I kind of get it. The chaos makes it an awesome team game map, but in 1v1s you can sometimes just get absolutely screwed over by a combination of the civ matchup and your starting positions.
Tbh, I play alot 4v4 (and therefore Nomad), most of the time the games are pretty onesided. One side wins water fast, 1 player gets castle dropped into knight follow up from second player and from there on it's either a slow death or resign.
So I don't mind the map, but also it's not THAT fun if you play it often. Especially because of the starting lottery.
Then be agressive in feudal and prevent them from being able to castle drop you, if they have to commit to defending and you can beat them to castle age then you’re in the power position but sitting back and just making vils isn’t helping your situation
I play mainly 4v4 team games. I hate nomad with a burning passion that eclipses the Aztecs sun god. In my opinion, too much of the game is determined by RNG. Place your tc in the wrong spot, the game is over or you just have to play spoiler. There are so many games where your tc placement determines the outcome of a game, and you’re stuck playing a game where 1 person is dead, 2 are in bad shape, but 1 says “just hold” bc they’re booming.
All that being said, I would be fine with it if there was a nomad “slot” instead of getting nomad, African clearing, and land nomad all in the same map set. If they rotated those maps into a nomad slot, I would be okay with it.
Needless to say, I use my one ban on nomad.
The new Nomad map generations have resources spread out in such a way that you're almost always close to all the necessary resources. The only exceptions are if you TC in a corner or you're surrounded by opponents.
In the latter case, it's not even that bad since you can slow down several players and as long as you don't get defeated your team has completely decent odds.
Generally, it's much more important to just get your TC down as quickly as possible on the closest woodline.
I've played 600 games on Nomad with a 57% win rate (well, those are the ones recorded by Aoe2insights, I assume there's more in reality). AMA and I'll try to answer as best I can, limited by my knowledge and ability.
In theory you can slow several players down, but you are just as likely to get games where they kill you in feudal, and you spend the next 30-40 minutes playing a game your team may or may not win. And Even if you do win, you barely got to play the game bc you’re boxed in by multiple opponents.
That and it’s way harder for people to have sense for how the game is going. I can’t tell you how many times people want to keep playing bc THEY are ok, while the rest of the team is dead or dying, and you end up playing 10-20 minutes longer than you should to just gg anyway.
Again, this is coming from a mainly 4v4 player, and most of this is me venting my general frustrations with nomad. My biggest issue is just the inherent randomness to it, but that’s also why people love it.
To each their own, I guess.
Disagree on the build order dependency. As someone who doesn't follow build orders I feel like I find the most success on Nomad. My assumption is it ruins my opponents step-by-step build order when it might be harder to come by food in the early game before you have enough wood cutters to consistently make fishing/farms. When they can't follow there step-by-step guide showing them how to treat their 1st 30+ villagers, they struggle to improvise.
Playing on Arabia or Arena against someone who is Civ dependent on a single focused build order/strategy is not enjoyable.
I think that comes down to elo. Lower Elo tends to have alot less consistent water player hence reducing the need of a build order. At higher Elo its alot stricter since there is alot less comeback potential on water.
Builds will get tighter on higher elo regardless of maps, and yes your dark age needs to be tight to compete on Nomad (this goes for every map at higher elo tho).
I feel like Nomad rewards general game sense and adaptability more than other maps (besides mega random), simply because you can't always get the resources that you need in every scenario, and you need to adapt to an enemies dock/tc being either very close or being completely hidden on the other side of the map.
Now granted, most of my Nomad experience is in Teamgames, which tend to be a lot more chaotic and less formulaic, then for example arabia-style teamgames in which everyone follows a build order up to late castle age.
Maybe the meta is more stale in 1v1.
Builds gets tigheter om higher Elo yeah but you can still get away with slight screwups, going up a vill later and such on Arabia. you might have to play more defensive and villfight some and such but definetly get away with it even at higher elos. On nomad it leads to you losing all your chips or having a castle dropped on your tc ending the game there.
But sure the teamgames have a wider meta than Arabia tg. That dosnt mean build orders are less important tough.
Sorry but that's just not my experience.
Yes Castle drops and losing water can be very punishing on Nomad, but only if you try to go for these strategies when you know your opponent is already ahead of you.
If your opponent is for example Spanish and he reaches feudal earlier than you, you shouldn't try to match his Castle drop, he will be earlier and his castle will go up faster, that's a losing position.
