Lamers Are Ruining AoE2...

A scourge of the game. That’s the widely held view. Laming ruins the game for players at all levels. But why is this claimed and should it be believed?

So what is laming? Most people envision their boar chasing after the opponent’s scout - a scene we’ve seen most notably performed by MbL over the years. But laming is any denial of resources, whether that is herdables, huntables, berries, stone, gold or wood.

MbL lames Viper's boar whilst denying the lame of his own

Most of us playing will have experienced some of these. Any player of Socotra will be able to tell you that this actually constitutes the meta on this map. Viewers of Masters of Socotra 2 have been treated to this, with the 1st iteration of this tournament having at least two pro players rage quit in the middle of their sets.

But why does this cause so much consternation? Why are we more upset by a boar being stolen than a drush pushing us away from our berries?

The whole point of this game is to establish a plan and try to execute it whilst trying to prevent your opponent from executing their’s. In the final of Explorers of Hyperrandom, my opponent was Mongols. We had both started with a spearman instead of a scout and I came across their deer just as they had gone out to mill them. Knowing how strong the Mongol hunt bonus is, I used my spear to kill them. This prompted my opponent to ask “really?”. It was the final of a tournament and I was doing what I could to disrupt their strategy.

Should I have felt bad about this? The alternative would be to let my opponent collect the, roughly, 400+ food without a contest. This would have given them an enormous boost to their early game. Shortly after I did this, I saw my opponent’s spearman around my deer, so I quickly shot them with my villagers to enable me to collect them still (with a little lost to rot).

Explorers of Hyperrandom Final - killing deer vs Mongol opponent

Let’s for now focus on boars. I know that some people’s argument against laming of boars is that you can’t counter it that early. They feel that it is spoiling the game for them and it shouldn’t be allowed. But surely if you notice you have a forward boar, you would just take it early? It isn’t ideal to miss out on food collection while the villager walks to get it. If this is still viewed as too much of a problem then we can talk about map scripting as the solution. Have boars spawn behind the Town Centre instead of forward. This gives you the option of then denying it with your own scout if they tried to steal it.

But we should also remember that there is always a trade off. For your opponent to steal your boar, they have to sacrifice some of their scout’s hp (or villager walking time). It makes it more feasible for you to counter-lame or push deer. Or if you can initiate a fight, you have a decent chance to kill theirs and therefore deny them scouting knowledge.

Some tournaments have had matches in the final be heavily influenced (or even ultimately decided) by laming. In Hidden Cup 3, Viper stole Hera’s boar and then kept up the pressure, making it near impossible for Hera to recover. Does this spoil the spectacle? Some would certainly say so, but in this instance, with a forward boar, why not take it early? Taking a boar before going to build a lumber camp isn’t disastrous to a build. Players on many maps have to adapt to do this when a boar is in a risky position. If the boar is back, then you have to rely on your scout being able to stop them.

If tournament organisers want to reduce the likelihood of laming, then it is the scripting that is at fault. If boars were to spawn behind the Town Centre, then it becomes far riskier for the opponent to attempt this. In Hidden Cup 4, they had tried to implement this. All maps had boars spawning within a 180-degree arc behind the Town Centre, Arabia and other RMS maps saw almost no boar-steals throughout the entire tournament. However the fixed TC starts (Cup, Bay, Slopes and High Tide) still saw some. I like these maps, I think they provide a lot of entertainment and some really excellent games. But if people are complaining about laming, then these pose an issue. Players are again left with the option of taking them early or the scripters could place them closer to the TC. The risk of stealing needs to be too high to prevent them doing so if laming is not wanted - it is a war game after all.

In the semi final of Return of the Clans on Black Forest, WWP and GL were fighting over the positioning of the walls in one of the chokepoints. Vivi managed to gain control of this and sent a villager through, killing one of Tatoh’s boars and also stealing the other one. This was an admin loss. The players didn’t know it at the time and the game continued until a message from the admins got through. GL decided they wanted to play on. I commend them for this. Vivi committed more heavily into winning the chokepoint and had a higher reward for doing so. He also had a higher risk as he had invested more idle time to fight it.

Laming IS a part of the game. It should be allowed to punish greedy play. Being allowed to push your deer in with minimal risk is crazy. You need to have the risk vs reward decision in high level games (especially tournaments).