@NigelSlack (Stark) made this very insightful post post on reddit in response to a question on walling. I found it very informative so just copy pasting it here with some editorial formatting. Its all original thoughts of Stark.
r/aoe2: Let's talk walls
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Oh boy... hold my beer and let's talk about walls!
The Wall Trade-Off, The different Kinds/Types of Wall
The Wall Trade-Off: By Walling, you'll be protected from direct confrontation with enemy, but the trade-off is the villager (builder) time and resources that you trade, by doing it... And you should always have that in mind... if you wall, you'll be more protected.. but i might have some extra resources/better eco if i choose not to.
The Kinds/Types of Wall you can do:
Now, here comes the thing, in some situations you have to wall, there is no other way... but in other cases, you can choose the kind of wall that you need... I'll share you my personal choices, and my reasoning behind it:
If I am playing
That's how i usually think, also worth to mention that i'm not a very aggressive player, some players are so aggressive and their strengths rely on attacking, army & map control... for those guys wall is often not a "must".. since they know where enemy army will be at all times, and will be putting enough pressure not to need it..
About Wall timing:
What you should have in mind is: The biggest threat is losing a lot of vill time & resources, and still let enemy go in.. because you couldn't finish your wall in time!, that's a big issue... how to avoid it?
First off, you have to analyze the situation: Are you playing a 1v1, 2v2, 3v3?
If this is 1v1... you just need to scout and find out what strategy your enemy is doing... if he's going for a Drush, there's a chance he reach you from 7:30 ~ 9:30, in most cases.. so if you want a 100% safe wall, start doing resource walls to be protected by 7:30.. oh you can't do it? or have difficult doing? Start from the front/more exposed ones.. let the "safer" ones for later....
If your enemy is going Scouts, a good call is to be walled by min 9:20 (where enemy will be feudal with his 3+2 atack scout, rdy to kill your vill!) Or.. you can take some more time if having a Scout, or even a Spearman protecting you...
If you're going for a Fast Castle, there's a good chance you'll need more than a single villager, to finish the walls... once again... if your enemy is going for archers... you can take some more time.. if he's going for scouts... better to wall it quickly...
And that's the spirit, and you'll get used to do safe/good walls, by the more you practice, and pay attention to what ur enemy(s) is(are) doing.. in order to build up a safe wall
______________________________________________
r/aoe2: Let's talk walls
______________________________________________
Oh boy... hold my beer and let's talk about walls!
The Wall Trade-Off, The different Kinds/Types of Wall
The Wall Trade-Off: By Walling, you'll be protected from direct confrontation with enemy, but the trade-off is the villager (builder) time and resources that you trade, by doing it... And you should always have that in mind... if you wall, you'll be more protected.. but i might have some extra resources/better eco if i choose not to.
The Kinds/Types of Wall you can do:
- Resource Wall: You can just place few tiles of palisade to protect your vills on Mills, Lumber & Mining Camp, that's the cheapest kind of wall, and it's usefull to buy time for you on dark age & early feudal age, and protect you from: Drush, M@A and Scouts.
- Resource to TC Wall: Denying easy-access to some areas of your territory, can be done by linking a resource(or the edge of the map) to your tc (not necesarrily touching the tc.. at least enough to discourage your enemy from sending army into your eco..
- Full Palisade Wall: Fully walling your map with palisade, so that enemy have no way of passing it by tc/sides.. he'll have to engage your walls if needed...
- Full Stone Wall: Same as previous, but with stone
- "Building Wall": Walling your map/areas of it by using buildings, a good example is to make your military units at front, and continue to build houses/palisades from it, in order to do a half/full wall, using the buildings as part of it.
- Team Wall: Making a wall together with your teamamtes, to cover a bigger area of the map, letting all of you to be protected together.. this will often grant a bigger map, and will require less resources/time to perform.. but requires a lot more communication to do it.
Now, here comes the thing, in some situations you have to wall, there is no other way... but in other cases, you can choose the kind of wall that you need... I'll share you my personal choices, and my reasoning behind it:
If I am playing
- vs Drush: Resource-wall (just don't want to get my vills disturbed)
- vs Scouts: Preferable: Full Palisade Wall, if not possible, Resource to TC Wall, still not possible? Resource wall (don't want to get vills raided by scouts)
- vs archers/skirmisher: Full Palisade Wall, if not possible, Resource to TC Wall (don't want to have vills killed by archers... and resource wall is not an option...)
- vs Eagle Scouts, same as vs Scouts, (same reasoning)
- Drush and Fast Castle, or just Fast Castle: Full Palisade Wall (because I'll have a late feudal-age time and no army to defend myself)
- Drush + Keep Feudal Aggression/FW (maybe no wall in this case, since i won' have to defend myself, maximum of resource wall to counter enemy counter-attack (thinking of scouts here)
- Drush + Feudal Army (not so quickly as 11 min... or maybe late for some reason..) would rather have a Full Palisade Wall, to avoid getting raided/killed in the process, and to have more time to plan my game..
- If I know i won't be able to fight back on Feudal Age, or that i'll need 3~5 min to be able to fight back an enemy Castle Age Army (such as crossbowman, cav archer, kt.. ) i rather Stone Wall, it'll probably buy enough time...
- If I'm facing a enemy Slinged: Well if i don't stone wall, he'll laugh at my palisde or building/wall and kill me... so rather stone wall it!
- If I'm going for a feudal Age Opening (M@A, SC...) and later changing into a Fast Castle/Late Fast Castle: Rather have Full Stone Wall, Full palisade if not possible... usually do this to go for M@A + Arambai... Scouts + Camel Archer... this kind of strat, who is slower than a regular scout + xbow approach...
That's how i usually think, also worth to mention that i'm not a very aggressive player, some players are so aggressive and their strengths rely on attacking, army & map control... for those guys wall is often not a "must".. since they know where enemy army will be at all times, and will be putting enough pressure not to need it..
About Wall timing:
What you should have in mind is: The biggest threat is losing a lot of vill time & resources, and still let enemy go in.. because you couldn't finish your wall in time!, that's a big issue... how to avoid it?
First off, you have to analyze the situation: Are you playing a 1v1, 2v2, 3v3?
If this is 1v1... you just need to scout and find out what strategy your enemy is doing... if he's going for a Drush, there's a chance he reach you from 7:30 ~ 9:30, in most cases.. so if you want a 100% safe wall, start doing resource walls to be protected by 7:30.. oh you can't do it? or have difficult doing? Start from the front/more exposed ones.. let the "safer" ones for later....
If your enemy is going Scouts, a good call is to be walled by min 9:20 (where enemy will be feudal with his 3+2 atack scout, rdy to kill your vill!) Or.. you can take some more time if having a Scout, or even a Spearman protecting you...
If you're going for a Fast Castle, there's a good chance you'll need more than a single villager, to finish the walls... once again... if your enemy is going for archers... you can take some more time.. if he's going for scouts... better to wall it quickly...
And that's the spirit, and you'll get used to do safe/good walls, by the more you practice, and pay attention to what ur enemy(s) is(are) doing.. in order to build up a safe wall
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