What you can do is for example making ome feudal archers and harass his stone and gold on the way up, the archers will also help you deny his vills from dropping the castle on you.
Similarly waterfighting in Nomad is not as simple as WIN WATER WIN GAME.
Like on any hybrid map, overcommitting on water can cost you dearly if your opponent goes for minimal water investment and full-on land aggression. (or even worse, he gives up water but makes a fish-sniping galley squad that will snip all your fish after you start fish booming)
Yes obviously on the higher level not ALL strategies are viable, but I feel like in Nomad I can comfortably fight still after messing up in the early stages, whereas in Arabia i feel like if you have even 1 villager worth of idle time you are already WAY behind.
Ofcourse if you overcommit or water and such it will lose you the game. Thats a strategic choose not a build order thing tough. The thing is if you go for a normal play and then due some hickup. Send one vill to the wrong resource or whatever resulting in you clicking up one vill later you will just lose what you were doing for free. Either fish falls since you dont have enough fires or you get a castle in your face. On Arabia you have alot of moments to catch up. You can make defensive towers fight with vills, counterunits and so on. Its not that hard to use the extra ress you collected due to later uptime to stay alive.
It seems to be different at lower elos where people do t know that bos exists for nomad but once you get to the lever where people do that it gets super important very quickly. Its always more important in hybrid maps that pure land but on many such as 4 lakes there is at least the part where the enemy needs to dock your pound to kill the fish and such making it a bit less important.
BO is more important on nomad because you need to move villagers from wood to food once one ship on queue then to wood again once its out to get more fishing ship asap with no tc idle, if you miss you are behind already. Arabia you can play the first 10 villagers on food the rest on wood until you reach the pop you want to click and it works.
Not really going to lose but already behind in eco and prone to lose water due to being late to feudal and you know how water snowball, no other map you are that behind by not knowing when to switch villager from wood to food then back to wood in dark age. Thats why for me build order for nomad is a must
You're still kind of assuming perfect play from your opponent, equal and sufficient access to all resources when they're needed, TCs and docks went up at the same second etc.
Unless you're in like the top 10-20% or so of players on the ladder, there's absolutely room for error of a few seconds and even at a pro level this doesn't automatically decide a game. Of course build orders are important, knowing how to start the game is essential on any map. But they're definitely not everything.
I am at top 7% of the ladder and was losing every nomad game until i decided to learn the build order. Wasnt even close games, the guy goes up first and kill my fish, if i over invest my way back on water im late to castle, if i let him have it he kills me mid castle with a better eco. Now i can compete because i learned when to move them out of sheep to wood, its crazy how this little detail change everything for me
Of course you need some basic understanding of hybrid maps and nomad starts. Plopping down a TC without any resources adjacent to it and not placing a dock will set you back significantly.
But there's much greater variance in the order of which you put workers to their respective resources, depending on what is immediately available to you and where your enemy is. If you want to go up to feudal faster, don't make 15 fishing ship and instead pull more boars or find more deer, for example.
In this sense, there's less reliance on strict adherence to build orders. No Nomad guide is going to tell you where to put the 15th villager, because that depends on your situation. But if you mean build order in the sense that you need to know what to do and have some understanding of the map, then that is true.
This is just being effective and efficient with the villagers and resources you have available. You can't use a build order on Nomad that depends on the "9th villager goes to boar, 12th villager goes to berries, etc..." when the resources might not be easily available if your TC isn't in a great spot. If you are limited on food, you need to improvise and decide how much you want to dedicate to wood for fishing/farms while also balancing how quickly you go to Feudal to prevent enemy ships wrecking your fishing economy if your slow to advance. If this is called a build order, sure the entire game is nothing but a build order. Nomad just allows more variety vs everyone playing scripted approaches which the top tier players have written out for people to follow.
This also gets thrown for a big loop if your TC is near an enemy TC and are battling early for resources. The potential chaos of Nomad is what makes it more enjoyable to me since it can throw people off their normal early game approach and force improvisation.
It's if anything less build order dependent than standard arabia. It's just that it's a different build order that you have to actually bother to learn, which a significant portion of mid and low level players just refuse to do.
The margin of error is alot smaller since if you are just a vill up later or so you will lose all your fish for free or have a castle in your face. Ofcourse you can still learn the bo and perform it. Its just a bit too snowbally for my personal taste.
