[Anonymous Player]

I’m a former Starcraft player who is now transitioning to Age of Empires II.

I am currently rated at 1400 ELO.

I enjoy playing Arabia as it offers a lot of action from the start and there are many different strategies to employ.

However, when I play on other maps such as Arena, Bogland, African Clearing, and Island Maps, the only strategy my opponents use is fast castle.

This leaves little to no action for the first 15 minutes of the game.

I try to apply pressure in the Dark/Feudal Age, but it rarely works against anyone who is even slightly competent.

I understand why these maps are attractive to new and casual players, as I myself used to only play Black Forest when I was younger.

But why are these maps so popular for ladder and competitive play?

[Blocklies]

The maps aren’t exactly super popular most players like Arabia more so you won’t be stuck playing arena, though you should ban it.

Bogland and water mechanics are also just bad.

[dragonmilking]

Arena believe it or not is not actually defensive, but I get where you’re coming from.

If you watch the competitive scene, you’ll find a lot more open maps than what gets voted in for the ranked pool.

In the meantime, you may want to just favorite arabia, (edit: and four lakes, megarandom)

[ThisisLambee]

Share your enjoyment of early action maps, but African Clearing shouldn’t be considered a safe map imo.

[Ackburn]

Any arena team game that has everyone holding back and booming is a crap arena game, flanks should always go for some aggression.

In a good arena game,team or otherwise you should aim to be aggressive, trushing the opposing flank,fast imp monk treb,siege pushes,unique unit petard attacks.

Castle dropping forward on arena is the easiest thing to defend against with little to no effort

[ethlass]

I hate fast games like Arabia.

It is always same units and depends so much on the build order being perfect.

Or Archer micro being perfect.

I am not a good player let me relax in my fortress and get my economy to be better than yours.

I am good at booming without pressure, i then just need to figure the actual strategy of the game as where to build my castle and where to send my units (which is already hard enough).

Also African clearing is really open map, and all nomads are my favorites because it is random.

It means there is a variety and no scout (which i such at Scouting).

[rmcp010]

If you’re 1400 and playing ranked Arena, you shoud be encountering a variety of strategies.

FC boom, FC castle drop, FC seige/monk rush, heavy scouts, fast Imp, the occasional trush.

There are a lot of viable strats before super high-level play.

I used to hate Arena until I learned a few build orders to go super aggressive.

Turk fast Imp into BBC/HC and Korean castle drop into towers and mangonels are my favourite.

Or Burmese 22 pop FC into 2x monastery and 2x seige workshop.

That one is about as YOLO as it gets.

[StableGenius304]

I don’t want to cause any panic, but if your opponents are walling on islands they might be hackers

[my-new-password]

If you truly want to play mainly Arabia try to ban the heavily favorited maps.

In this map pool Arena and 4 Lakes are going to be the main maps that are favorited so if you ban those two you are far more likely to get Arabia.

Other maps not in the pool this time that tend to be favorited are maps like Hideout, Socotra, and gold rush.

Using your map bans to not only avoid maps u don’t want to play but also trying to target heavily picked maps will allow u to play Arabia 90% of the time.

For example I’m an islands player and I can get up to 60% of my games be islands by banning Arabia, arena, and 4 lakes this time.

If I were to ban the other 3 maps in this rotation I would probably only get to play it probably 15-20% of the time.

Hope that helps

[readytochat44]

You could always move over to their island that one usually wins you the game if your fast enough

[LuvDaBiebz]

Just TC drop on every map

[THExDUDEx42]

Sounds like you need to work on your late game.

You seem to like fast aggressive play in the beginning.

I prefer the opposite.

I like controlling bigger army’s, countering their comp and raiding my opponent to death cause I usually have 1.5 – 2 apm in eco and military compaired to my opponent so I am doing more things faster and effectively than them. 1338 elo BTW.

I need to work on my early game aggression and I think I will be in a good place.

Just need to stop being nervous about it and work on a few early game strats.

I just rarely get enough damage to justify the delay to castle.

[Defiant-Indication59]

You may already know this, but black forest is one of the only maps that pretty much always has some aggression right from the dark age, at least at a high level

[HighlightFun8419]

Personally I love clashing huge, late-game armies together and watching all the fireworks.

So much more fun than tower and scout rushing.

[smilingstalin]

For what it’s worth, I know for a fact that at ~1400 Elo, Dark Age aggression is viable on Arena.

Feudal aggression even more so.

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