Put yourself in this situation: You pick Isis. Your enemy is Set. You just hit Classical with 240(!) points over your opponent. In any Egyptian vs. Egyptian game, this usually means you're going to win because of something stupid your opponent tried...or you're playing some idiot Set player who has no idea how to run his economy and is more focused on running around recruiting those stray animals on the map. Oh, did I mention a Hyena of Set just killed your priest?
Well, you're fighting Set so you start building Slingers...you get about 10 or so and think about raiding. The very SECOND you run out of your base, you're confronted by the animals he converted, about 10 Apes and only FOUR Slingers. Besides the favor cost of the Apes, which isn't too hard to afford if you build a monument at the start of the game, your opponent has built an army that can kill your's for less than half of what you paid.
Obviously, you cannot win, so you retreat to the safety of a tower which forces your enemy to flee. He then claims that you are a "tower wh-ore" and are "too afraid to fight". Yeah, he has you there.
Now let's assess the situation. You have around 20 Slingers now and 10 Spearmen. You quickly cast away the idea of going outside of your base to secure certain parts of the map because:
If you leave, your town is open to his army, which he paid NO food for (unless you count the monument). Of course, your army could also meet up with his, in which case you'll be slaughtered because your enemy has FREE HACK UNITS and 3 FAVOR 1 POP MEATSHIELDS.
So what do you do? Send Villagers out to help kill the animals? Sure, that's a great idea! It just weakens your economy AND puts Villagers, who are weak in combat and die fairly quickly, at risk! I can't see why I hadn't thought of that before!
Realizing his Slingers will murder your Villagers before they can even touch the animals, you quickly come to your senses and put those miners back where they belong.
Now, you've hit the pop limit and decide to try for Heroic. Well, you click the button and -surprise- two seconds later, your opponent, who has a much weaker economy but somehow a much larger army and never ONCE spent food on it, hits Heroic. In the view of one of your Obelisks, you catch him trying to take a Settlement near your town. You also see his GIGANTIC army waiting to defend it. Ancestors is out of the question, not only because you have no access to it yet, but also because he will cast the exact same thing to make sure his army is invincible.
But let's face it. If he takes this Settlement, you're more than likely screwed. So you attack.
The rocket scientist only has one Villager building the Settlement, so you don't have to worry about arrow fire from it. You come face to face with his army. It's obviously a mismatch and ONLY due to his animals. He has, perhaps, 10 Slingers in there, you're not even sure why.
Well, now what? You could send your Spears at the Slingers!
No...the animals will protect them from attack.
Damn, you're right. Well, how about you use your Slingers to kill HIS Slingers, then try to fight the animals?
Well you see, these animals aren't weak. The developers of this game felt that a monkey punching you should make your soldiers feel as if they've been shot by an arrow. And though some of the weaker animals may die quicker than human soldiers, they also made it easy to mass an ungodly amount of them and put them on the battlefield. Thank heavens you can't mass rhinos and elephants.
A Set player can use RHINOS and ELEPHANTS?!
Oh yes, did I forget to mention that? Animals that can kill villagers easily in hunting accidents WITH an upgrade can be put into battle.
Okay, well battle seems out of the question. (For real, there is no way you could win this) Why not build in the other direction?
I could, but should I make my defending army even smaller so I may protect my builders? That's not even feasable when you consider his army nearly doubles or triples mine in numbers.
This obviously gives your enemy control over most of the map. Now I know what you're going to say.
Dumb person: You n00b, you could have raided him while he stood outside your town!
Yup, make an army that will lose to his even smaller so he can hide under towers or use Mercenaries on my raiders and then send his main force into my town and slaughter my army. Or just build more of those stupid Apes. Great idea, Einstein.
Dumb person: Then use your stronger economy and claim more Settlements idiot!
*sigh* Again, it comes back to defending my builders. Even if I were to build a TC he hadn't claimed that was near his town, the population doesn't go very far, especially not far enough to permit me to build two armies. Besides, my economy would really be suffering at this point due to the fact that I am STUCK IN MY TOWN.
Dumb person: ...I use Set.
I know.
Now, the enemy has four TCs to your two, but his economy is so god awful that he is STILL 200 points below you when he hits Mythic. From there, he gets Catapults, masses more stupid Apes and now stronger Mythic animals, and it's all downhill from there.
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Now, I'm not saying Set is a "newbie civ". He is simply overpowered. For the most part, I'm glad it's mostly n00bs who use Set. Would you like to see a person who actually has some SKILL use Set? I've seen it, rarely, but when I do, I do congratulate my enemy.
But when your enemy can box you in your town and make you resign all whilst being 200 points under you...that's just idiotic.
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To any Ensemble Studios employees:
I've been buying your games since the first Age of Empires and I've loved every single one. However, the fact that you continue to ignore the players who want a fix for Set has made me lose much faith in your work. Frankly, the players of the game don't CARE if the developers think Set is "fine where he is", they KNOW he is overpowered, and, as paying customers, should be given what they want. I'm not saying this entitles them to have every little change, but we ALL know Set is a major problem. I implore you, PLEASE do something about this.
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Well, here are a few suggestions of mine, although others have probably thought of them first:
1. Grant a tech like Pig Sticker to all civilizations. Increase it's cost and have it apply to military units as well.
2. Animals should attack Priests who are attempting to convert them. Think of the system that you have implemented for Villagers: the animal will chase after the Priest until he exits the area and will return to it's normal position. This would require the Set player to protect his Priest AND prevent Set players from easily obtaining stronger animals, such as Elephants or Rhinos, half a minute into the game. If an animal is injured whilst being converted, he will regain his health after the conversion has ended.
3. Greatly increase the population cost for each animal.
Your thoughts, or if you are a Set player, objections?
"Sitting in a puddle of muddy water isn't such a bad life as long as it's over after the first time."
- The Real Folk Blues
"Oh good, my dog found the chainsaw." - Lilo and Stitch
ESO Rating: 1811 God used: Isis
Annoying Old Party Man attacked! Ness took 30 HP of mortal damage!
Ness got hurt and collapsed...