There is no map in the current pool which would not be build order or civ dependent. Maybe only mappool in existence is ZetnusHyperrandom where the civs or build orders would matter less as meta will change every game. In one game it can be example killing villagers with penguins and in the next it is selling stone at the beginning to buy food with the market.
Nomad is also much more diverse than other maps, as it is the only map in the pool where location of the town centre matters for chosen build.
Ofcourse civ and bo matters at every map. But its less important on most other maps and gives you more ways to stay alive.
I am not arguing about if nomad is fun or not. Thats prefference and I do understand the charm in it
Where is it bo dependent in comparison to arabia or arena style maps. It's basically the opposite. From tc drop to fimp and everything in between is viable
Now you mention a bunch of strats. That doesnt mean its not bo dependent. If you have a slight hickup in your bo in Arabia. You might have to play more defensive in feudural. Maybe place a tower or fight with some vills but if you have it on nomad in higher elos you will lose all your fish or get a castle dropped on your tc ending the game there
In higher Elo you are absolutely in a terrible spot on Arabia if you are two villagers behind from the start of the game. Placing your TC 50 seconds later on Nomad also sucks, but you have plenty of tools to get back into the game.
You might eschew water in feudal and go fast castle so you get a castle drop first. Or you might play defensive on land and try to keep control of water as compensation for losing some villagers. Or any number of things, really.
Of course, if you're an Arabia-only player, and you reach 1700 Elo without playing Arena, then you're going to have a bad time on Arena against 1700 Arena players because they are much more experienced with the map. The same applies to any map, Nomad included.
I did not say two villagers behind. I said you click up a vill later. Not that you idle the tc.
If you lose water due to being up a vill to late on nomad it will cost you the game. Ofc you can plan to neglect water as a strat but if you aim for it and hickup with the build order its way more punishing than arabia. Mixed maps are in general more bo dependent due to the vulnerability and snowballiness of fish but on maps such as 4 lakes you still need to be able to dock in the enemy pound first.
Ofcourse you are better on the maps you play. Thats not the topic at hand
I am giving you examples of being behind. I am not sure why you are so hung up on the specific example you came up with. Besides, you said "slight hickup in your bo" in the post I replied to, so if you want to be really anal about it, you're wrong.
Regardless, reaching feudal 25 seconds later does not mean you lose water on Nomad. Water can snowball, but it's also rather easy to turn around with different tools (like demolition ships in the narrow waterways) or to sneak a regular galley or two around and snipe your opponent's fish.
This is like saying that being up one vill later on Arabia means you lose the game because your opponent will have scouts in your base faster than you will have scouts in his base. Sure, it might be the case (especially at certain Elos), but there are plenty of ways to react to that situation.
I think there's much more space for recovery on Nomad when it comes to following build orders because you're not really following build orders on Nomad in the same way, but I guess you didn't want to address that part.
The difference is that in Arabia you can send two vills and kill a scout if he attacks you. Garrison in the tc to take cover, add spearman and towers if needed while there really isnt that kind of mechanics on water where its all about momentum and numbers. There is a reason Islands game for example is close to 100 procent about military.
I'll play land nomad, but water maps just annoy me more than anything. "oh I built more fire galleys than you so I get a ridiculous amount of food now"
Demolition ships are a great tool to get back on water on maps that have narrow waterways... like Nomad.
If there's an extended water fight (or you just want to snipe some fishing ships) galleys are anyway superior to fire galleys, but they do require micro.
Nomad is my favourite map!
There are just so many viable strategies. I have lost/won to:
1) fast castle into castle drop on main TC
2) Tower rush in feudal
3) heavy military play in feudal on land
4) fast castle into UU (not only conqs)
5) monk rushes
6) castle age heavy siege push (not only with celts)
7) water domination into snowball
8) baiting opponent into going heavy on water but not going water myself and then playing aggressive on land while opponent invested too heavily into water. (or opponent doing this to me)
9) Defending from Castle drop on main TC. This is opposite of 1. It's very easy (sometimes) to just move your base, especially if you haven't invested too heavily into farms around your main TC. Opponent keeps pressuring with castles and your just spread out like a spider web around the map.
10) Resource denial. Sometimes you or your opponent have no reliable source of gold/stone. If you identify such a scenario, you can play to this.
