at least, right now) and just spawn positions are randomized. This makes preparation way more important, and less dynamic. Both AoE and SC2 also use the space as a stop-gap for specific strategies - it's a way for the less aggressive player to fend off early aggression, but also a way for a more dominant player to choke out resources. Traditionally this is done by controlling the entry to your main base or your expansion (in SC2), but in AoE it's way more open and difficult to accomplish this most of the time. This importantly makes players rely on very adhoc dynamic walling, often incorporating undestroyable natural resources (like gold deposits).

na85 6y ago
>AoE 2 (DE) has 35 (he gives it a 3), making over 600 possible 1v1 matchups. The 3 species in Starcraft are quite distinct in many key areas, whereas in Age of Kings and AOE3 (the only ones I've played) the differences between the factions were limited to a handful of units and buildings, but ultimately they all played pretty much the same.
- DerSaidin 6y ago
  > ultimately they all played pretty much the same High level tournaments include civilization drafting before a best of N series of games. Occasionally, one player/team ends up with a civilization match up which gives them a clear advantage (because they successfully predicted their opponent's civilization pick - it the opponent had picked something else the advantage might swing the other way). Occasionally games are described as "civ win" when the advantage is large and wielded well.
  - Macha 6y ago
    So the civs are both not as distinct as sc2 races but also less balanced. Seems justified to me to rate it lower for how well the game adds and handles variety. I say this as someone for whom aoe2 was one of the major games of my childhood and only got into sc2 in college
    - Leherenn 6y ago
      They're pretty well balanced, just overall, not for each possible matchup. The difference is that there is more map variation than in SC2, so a civ which is good on water maps is probably going to be below average on land maps. Also team games are a thing at the highest level, so some civs fare better in that context than 1 Vs 1.
- BadInformatics 6y ago
  It's still a simplistic view on HuK's part because he completely ignores civ bonuses and the rest of the tech tree! To elaborate: at lower levels, most civs probably feel or play the same. Macro and micro are in short supply, so economy and tech bonuses don't make much of a difference. Once one starts playing above mid ELO on the ladder, this changes completely. Eco bonuses can make or break an entire match and dictate the style of play for each civ. For example, the Saracens have a unique playstyle where they exploit resource trading at the market to get aggressive early and still maintain a fast age up time (much, much more important than tech/hatchery levels in SC2). From the tech side, the Incas have a common strategy that involves rushing with static defence and fighting with villagers. Protoss can do this too with a cannon rush, but the Incas strategy is far more viable (and actually scary at mid-high level) because they get armour upgrades on their villagers. So yes, there are only so many ways to assemble a unique army of military units in AOE 2. That in no way implies that there are only that many meaningful matchups. I respect HuK's RTS prowess as well, but I'm afraid he's missed the boat pretty badly on this one.
qznc 6y ago
In my opinion those matchup counts are a red hering in game design. It is nice for the theme and visuals but adds nothing to the core game loop. It is more extreme in fighting games like Street Fighter or MOBAs like League of Legends. It splits the meta-mini-game of race/character selection out of the main game. The downside is that it makes balancing nearly impossible. As an alternative, a game could use positions for unit select. Kinda: Conquer the eastern flank to build Zerg units or conquer the western flank to build Protoss units.
- noxvilleza 6y ago
  Definitely not directly comparable - since every civ has access to some common/baseline technology, but certainly differentiation (peaks/dips) in specific areas. That said, SC2's races are more different but not enough IMO to say the game is overall way more diverse. Why do you say 'The downside is that it makes balancing nearly impossible.' when referring to MOBAs?
astrobe_ 6y ago
Total annihilation took a completely different approach of having factories instead of races. I only know TA-like games through Zero-K, but factories introduce a lot of diversity and perhaps less imbalance risks because players always have the option to go for a mirror match-up (i.e. choosing what is considered the best factory for the map being played). Some game designers claim that Blizzard's uses races to keep players interested by creating imbalances. The idea being that you keep players interested by making slight changes all the time to respond to alleged imbalances from the players.

na85 6y ago

>AoE 2 (DE) has 35 (he gives it a 3), making over 600 possible 1v1 matchups. The 3 species in Starcraft are quite distinct in many key areas, whereas in Age of Kings and AOE3 (the only ones I've played) the differences between the factions were limited to a handful of units and buildings, but ultimately they all played pretty much the same.

DerSaidin 6y ago
> ultimately they all played pretty much the same High level tournaments include civilization drafting before a best of N series of games. Occasionally, one player/team ends up with a civilization match up which gives them a clear advantage (because they successfully predicted their opponent's civilization pick - it the opponent had picked something else the advantage might swing the other way). Occasionally games are described as "civ win" when the advantage is large and wielded well.
- Macha 6y ago
  So the civs are both not as distinct as sc2 races but also less balanced. Seems justified to me to rate it lower for how well the game adds and handles variety. I say this as someone for whom aoe2 was one of the major games of my childhood and only got into sc2 in college
  - Leherenn 6y ago
    They're pretty well balanced, just overall, not for each possible matchup. The difference is that there is more map variation than in SC2, so a civ which is good on water maps is probably going to be below average on land maps. Also team games are a thing at the highest level, so some civs fare better in that context than 1 Vs 1.
BadInformatics 6y ago
It's still a simplistic view on HuK's part because he completely ignores civ bonuses and the rest of the tech tree! To elaborate: at lower levels, most civs probably feel or play the same. Macro and micro are in short supply, so economy and tech bonuses don't make much of a difference. Once one starts playing above mid ELO on the ladder, this changes completely. Eco bonuses can make or break an entire match and dictate the style of play for each civ. For example, the Saracens have a unique playstyle where they exploit resource trading at the market to get aggressive early and still maintain a fast age up time (much, much more important than tech/hatchery levels in SC2). From the tech side, the Incas have a common strategy that involves rushing with static defence and fighting with villagers. Protoss can do this too with a cannon rush, but the Incas strategy is far more viable (and actually scary at mid-high level) because they get armour upgrades on their villagers. So yes, there are only so many ways to assemble a unique army of military units in AOE 2. That in no way implies that there are only that many meaningful matchups. I respect HuK's RTS prowess as well, but I'm afraid he's missed the boat pretty badly on this one.

qznc 6y ago

In my opinion those matchup counts are a red hering in game design. It is nice for the theme and visuals but adds nothing to the core game loop. It is more extreme in fighting games like Street Fighter or MOBAs like League of Legends. It splits the meta-mini-game of race/character selection out of the main game. The downside is that it makes balancing nearly impossible. As an alternative, a game could use positions for unit select. Kinda: Conquer the eastern flank to build Zerg units or conquer the western flank to build Protoss units.

noxvilleza 6y ago
Definitely not directly comparable - since every civ has access to some common/baseline technology, but certainly differentiation (peaks/dips) in specific areas. That said, SC2's races are more different but not enough IMO to say the game is overall way more diverse. Why do you say 'The downside is that it makes balancing nearly impossible.' when referring to MOBAs?

astrobe_ 6y ago

Total annihilation took a completely different approach of having factories instead of races. I only know TA-like games through Zero-K, but factories introduce a lot of diversity and perhaps less imbalance risks because players always have the option to go for a mirror match-up (i.e. choosing what is considered the best factory for the map being played). Some game designers claim that Blizzard's uses races to keep players interested by creating imbalances. The idea being that you keep players interested by making slight changes all the time to respond to alleged imbalances from the players.