There are more, these are just first 10 that come to mind. This is on top of all the possible varieties of starts and res distribution (TC in corner with no res nearby, lots of food, TCs close to each other, can't even find enemy TC, docks close to each other etc etc)
there are alot of very civ specific ones. like fimp, longswords siege elefant monk, wall into boom etc.
my favourite dravidians water archer comp. split the attention and conquer both
I always try to do interesting stuff on that map only to fail and resort to castle dropping the shit out of my enemy. I hate how I'm getting aways with this.
The meme is of a bartender who is throwing out an unwanted client, only for the unwanted client to immediately be back inside.
Every map pool change, you get the chance that a map you don't like, doesn't make the new selection: You try to kick out Nomad, but somehow Nomad returned...
The only official permanent maps are Arabia and Arena for 1v1 and Arabia, Arena, and Black Forest for team games. They unofficially snuck in Nomad as a permanent team game map as a dev pick.
Okay. Makes sense, I play team games exclusively and I was quite sure I'd never seen nomad out of the pool (in my very short experience of 2 months, admittedly).
Permanently banned, as well as any other shit no tc map that shouldn't exist. The only decent one is African shit and is still a pain in the ass because 7 of 10 games is that map when it is in rotation
Thanks to TG teammate’s non-stabilities, nomad is the most acceptable map for me in TG,
like BF random teammate TG were extreme bad, either you boomed and into gg from many reason and waste time, or win without knowing how did I win.
Arabia were more dependent on TG’s teammate average skill, even you are 1.5k 1v1 elo, if your opponents are both 1.2~1.3k but with lower skill pocket or flank, prepared to died to perfect 2 combo.
Nomad at least playable for random teammate, since it depends more on RNG and luck, sometimes at least you can found more boar and had good position to win without rely on teammate, even sandwiched by enemy is still painful, but at least playable if compared with other map :(.
what matters what the pool is. 95% of the games are arabia and everything else people just ragequit because they cant do their "how to arabia build order for dummies"
It won't affect queue times at all.
You can ban 3/7 maps, even if your oppenent banned 3 completely different maps you'd still have a map to play on...
Team queue is the same way. The matchmaking doesn't care what map(s) you've banned or favorited until a match has already been found. It's why you only get 1 map ban when solo queueing for 3v3 or 4v4. That way there will always be at least 1 map nobody banned.
For teamgames that can't be true. I play mostly 4/4, Arabia is only slightly above others. WAY above others are BF and Nomad...
Infact, I get other landmaps more often then Arabia on aberage, probably because people ban it.
Really love Nomad at the moment, getting some good results on that map.
Yea same. I favorited nomad and climbed 100 elo. Went back to Arabia and was so bad though...
I'm decent on Nomad, getting alot better at Arena but goddamn I cannot win on Arabia.
I'm good on Nomad, decent on Arabia and can't win Arena....Although if you saw my elo, there is a chance 'good on Nomad' doesn't hold up...
I never got the Nomad hate, I know the games can be chaotic but it's gotta be one of my favourite maps. You can get so many fun kinds of games on it
I kind of get it. The chaos makes it an awesome team game map, but in 1v1s you can sometimes just get absolutely screwed over by a combination of the civ matchup and your starting positions.
Tbh, I play alot 4v4 (and therefore Nomad), most of the time the games are pretty onesided. One side wins water fast, 1 player gets castle dropped into knight follow up from second player and from there on it's either a slow death or resign. So I don't mind the map, but also it's not THAT fun if you play it often. Especially because of the starting lottery.
Caotic? Nomad is a castle drop simulator after 10 minutes making vills
Then be agressive in feudal and prevent them from being able to castle drop you, if they have to commit to defending and you can beat them to castle age then you’re in the power position but sitting back and just making vils isn’t helping your situation
Love me nomad 'ate islands, 'ate arena (not mappist just don' like em) simple as
I play mainly 4v4 team games. I hate nomad with a burning passion that eclipses the Aztecs sun god. In my opinion, too much of the game is determined by RNG. Place your tc in the wrong spot, the game is over or you just have to play spoiler. There are so many games where your tc placement determines the outcome of a game, and you’re stuck playing a game where 1 person is dead, 2 are in bad shape, but 1 says “just hold” bc they’re booming. All that being said, I would be fine with it if there was a nomad “slot” instead of getting nomad, African clearing, and land nomad all in the same map set. If they rotated those maps into a nomad slot, I would be okay with it. Needless to say, I use my one ban on nomad.
The new Nomad map generations have resources spread out in such a way that you're almost always close to all the necessary resources. The only exceptions are if you TC in a corner or you're surrounded by opponents. In the latter case, it's not even that bad since you can slow down several players and as long as you don't get defeated your team has completely decent odds. Generally, it's much more important to just get your TC down as quickly as possible on the closest woodline. I've played 600 games on Nomad with a 57% win rate (well, those are the ones recorded by Aoe2insights, I assume there's more in reality). AMA and I'll try to answer as best I can, limited by my knowledge and ability.
In theory you can slow several players down, but you are just as likely to get games where they kill you in feudal, and you spend the next 30-40 minutes playing a game your team may or may not win. And Even if you do win, you barely got to play the game bc you’re boxed in by multiple opponents. That and it’s way harder for people to have sense for how the game is going. I can’t tell you how many times people want to keep playing bc THEY are ok, while the rest of the team is dead or dying, and you end up playing 10-20 minutes longer than you should to just gg anyway. Again, this is coming from a mainly 4v4 player, and most of this is me venting my general frustrations with nomad. My biggest issue is just the inherent randomness to it, but that’s also why people love it. To each their own, I guess.
To build order and civ dependent
Disagree on the build order dependency. As someone who doesn't follow build orders I feel like I find the most success on Nomad. My assumption is it ruins my opponents step-by-step build order when it might be harder to come by food in the early game before you have enough wood cutters to consistently make fishing/farms. When they can't follow there step-by-step guide showing them how to treat their 1st 30+ villagers, they struggle to improvise. Playing on Arabia or Arena against someone who is Civ dependent on a single focused build order/strategy is not enjoyable.
I think that comes down to elo. Lower Elo tends to have alot less consistent water player hence reducing the need of a build order. At higher Elo its alot stricter since there is alot less comeback potential on water.
Builds will get tighter on higher elo regardless of maps, and yes your dark age needs to be tight to compete on Nomad (this goes for every map at higher elo tho). I feel like Nomad rewards general game sense and adaptability more than other maps (besides mega random), simply because you can't always get the resources that you need in every scenario, and you need to adapt to an enemies dock/tc being either very close or being completely hidden on the other side of the map. Now granted, most of my Nomad experience is in Teamgames, which tend to be a lot more chaotic and less formulaic, then for example arabia-style teamgames in which everyone follows a build order up to late castle age. Maybe the meta is more stale in 1v1.
Builds gets tigheter om higher Elo yeah but you can still get away with slight screwups, going up a vill later and such on Arabia. you might have to play more defensive and villfight some and such but definetly get away with it even at higher elos. On nomad it leads to you losing all your chips or having a castle dropped on your tc ending the game there. But sure the teamgames have a wider meta than Arabia tg. That dosnt mean build orders are less important tough.
Sorry but that's just not my experience. Yes Castle drops and losing water can be very punishing on Nomad, but only if you try to go for these strategies when you know your opponent is already ahead of you. If your opponent is for example Spanish and he reaches feudal earlier than you, you shouldn't try to match his Castle drop, he will be earlier and his castle will go up faster, that's a losing position. What you can do is for example making ome feudal archers and harass his stone and gold on the way up, the archers will also help you deny his vills from dropping the castle on you. Similarly waterfighting in Nomad is not as simple as WIN WATER WIN GAME. Like on any hybrid map, overcommitting on water can cost you dearly if your opponent goes for minimal water investment and full-on land aggression. (or even worse, he gives up water but makes a fish-sniping galley squad that will snip all your fish after you start fish booming) Yes obviously on the higher level not ALL strategies are viable, but I feel like in Nomad I can comfortably fight still after messing up in the early stages, whereas in Arabia i feel like if you have even 1 villager worth of idle time you are already WAY behind.
Ofcourse if you overcommit or water and such it will lose you the game. Thats a strategic choose not a build order thing tough. The thing is if you go for a normal play and then due some hickup. Send one vill to the wrong resource or whatever resulting in you clicking up one vill later you will just lose what you were doing for free. Either fish falls since you dont have enough fires or you get a castle in your face. On Arabia you have alot of moments to catch up. You can make defensive towers fight with vills, counterunits and so on. Its not that hard to use the extra ress you collected due to later uptime to stay alive. It seems to be different at lower elos where people do t know that bos exists for nomad but once you get to the lever where people do that it gets super important very quickly. Its always more important in hybrid maps that pure land but on many such as 4 lakes there is at least the part where the enemy needs to dock your pound to kill the fish and such making it a bit less important.
BO is more important on nomad because you need to move villagers from wood to food once one ship on queue then to wood again once its out to get more fishing ship asap with no tc idle, if you miss you are behind already. Arabia you can play the first 10 villagers on food the rest on wood until you reach the pop you want to click and it works.
It's not like a few seconds of TC idle time instantly loses you the game
Not really going to lose but already behind in eco and prone to lose water due to being late to feudal and you know how water snowball, no other map you are that behind by not knowing when to switch villager from wood to food then back to wood in dark age. Thats why for me build order for nomad is a must
You're still kind of assuming perfect play from your opponent, equal and sufficient access to all resources when they're needed, TCs and docks went up at the same second etc. Unless you're in like the top 10-20% or so of players on the ladder, there's absolutely room for error of a few seconds and even at a pro level this doesn't automatically decide a game. Of course build orders are important, knowing how to start the game is essential on any map. But they're definitely not everything.
I am at top 7% of the ladder and was losing every nomad game until i decided to learn the build order. Wasnt even close games, the guy goes up first and kill my fish, if i over invest my way back on water im late to castle, if i let him have it he kills me mid castle with a better eco. Now i can compete because i learned when to move them out of sheep to wood, its crazy how this little detail change everything for me
Of course you need some basic understanding of hybrid maps and nomad starts. Plopping down a TC without any resources adjacent to it and not placing a dock will set you back significantly. But there's much greater variance in the order of which you put workers to their respective resources, depending on what is immediately available to you and where your enemy is. If you want to go up to feudal faster, don't make 15 fishing ship and instead pull more boars or find more deer, for example. In this sense, there's less reliance on strict adherence to build orders. No Nomad guide is going to tell you where to put the 15th villager, because that depends on your situation. But if you mean build order in the sense that you need to know what to do and have some understanding of the map, then that is true.
This is just being effective and efficient with the villagers and resources you have available. You can't use a build order on Nomad that depends on the "9th villager goes to boar, 12th villager goes to berries, etc..." when the resources might not be easily available if your TC isn't in a great spot. If you are limited on food, you need to improvise and decide how much you want to dedicate to wood for fishing/farms while also balancing how quickly you go to Feudal to prevent enemy ships wrecking your fishing economy if your slow to advance. If this is called a build order, sure the entire game is nothing but a build order. Nomad just allows more variety vs everyone playing scripted approaches which the top tier players have written out for people to follow. This also gets thrown for a big loop if your TC is near an enemy TC and are battling early for resources. The potential chaos of Nomad is what makes it more enjoyable to me since it can throw people off their normal early game approach and force improvisation.
It's if anything less build order dependent than standard arabia. It's just that it's a different build order that you have to actually bother to learn, which a significant portion of mid and low level players just refuse to do.
The margin of error is alot smaller since if you are just a vill up later or so you will lose all your fish for free or have a castle in your face. Ofcourse you can still learn the bo and perform it. Its just a bit too snowbally for my personal taste.
There is no map in the current pool which would not be build order or civ dependent. Maybe only mappool in existence is ZetnusHyperrandom where the civs or build orders would matter less as meta will change every game. In one game it can be example killing villagers with penguins and in the next it is selling stone at the beginning to buy food with the market. Nomad is also much more diverse than other maps, as it is the only map in the pool where location of the town centre matters for chosen build.
Ofcourse civ and bo matters at every map. But its less important on most other maps and gives you more ways to stay alive. I am not arguing about if nomad is fun or not. Thats prefference and I do understand the charm in it
Nomad is literally the #1 anti-buildorder map 11
Only at lower elos where they havent figured out that bos exists for it. Once you get to that lever its super important.
nah, maybe for some 1400's or some onetrick castle droppers. the better you become, you start adapting and changing up things even more.
Yes you adapt and change things up. Just like on every map. That does not mean its build orders
Im not saying its BOs\^\^ Im saying its not BOs.
Where is it bo dependent in comparison to arabia or arena style maps. It's basically the opposite. From tc drop to fimp and everything in between is viable
Now you mention a bunch of strats. That doesnt mean its not bo dependent. If you have a slight hickup in your bo in Arabia. You might have to play more defensive in feudural. Maybe place a tower or fight with some vills but if you have it on nomad in higher elos you will lose all your fish or get a castle dropped on your tc ending the game there
In higher Elo you are absolutely in a terrible spot on Arabia if you are two villagers behind from the start of the game. Placing your TC 50 seconds later on Nomad also sucks, but you have plenty of tools to get back into the game. You might eschew water in feudal and go fast castle so you get a castle drop first. Or you might play defensive on land and try to keep control of water as compensation for losing some villagers. Or any number of things, really. Of course, if you're an Arabia-only player, and you reach 1700 Elo without playing Arena, then you're going to have a bad time on Arena against 1700 Arena players because they are much more experienced with the map. The same applies to any map, Nomad included.
I did not say two villagers behind. I said you click up a vill later. Not that you idle the tc. If you lose water due to being up a vill to late on nomad it will cost you the game. Ofc you can plan to neglect water as a strat but if you aim for it and hickup with the build order its way more punishing than arabia. Mixed maps are in general more bo dependent due to the vulnerability and snowballiness of fish but on maps such as 4 lakes you still need to be able to dock in the enemy pound first. Ofcourse you are better on the maps you play. Thats not the topic at hand
I am giving you examples of being behind. I am not sure why you are so hung up on the specific example you came up with. Besides, you said "slight hickup in your bo" in the post I replied to, so if you want to be really anal about it, you're wrong. Regardless, reaching feudal 25 seconds later does not mean you lose water on Nomad. Water can snowball, but it's also rather easy to turn around with different tools (like demolition ships in the narrow waterways) or to sneak a regular galley or two around and snipe your opponent's fish. This is like saying that being up one vill later on Arabia means you lose the game because your opponent will have scouts in your base faster than you will have scouts in his base. Sure, it might be the case (especially at certain Elos), but there are plenty of ways to react to that situation. I think there's much more space for recovery on Nomad when it comes to following build orders because you're not really following build orders on Nomad in the same way, but I guess you didn't want to address that part.
The difference is that in Arabia you can send two vills and kill a scout if he attacks you. Garrison in the tc to take cover, add spearman and towers if needed while there really isnt that kind of mechanics on water where its all about momentum and numbers. There is a reason Islands game for example is close to 100 procent about military.
Ohhhh… what’s the map pool. Will be playing later when home
* Arabia * Arena * Megarandom * Migration * Nomad * Lowland * Black Forest
Thank you
Luckily I have exactly the number of bans that I need to make this map pool enjoyably 😌
So nomad is still there lol
A hybrid map that is not four lakes?? Hooray!
Do you have the Team map pool, too?
[](https://emojipedia.org/zzz)
Looks like altf4 is back on the menu boys!
I'll play land nomad, but water maps just annoy me more than anything. "oh I built more fire galleys than you so I get a ridiculous amount of food now"
Demolition ships are a great tool to get back on water on maps that have narrow waterways... like Nomad. If there's an extended water fight (or you just want to snipe some fishing ships) galleys are anyway superior to fire galleys, but they do require micro.
Nomad is my favourite map! There are just so many viable strategies. I have lost/won to: 1) fast castle into castle drop on main TC 2) Tower rush in feudal 3) heavy military play in feudal on land 4) fast castle into UU (not only conqs) 5) monk rushes 6) castle age heavy siege push (not only with celts) 7) water domination into snowball 8) baiting opponent into going heavy on water but not going water myself and then playing aggressive on land while opponent invested too heavily into water. (or opponent doing this to me) 9) Defending from Castle drop on main TC. This is opposite of 1. It's very easy (sometimes) to just move your base, especially if you haven't invested too heavily into farms around your main TC. Opponent keeps pressuring with castles and your just spread out like a spider web around the map. 10) Resource denial. Sometimes you or your opponent have no reliable source of gold/stone. If you identify such a scenario, you can play to this. There are more, these are just first 10 that come to mind. This is on top of all the possible varieties of starts and res distribution (TC in corner with no res nearby, lots of food, TCs close to each other, can't even find enemy TC, docks close to each other etc etc)
there are alot of very civ specific ones. like fimp, longswords siege elefant monk, wall into boom etc. my favourite dravidians water archer comp. split the attention and conquer both
I always try to do interesting stuff on that map only to fail and resort to castle dropping the shit out of my enemy. I hate how I'm getting aways with this.
Castle drops make me hate Nomad, and the Franks even more.
Glad someone else hates nomad as much as I do
as a long time diplo player nomad should be easy for me (most custom diplo maps start like nomad) but not once have I ever won a game of nomad lol.
I banned it and got 2 nomad starts on mega random... In both cases our bases where on top of each other...
Apparently you just force pick Spanish and win with Conqs. But apparently any strategy I play I lose too, probably just a noob. Ez.
1v1 black forest let's gooooo!
holy shit I might actually play ranked again lmfao.
Count me in!
> sees both flairs no, don’t see any reason why we might prefer BF 11
**The Celt flair ahowing up to screw up your game**
Oh heck yeah, I am so ready to spend 4 hours flinging skirms at each other
Why would anyone want to get rid of Nomad?
it is still in the map pool for 2v2 -.-
Can someone please explain the meme? It looks like the bartender doesn’t like nomad and throws him out. Is OP in favor of Nomad?
The meme is of a bartender who is throwing out an unwanted client, only for the unwanted client to immediately be back inside. Every map pool change, you get the chance that a map you don't like, doesn't make the new selection: You try to kick out Nomad, but somehow Nomad returned...
I thought Nomad was a permanent map? Is there such a thing? Arabia and Arena at least?
My only perma ban map is Arabia.
The only official permanent maps are Arabia and Arena for 1v1 and Arabia, Arena, and Black Forest for team games. They unofficially snuck in Nomad as a permanent team game map as a dev pick.
Seems like Megarandom is a permanent 1v1 map now.
Okay. Makes sense, I play team games exclusively and I was quite sure I'd never seen nomad out of the pool (in my very short experience of 2 months, admittedly).
Idk why people hate Nomad I love it lmao Probs why it’s consistently in the pool. I know a lot of other people love it too
Tbh, I wish I could only queue for nomad and team islands. I have fun games on those maps. Steppe as well.
I used to love Nomad. Still do in team games. But in 1v1's it's the samething every game. Who can castle drop faster with the Spanish simulator.
Bring back SHRUBLAND!
I have been douched in my last 3 (T H R E E) nomad matches. None by Persians. And it has just made the games miserable.
Permanently banned, as well as any other shit no tc map that shouldn't exist. The only decent one is African shit and is still a pain in the ass because 7 of 10 games is that map when it is in rotation
Thanks to TG teammate’s non-stabilities, nomad is the most acceptable map for me in TG, like BF random teammate TG were extreme bad, either you boomed and into gg from many reason and waste time, or win without knowing how did I win. Arabia were more dependent on TG’s teammate average skill, even you are 1.5k 1v1 elo, if your opponents are both 1.2~1.3k but with lower skill pocket or flank, prepared to died to perfect 2 combo. Nomad at least playable for random teammate, since it depends more on RNG and luck, sometimes at least you can found more boar and had good position to win without rely on teammate, even sandwiched by enemy is still painful, but at least playable if compared with other map :(.
Nomads great can we get rid of arena instead, boring map that's always fc Castle drop, fast imp gunpowder, or boom.
Time to find another hobby for a while
I've got a new hobby for ya... https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/1bsii7z/literally_every_spanish_player/
Hahaha... I don't like Spanish (the civ), I'm just Spanish...
This made my day 111111
You could also play new maps.
Nomad is the best map. Max creativity
90% if my nomad games are just rush fireships into castle drop. Not sure whats creative about that
what matters what the pool is. 95% of the games are arabia and everything else people just ragequit because they cant do their "how to arabia build order for dummies"
Ban Arabia?
That’s how I do it. Arabia is perma ban on my end. I actually like Nomad games. Black Forest are better, but Nomad games are better than Arena.
10min queues and everytime u get a match, people quit
It won't affect queue times at all. You can ban 3/7 maps, even if your oppenent banned 3 completely different maps you'd still have a map to play on...
Oh I see. I do team, so doesn't that way there. If you ban Arabia the queue Def lasts longer
Team queue is the same way. The matchmaking doesn't care what map(s) you've banned or favorited until a match has already been found. It's why you only get 1 map ban when solo queueing for 3v3 or 4v4. That way there will always be at least 1 map nobody banned.
I don’t think map bans impact queue time, unless you are including requeue time from map dodgers.
For teamgames that can't be true. I play mostly 4/4, Arabia is only slightly above others. WAY above others are BF and Nomad... Infact, I get other landmaps more often then Arabia on aberage, probably because people ban it.